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S/SW blog philosophy -

I credit favorite writers and public opinion makers.

A lifelong Democrat, my comments on Congress, the judiciary and the presidency are regular features.

My observations and commentary are on people and events in politics that affect the USA or the rest of the world, and stand for the interests of peace, security and justice.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Bloggers on Torture --an Index

What led to today's post on torture? I was going through one of my favorite's folder at my terrific feed aggregator, Bloglines, and realized that I had saved many on torture. Andrew Sullivan's kept posts, the ones on torture he had written long ago, brought tears come to my eyes as I read the titles. For whatever reason I could not discard them as outdated. This is still raw unfinished business with many of us. Andrew Sullivan writes for The Atlantic.com. Here is his "Daily Dish" on the subject of torture:

  1. "We Do Not Torture" Update - 6/6/08
  2. Talking Torture - 5/22/08
  3. The Vice-President For Torture - 5/17/08
  4. Self-Waterboarding: An Experiment - 12/23/07
  5. The Freedom To Torture - 12/14/07

This great surfing tool, Bloglines, has a number of handy features, including the (save as unread) feature that led to this post. It also offers very easy subscription to what seems like an unlimited number of different feed sources, folders for various categories of feeds, a story clipper, a blog, and a capacity to search for posts or stories. For example, the words "torture detainees" is a search term that today produced 25,200 posts on the subject.

Like anything else Bloglines has limitations. Any feed's folder will only hold 200 new entry headlines. When I want to read the full story I just click on the headline. After I have scanned that set of feed headlines, they all go away except those where I have checked the "save" box. So the feeds "fill up" with old stories unless I get back to them and un-check those in which I am no longer interested. I checked several other favorites folders and found that more torture posts had been saved. There were only a couple of recent ones by the writers to whom I regularly turn. The first one today was from Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com on torture:

  1. Porn producer invokes the Bush/Yoo defense -- unsuccessfully - 10/5/08
  2. Supreme Court restores habeas corpus, strikes down key part of Military Commissions Act - 6/12/08
  3. CNN, the Pentagon's "military analyst program" and Gitmo - 5/9/08
  4. John McCain and Bush's torture powers - 4/27/08

Juan Cole at Informed Comment as well as Dandelion Salad, carried the other new story, about Condoleezza Rice. Professor Cole is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Middle East and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also a regular writer on the subject of torture:

  1. Rice and torture - 10/01/08
  2. The Great Torture Scandal - 6/18/08
  3. Bush Team Pushed Torture behind Myers' Back - 4/21/08

Dandelion Salad's stories on torture I saved were quite numerous, perhaps because the site has a lot of contributors interested in national security, etc. The writers are also good about naming names:

  1. Top White House Offiicials Discussed and Approved Torture, Rice Admits - 10/2/08
  2. Held Hostage For Six Years In Gitmo, Sami El Haj Tells His Story - 8/2/08
  3. Confirmation of Detainee Murders (Wilkerson; Nadler) - 6/19/08
  4. John Yoo, Totalitarian by Paul Craig Rogerts - 6/19/08
  5. Maj. Gen. Taquba Accuses Bush Admin of War Crimes - 6/19/08
  6. Bush Admin Post-Constitutional Order: "It was real 'Manchurian Candidate' stuff" - 6/19/08
  7. American Psychological Association Supports Bush Regime "Interrogations" - 5/28/08
  8. CIA Documents on Torture: Treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody overseas - 5/27/08

Think Progress' posts on torture were concentrated in April of this year, when the issue was making a lot of news. I recommend TP as a regular stop for any news junkie:

  1. Feith:"We Took an Extremely Strong Pro-Geneva Convention Position In the Pentagon" - 4/24/08
  2. Thomas Breaks Press's 14 day Silence on Bush's Torture Approval, Chided Colleagues: 'Where is Everybody?' - 4/23/08
  3. Ashcroft Compares Waterboarding to Being 'Interviewed by Jon Stewart' - 4/22/08
  4. Addington, Gonzales Witnessed Gitmo Interrogations in 2002; Approved of 'Whatever Need to be Done' - 4/21/08
  5. NYT’s Lichtblau: Bush Torture Program And CIA Tape Destruction ‘Could Lead To Criminal Action’ - 4/17/08
  6. McCain Takes Bold Stance On Torture: ‘We Cannot Ever Torture Any American - 4/14/08

My regular contributor (this link is on the subject of torture) is "betmo*"

  1. From the Dissident Voice (May 2008) "FBI compiled war crimes dossier on prisoner abuse and torture"

To conclude, my favorites' folders are now more lean because the posts are now indexed under "torture," here as one of our nation's many items of unfinished business. The Bush administration, I am sure, is happy that the issue is no longer front and center as it was earlier in the year. The purpose of this post is to make sure that it does not go away, not so long as it still fills me with so much anger and sadness for our country.

View my current slide show about the Bush years -- "Millennium" -- at the bottom of this column.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

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