Thank you Helen! Why are the democratic candidates not speaking out bodly against these shameful and counter-productive practices? I can understand why Hillary Clinton says nothing as she would undoubtedly not only continue them but probably make them worse but how about the others?

The scary thing about all of this is that a big perecentage of our people think if our great leaders say torture is necessary they believe that even though it has been proved that it does not in most cases work to obtain correct information. Even if it has been practiced in previous administrations, we were not aware of it, so the blame was entirely on the perpetrators. Now, however, we even have religious people thinking Bush needs to do that along with all the other cruel methods such as no right to trial or visitations, and being sent to other countries for interrogation. Our nation never condoned this type of unlawful behaviour until this criminal administration gained control, and we now have lowered ourselves to behaviour that we always deplored. Our nation is being systematically ruined in a few short years and it could take generations to regain our principles that used to make us proud. With proper leadership, we could have recovered from 9-11 and still kept the respect of the rest of the world, as we once had.

President Bush said twice: "We do not torture."

He's telling the truth. When asked to define "we", he said Lora and I.

I don't see why they make so much fuss about torture. If you ask anybody," Do you prefer death or torture?" 99.9999999% would say torture. Hell, we've already killed a million of them without even giving them the humanitarian option.

I never listen to words. I listen to deeds

What is urgently needed is a clear definition of 'torture' - especially one which omits weasel words, such as "extreme" to encourage timid journalists to avoid disgusting euphemisms, such as "harsh interrogations." Here is one such definition:
(n) torture, torturing: the deliberate infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information, cooperation, confession, or for the sadistic pleasure of the torturer, or for any other reason

[quote]al-Qaida terrorists "are trained to resist harsh interrogations."[/quote]

Oh well, in that case, and since no US combatant is similarly trained, that makes it okay to torture any of those dastardly non-Americans then.

As for US torture tactics shaming you all, don't worry about it. The world long ago concluded that you have no shame. Besides, the world and any opinions that matter stop at the US border. Right? In fact, some of you are slowly waking up to the fact that your own opinions don't matter one iota either even within the "greatest democracy on earth."

To quote just a little Shakespeare (Macbeth):
Fit to govern!
No, not to live. O nation miserable,
With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again?

The obvious answer is: Never!!!

George Wanker Bush does NOT "torture". He does, however, "torchur". Bush does not understand what "t-o-r-t-u-r-e" means because he has, for all his useless, miserable life, spelled the word t-o-r-c-h-u-r, as in the kind of cruelty he inflicted upon defenseless animals when he was a kid. The difference now is he can do the same thing to entire nations. Iraq is just one big fly he can pull the wings off of.

"When did Bush begin to think that U.S. laws and treaty obligations did not apply to him or his team? How can he allow the perception that the U.S. tortures prisoners?"

In the calculus of the Social Darwinism that underlies conservative ideology, laws apply to the governed, the vanquished, the bums and losers of the world -- which is everyone but those who rule the world.

One can call it "might makes right." Or, the guy with the biggest gun makes the rules. Many ways to characterize it.

Laws are for losers. That's the way it is in America right now. Look at Clinton. As soon as his Party lost control of Congress, and he became subject to whatever whimsical legal claim could be presented -- he was impeached on the flimsiest pretext.

Those of privilege don't serve in war, they don't pay a proportionate share of tax, and they don't get convicted of crimes because they are makers and appliers of the law.

One excellent example is the cocaine incident of Bush 43. For most Americans, this would be the end of any meaningful life as a respected citizen. For GW Bush, it was a blip on the way to the White House.

Let's give American prisoners a choice:

Live in a bare 6 x 10 cell 23 hours/day, be fed the worst food available, suffer constant abuse, humiliation and debasement, struggle with the constant fear of violence, no contact with women... or waterboarding in exchange for freedom.

One is torture and the other is... what?

If Americans had a problem with torture, we wouldn't be the world's leading torture movie/TV show producers.

