Nelson-Pallmeyer on Pig’s Eye
December 10th, 2007 – 1:21 PM by Dennis J. McGrathOn today’s Pig’s Eye Podcast, we talk with U.S. Senate candidate Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. He’s proving to be very popular at the Democratic candidate debates.
On Pig’s Eye, Nelson-Pallmeyer talks about a number of topics in which he differs from his DFL rivals, including Iran and nuclear weapons and single-payer health care. You can listen to the podcast here.
To learn more about Nelson-Pallmeyer:
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer |
Here’s our story when he announced his candidacy.
Here’s a story about a DFL debate on Nov. 27, and another story about a debate on Sept. 30, before he had declared his candidacy.
Here’s Nelson-Pallmeyer’s website.
Here are some blogger reports or comments about him, including Norweigianity’s summary of the Nov. 27 debate, and Minnesota Monitor’s summary of the same debate.
How do you assess Nelson-Pallmeyer’s chances of winning the DFL endorsement and nomination, and of beating Sen. Norm Coleman?
22 Responses to "Nelson-Pallmeyer on Pig’s Eye"
How do you assess Nelson-Pallmeyer’s chances of winning the DFL endorsement and nomination, and of beating Sen. Norm Coleman?
Slim and none.
Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation technique that involves strapping down a prisoner, covering his mouth with plastic or cloth and pouring water over his face. The prisoner quickly begins to inhale water, causing the sensation of drowning.
I wonder how this compares to decapitation or removing one’s sex organ, and inserting it into his mouth.
Both of which occur more than our trusted media reports.
RG - why do you wonder about such things? And what are you proposing?
I wonder about such things because I speak with a lot of people my age that have seen a lot of things in our lifetimes. I wonder if we would have prevailed in WWII if we would have had a media like we do now. I wonder why political correctness is even a topic of discussion when you are involved in a war with a people that would maim innocent women and children. I wonder if the state we are in right now is beyond repair, and I wonder how soon we will attack Iran or if Isreal will begin the next military action. I wonder why we are still a member of the UN, and I wonder if we will ever hear anything positive from the media concerning our brave efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You see wish, I hear conflicting reports concerning the progress and even the sway of our efforts. I wonder if you have spent any time in the region. Basically, I just wonder why I have done what I’ve done when I read some of the comments I’ve read.
How about you?
I wonder about many of the same issues. I just don’t make the same comparisons you do, nor do I reach the same conclusions.
Some people look at waterboarding and say: “it gets results! And we owe no favors to people capable of such brutality.” Hard to argue on that premise alone.
Some people look at waterboarding and say: “there goes U.S. high ground. We have lost the moral status that earned us worldwide respect. So, do we dare trust info obtained by torture? And now what happens to our own captured soldiers in enemy nations?”
I find myself most often in the second group.
What happens to captured soldiers, journalists, innocent bystanders, people who do not conform to a dictators religious beliefs will continue to happen. Genocide, assassinations, mass killings, etc.
This was happening long before we occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. At this point, it is much more important to retrieve information by using any means necessary as long as we as a people are in jeopardy of attacks abroad or here in the United States.
And frankly, if our moral status has declined among certain countries, they may want to take a look at history, ask themselves how we, the United States has played a role in their society, and thank God, Allah, or whomever else they choose to worship.
My hope is that the truth will eventually be reported, and people will understand the importance of our decisions.
I will tell you, I would be extremely careful as to what I choose to believe regarding “torture.”
“So, do we dare trust info obtained by torture?”
I can’t recall all the things my older brother used to make me say, but he could get me to say just about anything.
bsimon,
I’m sure the methods were the same, the risk’s equal, the information as valuable.
I hope you are trying to be facetious, because I really don’t consider terroism a joke.
Maybe I’ll run this by the widow of my investment banker who was killed September 11, 2001.
bsimon says:
December 12th, 2007 at 11:26 am
“So, do we dare trust info obtained by torture?”
Abu Zubaydbsimon says:, the first high-value detainee taken by the CIA in 2002, is now being held with other detainees at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He told his interrogators about alleged 9/11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, and the two men’s confessions also led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the U.S. government said was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Al-Nashiri is the alleged coordinator of the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 sailors. He is also now at Guantanamo.
You tell me bsimon.
Was waterboarding worth it?
