Torture Memos heat up Washington

[JimH52]

The politics of 'torture' heating up in Washington - CNN.com

There needs to be a bi-parisan investigation first.

 

[Annie]

Care and I were just discussing 'remember what comes around, goes around' this morning.
Just came across this,, some of the lawyers are doing a pretty good list, even though 100 days, can't really supply the incidents of 8 years and two wars:

[David Kopel, April 24, 2009 at 5:23pm] Trackbacks
The Obama prosecutions of 2013/17:
Hypothesize that the Obama administration, or perhaps foreign/international courts, prosecute and convict various officials of the Bush administration. Further assume that the new President who takes office in 2013 or 2017 has promised "I will ensure that the crimes of the previous administration are vigorously prosecuted."

Which, if any, acts of the First 100 Days of the Obama administration might be prosecuted? In answering the question, you may aggressively interpret any statute, treaty, jurisdictional claim, etc., in favor of the prosecution, but the interpretation may not involve a greater stretch than would be required to hypothesize the convictions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, their attorneys, CIA officers, and so on.

 

[JimH52]

I'll bite

Name one...

 

[Annie]

I'll bite

Name one...

Check out the link provided, argue away from there.

 

[Annie]

Came across this opening of a debate, which is more what one would hope would be conducted in Washington DC, you know, for the good of 'the people':

National Journal Magazine - Did Torture Save Lives?

OPENING ARGUMENT
Did Torture Save Lives?

THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR PROTECTING US SHOULD DIRECT AN UNBLINKING, UNBIASED REVIEW.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
by Stuart Taylor Jr.

"A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals," President Obama said on April 16, "and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past."

But is it really a false choice? It's certainly tempting to think so. The fashionable assumption that coercive interrogation (up to and including torture) never saved a single life makes it easy to resolve what otherwise would be an agonizing moral quandary.

The same assumption makes it even easier for congressional Democrats, human-rights activists, and George W. Bush-hating avengers to call for prosecuting and imprisoning the former president and his entire national security team, including their lawyers. The charge: approving brutal methods -- seen by many as illegal torture -- that were also blessed, at least implicitly, by Nancy Pelosi, now the House speaker, and other Intelligence Committee members in and after 2002.

But there is a body of evidence suggesting that brutal interrogation methods may indeed have saved lives, perhaps a great many lives -- and that renouncing those methods may someday end up costing many, many more.

To be sure, the evidence in the public record is not conclusive. It comes mainly from Bush appointees and Central Intelligence Agency officials with records to defend and axes to grind. There is plenty of countervailing evidence coming from critics who have less access to the classified information that tells much of the story and have their own axes to grind. There are also plausible arguments for renouncing coercive interrogation even if it does save some lives.

But it would be an abdication for the president to proceed on the facile assumption that his no-coercion executive order is cost-free. Instead, he should commission an expert review of what interrogators learned from the high-value detainees both before and after using brutal methods and whether those methods appear to have saved lives. He should also foster a better-informed public debate by declassifying as much of the relevant evidence as possible, as former Vice President Cheney and other Republicans have urged....

 

[JimH52]

Bottom line is the Decider decided to walk away from years of moral policies and standards for interrogation methods. Being a recovering alcolholic and flanked by Mister Mean, he decided to ignore memos that said his stance was flawed, wrong, and perhaps illegal. He shunned the standards of the military hand book and forgot how we held earlier enemies guilty of criminal acts for waterboarding. He setup and used prison in other countries to torture and gain information from "detainees."

Bush soiled the Presidency and this country. It my my sincere hope that Obama can restore our standing in the world. If it were left up to me, I would walk away from the Bush years and mark it off as a bad dream, but I don't think that is going happen.

Did you argue as long and as hard over the millions of dollars spent on Clinton lying about having an affair? What goes around comes around. Now it is your turn...

 

[oreo]

Hey--bring on the bi-partisan FULL investigation. Nancy Pelosi is up to her eyeballs in this. In fact, in a couple of days I expect her eyeballs to merge to form the cyclopse one eye. We find out that she was a member of 8 congresspeople that sat through over 30 meetings regarding the "enhanced interrogations technics' back in 2002. Pelosi now states she knew of the 'procedures"--but didn't KNOW they were actually doing them. Gotta laugh at that one.

