NRR: Is Jesse Ventura the craziest politician ever?

Some of you might consider that Ventura isn't just after republicans. He says people who break the law should go to jail. Torturing people is against the law. We've (well, Ronald Reagan) signed a treaty specifically obligating us to prosecute anyone involved in torture, absolutely regardless of the reasons.

Waterboarding has been recognized as torture since it was used by the Spanish Inquisition (but they were defending Spanish freedoms!). American military courts considered waterboarding torture during war crimes trials in the aftermath of World War 2. It seems to me beyond absurd that we can have this debate in a civilized country. Which isn't even brining up the man who was waterboarded 183 times in a month. Can anyone stand up and call that something besides sadism?

Beyond that, no one even argues anymore that hundreds if not thousands of innocent people spent years in our cages, many of them kidnapped off city streets. No one argues either that many died (read: were killed) in our custody. The real shame here isn't that the perpetrators will go free, it's that the American people don't care.

As for the marijuana legalization thing, I respect people's differing opinions, but it must be hard to think of reasons to keep mj illegal when alcohol and tobacco (both definitively, scientifically proven to be more dangerous and more habit forming) can be had at any corner store.

I still haven't heard anyone answer Ventura's question: Why do we only waterboard muslims? If it is an effective, non-torture technique, why wasn't it used after Oklahoma City? McVeigh and Nichols may have had accomplices, or other bombs - no one knew!

Leopard Boy wrote:

In regard to whether or not Clinton passed up a chance to get bin Laden, this is from Factcheck.org:

One thing I know for sure, they were certainly talking about going after Bin Laden a lot in 1999, and talking pretty serious. I was in Pakistan during some of the saber rattling and the head of the Pakistani Parliament was giving speeches tells his people to feel free to grab any American off the street if Clinton went after Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Nearly every day the "Dawn" which was the English language paper there was front page stories about "America's threats to the sovereignty of a Muslim nation". Completely different view than in the U.S. which barely covered it.

The rhetoric got so heated at times we got sequestered in the hotel. We never took the same route to work or back two days in a row. We met each evening and determined who started work when, and never left at the same time. We always had armed guards with us.

It was clear that if Clinton had gone in after Bin Laden it would have caused a huge backlash. Bin Laden was a folk hero at the time in that part of the world. If Clinton had used Pakistan to stage anything or used their airspace it would have destabilized the government.

Two weeks after I left the shift of people that were there working at the time were ordered to the airport at gunpoint due to the coup. Those at the hotel grabbed what they could, those that were at work had to go straight to the airport and lost most of what was at the hotel. It took two days to get everyone out of the country, we put people on any plane leaving and told them to call in when they landed to get their next leg booked. It was over a week before everyone got back to the states. Many of those people had little more the clothes they were wearing. Had the coup happened a little over week later I would have been there.

The point being the political concerns about a preemptive strike against Bin Laden were real, not merely hypothetical. I saw that first hand. Whether Clinton really did have a shot at Bin Laden is unknown, the people that say they have that info were claiming that mainly to sell books and I can't really call them entirely credible. Clarke, who did have a book deal also, downplays the possibility. What is for sure is the reason to hesitate was valid. Support for a strike at home wasn't great from either side, and without solid intelligence or motive (i.e. 9/11) foreign support was pretty much non-existent. If he tried a "bold strike" and it failed he'd be flailed non-stop just like what happened to Carter, if he tried it and succeeded he'd be accused of another "wag-the-dog" scenario to help Gore.

I completely agree with the last two posts.

Leopard Boy wrote:

In regard to whether or not Clinton passed up a chance to get bin Laden, this is from Factcheck.org:

Q:Did Bill Clinton pass up a chance to kill Osama bin Laden?

Was Bill Clinton offered bin Laden on "a silver platter"? Did he refuse? Was there cause at the time?

A: Probably not, and it would not have mattered anyway as there was no evidence at the time that bin Laden had committed any crimes against American citizens.

Here's the full link:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_bill_clinton_pass_up_a_chance_1.html

Are you seriously citing factcheck.org? That democratic political campaign site has been discredited a long time ago.

Please don't fall for simple tricks used to influence the stupid. Obama (moveon.org) is using more and more of these misleading websites everyday, literally everyday you see a new commercial pushing an agenda with a website that sounds legit. Its all a sham.

I used Factcheck.org because I find that both conservatives and liberals will usually accept it as a legit source of truth detection. For example, Factcheck totally dispeled a lot of the lies that were being spread about Sarah Palin when she first emerged on the national scene. That doesn't sound like something a liberal site would do. If you dispute the information that I linked to, please prove it wrong.

Sources

"1996 CIA Memo to Sudanese Official." Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2001.

9/11 Commission. 9/11 Commission Report Notes. 21 Aug. 2004. 17 Jan. 2008.

9/11 Commission. "Chapter 4: Responses to al Qaeda's Initial Assaults." 21 Aug. 2004. 9/11 Commission Report. 17 Jan. 2008.

NewsMax.com. "Berger Flashback: Hard Spin on Sudan Offer," 19 July 2004.

Clarke, Richard. Testimony before the House and Senate Intelligence Committee. Lindsey Graham, Chair. 11 June 2002.

Clinton, William. Speech to the Long Island Association. Long Island, NY, Feb. 2002.

Gellman, Barton. "U.S. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts To Capture Bin Laden or Have Him Killed." Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2001.

U.S. Grand Jury Indictment Against Usama bin Laden. United States District Court: Southern District of New York. 6 Nov. 1998.

Wright, Lawrence. "The Looming Tower." New York: Vintage Books, 2006

These were Factcheck's sources. They do not appear to be biased

SNL sucks wrote:

Are you seriously citing factcheck.org? That democratic political campaign site has been discredited a long time ago.

If you read down to the bottom of the factcheck page you'll see that they originally confirmed the Sudan story, then issued a retraction after more research. I agree you need to be skeptical of these "neutral" sites but that makes it seem a little more credible.

Isn't he the one that called congress a bunch of prostitutes on the floor of the house? They demanded an apology, so he apologized to prostitutes. he, he, he, ;)