Those whistle blowers; those public servants, will occassionally voice protest as long as their funding and corporate handlers allow them to do so. With torture, bets are hedged in favor of greater rewards for "letting the publc know". Titan (renamed L-3 partly because of their unaccountable acts of terrorism at Abu Gharib) is protected by public servants. It's good to see that the most heinous of crimes are getting some publicity, but crime as usual continues to pay well. As long as most Americans don't see how much money corporate interests (some completely foreign owned) are sucking at the Federal ATM, things are just fine. Public servants who threaten this status quo are destroyed quickly. "Keep your mouth shut, protect the funding, protect your corporate masters. "

The Democrats aren't speaking out about this because they are fully onboard and happy with this policy. That's the proven track record of these last few years. In fact you can go back further to the long history of torture and the CIA that has continued unchecked and unchanged through Democratic administrations as well as Republican. The only difference now is that we do it ourselves instead of using proxies (in the past it would be the operative of another country that actually applied the elctrodes and turned on the power, while the CIA official was in the room as 'observer').

If you are sickened by this, and if you want this to changel, please do not vote Democrat. Its a waste. The same will continue through a Democrat administration just like it has under the Republicans. And that's why the leading Democratic canidates aren't speaking out on this. Its because they have little intention of changing this policy in any large way if elected.

Don't vote Democrat in 2008! But come to Denver in August to let the Democrats hear what you think of them!

I'm guessing Bush figured out that laws don't apply to him at about age 10. He certainly knew it by the time he was in college dealing coke and getting DUI convictions taken out of the record. And he certainly knew it by the time he was watching the other kids his age get drafted to go to Vietnam while his daddy jumped him over hundreds of more qualified applicants and into the Texas Air National Guard.

Bush thinking the laws don't apply to him is definitely nothing new.

Please look at the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition site at http://www.tassc.org/ for a great definition of torture.

Interrogators interrogate; sadists torture.

Don't they teach that torture is wrong somewhere in the 3rd grade? G-Dub always tells the truth and he doesn't have to be tortured.

Well said arvy!Here in Australia,despite Australia being a member of the "coalition of the willing",I am yet to meet anyone who agrees with this decision.Australians,by and large,look upon Bush as a dangerous goose and we sympathise with the 70% of Americans who feel the same way.When you hear figures of 85% of people taken into custody being totally innocent the stories of torture become more horrific.

A rationale for always keeping matters of conscience in a bright light - for those warriors who blow whistles:

[22] Chief Justice Hughes, in his opinion in United States v. Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605 (1931), enunciated the rationale behind the long recognition of conscientious objection to participation in war accorded by Congress in our various conscription laws when he declared that "in the forum of conscience, duty to a moral power higher than the State has always been maintained." At 633 (dissenting opinion). In a similar vein Harlan Fiske Stone, later Chief Justice, drew from the Nation's past when he declared that

[23] "both morals and sound policy require that the state should not violate the conscience of the individual. All our history gives confirmation to the view that liberty of conscience has a moral and social value which makes it worthy of preservation at the hands of the state. So deep in its significance and vital, indeed, is it to the integrity of man's moral and spiritual nature that nothing short of the self-preservation of the state should warrant its violation; and it may well be questioned whether the state which preserves its life by a settled policy of violation of the conscience of the individual will not in fact ultimately lose it by the process." Stone, The Conscientious Objector, 21 Col. Univ. Q. 253, 269 (1919).

Helen Thomas is a national treasure. I deeply appreciate her courage and integrity.
I will always read anything she writes because I know the topic will be significant and the words truthful.

@Arvy-thank you for the Shakespear (is that you Richard from ICH?)

When the tv pundits talk about torture it sounds so bland, we all need to meditate a bit on what it would be like to be waterboarded.

First they put a heavy bag on your head so that you can see nothing, then they strap you to a board on your back then they tip you into the water & keep you under until you're choking or maybe even passed out.

They bring up & give you less than a minute to catch your breath before they repeat this.

Your body takes over your brain, screaming at you "I"m dying" or "help" or maybe just
'GOD'.

