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The Natural World
Jan. 7th, 2014 07:53 am
Ripley the chihuahua wears his winter boots while out on a morning walk at Bathurst St. and Queen’s Quay on January 6, 2014. By Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images.
-- Sully's Dish
( Read more... )
Jan. 7th, 2014
Ripley the chihuahua wears his winter boots while out on a morning walk at Bathurst St. and Queen’s Quay on January 6, 2014. By Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images.
-- Sully's Dish
( Read more... )
Winter Morning
Jan. 7th, 2014 08:00 am28 degrees! I guess we really are feeling some of that arctic blast that has rolled into the country. Conservatives are denying global warming, again. I don’t even let the cats out to get a taste of the weather, not wanting to take the least chances. However, within the half-hour, the sun was shining rather fully and it looked so nice outside. When I first stepped outside, I thought that I might even go for my walk. It wasn’t feeling too bad. Nevertheless, as I moved our trash bin to the curb and snacked the neighbor dog and got the newspaper, I could feel that the temperature does begin to bear down on you after a little while. I wasn’t going to take any chances with a walk, though I would have loved to give those poor ducks a sweet treat this morning and help warm up their insides.
CIA's Top Lawyer
Jan. 7th, 2014 04:27 pmJohn Rizzo was the CIA's top lawyer during the early years of our War on Terror after 9/11. When they captured an al-Qaida big fish, Abu Zubaydah, the Agency had to work out how this prisoner was to be handled in trying to wring him dry of vital information. Mr. Rizzo relates why he gave the okay on waterboarding.
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"I couldn’t shake the ultimate nightmare scenario: another attack happens, and Zubaydah gleefully tells his CIA handlers he knew all about it and boasts that we never got him to tell us about it in time. All because at the moment of reckoning, the Agency had shied away from doing what it knew was unavoidable, what was essential, to extract that information from him. And with hundreds and perhaps thousands of Americans again lying dead on the streets or in rubble somewhere, I would know deep down that I was at least in part responsible. In the final analysis, I could not countenance the thought of having to live with that."
-- John Rizzo, "I Could've Stopped Waterboarding Before It Happened" at Politico.com [An excerpt from Rizzo's book Company Man]
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He concludes his account, "I can’t imagine the Agency ever again coming close to running detention facilities or engaging in any sort of even mildly coercive interrogation practices." But he also notes, "I would respectfully predict that future presidents will not only continue to be in the business of killing, but will double down on it. And that the CIA will salute the commander in chief and be in the middle of it, without hesitation or resistance."
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"I couldn’t shake the ultimate nightmare scenario: another attack happens, and Zubaydah gleefully tells his CIA handlers he knew all about it and boasts that we never got him to tell us about it in time. All because at the moment of reckoning, the Agency had shied away from doing what it knew was unavoidable, what was essential, to extract that information from him. And with hundreds and perhaps thousands of Americans again lying dead on the streets or in rubble somewhere, I would know deep down that I was at least in part responsible. In the final analysis, I could not countenance the thought of having to live with that."
-- John Rizzo, "I Could've Stopped Waterboarding Before It Happened" at Politico.com [An excerpt from Rizzo's book Company Man]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He concludes his account, "I can’t imagine the Agency ever again coming close to running detention facilities or engaging in any sort of even mildly coercive interrogation practices." But he also notes, "I would respectfully predict that future presidents will not only continue to be in the business of killing, but will double down on it. And that the CIA will salute the commander in chief and be in the middle of it, without hesitation or resistance."
It’s getting a little late, and I was going to play it safe and keep the cats inside on this wintry evening, but Sammy has been going pretty hard at the furniture with his claws, and I figured it would be better to let them go outdoors and get it out of their system for an hour or two.