Torture

[Vandeervecken]

The only thing that **** appologized for was letting the vietcong take photos of her on a anti-aircraft gun.http://moveon.cn/HJane.htmShe did not appologize for aiding the enemy.SHe did not appologize for stabbing our soldiers in their backs.She should have been arrested and shot for treason.

I realize by now that the subtleties of law are beyond your kin, but as we were not under a declared state of war in Vietnam we legally had no enemy for her to give any aid and comfort too. You can only give aid and comfort to an enemy during a declared state of war.

I do find her actions there reprehensible in the extreme and beyond the pale of what I would consider legitimate dissent, however that does not mean she committed crimes she did not commit.

 

[jamesrage]

I realize by now that the subtleties of law are beyond your kin, but as we were not under a declared state of war in Vietnam we legally had no enemy for her to give any aid and comfort too. You can only give aid and comfort to an enemy during a declared state of war.

So in other words since our troops were fighting the vietcong she is a dirty **** rat bitch who should be shot for taking the side of our enemy.

I do find her actions there reprehensible in the extreme and beyond the pale of what I would consider legitimate dissent.

Yeah sure you do.More than likely like any anti-war vermin you proably cheered her on as you was spitting on our troops when they returned home.
Perhaps if you people would for once serve your country you would gain some perspective that is badly needed.

 

[Vandeervecken]

So in other words since our troops were fighting the vietcong she is a dirty **** rat bitch who should be shot for taking the side of our enemy.

No, she should not have been shot. I do not believe in shooting people for bad taste or Prime Time television would be a depopulated wasteland. Executions should only happen after full due process of the law.

Yeah sure you do.More than likely like any anti-war vermin you proably cheered her on as you was spitting on our troops when they returned home.
Perhaps if you people would for once serve your country you would gain some perspective that is badly needed.

Ah, back to your stock in trade. Baseless insults based on nothing whatsoever. For your information I come from a military family. My father was a Sergeant in Patton's Third Army during World War Two. Member of my family have fought in every conflict our nation has been in going back at least to the French & Indian war prior to our revolution. My mother was an Armed Forces Radio Network Deejay broadcasting out of Keflavik Air Force Base (Actually it was an Army Air Corps base then as there was no Air Force yet) in Iceland. My brother spent 26 years in the US Navy and retried a CPO. I think our family has earned the right to its opinion. Note how I can state it free from profanity, raving insults, seething anger. Want to make up some more straw men to attack now since you obviously cannot argue this case on its merits?

 

[jamesrage]

Ah, back to your stock in trade. Baseless insults based on nothing whatsoever. For your information I come from a military family. My father was a Sergeant in Patton's Third Army during World War Two. Member of my family have fought in every conflict our nation has been in going back at least to the French & Indian war prior to our revolution. My mother was an Armed Forces Radio Network Deejay broadcasting out of Keflavik Air Force Base (Actually it was an Army Air Corps base then as there was no Air Force yet) in Iceland. My brother spent 26 years in the US Navy and retried a CPO. I think our family has earned the right to its opinion. Note how I can state it free from profanity, raving insults, seething anger. Want to make up some more straw men to attack now since you obviously cannot argue this case on its merits?

I do not give two shits what your family did,they are not making the argument, you are.So what military service do you have?

 

[Vandeervecken]

I do not give two shits what your family did,they are not making the argument, you are.So what military service do you have?

LOL, reduced to this now? Do you think the answer has changed in the last 48 hours since I told you in a previous post? I am 4f. Tried to join 3 times in the late 70's but some physical problems I was born with made me ineligible to join.

Once again I will also note that as it is you and not I eager to send under-equipped people into combat with people who are not even high on the list of who should be our enemies your service is more important than mine. My point was, and remains that it is really easy to be a war hawk when you are signing the ballad of the bravery of being out of range. It is quite a different thing when people who have actually seen the elephant talk of sending people to fight. They tend to do it much more soberly and with more foresight. An Eisenhower or a Papa-Doc Bush would have planned better, organized better, and exhausted other remedies before wily-nilly rushing people into combat on a fool errand like Baby-Doc Bush has done.

