Slam dunk?

Oh, don't get my hopes up! This congress has never clased with the Bush administration over anything substantial.

Anyone who actually reads the Geneva Conventions knows that prisoners of war only have to say their name, rank, serial number and age, and many not be subjected to moral or physical coercion of any kind. If they are not prisoners of war the only other legal category is that of a criminal suspect and they then have an absolute right to have access to a lawyer, especially during any questioning, and cannot be required to testify against themselves due to the Fifth Amendment. All this talk about *which kind of coercive techniques* can be used in interrogations misses the discussion of the basic rights of prisoners not to be coerced physically or morally, let alone abused or degraded. Read the Geneva Conventions folks.

Watching these people dither over lists of nasty things they should or should not be permitted to do to their fellow man forces you into one of Vonnegut's views from a distant planet:

Look at those creatures. They are holding each others heads under water. They are shooting electricity into each other, making each other cold, hot, attacked by dogs, insane, blowing each other up, firing lead pellets into each others bodies. They are riding into villages on camelback, killing the men, raping the women. They are dropping explosives on weddings, shooting rockets into apartment buildings, scattering little bombs that look like children's toys. Apart from the victims, nobody seems to mind this very much. While this goes on unabated, other hominids in suits parse definitions: torture, lawful tool, enhanced interrogation technique, genocide, foreign combatant, collateral damage, self defense, saving lives, cruel, degrading, constitutional rights, human rights. (Strangely, the word "terrorist" itself never gets examined much.) Have they always behaved this way? Are they nuts?

if each of the torture techniques were demonstrated on the people advocating them, then we'd see how many would actually be approved.

Are strong armed members of Congress going to demonstrate the water boarding techniques on Bush, Cheney and the presidetial candidate hopefuls? __ Hope so.

Dunker_in_Chief needs a new bath fixture, smile for the cameras, as we're just trying to discover how much of what you've said are lies. Besides, there are at least 300,000 lives held in the balance, who may die at any moment, if we don't get the truth out him soon. So many clocks are ticking so fast.

This definitely qualifies for exigent circumstances, so all urgency is mandated to save American lives, the Geneva rules against torture are irrelevant in this case, for National Security reasons!

Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »

Just curious. Where did the notion come from that "American lives" are somehow better, more precious than the lives of other persons who are not Americans? Did it come from the same place that wrong-headedly understood that white lives were superior to black, yellow, etc. lives? Or that male lives were somehow better than female lives? Or that ... well, you catch my drift.

Torture is satanic, evil , monstrous. When we torture we lower ourselves to the level of that which we say we hate. To have as leader of ouor government someone who advocates torture for anyone is sick, sck, sick!

Hubris Uber Alles

Astride the known world,
Filled with hubris
They marched in their turn:
Darius, Xerxes, Agamemnon, Alexander,
Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler and more

All their empires rising, conquering,
Their passing marked by mounds of skulls
And vainglorious boasts.
Their places taken in turn by others
as their empires rotted from within.

Now yet another warlord stands,
His nation's proud banner, once a beacon
Of freedom and hope to all mankind,
Now a symbol to be feared
By friend and foe alike.

This, too, shall pass away
After adding its quota of skulls to the mountain,
While the common man around the world
Holds tight the dream of Brotherhood and Peace
Close to his breaking heart.

Steve Osborn
9 August 2003

Quibbling about types of torture is the same as quibbling about #s of Iraqis killed - one is too many - and a war crime to boot!

I think I'll start a on line casino, giving odds on wether the Dems.would stand up to Bush. Maybe 3-1 that Papa Duck bush, gets what he wants . Any takers?

The above statement is meant as a editorial comment only. But if I really did this I would hope there would be no takers on this blog, because I would make a fortune.

Earthian, don't tell us to read the Geneva Covention Book of Rules Tell those morons BUSH and Cheney to read it! OR just mail them a copy and if you think Bush can't read send it Laura so she can read it to him as nighty, night book!

"The CIA videotaped its interrogations of two top terror suspects in 2002 and destroyed the tapes three years later out of fear they would leak to the public and compromise the identities of U.S. questioner"

Wouldn't want to "Plame" any CIA agents.....

more likely they didn't want anyone to see the anal electrodes.

Don't hold your breath. This and the previous Congress have been nothing but "Bush-enablers".

Wrong!! Congress has not and is not about to clash with Bush over anything. When Hitler invoked Art. 48 of the Weimar Constitution to rule by emergency decree, the Reichstag went home and stopped collecting its pay. Our Congress stays on, gets paid, and falls behind unser Fuehrer over every mad proposal.

Libertas fugit---thanks for the wonderful poetry! The last three lines made me want to cry.

See you in Hell, George

Apparently, the CIA not only destroyed the tapes in 2002, but they also destroyed the MANUAL in 2005.

What is Congress thinking? If they wanted to take a stand against waterboarding, then they shouldn't have rolled over like a puppy for Mukasey, even after exposing him as morally challenged.

Or they could simply point out that torture is already illegal, and move forward on impeachment hearings against Bush and Cheney.

No, we don't want to divide the nation in a time of war. Good freakin' plan.