Yet, Pelosi has been the first one to point a finger at Condi Rice for authorising the waterboarding of the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks--which broke up another 9/11 attack in Los Angeles.

Barack Obama opened this can of worms to throw a "fish bone" to the ACLU & moveon.org crowd & it looks like he is going to end up eating a ton of worms over it. Obama completely ignored 4 former CIA chiefs, including George Tenet, former Clinto

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Bottom line is the Decider decided to walk away from years of moral policies and standards for interrogation methods.

Did he really? What years were those exactly? I mean comeone JimH... Inform the board of the YEARS of experience and interrogation methods which the US employed in its last war with Islamic Terrorists, which attacked the US Citizenry in an ATTACK THAT COST THE US 1/15th of the US ECONOMY in a two hour attack.

This is assinine... the US had NO EXPERIENCE in such a war... and the US intelligence system was on its KNEES... from the evisceration of the Clinton regime which had implemented policy such as prohibiting US intelligence operatives from hiring 'those with violent criminal backgrounds as sources of information...

Thus getting timely information from high value terrorist operatives was CRITICAL to the effort designed to destroy that terrorist enemy.

What the left wants to do is to use the success of those tactics as PROOF that there was no reason to USE those tactics... its the pre-911 mindset and it's going to lead us RIGHT BACK TO 911... and when it does... the ideological left is DONE in the US...

 

[Meister]

Bottom line is the Decider decided to walk away from years of moral policies and standards for interrogation methods. Being a recovering alcolholic and flanked by Mister Mean, he decided to ignore memos that said his stance was flawed, wrong, and perhaps illegal. He shunned the standards of the military hand book and forgot how we held earlier enemies guilty of criminal acts for waterboarding. He setup and used prison in other countries to torture and gain information from "detainees."

Bush soiled the Presidency and this country. It my my sincere hope that Obama can restore our standing in the world. If it were left up to me, I would walk away from the Bush years and mark it off as a bad dream, but I don't think that is going happen.

Did you argue as long and as hard over the millions of dollars spent on Clinton lying about having an affair? What goes around comes around. Now it is your turn...

Spoken like a true partisan hack. You just can't get over Bush, can ya???

 

[Yurt]

to not violate the constitution you would have to return slaves to their rightful owners and not drink alcohol....

 

[oreo]

Bottom line is the Decider decided to walk away from years of moral policies and standards for interrogation methods. Being a recovering alcolholic and flanked by Mister Mean, he decided to ignore memos that said his stance was flawed, wrong, and perhaps illegal. He shunned the standards of the military hand book and forgot how we held earlier enemies guilty of criminal acts for waterboarding. He setup and used prison in other countries to torture and gain information from "detainees."

Bush soiled the Presidency and this country. It my my sincere hope that Obama can restore our standing in the world. If it were left up to me, I would walk away from the Bush years and mark it off as a bad dream, but I don't think that is going happen.

Did you argue as long and as hard over the millions of dollars spent on Clinton lying about having an affair? What goes around comes around. Now it is your turn...

LET'S talk about your "MORAL CLARITY:" --since you're in full trottle of Barack Obama's policy--that waterboarding is torture.

Let's say YOU have a family member, a member YOU love more than life itself, that is captured by a terrorist organization. They are threatening YOUR family members life, & he/she is due to be beheaded within 2 hours.

So--if I read you right YOU ARE saying you WOULD NOT approve of waterboarding a terrorist that refuses to talk that knew exactly where you're family member was--to try & save their life--because you think it is "torture".

Give me a break--you would have Barack Obama & Eric Holders number on speed dial--BEGGING them to authorize the waterboarding on this terrorist.

To a liberal--it's "always" someone elses problem, until it happens to them.

 

[RodISHI]

Hey--bring on the bi-partisan FULL investigation. Nancy Pelosi is up to her eyeballs in this. In fact, in a couple of days I expect her eyeballs to merge to form the cyclopse one eye. We find out that she was a member of 8 congresspeople that sat through over 30 meetings regarding the "enhanced interrogations technics' back in 2002. Pelosi now states she knew of the 'procedures"--but didn't KNOW they were actually doing them. Gotta laugh at that one.