 

[jamesrage]

Once again I will also note that as it is you and not I eager to send under-equipped people into combat with people who are not even high on the list of who should be our enemies your service is more important than mine. My point was, and remains that it is really easy to be a war hawk when you are signing the ballad of the bravery of being out of range. It is quite a different thing when people who have actually seen the elephant talk of sending people to fight. They tend to do it much more soberly and with more foresight. An Eisenhower or a Papa-Doc Bush would have planned better, organized better, and exhausted other remedies before wily-nilly rushing people into combat on a fool errand like Baby-Doc Bush has done.

You must be under the impression that people join the military not expecting to go to war.Everybody who signs their name on that dotted line knows that more than likely there is a %100 chance that they will go to war or some conflict half way across the globe.Nobody joins 11B,11M or any other 11series(infantry) MOS expecting not to go to war,that would be like joining a bomb squad and expecting to never see a bomb.You must be under the imporession that our troops just sit on their during peace time.

 

[Vandeervecken]

You must be under the impression that people join the military not expecting to go to war.Everybody who signs their name on that dotted line knows that more than likely there is a %100 chance that they will go to war or some conflict half way across the globe.Nobody joins 11B,11M or any other 11series(infantry) MOS expecting not to go to war,that would be like joining a bomb squad and expecting to never see a bomb.You must be under the imporession that our troops just sit on their during peace time.

Once again completely wrong and completely irreverent. First off training should be constant and hard, it is by such training that lives are saved in real combat. One of my best friends recently got out of the 101 and we have talked extensively about this issue. Most combat troops are not unafraid or unwilling to go fight.

We as a nation however owe them at least this much:

1. We will use them only when absolutely necessary
2. We will use them only when other methods of resolution have been exhausted.
3. We will use them only in cases of clear and present danger.
4. We will make sure they have all the tools and equipment they need.
5. We will have clearly defined goals and exit conditions.
6. We will never entered prolonged combat situations without a declaration of war

Not one of these conditions fits what Baby-Doc Bush has done in Iraq. Not one.

 

[scottyz]

WASHINGTON - Vice President
Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to allow
CIA exemptions to a proposed ban on the torture of terror suspects in U.S. custody, according to participants in a closed-door session.

Cheney told his audience the United States doesn't engage in torture, these participants added, even though he said the administration needed an exemption from any legislation banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment in case the president decided one was necessary to prevent a terrorist attack.

The vice president made his comments at a regular weekly private meeting of Senate Republican senators, according to several lawmakers who attended. Cheney often attends the meetings, a chance for the rank-and-file to discuss legislative strategy, but he rarely speaks.

McCain, who was tortured while held as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, is the chief Senate sponsor of an anti-torture provision that has twice cleared the Senate and triggered veto threats from the White House.

Cheney's decision to speak at the meeting underscored both his role as White House point man on the contentious issue and the importance the administration attaches to it.

The vice president made his appeal at a time Congress is struggling with the torture issue in light of the
Abu Ghraib prison scandal and allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The United States houses about 500 detainees at the naval base there, many of them captured in
Afghanistan.

Additionally, human rights organizations contend the United States turns detainees over to other countries that it knows will use torture to try and extract intelligence information.

The Senate recently approved a provision banning the "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The vote was 90-9, and an identical provision was added to a second measure on a voice vote on Friday.

The White House initially tried to kill the anti-torture provision while it was pending in the Senate, then switched course to lobby for an exemption in cases of "clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States." The president would have to approve the exemption, and Defense Department personnel could not be involved. In addition, any activity would have to be consistent with the Constitution, federal law and U.S. treaty obligations, according to draft changes in the exemption the White House is seeking.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051104/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_torture

It still amazes me that this "Christian" & "moral" admin. is so obsessed with being able to torture other humans.

 

[Hoot]

This story kills me.

Here we have Cheney saying the U.S. does not engage in torture, but asking if we could have a waiver, just in case we need to torture someone?

What a joke.

 

[hipsterdufus]

I found this an especially interesting article on the subject of torture. It talks about the "ticking bomb exception" for torture.

Alan Dershowitz posed a version of this question (Los Angeles Times, November 8), when he asked:

"But what if (torture) were limited to the rare "ticking bomb" case--the situation in which a captured terrorist who knows of an imminent large-scale threat refuses to disclose it?

Would torturing one guilty terrorist to prevent the deaths of a thousand innocent civilians shock the conscience of all decent people?

To prove that it would not, consider a situation in which a kidnapped child had been buried in a box with two hours of oxygen. The kidnapper refuses to disclose its location. Should we not consider torture in that situation?"