How many Americans would have to die for you to justify “any means necessary?”
robert grant writes
“Abu Zubaydbsimon says”
If you want to be treated like a child, keep acting like a child.
If you want to have a reasonable discussion about differences in opinion, skip the grade school antics.
That was not intentional. I’m not a skilled cut-and paste guy.
My apologies bsimon.
Where I come from, as both an American and having been raised as a Christian, torture is wrong. Period.
If that’s not good enough for you, my next argument is that torture doesn’t work. It doesn’t produce accurate information. It hasn’t been proven to be the only method by which information can be gained. If you are going to ignore moral arguments against torture, you still have to prove that it is more effective than other methods in producing accurate information - which it is not.
Thirdly, and potentially more important than the prior point, torture hurts our goals in winning over the ‘hearts and minds’ of people in other parts of the world. Leadership is more than acting tough and doing whatever you please - leadership is demonstrating that your way is the best way. If we want to prove to the world that our way is better, we have to stick to our principles - that means not torturing our enemies, no matter how badly we want revenge for what they’ve done to us. It means holding them accountable in an open process according to the rule of law. We would do far more to further our cause by handing criminals over to an international tribunal for prosecution by a neutral party, rather than holding military tribunals in secret, where the defendants and their legal representatives - when those are allowed - don’t have access to the charges or the evidence they face. Its called a Kangaroo Court, and hurts our cause at defeating extremism, because it makes us look just like the despots we depose, like the Taliban & Saddam.
Torture is the easy way out. But, it doesn’t work & goes against everything this country stands for. FDR was right when he said ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ If we change who we are out of fear, we lose.
For more extensive reporting on the subject, Dan Froomkin has collected a lot of info at the Wash Post. Here’s an excerpt from his Monday column. There’s a lot more. The original has links to his sources.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/12/11/BL2007121101053.html
In interviews yesterday and this morning, a former CIA agent called waterboarding what it is. Not “enhanced interrogation” or “harsh tactics.” Simply: torture.
It’s a notable achievement in the battle against the Orwellian doubletalk infesting the national discourse and the news coverage about this important issue.
John Kiriakou, who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded, also made clear that every decision leading to the torture of CIA detainees was documented and approved in cables to and from Washington. That’s a step forward for accountability after two gigantic steps back last week, when it emerged that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of two of its torture sessions.
But Kiriakou, whose first interview was with Brian Ross of ABC News, also made the unsubstantiated claim that torture worked. Kiriakou told Ross yesterday that, as a result of waterboarding, suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah coughed up information that “disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”
Ross asked Kiriakou to say a bit more about those thwarted attacks: “Were they on US soil? Were they in Pakistan?”
Kiriakou replied: “You know, I was out of it by then. I had moved onto a new job. And I– I don’t recall. To the best of my recollection, no, they weren’t on US soil. They were overseas.”
But where’s the evidence?
Like Kiriakou, Bush last year described Zubaydah as a senior terrorist leader who divulged crucial information under questioning.
But, as I wrote in Friday’s column, Bush and the Torture Tapes, investigative reporter Ron Suskind has written that Zubaydah was a mentally ill minor functionary, and that most if not all of the information he provided to the CIA was either old news — or entirely made up.
There are many reasons why Americans should be skeptical about assertions that terrorist attacks were thwarted as a result of what administration officials would call “enhanced interrogation.” (I enumerated some of the reasons last month at NiemanWatchdog.org, where I am deputy editor.)
But it all boils down to the fact that, so far, no one from Bush on down has come up with a single documented example of American lives saved thanks to torture.
I’ve been impressed by Jack’s growth as a candidate, compared with his 5th district run in 2006. I think Jack has an opening in the race to become the DFL standardbearer because Franken and Ciresi have been unable to convert dollars and name recognition into true grassroots support, and because his thoughtfulness and concern about the big picture–addressing climate change and economic concerns by creating a green economy, for example–resonate with voters. I think there’s an opening in the general election because Coleman hitched his cart to an administration that is now unpopular, and his efforts to distance himself will be thrown into glaring relief by the contrast with Jack’s steady commitments over the years.
bsimon says;
If that’s not good enough for you, my next argument is that torture doesn’t work. It doesn’t produce accurate information. It hasn’t been proven to be the only method by which information can be gained. If you are going to ignore moral arguments against torture, you still have to prove that it is more effective than other methods in producing accurate information - which it is not.
bsimon,
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, however all data I have seen conflicts your statement. My data is from sources much closer to action than you are (I’m almost certain.) Have you ever read any non-fiction accounts of events that have occured in Iraq or Afghanistan by members of our military? Anyone who has had close contact with Taliban or Hezbollah “warriors?” If not, I assume you get your data from the AP and the Strib. I’d suggest you be very careful what you choose to believe. There are a lot of things that you could potentially be much better off not knowing about.
“Have you ever read any non-fiction accounts of events that have occured in Iraq or Afghanistan by members of our military?”
As a matter of fact, I just finished “Lone Survivor”, not that its germaine to the conversation.
Frankly, I’ve found that people willing to overlook the moral and legal reasons we don’t torture aren’t interested in facts or opinions that challenge their position.
bsimon,
I’m happy to hear you’ve read that book. I’d like to hear your thought’s on the treatment of Petty Officer Matthew Axelson by his captors when they discovered him alive but wounded.
Then, bsimon, ask anyone you know about the number of Taliban fighters in military hospitals under our care.
“I’d like to hear your thought’s on the treatment of Petty Officer Matthew Axelson by his captors when they discovered him alive but wounded.”
What do you want me to say? It was brutal. We don’t do that; not only because its against the law, but because its wrong.
What do you think about the author’s argument for shooting unarmed shephards that might give him away? If our Special Ops forces start shooting everyone who looks at them funny, soldiers that find themselves wounded, alone & in the hands of the locals - like the author did - likely won’t survive the experience, they’ll end up like Axelson, or the contractors in Fallujah, or Daniel Pearl. That’s the ‘hearts and minds’ argument. In fact, the author hinted - several times - at how the Taliban is wearing out their welcome with at least some of the local Pashtuns. If we go in & start killing the locals, we’ll drive the locals towards supporting - or continuing to tolerate - the Taliban. Instead we need to be working at driving a wedge between them. When tolerating the Taliban is more trouble than benefit for the locals, we will defeat the Taliban.
bsimon,
I don’t want you to say anything you don’t feel comfortable saying.
The fact of the matter is there are a lot of people that would be alive today if they would have acted differently. There were two options. Perhaps they chose wrong, but the fact that they had to debate the issue because they were concerned about how our media would have reported the incident is very disturbing to me.
This is not a “traditional” war. There are no uniforms, no code of ethics, and no boundries.
Do you think the media has had a negative or a positive effect on our soldiers?
“The fact of the matter is there are a lot of people that would be alive today if they would have acted differently.”
That is actually not a fact.
“There were two options.”
There were more than two options.
“Perhaps they chose wrong, but the fact that they had to debate the issue because they were concerned about how our media would have reported the incident is very disturbing to me.”
Again, what is claimed as fact is not necessarily so. It is disturbing that the author implies he & his team were willing to disobey the rules of engagement, if they thought they could get away with it. He says he knew it would be wrong to kill the shepherds - which seemed not just a legal analysis, but a moral one as well. He knew letting them go would put his team in danger, but it seems he also knew that was the only choice available to him.
If you want to talk about facts, the facts are that we put our servicepeople into harms way. When they sign up for the job, they understand the risks. I imagine that what happened in this incident is now used as a training exercise for Special Forces teams preparing to operate in Afghanistan & other areas where similar situations could occur. I’m not in the military, but I’m imagining the trainers are promoting alternatives to ’shoot them’ and ‘let them go’. Perhaps hold them until dark, when our guys have a better chance of escaping under cover of darkness. Perhaps direct them to continue in a direction where they can be observed by our guys. Who knows? What I’m fairly certain of is that, despite the significant loss of our Special Forces in this situation, the Rules of Engagement will not change for our troops, because we are not a country that deliberately kills innocent people.
It is disturbing that the author implies he & his team were willing to disobey the rules of engagement.
Wrong. They discussed that option, and decided against it.
the Rules of Engagement will not change for our troops, because we are not a country that deliberately kills innocent people.
bsimon,
you have no clue how mistaken you are concerning this comment.
I’ll bet I could put together a very accurate discription of you and the way you live your life just from your comments. I find them very amusing and extremely naive.
I’ve got meetings.
Have a nice day.
Robert, thanks for once again resorting to insults in lieu of reasonable discussion. I should have known better than to expect you to change.