10 'torture' techniques blessed by Bush

jasonrh said:
It sounded like the only reason you opposed what happened was on the basis that he was "one of your own", but I presume you meant someone was "wrongly" tortured, and you were implying Fearless only didn't care because they were Arabs.

To be fair to Fearless though, I've never seen you go on a rant about Jews getting murdered and attacked, just like he's never gone on a rant about Muslims being murdered and attacked.

Both of you have a propensity for only looking after "one of your own".
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You're one to talk about impartiality. I hardly ever remember you go on a rant about any injustice's or murderous attacks on the Palestinians, Iraqis or the Afghans'. I know from your past posting history if it transpired that a US citizen was tortured, you'd advocate for them to be hung, and the whole Arab/Muslim world would be condemned for a the wrong doing of a few imbeciles.

We're only asking in the spirit of fair play those who ordered and administered any illegal activities should be examined in a court of law.
 
Plechazunga said:
No, Jase. That's not what's frightening.

Impeaching of political enemies is nothing new. It's what happened to Andrew Johnson. It's what would have happened to Nixon had he not resigned in time. It's what happened to Clinton when he bullshitted about a blow-job. That was purely political, but although it hamstrung a sitting President, it didn't destroy American democracy, because it happened within the rule of law.

What is frightening is your argument above, as well as this:



- not least because this seems to be the line the Obama administration is taking - that trying those involved would seem like spiteful tribalism, undermine his rhetoric of bipartisanship, and make it more likely that incoming administrations would begin a tradition of impeaching the previous incumbents.

This is genuinely frightening, because it suggests - as your top post above does - that a President or administration is above the law.

You're a lawyer and an intelligent man, you must know how dangerous that is?

Let's set an outlier here. We can all agree, surely, that if a President authorises, say, forced scientific experimentation on human beings - in good faith, say, because he believes it's necessary to stop an epidemic that could kill a million people - and if lawyers advise him that this is legal, they must be brought to trial.

Nothing about the situation saves them from impeachment - not the gravity of the emergency, not the dignity of the office of President or lawyer, and not the need to prevent malicious political use of the law. They have to stand trial, because we all agree that human experimentation is beyond the pale.

The same conditions hold regarding torture. Now that it is clear that water-boarding etc. were authorised both by and to the Vice-President, the decision whether to impeach has to be based on how water-boarding is regarded in society and law - not on any of the above conditions.

Anything else is a significant danger to the rule of law in your country. (Not to mention, given your country's power and military range, the safety of people around the world).

Since water-boarding is agreed by a significant proportion of states to be torture, I would argue that all those involved - the agents who practiced it, the lawyers who green-lighted it, the politicians who authorised it - have to stand trial.

I suspect if you had never heard of water-boarding until it transpired that it had been done 183 in a month to a captured US serviceman in Iraq, you would agree that it was torture, and that those who did it should be brought to book. Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps you have good arguments for considering it a reasonable interrogation technique. But that is the ground of the argument - not rhetoric about partisanship and totalitarianism, or reduction of the question of torture to a difference of opinion, as if the strength of those opinions ought not to be examined in court.
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to the point as always Pletch - you bring logic and reason to some illogical unreasonable people
 
Jason,

You responded to one of my last posts, saying that the laws had be in place prior to their use... not according to the news over the past few days.

This is, probably, why BHO did a u-turn by announcing to the CIA staffers that nobody would be prosecuted. The following day he said that he would not try to block prosecutions of the Bush Admin.

They had been torturing (or as you may care to term it interigating) well before they changed the rules of the game.


That would definately cause major legal problems, all around.

So, no, it doesn't conclude our conversation.


*I just picked up the documentary 'Ghosts of Abu Ghraib' from the library... During the half-time of the next United match, I will be posting clips from the movie.

- In an effort to not parse the clips out of context, I will carefully go through it to give completely conversations that will fit in 3-4 minute clips, on YouTube.

If there is anyone that has access to the movie... feel free to private message me for clip suggestions.