Yet, Pelosi has been the first one to point a finger at Condi Rice for authorising the waterboarding of the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks--which broke up another 9/11 attack in Los Angeles.

Barack Obama opened this can of worms to throw a "fish bone" to the ACLU & moveon.org crowd & it looks like he is going to end up eating a ton of worms over it. Obama completely ignored 4 former CIA chiefs, including George Tenet, former Clinto

So is her excuse going to be she is to ignorant to be in congress?

 

[oreo]

to not violate the constitution you would have to return slaves to their rightful owners and not drink alcohol....

Foreign TERRORISTS or ENEMY COMBATANTS were not covered by the United States Constitution until BARACK OBAMA moved into the Oval Office.

 

[oreo]

Hey--bring on the bi-partisan FULL investigation. Nancy Pelosi is up to her eyeballs in this. In fact, in a couple of days I expect her eyeballs to merge to form the cyclopse one eye. We find out that she was a member of 8 congresspeople that sat through over 30 meetings regarding the "enhanced interrogations technics' back in 2002. Pelosi now states she knew of the 'procedures"--but didn't KNOW they were actually doing them. Gotta laugh at that one.

Yet, Pelosi has been the first one to point a finger at Condi Rice for authorising the waterboarding of the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks--which broke up another 9/11 attack in Los Angeles.

Barack Obama opened this can of worms to throw a "fish bone" to the ACLU & moveon.org crowd & it looks like he is going to end up eating a ton of worms over it. Obama completely ignored 4 former CIA chiefs, including George Tenet, former Clinto

So is her excuse going to be she is to ignorant to be in congress?

That is EXACTLY WHAT SHE IS SAYING: She'll do or say anything to go after the Bush administration. This one--she has bitten off too much to chew--& she will go DOWN over it. No one is going to believe that B.S. except a liberal that is congregating around moveon.org & the ACLU.

Barack Obama must be dummer that HELL! He must have believed that the Americans that voted for him--were of the radical left--& in groups such as the moveon.org crowd or the ACLU.

Obama in effect--threw the National Security of this nation to the "pigs" of these groups & he is going to be the one that gets slaughtered over it.

 

[JimH52]

You cannot prove waterboarding has saved any lives. How do you know other interrogation methods would not garner the same information. Before George Bush, no one would have argued in favor of anything resembling waterboarding. Because he and his sidekick said it was okay to do, all the Bush sheep have flipped to their backs with tongues out. Even John McCain argued against waterboarding until he needed the far right of the party during his Presidential run.

All the facts need to come out. I expect to see more memos critisizing the legals papers, as time goes on. Bush made sure that anyone that disagreed with him and Uncle Fester was quickly shut up. Memos were destroyed.

I am looking forward to seeing what comes out on this. Abu Ghraib was just the tip of the ice. The people that were prosecuted there were just doing what Bush had ordered. And he let them take the fall. What a guy!

 

[Yurt]

to not violate the constitution you would have to return slaves to their rightful owners and not drink alcohol....

Foreign TERRORISTS or ENEMY COMBATANTS were not covered by the United States Constitution until BARACK OBAMA moved into the Oval Office.

yes they were....the UN charter on torture that we signed

CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment

UN Convention Against Torture

the charter is not bilateral....

 

[Yurt]

You cannot prove waterboarding has saved any lives. How do you know other interrogation methods would not garner the same information. Before George Bush, no one would have argued in favor of anything resembling waterboarding. Because he and his sidekick said it was okay to do, all the Bush sheep have flipped to their backs with tongues out. Even John McCain argued against waterboarding until he needed the far right of the party during his Presidential run.

All the facts need to come out. I expect to see more memos critisizing the legals papers, as time goes on. Bush made sure that anyone that disagreed with him and Uncle Fester was quickly shut up. Memos were destroyed.

