Where is Alan Dershowitz? This gross out character used to pop

up on our TV screens defending OJ and the last I heard of him, he was
supporting torture of prisoners and may even have a book written on the subject.

Because he was talking about torture long before the War on Iraq and the Abu Ghraib stories, I wondered, WTF? Why is this scum even talking about this? Now we know.His advanced antennae told him the story is going to be hot soon.He better get on it so he can get himself an "expert" gig on TV.

to the School of the Americas.

Don't worry. He'll be back on TV soon enough.

and Harvard is investigating.If he is caught with his hand in the cookie jar, I'd say couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

alan dershowitz is, or maybe i should say was, one hell of a good guy. this was a confirmed, hardcore, aclu good guy, always fighting for the first amendment, always taking the unpopular cases. very knowledgeable, and very liberal.

i never held any particular grudge against him for defending oj. everybody deserves a lawyer, and the more unseemly tactics used weren't ascribed to dershowitz.

but when he came out in favor of torture, and remarkably enthusiastically, i just went :wtf:??? it just didn't seem consistent with the rest of his career.

i do know that there was a coordinated effort on the part of the republicans to signal that torture would be used. dershowitz was hardly the only one out there talking about it. just as with the nazis, these people want to make sure that what they do has enough legal justification so they can get a favorable judge to support it, and the torture thing was no different.

but dershowitz participating in it, honestly, i just don't get it.

Uuummmmmm, Alan Dershowitz, despite his curriculum vitae including his Harvard Law School position, remains an outstanding individual rights ACLU-type attorney. Evermore the criminal appellant law attorney willing to present legal issues. Some folks don't understand that attorneys defend the most heinous characters in criminal law in order to protect all of us and our constitutional rights. Oh well.

And as with any excellent law school professor, Professor Dershowitz would and could and does argue both sides of the law or any side of the law. That's what studying law is all about -- to know all sides of any legal issue. Similarly, Dershowitz demonstrated the possibility that torture could be argued. Nothing unusual there. Only for those who are not knowledgeable in law may these insights be unusual, or somehow "wrong," or unusual. Dershowitz remains the professor whenever he opens his mouth. And, I know of no attorney, including myself, who doesn't love to open his/her mouth to present legal issues, then perhaps jump to the other side arguing that as well.


.

But in my book advocating the torture of anyone for any reason cancels out that persons credibility.

With some rope, a typewriter cover, and about twenty minutes, I could have Mr. Officer Of The Court Dershowitz admitting to be the mastermind behind 9/11. After another 20 minutes he would swear Ariel Sharon did it. After another 20 minutes he would be saying his own son did it.

Obviously this fellow has lost touch with reality if he advocates that "legalizing" torture will make everything alright. Even well educated people can can lose their minds. It appears Alan has done just that.

Don

i have no problem with him defending oj, nor do i have a problem with such unpleasantness as the aclu defending controversial and unpopular acts, such as the neo-nazis marching in skokie.

nor do i have any problem with dershowitz arguing strongly for whichever side secured his services. yet, that's what lawyering is all about, all parties before the courts deserve the strongest advocates they can secure.

what's different about the torture issue is that, at least as far as was disclosed, no one hired dershowitz. he was arguing his own personal philosophy. he was not being neutral or professorial, he was trying to drive policy and legal opinion.

It was shortly after 9/11 and everyone was pretty emotional about it, including Alan Dershowitz. He wasn't driving policy or giving legal opinions, he said that if torture could stop another 9/11 he'd be in favor of it. In retrospect, three years later and a misguided war in Iraq, it becomes a horrific idea. Back then it didn't sound so bad, not even to me. I had friends that might have been there, only they never got to work before 9 am. Thankfully, they are okay. Another on a plane bound for CA wasn't so lucky. Listening to my grandson tell me, with horror and fear, about the kids in his class that lost parents makes one a little less rational about torture.

Dershowitz has done too much good to discount it all for one statement that you don't agree with.

also kept an open mind about who the perpetrators of 9/11 were, I would more than agree with you. As it stands, even after the revelations of the past three years,and the extensive stonewalling of all 9/11 investigations, he has still not shown any remorse for jumping to conclusions and, of course, has not shown any opposition to the War on Iraq even after all the pretexts have been shown to be frauds.

from 2002 when Dershowitz still believed that Saddam had WMDs.

rtsp://media.cc.columbia.edu/law/Fletcher_Debates/Dershowitz_F_debate.rm

It's long, but worth listening to. Sorry I can't make it come up as a link, try pasting it in.

Dershowitz supported Kerry, not the chimp, in the last election.

"When Bush ignored much of the world's opinion and sent troops to Iraq, he lost some of the United States' support as a world power, Dershowitz said."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/politics/stories/10/04jewish.html

Dershowitz has yet to express an opinion on the tortures at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo.Or for that matter on the fraudulent evidence on which the war was based.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ

Covering up the coverup

By Alan Dershowitz | May 15, 2004
NEITHER the release of detainees from Abu Ghraib, nor Donald Rumsfeld's assurance that the abusers will be brought to justice address the real problem revealed by the photographs taken at the prison. That problem is the Bush administration's conflicting messages. Out of one side of its mouth -- the public, rhetorical side -- it condemns all forms of torture regardless of the need to secure intelligence. Out of the other -- the discreet wink and nod side -- it tells intelligence officials the gloves are off and they should do what they have to do to obtain life-saving information. The results were predictable: Low-ranking military intelligence and police believe that they are supposed to get information but are given little guidance about the means (short of lethal torture) deemed appropriate.

Nor would it be obvious to an untrained officer whether humiliation is a proper means of "softening up" or, if it is, whether exploiting religious taboos regarding sex comes within the category of acceptable humiliation. The fact that photographs were widely circulated suggests a belief that superiors would not disapprove of what they saw. This is not to excuse those who inflicted the humiliation, but it may explain why apparently decent soldiers believed they were doing what was expected of them.

<snip>

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/15/covering_up_the_coverup/

torture.He seems to be saying that if it was done the right way ,"without sending conflicting messages" that would be all right by him. And note that he uses the word abuse rather than torture, when there are documented cases of murders at Abu Ghraib.

Let us face it.He is an apologist for the War and an apologist for torture.

<snip>

Unless the president is prepared to authorize the use of extraordinary methods in extraordinary situations, such as the ticking bomb terrorist or the terrorist who could lead us to Osama bin Laden, no such methods should be employed. Every soldier should be instructed to ask, before following an order to violate the norms of interrogation, whether the president has authorized him to break the rules. Since it should be clear that no president would ever explicitly authorize the tactics employed at Abu Ghraib, there should be no confusion about what was expected.

<snip>

I can't think of a single word that doesn't describe Dershowitz more than "apologist."

whether the President authorized such tortures, they are illegal and constitute a War Crime according to the Geneva Convention. That fear is what made Bush to seek "advice" from Alberto Gonzalez.Now here comes Dershowitz saying that torture is OK so long as Bush authorized it? And the only problem was the mixed messages?

As usual, he is performing mental gymnastics for the powerful.

Dershowitz is saying that they are covering up who is ultimately responsibe for the torture at Abu Ghraib, GWBush. At no point does he justify Abu Ghraib.

My world exists in shades of gray, not all black or all white. People are not all bad or all good, unless one is either a saint or a psychopath. I don't expect you to agree with everything that I say and vice versa. That doesn't make me, you, or Alan Dershowitz a "scum" if I quote you correctly.

in it that I can see. Anyone who cannot muster the moral courage to condemn this, is scum ,IMO.

The article that I posted is a condemnation of Abu Ghraid by Dershowitz. Just because the point of the article is that it's the chimp who bears responsibility for Abu Ghraid and not written the way YOU want to hear it, doesn't make Dershowitz scum. What do you want, a personal letter from Dershowitz, written just for you, condemning it?

in the article, there is nothing further to discuss. I don't think of Dershowitz as "scum" for his opinions any more than I think of you as "scum" for yours. He's done a lot of good, far more than some true scum that I can think of.

who has put his considerable skills at the service of men of power.I repeat that the statement that you offer as proof of his condemnation of torture at Abu Ghraib fails the smell test.Instead, I see him weaseling his way out by saying that torture is acceptable if the President authorizes it.It bears repeating what Justice Robert Jackson said at Nuremberg that "Aggressive War is a Crime;torture of prisoners is a crime". There can be no quibbling or shades of gray on that matter.

but it was nevertheless, immediately recognizable by most of us actual, hardcore aclu proponents as a hasty and misguided response.

that's why it was so surprising coming from the likes of dershowitz, and that's ALSO why the white house and rw media jumped on the opportunity to get dershowitz plenty of airtime.

He's a lawyer and a professor and he has opinions. I did not agree with him when he advocated torture as a last resort to obtaining information that would prevent further terrorist attacks (shortly after 9/11), but only because I don't believe that any worthwhile information can be obtained that way. If torture could have prevented 9/11 and 3,000 deaths, so be it.

Other than that, what's your beef? He's done a lot of good work for our side.

at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo? And expose our troops to the same fate?Would you support the unilateral violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners?

Dershowitz may have been a good guy at one time.He, unfortunately, no longer is.

he took out an open ad in newspapers advising Jewish people to vote for Kerry.

I am not a scholar or a book writer, but I did some research into the publishing of books in the USA. Well guess who took over the book publishing houses? The Republican wing extremists.

Well, did you ever wonder how one gets published in the new publishing industry? The more outlandish the writing, the more hate speech that is in it is normally accepted for publication, especially if it some new politician or public type that quit their job. In other words the publishing industry rewards people to publish junk. Why? The more ignorant the sheeple are the more controllable they are by the powers that be in the government.

Remember the CIA type that quit his job? Well he put out a absurd press release, that was all over the TV they have so many of them I cannot even recall what he said, well it was so outlandish that as soon as he said it he got a book deal from a major publishing house and will go on to make perhaps millions from his new corporate welfare from the ministry of information (The publishing industry in the USA).

Don't take it personal folks they took over all this well before most of us were even born, well before even the early 60s.

him should check out an article he wrote for the religious right website, 'Jewish World Review.' In my humble opinion, the man is a religious bigot who says very nasty things about Muslim people.

please post a link. Being pro-Israel is not being anti-Muslim or right wing, so without any specific link to your allegation, I can't comment.