Bush is attempting to pardon himself and his administration for war crimes

[The 12th Commandment]

The liberal whiners are blowing things WAY out of proportion in a clear case of BDS.

For the record, our own special forces go through far worse treatment in SERE school than any terrorist prisoners in US custody ever did.

I have to admit I don't know what BDS is. I also don't think the treatment of prisoners under our control is the most horrible thing that could happen. As I said above, I'm not pitying these ****s. But they are prisoners under our care and they haven't been tried. Do things with some dignity if it's going to be on TV and put out there for the world to see.

Special forces go through their training for a purpose. (and I am thankful that they do) I don't see much purpose in the treatment at Abu Ghraib, it wasn't good for anything other than a base human satisfaction in seeing the enemy humiliated and nobody, not even the administration has publicly suggested it was.

I suppose we have a different idea of torture, I will willingly concede your moral character is greater than mine in this instance.

However what if your morals are endangering lives?

Which include my family and friends?

I think it should be rare and controled,but still a option on high value targets. :2cents:

In rare and controlled situations it should be done by the CIA with plausible deniability. As I'm sure it has been for a long time. Making it a routine and public part of military interrogations is not defensible.

We have lots of moral obligations that create danger for the public. Our entire legal system is designed in a way that does that on occasion. We accept that while it's not perfect and at times victims get the raw end of the deal, it's the best we have been able to come up with. And the benefits of doing things by the book outweighs these, I will concede, high costs. Treat others as we would like to be treated not as they treat us. It's what makes us better than them, and it's something that must be put in the equation. We've won quite a few wars using that mindset.

And thank you, but I think you might be overestimating my moral character just a wee bit. On lots of other issues I am as shameless as they come.

Add - I've got to go, have me a date for the evening so I apologize for any response that might be necessary since I won't be providing it! At least not till tomorrow.

[Larry]

twa,

1) I'll admit, I'm not willing to assume that torture can't produce usefull information. For one reason, I have no firsthand knowledge of the subject, and while I may have opinions, I'm not so arrogant as to assume that my opinions are fact.

OTOH, I'm willing to bet that you'll agree that it seems likely that the torturer will also get a ***load of ***, too.

In short, in order to meet my definition of "works", I'd have to see accurate statistics, for example, of the ration between "good stuff" and "stuff".

Those statistics would then have to be compared against the amount and usability of information obtained by other methods.

In short, in order to "prove" that "torture works", It'll take more than one report (from an administration that, frankly, I wouldn't believe if they said the sky was blue, after the things they've done over the last several years) that claims that in one case, we got usefull information.

2) As to the credability of the report: Do you honestly expect be to believe that "ve haf vays of making you talk" that are so effective that in two minutes or less, that hardened terrorists will give up complete plans for major operations in progress?

If they were to claim that after (whatever euphamism for torture they want to use), the subject eventually (and eventually isn't specified) revealed usefull information, then I'd believe them. But the very first time? That's like Saddam claiming he got 100% of the vote.

Claiming two minutes from start to production of usefull information? Causes me to not believe a word of it.

3) Frankly, the discussion of "doesn't work"/"does to", isn't a big reason to me. (It's fun to watch, but frankly neither of the "sides" really knows, so all they're doing, to me, is debating that "my assumptions are better than yours".

To me, the reasons not to torture prisoners are legal and moral. (Remember morality? It's the thing that the GOP claims to have a patent on (usually when they're lieing about what the bill they're discussing is really about), and that "us liberals" don't believe in.)

I think everybody on this board would agree that the North Vietnamese were barbarians because of the way they treated John McCain. During the war, such stories were used to justify why we were the Good Guys, because Bad Guys did things like that, and Good Guys didn't.

(I'll also point out: The NVs claimed that they were justified in treating McCain that way, because there wasn't a declared war. In short, they found a reason why they could claim that the Geneva Conventions didn't apply to the people they were at war with. They used exactly the same justification that Bush is using, today.)

So, by claiming that torture works, is your position that North Vietnam were barbarians for torturing John McCain, but it's OK for the US to do it, because the US is better at torturing people than North Vietnam was? Is that our moral justification, that we're better at it?

[Larry]

I think it should be rare and controled,but still a option on high value targets.

Now there I'd agree with you.

(Unfortunately, neither George Bush, nor the GOP, nor the US Congress agree with you. They think that what's needed is some PR and some sound bites, and legal immunity.)

[Larry]

For the record, our own special forces go through far worse treatment in SERE school than any terrorist prisoners in US custody ever did.