"Lawyers and courts use the term spoliation to refer to the withholding, hiding, or destruction of evidence relevant to a legal proceeding and is a criminal act in the United States under Federal and most State law. Spoliation has two consequences: first the act is criminal by statute and may result in fines and incarceration for the parties who engaged in the spoliation, secondly case law has established that proceedings which might have been altered by the spoliation may be interpreted under a spoliation inference. The spoliation inference is a negative evidentiary inference that a finder of fact can draw from a party's destruction of a document or thing that is relevant to an ongoing or reasonably foreseeable civil or criminal proceeding: The finder of fact can review all evidence uncovered in as strong a light as possible against the spoliator and in favor of the opposing party."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoliation_of_evidence

"Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Congress did not learn about the tapes' destruction until November 2006 -- two months after the full panel was briefed on the interrogation program."
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN06264762

The American people voted a Democratic majority into Congress in November, 2006; oversight of Republican activities, including intelligence activities began.

Abu Ghraib II

"Beyond their lack of intelligence value -- as the interrogation sessions had already been exhaustively detailed in written channels "-- says Hayden. We can now understand that no terrorist can read in English.

Favvy so far ..

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from August 2004 until the end of 2006, said through a spokesman that he doesn't remember being informed of the videotaping program.

"Congressman Hoekstra does not recall ever being told of the existence or destruction of these tapes," said Jamal D. Ware, senior adviser to the committee. "He believes that Director Hayden is being generous in his claim that the committee was informed. He believes the committee should have been fully briefed and consulted on how this was handled."
http://www.maysville-online.com/articles/2007/12/06/ap/headlines/d8tcbrh00.txt

That idiot my state sent to Washington won't vote against it! He is Bush's favorite lap dog. When he was Attorney General of the state he seemed like a nice moderate Republican. Not the radical all the other Republican's were. I was really tempted to vote for him the last election. But, I didn't and boy am I glad I didn't! Since he has gotten in Washington he has shown his true colors. He never goes against his party or what Bush wants and is anything but independent. If a Republican wants any funds for their campaign they have to toe the party line. Which is why I stopped voting Republican 20 years ago.

The sooner the public comes to grip with reality and understands the 'one-party' system in the US which is divided into two groups, with minor exceptions (on the Democrat side) and the ultimate collaboration in the end, frustration among the voters will continue and the national security police state will escalate until all who disagree with Bush/Cheney or whoever else is installed in Washington DC labels you an 'enemy of the homeland'. It's funny how so many Jewish politicians back this administration's policies, starting with the un-Constitutional Patriot Act and just about everything else since. So much for the Nazi doctrine and "the banality of evil". There will always be just enough votes in the House or the Senate giving the illusion that, "we tried, but didn't have enough votes". How many more times do they have to cry "wolf" before the American people understand the truth of the matter?

Earthian says: Anyone who actually reads the Geneva Conventions knows that prisoners of war only have to say their name, rank, serial number and age, and many not be subjected to moral or physical coercion of any kind.

The US is trying to get around it by not calling them "prisoners of war" but by inventing the new term "enemy combatants" and claiming that anyone considered an "enemy combatant" is not subject to the protections of the Geneva Conventions - which is their interpretation of Article 5. According to the Geneva conventions, it is up to an independent tribunal to determine the status of all prisoners and not the country who detains them. However, even Article 5 indicates that such persons should be treated humanely.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/iraq/genevaconventions.html

Seems that Aljazeera is covering this story:

CIA destroyed 'waterboarding' tapes

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B55F7670-957E-44F0-A87A-8DD11D5E13BB.htm

Aljazeera says: But Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said the CIA must have realised the tapes would be trouble after the Abu Ghraib scandal, when leaked pictures of US forces abusing Iraqi prisoners surfaced in 2004, causing an international outcry.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mark Agrast, of the Centre for American Progress, said: "The timing is very disturbing because they appear to have been destroyed at precisely the time that the Abu Ghraib photographs had come out and the stories of highly coercive interrogation practices were becoming known."

The destruction also came amid scrutiny over the agency's "rendition" programme, where suspects were allegedly detained and interrogated in secret locations outside the US.

Hitler was a sadist and his Third Reich attracted sadists by the score. What does this say regarding our present Chief? If you have an insane President, then go figure the insane will rise to posts of power. Just imagine it, our wholesome America where people who have been oppressed have come to find liberty and justice, and freedom from oppression. But now we are guilty of torturing our prisoners. It's all insane and the longer this Insane white house stays in power, the more insane people will flock to positions of power and rule. America has become the land of the insane.

Hang on, judi, change is coming.

Sadists are trusted by the more corrupt because the fringe benefits they gain's in exchange for loyalty and service would not be afforded to them (ie available as a perk) under a regime where human rights were respected and those who commit hate crimes are punished. Furthermore, corrupt regimes tend to trust those who like to have power over others and who exploit even their own especially when the other side preaches equality and egalitarianism. In other words, sadists are loyal to tyrants because those who oppose tyrants are not only against handing out these kinds of fringe benefits but also tend to imprison those who insist upon these kinds of benefits.

Loose Change III ?

By passing a law banning the use of waterboarding in the future they are giving the President a pass on his crimes of the past. Keep in mind they think the Patriot act is a good thing for our country. Congress will not do anything more than make a lot of noise. This is a Congress without huevos.