Anybody out there been dunked in a swimming pool that got a little out of hand? Think about an avowed enemy having you completely powerless, toying with you to the edge of death and occassionally they do kill you, but so what? You never had any information
or any other value to them except to terrify the other prisoners.

If Clinton can be impeached for lying about Monica then Bush can be impeached for lying on more than one occassion about the extent and casualness of torture committed by USA.

Helen Thomas also writes concise and clear columns. She convinces with facts not attacks.

@bellthecat:

Yup, it's me. ICH kinda lost me with all their 'shuffling' of forums, etc. Besides, I'm even more cynical about the value of ANY verbal inputs now than before.

Well, it's about time Helen started reporting real news; better seven years late than not at all. But a lot of us have already boycotted the MSM, in favor of great sites like CD.

As long as CEO's keep backing up the chimp, who is making a monkey out of all of us (including the constitution),
then he will keep daring to say one thing and do another, believing that he is above all law.

Save our way of life, the environment, and the innocents in Iran and Iraq by a NATIONAL BOYCOTT of everything the Fortune 500 makes. They will dump shrub like a bad habit if their earnings go down the crapper for a while.

You'll save money, and knock the legs out from under this petty despot who is ruining the world.

pac

The Bush administration has a lot of trouble deciding what is or what isn't torture. I've come up with a plan. Congress will ask a group of "interrogators", who question suspected terrorists on a regular basis, to meet before congress, under oath, and answer questions from congress, about whether they tortore terrorists, and ask about acceptable procedures for interrogations and torture. From questioning the interrogators, congress can determine for themselves if WE, the GOOD OLD USA do or do not turture. Then congress could so inform the Bush administration.

To quote Milton, "So perfect was their misery they never once perceived their foul disfigurement."
They....being the leaders who agree with this type of action, do not even realize what they have become. I am sure Hitler and his henchmen thought they were doing the world a favour by eradicating Jew, Gypsies, homosexuals, and those deemed genetically inferior. No they are not committing genocide, but the idea that it is alright to torture people in the name of good, doesn't work, except if you have lost your moral perspective, which George and his cronies seem to have accomplished. But was it ever there?

I am sad to say that America has become a nation of cowards.

Only cowards would ALLOW our government to torture and abuse prisoners in the name of self-defense.

The nation I grew up in had heroes... people portrayed by John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Gary Cooper... people who portrayed characters in the movies that suffered greatly when they were forced to kill and characters who would NEVER torture or abuse prisoners. Heck, the Lone Ranger never even shot anyone... he just shot the guns out of their hands!

We were taught that OURS was the nation of honor and courage... the good guys with the white hats... that no matter how evil the enemy, we would treat them with a modicum of dignity.

Yet in less that a decade, we have allowed our leaders to institute policies that make me sick... we have allowed our leaders to turn their backs on negotiation and diplomacy in favor of the destruction of human rights and prisoner abuse... we have allowed our leaders to become the bullies of the world and attempt to FORCE everyone to accept their way of thinking.

Virtually NONE of the candidates for president have spoken out against this abomination, in fact what little they have said makes it look like most of them would just continue leading our country down the path to hatred and destruction.

Someone once said that we GET the government we deserve... I never believed that before, but I'm coming around to the idea.

It was decided and agreed upon after WW II. The Geneva Conventions describes exactly what one cannot do with prisoners. Professional interrogators have known for many decades the best methods for gaining reliable information. A recent reunion of WW II interrogators verified that the Bush administration was doing it all wrong. The torture methods of which Bush and his neocons think so highly were developed by the Russians to get prisoners to cooperate and confess to whatever they wanted them to, not reveal any factual information. Why do we need to have any further research and argument? We need to enforce our treaties and punish the violators who have ordered and committed "crimes against humanity." And BTW, a 1996 law passed by a Republican Congress lists penalities up to and including execution for doing these crimes. No wonder the operatives are worried. Of course, Bush and Cheney aren't because they believe that they are above the law. Are they? I have read a number of articles by Helen Thomas. All are outstanding. She never did go away. Bush shunned her for a few years. It may have affected decisions by publishers to print her commentary.