In addition, I got another documentary called 'The War Tapes'. It is a documentary that has a heading on the cover that says FILMED BY THE SOLDIERS. If the soldiers perspective has a valid point... once again, I will post with the greatest context within 3-4 minute clips.
 
Plechazunga said:
- not least because this seems to be the line the Obama administration is taking - that trying those involved would seem like spiteful tribalism, undermine his rhetoric of bipartisanship, and make it more likely that incoming administrations would begin a tradition of impeaching the previous incumbents.
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And that's simply not going to happen. When a new President comes into office there is usually a spirit of optimism that accompanies his mandate to govern. In Obama's case, he is expected to implement his ideas and turn the economy around - not settle scores for the left wing of the Democratic party in retroactively going after people from the Bush administration. Its not the right thing to do and would be more divisive than productive, at a time when the country needs to heal. There may be certain individuals in the senior echelons of the Bush administration who over time are publicly questioned before congressional committees and who embarrass themselves by trying to defend their old positions. One thing you have to remember is that the United States protects its own - ESPECIALLY - if its deemed that a majority of those calling for prosecution are from outside its borders.




Plechazunga said:
Let's set an outlier here. We can all agree, surely, that if a President authorises, say, forced scientific experimentation on human beings - in good faith, say, because he believes it's necessary to stop an epidemic that could kill a million people - and if lawyers advise him that this is legal, they must be brought to trial.
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That's not a good analogy. The men and women who did their jobs following 9/11 were working under extraordinary circumstances that another attack was imminent. The fear that a 2nd surprise attack might take place was the guiding factor behind the tightening of security policies, and at the end of the day, most Americans understand this. If you don't, then just pretend that Hezbollah unexpectedly few 4 full passenger planes into Israeli skyscrapers, government buildings, and financial centers, and then think of the resulting change in the Israeli security posture. Most countries around the world would've done the same thing.
 
Raoul said:
And that's simply not going to happen. When a new President comes into office there is usually a spirit of optimism that accompanies his mandate to govern. In Obama's case, he is expected to implement his ideas and turn the economy around - not settle scores for the left wing of the Democratic party in retroactively going after people from the Bush administration. Its not the right thing to do and would be more divisive than productive, at a time when the country needs to heal. There may be certain individuals in the senior echelons of the Bush administration who over time are publicly questioned before congressional committees and who embarrass themselves by trying to defend their old positions. One thing you have to remember is that the United States protects its own - ESPECIALLY - if its deemed that a majority of those calling for prosecution are from outside its borders.
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I'm well aware of the practical unlikelihood of impeachment (even though the administration is probably in fact breaking the law by not doing). This is a moral argument.

It's not about 'settling scores'. It's about whether you want to live in a nation that tortures people.

It is far more important than 'healing wounds' or bipartisanship or steadying the ship. Come on, this is fundamental shit.


That's not a good analogy. The men and women who did their jobs following 9/11 were working under extraordinary circumstances that another attack was imminent. The fear that a 2nd surprise attack might take place was the guiding factor behind the tightening of security policies, and at the end of the day, most Americans understand this. If you don't, then just pretend that Hezbollah unexpectedly few 4 full passenger planes into Israeli skyscrapers, government buildings, and financial centers, and then think of the resulting change in the Israeli security posture. Most countries around the world would've done the same thing.
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It's an outlier, not an analogy. An scenario in which we can all - surely - agree that those responsible have to be brought to justice.

As for your Israel example, I'm not Israeli, I can quite easily imagine the pressures on security staff after 9/11 without having to transplant the scenario to the ME. Besides, the Israelis already use torture, which is a moral evil. They're not be as bad as some of their neighbours, but they're hardly a good model for the US to follow.

Times of national emergency are exactly the moments when we have to be extra vigilant against the use of torture, because it's all too easy to justify anything at such times. Indeed, happily for torturers, there always seems to be some extraordinary state of affairs in play right when they're needed.