I am looking forward to seeing what comes out on this. Abu Ghraib was just the tip of the ice. The people that were prosecuted there were just doing what Bush had ordered. And he let them take the fall. What a guy!

that is what i call the "crock of shit" argument....

you can't prove waterboarding did not save lives....

next

and btw, the experts in the field haves said that waterboarding did save lives

and of course you would have been a good little citizen and returned slaves to the rightful owners....

 

[Meister]

You cannot prove waterboarding has saved any lives. How do you know other interrogation methods would not garner the same information. Before George Bush, no one would have argued in favor of anything resembling waterboarding. Because he and his sidekick said it was okay to do, all the Bush sheep have flipped to their backs with tongues out. Even John McCain argued against waterboarding until he needed the far right of the party during his Presidential run.

All the facts need to come out. I expect to see more memos critisizing the legals papers, as time goes on. Bush made sure that anyone that disagreed with him and Uncle Fester was quickly shut up. Memos were destroyed.

I am looking forward to seeing what comes out on this. Abu Ghraib was just the tip of the ice. The people that were prosecuted there were just doing what Bush had ordered. And he let them take the fall. What a guy!

Look hack...you can't interrogate them. Your left wing nuts said that you can't even raise your voice to them. At least come here with the facts if your going to post a thread.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

You cannot prove waterboarding has saved any lives. How do you know other interrogation methods would not garner the same information. Before George Bush, no one would have argued in favor of anything resembling waterboarding. Because he and his sidekick said it was okay to do, all the Bush sheep have flipped to their backs with tongues out. Even John McCain argued against waterboarding until he needed the far right of the party during his Presidential run.

All the facts need to come out. I expect to see more memos critisizing the legals papers, as time goes on. Bush made sure that anyone that disagreed with him and Uncle Fester was quickly shut up. Memos were destroyed.

I am looking forward to seeing what comes out on this. Abu Ghraib was just the tip of the ice. The people that were prosecuted there were just doing what Bush had ordered. And he let them take the fall. What a guy!

I served in the US Marine Corps in the late 70s and early 80s... that was 20 years before GW Bush came to office...

I was trained to use waterboarding and other means of coercion, as a means of interrogation... and as part of that training I and my fellow trainees, Marines, Seals, Special Forces, were REPEATEDLY water-boared... and subjected to many other forms of coercive interrogation.

So explain how it is that the US, which was training such techniques during the CARTER Regime, NEVER USED THIS TYPE OF "TORTURE" BEFORE BUSH?

Here... I know you're confused... so let me help: IT'S NOT TORTURE!

Torture isn't hard to define, but for those who have a hard time coming to grips with defining it, they have no problem knowing what it is when they see it... now holding someone down on an incline, holding a rag over their face and pouring watering over that rag, while another presses down on their chest, may SEEM like torture UNTIL ONE SEES ACTUAL TORTURE, where some poor schmuck is tied to a table and an electric drill is boring a hole in their knee cap... or a pair of bolt cutters is CRUSHING off THEIR FINGERS... or a steel rod is shoved up their anus and another clamped to their testicles... and at the other end is a WELDING GENERATOR... All of which are inhuman, unspeakably cruel, life altering, inalterable destruction of the human body... WHICH IS WHOLLY DISTINCT FROM WATERBOARDING AND OTHER NON INVASIVE FORMS OF COERCIVE INTERROGATION.

And it is demonstrably provable that lives were saved by the application of these techniques, by simply knowing that there were plans being implemented WHICH WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN THE CERTAIN DEATH OF INNOCENT PEOPLE; plans and operations which were destroyed by the US operatives which acted upon that information... STOPPING THOSE OPERATIONS.

Easy peasy...

 

[oreo]

Not only Nancy Pelosi was fully aware of the "enhanced interrogation technics"--BUT TED KENNEDY-- IN 2005 TOOK COURT ACTION AGAINST WATERBOARDING. He LOST--WHY? Because this country & our LAWS did not consider waterboarding TORTURE!

Barack Obama & Eric Holder told us 3 WEEKS ago that they considered waterboarding torture-& now the left wing nut cases came out from under the rocks to rage war against the Bush administration for waterboarding a total of THREE terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks--in order to save American lives--& now Bush adminstration officials are targeted for committing a criminal act.

To a liberal--terrorism is everyone else's problem--until it happens to them