I suggest the Congress and the Courts quit the rhetoric and subject Bush and the rest of the Administration promoting torture to be subjected to same. Period.

Let's ask things like: Who conceived and promoted 9/11?
Who decided to war against Iraq? Who decided to war against Iran?

Then we can ask: Do you ever lie? Do you have two-way conversations with God? Do you believe (any prejudiced statement...). Are you a heavy drinker? Do you drink on the job? What drugs do you currently use?

I am so fed up with this. And so ashamed of our government and our pusillanimous peoples. Coming out of academia, I cannot imagine a lower image for freedome of speech than what we have seen in the last few weeks. How far has the rot set in? How much longer do we have before we go down under the blackboots of Blackwater and kin?

And while I am ranting, why are we not questioning H. Clinton's stance on Iraq...why has she refused to recant her pro-war vote? How different is that from George's refusal to admit he is ever wrong? Why are we promoting a hawk on Iraq? Why are we promoting someone who does not admit a mistake? Why?

I am so READY for an alternative to Hilary. I would certainly like Gore to run and not because he won the Peace Prize.

Please, somebody, give some hope for the future. I find it bleak.

My husband, a damned good South African, wants to know if the Administration of George, by condoning the genocide in Armenia by the Turks in 1900's because the Turks are now are our Allies, does that mean also, our Administration now condones the actions of Japan and Germany during WWII because they are our current Allies? Is our Administration at the point of joining the Pres of Iran and saying the Holocaust never occurred?

Why do so many people in the US think that before Bush we were a shining example of fairness to all peoples? It is just a few orders of magnitude worse that what we've already been doing to citizens of other countries for many years now.

What is so weird is that the rest of our government is so ineffective against a liar as president. When everything that comes out of his mouth is an obvious lie, not only a lie but the exact opposite of the truth, why is he still allowed such power?

So, is Mr. Gore against torture?

"It is not our policy to torture"

It's my policy not to hate Bush's Fascist USA, but I still do it evey day

and, ladies and gentlemen, with all this going on in your great country there is the perverse sight of Condo Rice meetiing with human rights groups from Russia to encourage them in the pursuit of relief from increasing pressure from Putin's government, or so they say..

HOW PERVERSE when your own people are living in an unproclaimed fascist state..............am I right or wrong?

I love you, Helen, and I hope you're not torturing someone in your basement. If you are Helen, you need to stop. You need to stop for your victim's sake, and for your own sake; torturing is a shameful act that can only lead to you feeling ashamed of the way you've acted.
If I find out that you're acting in shameful ways, Helen, and I don't do anything about it, then I'm acting in a shameful way.
One, or both of us, have made a mistake; that mistake has harmed another human being; and we need to feel sad about that. And we need to learn from that sadness, and from confronting our mistakes.
If it turns out, Helen, that you've tortured a hundred human beings, that sadness is going to take a long time to feel. Helen, a lot more has gone wrong here than torture; you and I have to move beyond our sad feelings and lend a hand to cleaning up the rest of this mess and help build the happy world we all really wanted from the beginning.
We'll need everyone's help. And we'll need their help no matter what mistakes they've made.
We'll have to feel our sad feelings along the way.

I know what it feels like to be 'water-boarded' - and so do a hell of a lot of other soldiers who had this done to them in training. All these guys know exactly what's going on - but they're such cowards, they don't dare tell their friends and family about it. Fewer know what it's like to have a nail ripped off - that's a rough one for me - I'd rather die, to tell you the truth. (Syriana gave me nightmares for weeks) And I'd sure like to see this bunch of cowards subjected to 'harsh interrogations' - they'd change their tune in a hurry. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

provoice: "...no matter how evil the enemy, we would treat them with a modicum of dignity." Gee whiz, I watched the same shows - but my father told us what they REALLY did in WWII (and Indian wars) - what kind of lies did you hear? WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - it's all the same - you can't tell the difference by the flag. War is inhuman, dehumanizing, and far too ugly to remain a secret. But that's what Americans have always done - kept the truth about war, a secret from their families, from their children, from their friends and neighbors - and that's why so many ignorant kids sign up - and then come back with PTSD. It's not so much what they saw and did as the cognitive dissonance between war fantasies and war realities.