And in case the question was coming, no, I don't think it would be justified even if they were 99% certain it would stop another ten 9/11's. Some things are unacceptable. Again, if experimenting on human subjects were required to stop a national plague pandemic, it still wouldn't be acceptable. We have to accept the slightly increased possibility of dying as part of the contract for living in a reasonably liberal society. Because although I don't care about terrorists, governments make mistakes all the time, and by accepting impunity for torturers I increase the chances of myself, or my loved ones, or other innocent citizens ending up on that waterboard sometime.
 
Plechazunga said:
I'm well aware of the practical unlikelihood of impeachment (even though the administration is probably in fact breaking the law by not doing). This is a moral argument.

It's not about 'settling scores'. It's about whether you want to live in a nation that tortures people.

It is far more important than 'healing wounds' or bipartisanship or steadying the ship. Come on, this is fundamental shit.
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That's a highly subjective argument relative to how you define torture. The US certainly isn't going to allow a bunch of foreigners or foreign organizations to define it for them. There are no absolutes in this debate and in the end its all relative to your world view. What is known is that the US acted in self defense following 9/11 out of fear that additional surprise attacks were coming.


Plechazunga said:
Times of national emergency are exactly the moments when we have to be extra vigilant against the use of torture, because it's all too easy to justify anything at such times. Indeed, happily for torturers, there always seems to be some extraordinary state of affairs in play right when they're needed.
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On the contrary, times of national emergency have historically been times when countries tighten up their policies as opposed to casually philosophize about broadening civil liberties.

Plechazunga said:
And in case the question was coming, no, I don't think it would be justified even if they were 99% certain it would stop another ten 9/11's. Some things are unacceptable. Again, if experimenting on human subjects were required to stop a national plague pandemic, it still wouldn't be acceptable. We have to accept the slightly increased possibility of dying as part of the contract for living in a reasonably liberal society. Because although I don't care about terrorists, governments make mistakes all the time, and by accepting impunity for torturers I increase the chances of myself, or my loved ones, or other innocent citizens ending up on that waterboard sometime.
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Whatever the term, i don't think that such an argument is in any way analogous or applicable to this topic because terrorism and pandemics are two issues in completely different universes with different causes, different consequences, and different perceptions. There simply isn't any logical relation between the two in the same debate.
 
Plechazunga said:
And in case the question was coming, no, I don't think it would be justified even if they were 99% certain it would stop another ten 9/11's. Some things are unacceptable. Again, if experimenting on human subjects were required to stop a national plague pandemic, it still wouldn't be acceptable. We have to accept the slightly increased possibility of dying as part of the contract for living in a reasonably liberal society. Because although I don't care about terrorists, governments make mistakes all the time, and by accepting impunity for torturers I increase the chances of myself, or my loved ones, or other innocent citizens ending up on that waterboard sometime.
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While I really do admire some of the stuff you post, this I find this insane.

You'd really rather risk ten 9/11's, killing thousand of lives, than the remote possibility of Plech getting slightly wet?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plechazunga

no, I don't think it would be justified even if they were 99% certain it would stop another ten 9/11's. Some things are unacceptable.

Again, if experimenting on human subjects were required to stop a national plague pandemic, it still wouldn't be acceptable.

We have to accept the slightly increased possibility of dying as part of the contract for living in a reasonably liberal society. Because although I don't care about terrorists, governments make mistakes all the time, and by accepting impunity for torturers I increase the chances of myself, or my loved ones, or other innocent citizens ending up on that waterboard sometime.
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I agree with Pletch on this. Governance has no right in deciding who it can kill or torture. There are somethings which are plainly wrong. Torturing another human being for whatever reasons is one of those things. No matter that other countries or people may be doing, if one is trying to establish its self as a superior moral force, it cannot under any circumstances participate in such activities.

Im really surprised that the majority of Americans cant get there heads around this.
 
Kevrockcity said:
if only hitler had his lawyer draw up a legal opinion authorizing genocide, he could have spent his twilight years sipping mai tai on a beach somewhere.

this cocksucker bybee is a federal judge right now. the man should not be working in any capacity requiring legal judgement.
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Hitler did.