If so (and please tell us exactly how you came to be an authority on both special forces training and exactly which treatments have even been used on every prisoner), then how do you explain twa's claim that our methods are so effective that two minutes, start to finish is suffecient to make senior, experienced terrorists give up accurate, current, information on major operations?

Are you claiming that every single one of the people who apply for special forces are so vastly superior to every terrorist that they can voluntarily withstand for (how long does SERE training take, a month?) treatment that's worse than the worst thing we've ever done to a prisoner, but the prisoners crack in less than a minute?

[twa]

Now there I'd agree with you.

(Unfortunately, neither George Bush, nor the GOP, nor the US Congress agree with you. They think that what's needed is some PR and some sound bites, and legal immunity.)

Glad we can agree on something

Unfortunately you cannot see that controled and rare is the manner in which it has been used from all I can tell.

Much like the thread title ,all truth is relative when politics is involved.

[MurrayH81]

KAOSkins,

Al Qaeda has raised the stakes with each attack. There's no doubt that they want to outdo 9/11 with their next attack--that's what they do. So while they may not be able to take us over completely (which I don't think anyone has suggested anyway), they have shown an ability and a willingness to carry out horrendous operations of increasing proportions.

They wouldn't be able to do squat here if we had concentrated our effort at securing our borders and infrastructure, especially if we spend the exact same money we are tossing per day in Iraq.

KAOSkins,

Look, I don't like Bush. My point here is not to defend him. It just seems to me that some people are more upset about the way a bunch of terrorists are being treated than they are about what those terrorists did to us, and what they plan to continue to do to us.

two points to make here -

1. If you would be pissed off if any of these unspecified techniques were done to your brother, mother, sister, favorite person in the world, -- it's torture and it's wrong.

2. If you read the legislation on the House and Senate web sites, you will see that you can be declared a terrorist, enemy non-combatant, or whatever label you want to use, incarcerated, tortured, held indefinitely, or killed, all without any oversight or accountability. This would involve eco-terorrism, donations to a (classified list) charity, or just being unlucky (wrong time, wrong place, wrong people around). Now pair that with an open ended no accountability pardon, and I fail to see the advantage in that vs. being jacked up dead by a real terrorist. In fact it's worse, since I am actually paying for the privilege (taxes).

[twa]

They wouldn't be able to do squat here if we had concentrated our effort at securing our borders and infrastructure, especially if we spend the exact same money we are tossing per day in Iraq.

Added

Spending billions would tighten up security, but no way would real security be possible w/o major change in society and travel and immigration.

two points to make here -

1. If you would be pissed off if any of these unspecified techniques were done to your brother, mother, sister, favorite person in the world, -- it's torture and it's wrong.

So if my brother getting arrested pisses me off It is wrong?

I will concede torture is wrong,but effective in certain situations.

2. If you read the legislation on the House and Senate web sites, you will see that you can be declared a terrorist, enemy non-combatant, or whatever label you want to use, incarcerated, tortured, held indefinitely, or killed, all without any oversight or accountability. This would involve eco-terorrism, donations to a (classified list) charity, or just being unlucky (wrong time, wrong place, wrong people around). Now pair that with an open ended no accountability pardon, and I fail to see the advantage in that vs. being jacked up dead by a real terrorist. In fact it's worse, since I am actually paying for the privilege (taxes).

From all I have read you are greatly exagerating,there is oversight and accountability provided in the bill...But carry on with the fearmongering

It is after all the election season..No holds barred :laugh:

[Midnight Judges]

I've been through SERE school.

And I can assure you - thats TRUE.

I've been tortured. Can you say 'water table'? The Abu Graib bull**** doesn't hold a candle to the voluntary hardship SERE school participants are subjected to. Its laughable what some people get their panties in a wad over.

I think you are underestimating the severity of the treatment.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1364163.shtml

[Thiebear]

Twa, even if it worked every time. It's not right. I think all americans know that torture isn't something we should be doing. Some people think the ends justify the means and can accept it because of that. When a person, an organization or a country has character the time they show it is when it's the hardest thing to do and it has a heavy cost.

Ok I had to respond to this one.

So your saying: EVEN IF it worked all 12 times its not right.

1. A terrorist group puts 2 planes into the Ocean... 600 dead

2. A terrorist group explodes the Chesapeak Bay Bridge... 30 dead

3. A terrorist car bomb Harbor Tunnel.. 90 dead

4. A terrorist NY Metro explosion.. 200 dead (city comes to a halt)

5. A terrorist Plane into Nukler facility hit but only shutdown for a while 177 dead.

6. A terrorist Plane into Library Tower ... 2000 dead.

7. stop me when i get to 12 and we decide torturing terrorist leaders to stop this is worth it.