Torture is never an 'interrogation' technique - it's terrorism and propaganda at their worst. And it comes with ALL WARS. Deny that and you're living in la-la-land. And one more thing - it's sadism. And perfectly normal ordinary decent people will engage in this kind of sadism and perversion if you put them in the right circumstances. And war certainly is the 'right' circumstance. So please knock off the BS about torture - anyone who fights a war engages in torture, real or imagined, as retaliation for war's inhumanity. Americans, Germans, Japs, Arabs - there is no difference. We're all the same species.

The first step in recovery is admitting the truth - who among you is willing to do that? You hung our Vietnam vets out to dry - just like you did with the Korean vets, the WWII vets, and soldiers from every other war. You are to blame for that - all of you who refused to admit the truth about 'our troops' - all of you who pointed fingers at them or called them 'baby killers' - and yes, they did that too. It made sense at the time. If you can dig up the courage to face facts, it will make sense to you too. You would have probably done the same thing.

We live in an ugly violent world - the only choice we have is whether we will make it even uglier and more violent, or will we try to comfort the afflicted and refuse to add to the violence. We can't stop the madness until we face the madness - until we face the monster in the mirror. And I don't think a lot of you are ready to do that yet. But in the end, we each have to choose how we will react to violence done against us - will we retaliate in kind, or will we refuse to become the enemy we despise? I remember the first time I had to make that choice - and I keep that moment in mind every day of my life. And I take responsiblity for every ugly thing I felt I had to do - because sometimes, there is no 'non-violent' way out. Sometimes there is no 'moral choice' - the sooner we admit that, the sooner we can grow up and become civlized. We can lessen the need for violence - and maybe even avoid war. Because if we can't, we are all doomed.

One of the first things my father taught us was that there is always someone bigger, stronger, meaner, and smarter than you - so the best anyone can do is to protect the weak and defend the vulnerable, who are never the enemy. The real enemy is within us - and we must choose every day whether we will sustain humanity - or destroy it. Hopefullly, we will do it with as little violence as possible - there's already enough pain and misery in the world to go around. We can't end the violence - no matter what the crybabies tell you - but we can decide each day whether we will resist the urge. Call it a One-Step Program to peace, prosperity, and security for all. There is enough to go around, if none of us get too greedy. But we'd better start telling the truth now - before it's too late. And stop pointing fingers,

The really shameful thing is that Congress, in the Military Commissions Act, gave complete legal immunity to all torturers and human rights violators up to and including Bush. Meanwhile Condyloma Rice goes to Moscow to chide Putin on his human rights record.

armybrat,
There are any number of circumstances in which it is morally right and morally necessary to hurt or kill other human beings. As you've indicated, we need to be thoughtful and careful about making this choice, and we can't always be thoughtful and careful in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. All we can do is learn from our experiences and from the choices we make. Then, if we choose, we can share what we've learned with others, as you've done here, so they can benefit from our experiences and our insights.
As painful as it seems at times, the truth is our friend; be sure to mix it with plenty of love and understanding.

Armybrat please do not say that all your soldiers are obedient and accept what they are told to do. You do have in your history people who did standup for what was right, and for God. I can give you an example, a soldier was ordered to handout blankets to Natives infested with some kind of disease, I forget to be honest, but he refused saying it was a crime against man, and God. He was either hung or shot, forget which. You do have very good people, who do know what is right and wrong, and will not go beyond what their conscience allows. The trouble is we all accept sometimes what we are told, and we do not question, and the important thing I think to remember is that to question your superiors is a very healthy thing, sometimes they are not fit to be in authority. I do agree with a lot of what you say, but do not lump everyone in one basket, there are people who do standout.