2008 Federal Election Food for Thought

[Progressive Tory]

Personally I do not dislike Ignatieff either - nor do I dislike Harper...you have to look at these leaders realistically - we do not have the mind numbing Obamaism curse of wishfull thinking that Americans have - Canadians are more British and less emotional.

That may be true. However, Canadians have already got to know Harper and decided they just don't like him. When there was no viable option last election, those who used to vote Liberal (850,000) just stayed home, as did 170,000 more who voted Conservative in 2006.

I never liked Harper but never outright hated him until his Separatist attacks in December, just to keep his job. He no longer has any saving grace.

[Progressive Tory]

- most liberals are middle class and overly money dependant...a liberal will panic first when it comes to money.

Where does that come from? Conservatives are the ones with money ...even political commentators call them 'older and richer'.

Liberals didn't panic after Mulroney. They got it done. I wasn't voting Liberal then, but between them and the Reform oppositon, they turned things around. I give them both credit for that.

[madmax]

citation request advising exactly where/when and in what context Ignatieff stated he supported torture.

I have quoted the various passages here on MLW. Ignatieff stated he supports degrees of torture because he believes that torturing people gets results.

You can read his own words as he weasels in and out and around the issue of torture. He likes to say he is against torture, but then so does GWB and his position is no different then GWBs position in the use of torture.

John McCain, a victim of torture, is against torture. If only Ignatieff could have taken such a strong stand when it counted most.

If you haven't seen, Iggy is the flip flop man. Some have defended his position on torture, because he couldn't speak out in the US. SUch nonsense.

I guess, the title isn't a giveaway ... "IF TORTURE WORKS".

Ignatieff views torture as the "Lessor Evil".

What he leaves out of the debate is if ONE testicle or TWO testicles is going to far.

Fact is, you are either for or against torture. I am against torture. John McCain is Against Torture.

Even Stephen Harpers stand against torture is STRONGER then Ignatieffs.

Abu Ghraib made a fool of Ignatieff and the supporters of torture. Of course Iggy wrote his TORTURE LIGHT shortly before Abu Ghraib.

Ignatieff now likes to say his writings supporting Cohersive torture techniques doesn't mean he supports it.

Iggys flip flop on torture, his, denials came when his Prime Ministerial intentions were made known and he wanted to come back to be king.

And torture doesn't fly with Canadians the way it flew in the US. Of course the same was true regarding the Iraq war. THus it is no surprise that Iggy has changed his stripes.

The Truth is, I am not surprised that he changed his position as DISGUSTED, SICKENED and I DESPISE a person who pretends to be a Humanitarian and human rights activist, then comes out with SHIITE like TORTURE LIGHT!!! What a weak and pathetic individual he became at a time when human rights activists needed a strong voice. He choose to lecture them that it is ok to have torture, and infact threatened human rights activists with the blame game. If you do not accept torture, then BAD THINGS COULD HAPPEN that could be prevent.

Hey, there are some people that believe this, I am not one of them, and I have no problem with others on MLW expressing the opinion that they support torture.

I do have a Major Problem when some BSing intellectual sells out those people who fight a never ending battle for human rights, and he cowardly comes out and openly undermines them.

Not that any of this will stick to IGGY, but it is who he is.

Exporting democracy, revising torture: the complex missions of Michael Ignatieff

Mariano Aguirre 14 07 2005

In his fatal attraction to the style of instant journalism, Michael Ignatieff frivolously mixes history and propaganda

I am not alone in my thoughts.

Michael Ignatieff has been useful to the US government as it has tried to promote democracy in the middle east. He brings to this unofficial job a special, double-edged approach: he provides conservative arguments to the liberal audience and liberal alibis to the conservatives.

Ignatieff considers himself a liberal, so sometimes he criticises the Bush administration. And he is an intellectual, so he has doubts about almost everything and airs them for the liberal readers of the New York Times. But in the end he shares the US government’s vision of the violent and compulsory promotion of democracy, the war against terrorism and the use of instruments, for example torture, which are apparently in need of a revisionist treatment.

There is no doubt that IGGY waded far deeper into the support for Torture then any other politician in Canadian History.

[fellowtraveller]

citation request advising exactly where/when and in what context Ignatieff stated he supported torture.