Please name a Country that has used that said character during a time of war? I know France did when they asked us to Bomb their own people and trains to stop the Germans? Thousands were killed to expel them and win.

The moral statements sound great, but i'm having a hard time placing it with any known event in the history of the world...

I don't think the US military should be torturing (my definition is probably harsher than yours) but the CIA does it for a living.....

At some point in the future (hoping withing the next 365 days) the US military will turn over the rest of Bagdad to Iraq and 80% will leave.

At some point the Nato troops will be the forces in Afghanistan

At some point this will revert back to an Intelligence Police like strike force CIA / Military Intelligence war again. THEY NEED the tools to win this when there are not 300k boots on the ground...... lets not think short term here.

[skinfan133]

In ruling that Geneva Convention rights apply to the terrorists

technically they dont, however torturing anyone, even terrorists brings us down to their level. plus its just plain wrong to torture anyone, its what every evil regime in history has done.

[Barney B]

Please name a Country that has used that said character during a time of war? I know France did when they asked us to Bomb their own people and trains to stop the Germans? Thousands were killed to expel them and win.

The moral statements sound great, but i'm having a hard time placing it with any known event in the history of the world...

I'm inclined to believe that, in these days of potential nuclear terrorism, we can't absolutely rule out any interrogation technique that we know to be effective, but, since you asked, here's an example off the top of my head:

Will Terrorism Rewrite the Laws of War?

"After crossing the Delaware and winning the Battle of Trenton on Christmas Day, 1776, George Washington famously ordered his troops to give refuge to hundreds of surrendering Hessian soldiers. "Treat them with humanity," Washington instructed his lieutenants, noting that accepting the German mercenaries as prisoners of war wasn't just the right thing to do, it might even sway them to abandon their British paymasters and join the American side in the War of Independence. "Let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army."'

[Thiebear]

After getting as good conveniences for the wounded as we could, and having done the business we were sent upon, we set out upon our return. Before the whole had quitted the town we were fired on from houses and behind trees, and before we had gone 1/2 a mile we were fired on from all sides, but mostly from the rear, where people had hid themselves in houses till we had passed, and then fired.

This was also in the Revolutionary War....

They exchanged prisoners in the revolutionary war and His Bosses son was one of the first people George asked for after Trenton and didnt get him.

[The 12th Commandment]

Ok I had to respond to this one.

So your saying: EVEN IF it worked all 12 times its not right.

1. A terrorist group puts 2 planes into the Ocean... 600 dead

2. A terrorist group explodes the Chesapeak Bay Bridge... 30 dead

3. A terrorist car bomb Harbor Tunnel.. 90 dead

4. A terrorist NY Metro explosion.. 200 dead (city comes to a halt)

5. A terrorist Plane into Nukler facility hit but only shutdown for a while 177 dead.

6. A terrorist Plane into Library Tower ... 2000 dead.

7. stop me when i get to 12 and we decide torturing terrorist leaders to stop this is worth it.

I know of two cases so far where cases like this have been stopped without torture. It's not the cure all it's but one tool in a really big tool chest. It's not the most effective tool, nor is it one we should use very often. In fact it shouldn't even be included in the tools for the vast majority of the people fighting the war on terror.

I'm not unflexible, and I came down off my high horse enough already to admit it should be available to the CIA. But it should not public, it shouldn't be done by the military. And we should, as a nation, maintain that we don't support it. It's a little naive to think we can't be hypocrites here. I think we should be.

Please name a Country that has used that said character during a time of war? I know France did when they asked us to Bomb their own people and trains to stop the Germans? Thousands were killed to expel them and win.

I'm not really sure where you're going with this. If you're suggesting that sacrificing some of your own citizens for the good of he country is demonstrating low character I disagree. I would equate that to the passengers on the filight in PA. I would say as painful as it might have been the French in this case showed an uncharactersitically high moral character. Perhaps I misinterpret you here.

The moral statements sound great, but i'm having a hard time placing it with any known event in the history of the world...

Pessimist!

http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/history/michaelbess/choices

"The villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in southern France, secretly took in thousands of Jewish refugees, hid them on outlying farms, fed them and clothed them, and arranged for their escape to neutral countries. Under the very nose of the Gestapo, the 3000 Chambonnais saved the lives of more than 3500 Jews between 1940 and 1944."

More cases can be found and if you want it in the context of the military then Saving Private Ryan comes to mind. Or the Marshall Plan, where we fed and clothed our former enemy at great expense.

I don't think the US military should be torturing (my definition is probably harsher than yours) but the CIA does it for a living.....

I agree and said so in on of the other posts. If it must be done the CIA should do it and do so with plausible deniability. It should never ever be the public policy of our military. It's a shameful, but occasionaly necessary, thing

as such it should happen behind the scenes and I don't want to know about.

[Larry Brown #43]

1. If you would be pissed off if any of these unspecified techniques were done to your brother, mother, sister, favorite person in the world, -- it's torture and it's wrong.

I'd be pissed off if someone even looked at my mother funny. So I guess we shouldn't even look at the terrorists funny.

Oh, and to Larry, who earlier questioned my use of the word "works," I originally used the phrase "worked over," because that was the phrase the guy in the video clip at the beginning of this thread used. I was merely quoting him. Having said that, yes--I do believe that "working over" guys like Kalid Sheik Mohammed, etc., has resulted in the rounding-up of other lethal terrorists. I don't know too many people who would dispute that.

[Tarhog]

I think you are underestimating the severity of the treatment.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/02/60minutes/main1364163.shtml

You're taking the most extreme example possible and extrapolating it out as if it represents DoD policy. There are always, in any profession, going to be people that ignore limits, rules, standard operating procedures. The military is no different.

A like comparison would be holding up the Enron execs and saying 'See! I told you corporate America is evil!'.

Theres no defending some abuses. But we should be careful about implying that kind of thing is widespread. I will say that I don't think you can have separate rules for 'terrorists' - we have to treat prisoners of any kind exactly how we'd demand our own be treated. Its a slippery slippery slope to do otherwise.

[chomerics]

Since when does the Geneva Convention apply to terrorists who are not in a conventional national army?

Since the SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES ruled it applied!!!

Supreme Court Rules: Terrorists Get Geneva Convention Protections Too

Should terrorist detainees be given the privileges offered to Geneva Convention treaty signers? The U.S. Supreme Court thinks so. Today, in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the high court ruled 5-3 that the military commission set up to try Guantanamo Bay detainees is illegal. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the system of trying those detainees must include "the barest of those trial protections that have been recognized by customary international law."

It is amazing that so many of you think that some of these degrading acts at Abu Gharib could be considered torture.

Did you read the Taguba report? Did you read what I posted? Since when is raping someone with a baton NOT considered torture?

Torture; real torture is cutting off of limbs, etc. If you want to see real torture why don't you look at what the terrorists do to everyone they capture. They cut off their limbs limb by limb, or cut of their head with a steak knife! And you people get in a froth over waterboarding or using a fierce dog to scare the prisoners into revealing secrets about future terrorist attacks?? As if there is some kind of moral equivelence between what the terrorists do and what we have done? This is ridiculous!!

No, what is ridiculous is claims to have some kind of "moral superiority" in saying this is good vs evil when you stoop to the level of the "evil" sides. You CAN'T claim "moral superiority" when you are found doing some of the things we have been doing. You can;t claim "moral superiority" when your OWN SCOTUS rules that you are behaving illegally!!!

If people like you were in charge, we would have had probably 3-4 major terrorist attacks on the American homeland since 9-11. If this type of weakness and pathetic pandering and second guessing was leading the country during WWII, we would have lost.

Says who? You and some sort of whacked out hypothetical which would NEVER happen? How many times were we attacked in the US during Clinton's term? What, once in 1993? How many times were we attacked AFTER that? How many times were we attacked after the counter terrorism task force was set up in 97? How many attacks did they foil?

I am so glad people like you aren't leading our country, because if so, America would be overrun and extinct within 10-20 years and would probably become some type of fascist dictatorship run by the Islamists or Communists.

What a frigging joke, and posting something like this shows you haven;t the capability to discern facts. So tell me, who is going to "take over our country" Are Muslims going to come o0ver here and attack NY, and we are just going to play France and surrender? Are you freakin kidding me? Do you think that wanting our government to actually OBEY civilized law means we are for the overthrow of our country? What kind of perverted and ignorant logic is that? Go back and listen to your hate radio, and crawl back under your covers. Grab your duck tape, and chemical masks, because you will be living in fear once we take over again, and restore some dignity to our country on an international scale.

It is the ability to clearly see evil and to combat it with strength that keeps our country free.

Yet you can not see the evil within. You can not see the glaring hypocrisy in stating that the enemy wants to remove our freedoms, so instead of the enemy doing it, we will just remove those freedoms for you. You don;t see the dangers in a tyrannical government with a blank check complicit congress. Of course not, you need to see the forest through the trees, but then again, I don;t think you can see that from you ludicrous posting above.

Our President has made many mistakes, I will grant you that. I am not happy with many things he has done. But he has responded with needed strength and resolve against an enemy that desires to destroy us and our way of life. And I respect him and commend him for that.

He responded an attack on us by Al Qaeda and went after a country that had nothing to do with 9-11. It is like having you kid get beat up by the bully in school and walking over to your neighbours house and beating him with a baseball bat because he pissed on your lawn 10 years ago. Then the entire neighbourhood eggs your house every night for the following three years. Yes, you felt like you got revenge for your son, but in essence, you mad your life a hell of a lot worse.

[Midnight Judges]

You're taking the most extreme example possible and extrapolating it out as if it represents DoD policy. There are always, in any profession, going to be people that ignore limits, rules, standard operating procedures. The military is no different.

A like comparison would be holding up the Enron execs and saying 'See! I told you corporate America is evil!'.

Theres no defending some abuses. But we should be careful about implying that kind of thing is widespread. I will say that I don't think you can have separate rules for 'terrorists' - we have to treat prisoners of any kind exactly how we'd demand our own be treated. Its a slippery slippery slope to do otherwise.

...and here you are defending the policy that lead to those abuses.

The article says Willie Brand was just doing precisely what he was trained to do. It was authorized, and supervised but somehow one low level guy took the fall for everyone because the higher-ups have ways of washing their hands (at least in your eyes). I'm not saying this was a textbook case of DoD policy, but I will say this is a prefectly forseeable result of the Bush administration's torture policy that is full of grey areas and loose "interpretations" of existing laws. This kind of thing did not happen under Clinton (as far as I know). The higher-ups should be held accountable because they harbored this type of activity even if murder was not their intention-that was the result, and it was forseeable. Earlier you painted these treatments as some sort of namby-pamby walk in the park that you had experienceed yourself. Did they really "pulpify" you legs? Somehow I doubt it.

[chomerics]

I will say that I don't think you can have separate rules for 'terrorists' - we have to treat prisoners of any kind exactly how we'd demand our own be treated. Its a slippery slippery slope to do otherwise.

Spot on Tarhog, I agree completely. . .

[Thiebear]

Holy smokes: Me and KOAskins agree:

I'm not unflexible, and I came down off my high horse enough already to admit it should be available to the CIA. But it should not public, it shouldn't be done by the military. And we should, as a nation, maintain that we don't support it. It's a little naive to think we can't be hypocrites here. I think we should be.

[codeorama]

Holy smokes: Me and KOAskins agree:

I agree with that as well.

On one hand, I'm for torture, because if the terrorists know that it WILL happen to them, it may deter them, probably won't, but may.

On the other hand, I'm against it because we, as Americans, have to put ourselves above the behavior of those that are "below" us.

KOAskins' quote was pretty spot on IMO.

[Larry]

And BTW, at the risk of dragging this thread back onto the original topic:

As far as I'm concerned, if Bush does chose to pardon himself, his entire administration,and the entire CIA and military, then as far as I'm concerned it'd be just about the first thing he's done in his entire administration that he does have the Constitutional authority for.

(Although I could see an argument that the Pardon authority shouldn't extend to the President, himself, because doing so renders a President immune to all laws, which I don't think the Framers intended. Although a counter-argument that the Framers intended him to be immune against all accountability except impeachment could be argued, too.)

[Sarge]

On one hand, I'm for torture, because if the terrorists know that it WILL happen to them, it may deter them, probably won't, but may.

On the other hand, I'm against it because we, as Americans, have to put ourselves above the behavior of those that are "below" us.

Sen Kerry, is that you?

[codeorama]

Sen Kerry, is that you?

I'm much better looking, but my wife isn't as rich... :paranoid:

Just saying, the military shouldn't be torturing, that should be a CIA thing and as a nation, we should never condone it.

[Midnight Judges]

I'm much better looking, but my wife isn't as rich... :paranoid:

Just saying, the military shouldn't be torturing, that should be a CIA thing and as a nation, we should never condone it.

If we torture people we lose the moral high ground and that would mean we ARE condoning it. Actions speak louder than words. It's an all or nothing type of deal, you can't have it both ways.

[The 12th Commandment]

If we torture people we lose the moral high ground and that would mean we ARE condoning it. Actions speak louder than words. It's an all or nothing type of deal, you can't have it both ways.

I call BS on the "can't have it both ways" part. We have been doing it since the country was created, even if we don't know about. I like it better when we don't know, it means we're not doing very often and it's being done in a way where we can't plausibly deny it. Push comes to shove I think it's an awful thing, but we don't live in wonderland either. There are rare occasions where it's going to happen and should happen. I don't like it but I accept it.

Holy smokes: Me and KOAskins agree:

Ocassionaly I guess you're right!