There were over two thousand laws passed in Nazi Germany restricting the rights of Jews. The Nuremburg Laws were perfectly 'legal' in the sense that they were debated in Parliament and passed by a majority of the elected representatives.

Unfortunately the received thought equates legality with morality, which ends up legitimising those acts which gain 'legal' status.
 
sammsky1 said:
Quote:




I agree with Pletch on this. Governance has no right in deciding who it can kill or torture. There are somethings which are plainly wrong. Torturing another human being for whatever reasons is one of those things. No matter that other countries or people may be doing, if one is trying to establish its self as a superior moral force, it cannot under any circumstances participate in such activities.

Im really surprised that the majority of Americans cant get there heads around this.
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Replace 'Americans' with 'people' in that last sentence and you would be more correct. This is not just an American problem. Torture is endemic everywhere.
 
Raoul said:
That's a highly subjective argument relative to how you define torture. The US certainly isn't going to allow a bunch of foreigners of foreign organizations to define it for them. There are no absolutes in this debate and in the end its all relative to your world view. What is known is that the US acted in self defense following 9/11 out of fear that additional surprise attacks were coming.

Its not a question of foreigners telling the US what to do ( but that argument is a tad rich from an America that is forever telling others what to do and continuing to display the American way with pride) its for America to abide by its laws. If there is doubt test it by charging some "interrogators"


On the contrary, times of national emergency have historically been times when countries tighten up their policies as opposed to casually philosophize about broadening civil liberties.

tightening up policies does not mean accepting "interrogation"

Whatever the term, i don't think that such an argument is in any way analogous or applicable to this topic because terrorism and pandemics are two issues in completely different universes with different causes, different consequences, and different perceptions. There simply isn't any logical relation between the two in the same debate.
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OK lets put it a more objective way - so if now any US citizen/soldier falls into "enemy" hands then what the US has done is OK for the "enemy" to do to them.
 
Frosty said:
Replace 'Americans' with 'people' in that last sentence and you would be more correct. This is not just an American problem. Torture is endemic everywhere.
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I agree, BUT America is the country who thinks its ideals are the perfect global model and are hellbent of the entire world abiding by it.

That is why I have used the word Americans.
 
Frosty said:
Replace 'Americans' with 'people' in that last sentence and you would be more correct. This is not just an American problem. Torture is endemic everywhere.
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pretty well most countries

but there seem to be a number of Caff Americans who have difficulty with differentiating between interrogation and torture - more than I would have expected
 
topper said:

OK lets put it a more objective way - so if now any US citizen/soldier falls into "enemy" hands then what the US has done is OK for the "enemy" to do to them.
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That's neither objective nor realistic. We all know what happens to US soldiers who fall into enemy hands. They are murdered either by gunshot to the head or decapitation.
 
sammsky1 said:
I agree, BUT America is the country who thinks its ideals are the perfect global model and are hellbent of the entire world abiding by it.

That is why I have used the word Americans.
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Americans believe their country is a pretty good place to live. The perception that Americans believe their ideals are perfect is largely a fallacy that's been perpetuated by a few and amplified by many.
 
topper said:
pretty well most countries

but there seem to be a number of Caff Americans who have difficulty with differentiating between interrogation and torture - more than I would have expected
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Almost every poster in this thread has difficulty differentiating between the two because none of you have professional experience in the field of intelligence gathering or interrogation.
 
Frosty said:
Replace 'Americans' with 'people' in that last sentence and you would be more correct. This is not just an American problem. Torture is endemic everywhere.
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Then perhaps you should gather all of the real torture hotspots around the world and start a legitimate thread on torture.
 
Raoul said:
Then perhaps you should gather all of the real torture hotspots around the world and start a legitimate thread on torture.
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If that thread discussed who tortured the most, maybe. This thread seems to be revolving around whether the techniques declared as legal by Administration lawyers violated international law.

Which is a valid topic for discussion in my opinion.
 
Frosty said:
. This thread seems to be revolving around whether the techniques declared as legal by Administration lawyers violated international law.

Which is a valid topic for discussion in my opinion.
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Thanks Frosty for reaffirming this! This is the core purpose and intention of this threat.

Some have tried to hijack that, in an attempt to divert the agenda and issues.
 
Frosty said:
If that thread discussed who tortured the most, maybe. This thread seems to be revolving around whether the techniques declared as legal by Administration lawyers violated international law.

Which is a valid topic for discussion in my opinion.
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This thread has nothing to do with international law. Most of the posts are about the definition of torture or whether the US government should retroactively go after Bush administration officials.
 
sammsky1 said:
Thanks Frosty for reaffirming this! This is the core purpose and intention of this threat.

Some have tried to hijack that, in an attempt to divert the agenda and issues.
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Threads rarely stick to the intention of the original post by the thread starter. That's what makes them so interesting. People can post their own views and the discussion evolves in different directions.
 
Raoul said:
This thread has nothing to do with international law. Most of the posts are about the definition of torture or whether the US government should retroactively go after Bush administration officials.
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Which has everything to do with international law.

The definition of torture is almost universally agreed upon in international law and to affirm a different definition of torture is to challenge the definition of torture in international law

In addition international law insists that the laws on torture are enforced, namely that those who torture are prosecuted. So your second point again goes to the heart of international law as well.
 
Frosty said:
Which has everything to do with international law.

The definition of torture is almost universally agreed upon in international law and to affirm a different definition of torture is to challenge the definition of torture in international law

In addition international law insists that the laws on torture are enforced, namely that those who torture are prosecuted. So your second point again goes to the heart of international law as well.
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That's the fundamental problem with international law. There's no way to enforce it, which in effect renders it useless. If anyone thinks the US is going to subject its internal affairs to this then they are out and out delusional. Concepts like international law and the international criminal court need a lot more development to safeguard their actions against quagmires like the Omar al-Bashir case for instance, before they can be broadly applied to all situations.
 
Raoul said:
That's the fundamental problem with international law. There's no way to enforce it, which in effect renders it useless. If anyone thinks the US is going to subject its internal affairs to this then they are out and out delusional. Concepts like international law and the international criminal court need a lot more development to safeguard their actions against quagmires like the Omar al-Bashir case for instance, before they can be broadly applied to all situations.
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Well that is fundamentally incorrect. It is enforceable as much international law has enforcement mechanisms, as well as much of it being incorportated into national law so it can be enforced in national courts.

The United States agreed to subject its internal affairs to international laws every time the Senate ratified a treaty and the Supreme Court hels that international law was coterminous with American law.

I also think you confuse the particular with the general. 'International law' is an umbrella phrase for a host of treaties, statutes, rules and regulations, most of which are detailed and hugely developed. None more so than the prohibition of torture. The International Criminal Court, set up by the Statute of Rome, is but one small facet and court within the broad apparatus of international jurisprudence.
 
Frosty said:
Well that is fundamentally incorrect. It is enforceable as much international law has enforcement mechanisms, as well as much of it being incorportated into national law so it can be enforced in national courts.

The United States agreed to subject its internal affairs to international laws every time the Senate ratified a treaty and the Supreme Court hels that international law was coterminous with American law.

I also think you confuse the particular with the general. 'International law' is an umbrella phrase for a host of treaties, statutes, rules and regulations, most of which are detailed and hugely developed. None more so than the prohibition of torture. The International Criminal Court, set up by the Statute of Rome, is but one small facet and court within the broad apparatus of international jurisprudence.
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I understand your point, but my point is that the US isn't going to subject its citizens to imposed multi-lateral standards on a variety of issues - this being near the top of the list. The UN and the broader concept of multi-lateral governance is viewed with a certain degree of justified suspicion in the states, and so its unrealistic to expect it to abdicate its national sovereignty to appease an outside standard.