Check Wiki for Iggy doing the rumba on this, and you can watch him shake his professor booty here

[madmax]

Check Wiki for Iggy doing the rumba on this, and you can watch him shake his professor booty here

Read IGGY SQUIRM

http://blog.macleans.ca/2009/02/05/ignatie...-torture/print/

[Moonbox]

I don't ignore his faults. I'm not constantly nodding my head when I read his lectures and books. I often disagree with him. I don't follow anyone blindly, but critics will just jump on rhetoric.

You don't think that it was a bit of a stretch for you to say his public 180 reversals in opinion are really just him showing his intellectualism??? Because he taught at Oxford???

Arrogant. Wishy washy. Opportunist. Elitist because he has a Phd from Harvard. They heard a rumour that he once wrote a lecture on torture, and despite the fact that he says 'for those of us who don't support the use of torture, are we leaving ourselves vulnerable to terrorists?", somehow means he has a collection of brass knuckles and barbed collars. What an evil man.

Arrogance and elitism mean nothing. Saying a politician is arrogant/elitist is like saying a baby is innocent. Means nothing. Opportunist? Well I think there's something to be said to that with Ignatieff. I think you'd really be fooling yourself if you didn't think that living outside of the country for about 38 years and only returing in 2006 to make a bid for the leadership of the country wasn't SLIGHTLY opportunistic. It doesn't make him an evil man, but it certainly makes him look opportunistic.

Now as far as his position on torture is concerned, I understand he put some fairly strict qualifications on its use. On the other hand, he demonstrates a lot of the same judgement as Harper and I simply feel the need to bring up the comparison. Since many anti-Harperites point out his positions on Iraq, Afghanistan, Quebec as a nation etc as evidence that he's a Canada-hating butt-buddy of George Bush, I find it necessary to show how much Ignatieff's judgement mirrored Harper's own. In the case of torture, he's been quite a bit more supportive of its use than even Harper.

The more I learn the more I want to learn; and will no longer accept unfounded insults. You don't have to like him. You don't even have to vote for him. But if you think his education, work experience and life experience will be a drawback, yikes.

I never said anything REMOTELY similar to that. I said that Ivy League schools aren't necessarily shining beacons of morality. I also said I'm a little hesitant to know that Ignatieff spent most of his life OUTSIDE of Canada and only until recently returning to run for leadership.

Canadians are just warming up to him and the fact that I had to go on a waiting list for most of his books, means I'm not the only fan.

That's kind of where you have to start questioning how realistic your views of him are. When you say you're a FAN of Ignatieff's and you start buying his merchandise (if you got them from the library I apologize), it raises the possibility that it's more Obama type worship than anything else.

Edited February 18, 2009 by Moonbox

[waldo]

Check Wiki for Iggy doing the rumba on this, and you can watch him shake his professor booty here

yes, again... that Prospect article - same ole, same ole.

As Ignatieff states in that Prospect article:

"So I end up

supporting an absolute and unconditional ban on both torture and those forms of coercive interrogation that involve stress and duress,

and I believe that enforcement of such a ban should be up to the military justice system plus the federal courts. I also believe that the training of interrogators can be improved by executive order and that the training must rigorously exclude stress and duress methods."

so, apparently then, Ignatieff supports that there non-stressful relaxing kind of torture. Is there a problem?

rumba? shakin da booty? Really, fellowtraveller? Did you actually bother to read your linked-to article, or do you just parrot the standard talking points?

[madmax]

so, apparently then, Ignatieff supports that there non-stressful relaxing kind of torture. Is there a problem?

Not exactly. Lets examine this NON STRESSFUL RELAXING KIND OF TORTURE.

"We need a presidential order or Congressional legislation that defines exactly what constitutes acceptable degrees of coercive interrogation. Here we are deep into lesser-evil territory. Permissible duress might include forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental or physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation (like keeping prisoners in hoods) that would produce stress. What crosses the line into the impermissible would be any physical coercion or abuse, any involuntary use of drugs or serums, any withholding of necessary medicines or basic food, water and essential rest." Critics say With all his qualifiers and circumlocution, Mr. Ignatieff is actually condoning terrorism as a lesser evil.

Its ok to use sleep deprivation as long as the tortured subject gets essential rest. Iggy is Torture light.

[Progressive Tory]

rumba? shakin da booty? Really, fellowtraveller? Did you actually bother to read your linked-to article, or do you just parrot the standard talking points?