Answering his own question (San Francisco Chronicle, November 8), he added:

"Everybody says they're opposed to torture. But everyone would do it personally if they knew it could save the life of a kidnapped child who had only two hours of oxygen left before death. And it would be the right thing to do."

The supporters of this conclusion base their view on a belief that torture can be effective, and that it's use - in a utilitarian calculation of doing bad for a greater good - can be permitted.

It isn't realistic
William J. Aceves, an international law and human rights professor at California Western School of Law in San Diego, wrote in the San Diego Tribune on November 21, 2001 that:

"[The ticking bomb scenario] falls apart upon careful scrutiny. It assumes that law enforcement has the right person in custody. That is, the suspect knows where the bomb is and when it is scheduled to detonate. What if there is only a 50 percent chance that the suspect knows the information? What if this number is only 10 percent? Second, it assumes that torture will be effective in gaining access to the critical information. In fact, however, torture is notoriously unreliable. What if there is only a 60 percent chance that the suspect will reveal accurate information? How about 20 percent? How low are we willing to go? How should we make the decision whether to torture? How many people must be endangered before the torture option can be considered?"

It hides the true cost of torture
The cost-benefit analysis suggested by the question - torture one to save the many - hides the true cost of using torture.

As Alexander Cockburn wrote in 'The Nation' (November 26): "Start torturing, and it's easy to get carried away. Torture destroys the tortured and corrupts the society that sanctions it."
The US does not exist in an isolated corner of the world where use torture might go unnoticed. Any approval of torture by the U.S. - including extradition of suspects to countries where they are likely to face torture - sends a dangerous message of tolerance of torture that will be heard around the world. Amnesty International's 40 years of experience fighting torture shows that once torture has been legitimized, even on a small scale, the use of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading practices inevitably expands to include countless other victims, and ultimately erodes the moral and legal principles on which society depends.

For example, the Israeli government legalized "moderate physical pressure," with controls to limit its use. However, once permitted, thousands of "suspects" were tortured for stone-throwing and other routine offenses, and the practice became routine and systematic. Even though the Israeli High Court banned the practice in 1999, Amnesty International continues to document Israeli authorities' use of torture. Could the US condemn others for using torture, including when it is used against US citizens, if it sanctions it's use at home?

Torture is a problem, not a solution
Torture is a real problem around the world with many hundreds of thousands of victims. Amnesty International has documented torture in more than 150 countries, including the United States. In more than 70 countries, it is widespread. People in 80 countries have died as a result of torture. The victims are mainly detained on minor criminal charges, including women and children, and the methods include rape and brutal violence.

Torture is illegal
The use of torture would violate countless international agreements the United States has signed and ratified, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention against Torture. The pre-eminent human rights document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, states that "no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." There are no exceptions. Fundamental to the very idea of human rights is that they are universal, rights for all that are not to be abridged or waived, not in war or during any other crisis.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/askamnesty/torture200112.html

 

[scottyz]

Did anyone watch the little exchange between Scott McClellan and reporters on this subject? I wish I could find a vid of it online, but this will have to do.

Q I'd like you to clear up, once and for all, the ambiguity about torture. Can we get a straight answer? The President says we don't do torture, but Cheney --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's about as straight as it can be.

Q Yes, but Cheney has gone to the Senate and asked for an exemption on --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, he has not. Are you claiming he's asked for an exemption on torture? No, that's --

Q He did not ask for that?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- that is inaccurate.

Q Are you denying everything that came from the Hill, in terms of torture?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you're mischaracterizing things. And I'm not going to get into discussions we have --

Q Can you give me a straight answer for once?

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me give it to you, just like the President has. We do not torture. He does not condone torture and he would never --

Q I'm asking about exemptions.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me respond. And he would never authorize the use of torture. We have an obligation to do all that we can to protect the American people. We are engaged --

Q That's not the answer I'm asking for --

MR. McCLELLAN: It is an answer -- because the American people want to know that we are doing all within our power to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. There are people in this world who want to spread a hateful ideology that is based on killing innocent men, women and children. We saw what they can do on September 11th --

Q He didn't ask for an exemption --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are going to --

Q -- answer that one question. I'm asking, is the administration asking for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: I am answering your question. The President has made it very clear that we are going to do --

Q You're not answering -- yes or no?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you don't want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen, and I'm going to tell them the facts.

Q -- the American people every day. I'm asking you, yes or no, did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: And let me respond. You've had your opportunity to ask the question. Now I'm going to respond to it.