Secondly, if Obama wants to go after certain senior members of the Bush administration, then he and Eric Holder are free to do so, but as he said last week, he has no intention of going after the professionals who were doing their jobs. As with virtually everything else Obama has done since coming to office, he was right yet again.
 
Raoul said:
Threads rarely stick to the intention of the original post by the thread starter. That's what makes them so interesting. People can post their own views and the discussion evolves in different directions.
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Try as you may, yet the core of this discussion is to the heart of what we may deem a civlized society. The United States of America shall no longer be held up as the torch of just governance. As the american neo-conservative mind-set struggles to push this topic towards the edges of the values of this world's people, it only results in an ever growing lump in the carpet. Only now, the lump is festering with fungi and other various toxic molds.


So, yes Raoul and Fearless and WWITT can try and say it was a just cause in (here's a justification I haven't heard from them in a while) changed world.


The sad thing is... it was only 50% of the political will of the American people that chose to support enhanced interigation techniques. That 50% grew smaller and smaller the more we got away from 9.11. Just because Dick Cheney says that it is the only way to extract information from suspected terrorists, it doesn't make it so, it doesn't make it legal ~ no matter how hard you change the subject, and it doesn't mean the world should just get over it.



The Republican party of the USA didn't give a crap about being a morale guide to the world... that is the change they spoke of - When the Republican Congressional representitive Duncan Hunter led the Congressional Arms Services Oversight Committee to ignore a report delivered to the committee composed of thousands of pages detailing the ugly truth of the Rumsfeld/Cheney torture program, and the Republicans forced a vote to ignore the warnings... it was that day the United States surrendered the title of Free and Just Nation Under God. The checks and balances failed.


When I have time, I am going to Washington D.C. too the Library of Congress to see if I am able to get a recording of that hearing aired on C-SPAN.


It is for this reason that the United States will not do anything about the allegations of torture. I'm sure many in congress feel some wieght of responsibility for this problem. That's why we don't see to many of them standing up in front of the tv media screaming for justice.


It is for this reason that I believe it is the responsibility of an international court to handle this problem. Pres. Obama doesn't want to get his people's hands dirty, that much is obvious.


...I've got a busy day... enjoy the mental-twist of this thread without me until tomorrow.
 
Raoul said:
I understand your point, but my point is that the US isn't going to subject its citizens to imposed multi-lateral standards on a variety of issues - this being near the top of the list. The UN and the broader concept of multi-lateral governance is viewed with a certain degree of justified suspicion in the states, and so its unrealistic to expect it to abdicate its national sovereignty to appease an outside standard.

Secondly, if Obama wants to go after certain senior members of the Bush administration, then he and Eric Holder are free to do so, but as he said last week, he has no intention of going after the professionals who were doing their jobs. As with virtually everything else Obama has done since coming to office, he was right yet again.
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:eek: Thank goodness, that they have your permission!!!


Maybe someone hasn't told you yet... the tyranny of the Bush dictatorship is over. The US government is going to slowly evolve back into a three branch system. When it does, the courts will not need permission from the President to prosecute crimes.



We need to morph the nervous smily with the laughing one... As the pressure builds...
 
ooeat0meoo said:
As the american neo-conservative mind-set struggles to push this topic towards the edges of the values of this world's people, it only results in an ever growing lump in the carpet. Only now, the lump is festering with fungi and other various toxic molds.
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:lol:

Have a good day Rob. :)
 
ooeat0meoo said:
Point is... niether did more than 80% of those that got tortured.


But that's not something you are willing to consider, obviously.
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That's a brilliant piece of quantitative analysis Rob. Which official source are you basing your numbers on ?
 
Raoul said:
That's a brilliant piece of quantitative analysis Rob. Which official source are you basing your numbers on ?
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It's a quote from the former General in charge of Abu Ghraib.

I will be posting that video, I'm sure you will be waiting with baded breath.


*Thanks for the set-up... keep digging Raou... you are only getting yourself deeper in this losing battle.
 
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