Obviously not. I think Ignatieff's next book should be 'Ignatieff for Dummies', because I can't believe some of the sheer nonsense that some people are spouting.

He speaks very clearly. There are no hidden messages, and if you read them backwards they don't tell you to kill your mother.

He should include in the book that 4 + 5 doesn't equal 30 and man did not walk with dinosaurs, just because Stockwell Day says so. Day makes Sarah Palin look smart.

And who da thunk it, but Ignatieff is making me feel smart, simply because I know what he's saying.

[waldo]

Its ok to use sleep deprivation as long as the tortured subject gets essential rest. Iggy is Torture light.

other than your personal sense of morality - of right/wrong - you have no substantive foundation to attach a torture label ("light" or otherwise) to coercive interrogation - that doesn't involve stress or duress.

as Ignatieff clearly states in that Macleans article:

"I believe that we are faced with people who are a danger to Canadian national security and a danger to our way of life, and we’re part of a global effort, not a war on terror but a global effort, to defeat extremism, and the message in The Lesser Evil, the metaphor that was key to me in The Lesser Evil, was democratic states have to fight this battle with one hand tied behind their back, and it’s because they tie one hand behind their back that they win.

So getting to the issue of interrogation, interrogation has to be consistent with Canadian law, consistent with international conventions—like the Convention on Torture—consistent with our international obligations. It has to be rigorous and thorough, because we’re up against some threats to our security, but it must be within the traditions of the Canadian Charter and the applicable laws, and it must be subject to democratic scrutiny.

exactly how is your "torture light" labeling, inconsistent with Canadian law, inconsistent with international conventions, inconsistent with our international obligations? Exactly how is your "torture light" labeling, outside the traditions of the Canadian Charter and the applicable laws? Exactly how is your "torture light" labeling above and beyond democratic scrutiny?

Edited February 19, 2009 by waldo

[Progressive Tory]

Even Stephen Harpers stand against torture is STRONGER then Ignatieffs.

As head of the Human Rights Dep't of Harvard University, the topic was part of the cirriculum. it doesn't make him a cheerleader. However, university lectures are one thing, but being in a position to stop actual torture is another.

What Ottawa doesn't want you to know

"The Harper government knew from its own officials that prisoners held by Afghan security forces faced the possibility of torture, abuse and extrajudicial killing, The Globe and Mail has learned.

But the government has eradicated every single reference to torture and abuse in prison from a heavily blacked-out version of a report prepared by Canadian diplomats in Kabul and released under an access to information request.

Initially, the government denied the existence of the report, responding in writing that "no such report on human-rights performance in other countries exists." After complaints to the Access to Information Commissioner, it released a heavily edited version this week.

Among the sentences blacked out by the Foreign Affairs Department in the report's summary is "Extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common," according to full passages of the report obtained independently by The Globe."

Kandahar governor accused of beating and using electric shocks on detainees in secret Afghan prisons

"The Harper government knew, but tried to keep secret since last spring, allegations that the governor of Kandahar was personally involved in torture and abuse of detainees."

Harper's comments on Omar Khadr 'deplorable': lawyer

"The prime minister, through his cabinet members, particularly Mr. (Peter) MacKay, have long said that they have been assured that Omar Khadr was being well treated, when in fact the Canadian government well knew that was not the case," he said.

The prime minister's comments come a day after explosive new documents suggest Canada was aware of the harsh treatment that Khadr was being subjected to in Guantanamo Bay at the hands of U.S. military interrogators."

[madmax]

other than your personal sense of morality - of right/wrong - you have no substantive foundation to attach a torture label ("light" or otherwise) to coercive interrogation - that doesn't involve stress or duress.

I know backpeddling when I see it. It is 2009......

[waldo]

Its ok to use sleep deprivation as long as the tortured subject gets essential rest. Iggy is Torture light.

other than your personal sense of morality - of right/wrong - you have no substantive foundation to attach a torture label ("light" or otherwise) to coercive interrogation - that doesn't involve stress or duress.

.

.

exactly how is your "torture light" labeling, inconsistent with Canadian law, inconsistent with international conventions, inconsistent with our international obligations? Exactly how is your "torture light" labeling, outside the traditions of the Canadian Charter and the applicable laws? Exactly how is your "torture light" labeling above and beyond democratic scrutiny?

I know backpeddling when I see it. It is 2009......

are you looking in a mirror - at yourself - backpeddling. If you won't - can't - answer the questions posed.....

[madmax]

are you looking in a mirror - at yourself - backpeddling. If you won't - can't - answer the questions posed.....

Iggy is using the spin cycle. I have nothing to spin. I do not support state sponsored torture.

Ignatieff has adamantly maintained that he supports a complete ban on torture[30], which according to his 2004 Op-ed in the New York Times, did not include certain "forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental or physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation

Well that's nice isn't it.

When one advocates for torture, degrees of torture and reasons for state sponsored torture they argue like those in the Bush whitehouse.

How nice of Iggy to suggest that he supports torture as long as it doesn't violate the law.

Ignatieff copped out. He was weak when he needed to be strong. Obviously coming to Canada, and wanting to be the "Next One" to lead the Liberals, he has gotten around to changing his position on torture. He does wish to be the Canadian Prime Minister.

His essay on torture is a piece of shit to begin with. He would be far better off to acknowledge it for the disgraceful peace of apologist crap that it is, then to softsell and rebrand his views on torture.

What Ignatieff has said is OK, acceptable forms of torture, are now BANNED at Guantanamo.

Torture is now officially banned from use at Guantanamo Bay and all other U.S. camps for illegal combatants. Army regulations state that such treatment during interrogation crosses the boundary between acceptable methods of gaining information and torture.

US Air Force General Jack L. Rives (Deputy Judge Advocate General) advised a US government task force that many of the extreme methods of interrogation would leave service personnel open to legal sanction in the US and foreign countries.

US officers were previously allowed interrogation techniques classified as torture including:

sleep deprivation

waterboarding

exposure to extremes of cold and heat

placing prisoners in "stress positions" for long periods of time

Ignatieff is for sleep deprivation as a form of acceptable torture.

[fellowtraveller]

Obviously not. I think Ignatieff's next book should be 'Ignatieff for Dummies', because I can't believe some of the sheer nonsense that some people are spouting.

He speaks very clearly. There are no hidden messages

So, when he refers to 'we Americans' (his italicization) in this well known piece there are no subtleties, no hidden messages, that we should take him at his word?

OK then.

[waldo]

strictly speaking… the recent Obama executive order calls for the handling of detainees in accordance with the U.S. Army field manual: Army FM 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations.

might there be initiatives to further adjust that manual? Possibly; however, as of today… that U.S. Army field manual includes numerous appendices and, in particular, Appendix M – Restricted Interrogation Technique – Separation, which allows for the use of sleep and sensory deprivation and isolation - termed “separation”.

specifically to the raised point concerning sleep deprivation, the manual states --- “Use of separation must not preclude the detainee getting four hours of continuous sleep every 24 hours.”

[waldo]

So, when he refers to 'we Americans' (his italicization) in this well known piece there are no subtleties, no hidden messages, that we should take him at his word?

OK then.

fellowtraveller, you speak in subtleties and hidden messages... exactly what is it you would like to take Ignatieff at his word for?

[Progressive Tory]

So, when he refers to 'we Americans' (his italicization) in this well known piece there are no subtleties, no hidden messages, that we should take him at his word?

So he should publish this paper by referring to 'you' Americans and 'me'?

Harper's "[Y]our country [the USA], and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world." trumps that. Or how about when he called us 'a European Welfare State in the worst sense of the term."? Or "The pride Canadians take in their country's status at the UN distresses conservatives like myself quite profoundly."

And does he still feel the same way about Canada's unemployed? "In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance." Good to know.

He was speaking to a group of American Neo-Conservatives, not an Ivy League University.

Ignatieff spent 5 years heading up the Human Rights department at Harvard, not 30; and his position outweighs any silliness over two letter words. If you don't get the context of the paper, you're not alone. Conservatives still think that Oxford and Cambridge are in the U.S., or did not pass grade one and don't understand the concept of five years.

Obama has read some of his books and MacLeans referred to Ignatieff as among the "Top 10 Canadian Who's Who" in 1997 and one of the "50 Most Influential Canadians Shaping Society" in 2002.

So 'we' Canadians who know geography and math are proud as hell of Michael Ignatieff and look forward to the day when he is named Prime Minister of Canada.

Edited February 21, 2009 by Progressive Tory