Q If you could answer in a straight way.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I'm going to answer it, just like the President -- I just did, and the President has answered it numerous times.

Q -- yes or no --

MR. McCLELLAN: Our most important responsibility is to protect the American people. We are engaged in a global war against Islamic radicals who are intent on spreading a hateful ideology, and intent on killing innocent men, women and children.

Q Did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people.

Q Is that the answer?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are also going to do so in a way that adheres to our laws and to our values. We have made that very clear. The President directed everybody within this government that we do not engage in torture. We will not torture. He made that very clear.

Q Are you denying we asked for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, we will continue to work with the Congress on the issue that you brought up. The way you characterize it, that we're asking for exemption from torture, is just flat-out false, because there are laws that are on the books that prohibit the use of torture. And we adhere to those laws.

Q We did ask for an exemption; is that right? I mean, be simple -- this is a very simple question.

MR. McCLELLAN: I just answered your question. The President answered it last week.

Q What are we asking for?
Q Would you characterize what we're asking for?

MR. McCLELLAN: We're asking to do what is necessary to protect the American people in a way that is consistent with our laws and our treaty obligations. And that's what we --

Q Why does the CIA need an exemption from the military?

MR. McCLELLAN: David, let's talk about people that you're talking about who have been brought to justice and captured. You're talking about people like Khalid Shaykh Muhammad; people like Abu Zubaydah.

Q I'm asking you --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, this is facts about what you're talking about.

Q Why does the CIA need an exemption from rules that would govern the conduct of our military in interrogation practices?

MR. McCLELLAN: There are already laws and rules that are on the books, and we follow those laws and rules. What we need to make sure is that we are able to carry out the war on terrorism as effectively as possible, not only --

Q What does that mean --

MR. McCLELLAN: What I'm telling you right now -- not only to protect Americans from an attack, but to prevent an attack from happening in the first place. And, you bet, when we capture terrorist leaders, we are going to seek to find out information that will protect -- that prevent attacks from happening in the first place. But we have an obligation to do so. Our military knows this; all people within the United States government know this. We have an obligation to do so in a way that is consistent with our laws and values.

Now, the people that you are bringing up -- you're talking about in the context, and I think it's important for the American people to know, are people like Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh -- these are -- these are dangerous killers.

Q So they're all killers --
Q Did you ask for an exemption on torture? That's a simple question, yes or no.

MR. McCLELLAN: No. And we have not. That's what I told you at the beginning.

Q You want to reserve the ability to use tougher tactics with those individuals who you mentioned.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, obviously, you have a different view from the American people. I think the American people understand the importance of doing everything within our power and within our laws to protect the American people.

Q Scott, are you saying that Cheney did not ask --
Q What is it that you want the -- what is it that you want the CIA to be able to do that the U.S. Armed Forces are not allowed to do?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into talking about national security matters, Bill. I don't do that, because this involves --

Q This would be the exemption, in other words.

MR. McCLELLAN: This involves information that relates to doing all we can to protect the American people. And if you have a different view -- obviously, some of you on this room -- in this room have a different view, some of you on the front row have a different view.

Q We simply are asking a question.
Q What is the Vice President -- what is the Vice President asking for?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's spelled out in our statement of administration policy in terms of what our views are. That's very public information. In terms of our discussions with members of Congress --

Q -- no, it's not --

MR. McCLELLAN: In terms of our members -- like I said, there are already laws on the books that we have to adhere to and abide by, and we do. And we believe that those laws and those obligations address these issues.

Q So then why is the Vice President continuing to lobby on this issue? If you're very happy with the laws on the books, what needs change?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you asked me -- you want to ask questions of the Vice President's office, feel free to do that. We've made our position very clear, and it's spelled out on our website for everybody to see.

Q We don't need a website, we need you from the podium.

MR. McCLELLAN: And what I just told you is what our view is.

Q But Scott, do you see the contradiction --

MR. McCLELLAN: Jessica, go ahead.

Are they really unaware of the contradiction here?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001436211

 

[hipsterdufus]

Did anyone watch the little exchange between Scott McClellan and reporters on this subject? I wish I could find a vid of it online, but this will have to do.



Are they really unaware of the contradiction here?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001436211

It seems like there is a disconnect between the President and Cheney on the issue. Puffy McMoonface looked really upset! Olberman played the whole sordid exchange on countdown last night.

:roll: