The President, His Daughters, and Torture

So Is Torturing A Daughter OK?

"Mr. President, if your daughter were a member of the U.S. Army and were captured by an enemy, and waterboarding and other 'interrogation techniques' you are condoning the United States use were used against her -- against your own daughter -- would you call those techniques 'torture' or would you defend them as being legal techniques?"

"Mr. President, if we hold a terrorist and we think he knows about an imminent plot, you advocate 'aggressive interrogation techniques' against him, since his comfort is less important than saving the lives of so many in an attack on America -- but if he has been trained to resist interrogation and doesn't talk, would you also advocate using the same techniques on his innocent nine year old daughter, in front of him, in an effort to make him talk?"


Mr. President, You Would Understand If You Had Fought

Paul Reickhoff

I want to commend Senators McCain, Graham and Warner, and also General Colin Powell, for their unequivocal stand against the use of torture on enemy detainees. They are right on this issue. And the President is wrong.

As veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, IAVA's members are standing with these fellow combat veterans in opposing the President's plan for military tribunals involving terror suspects.

For the safety of our own troops, it is absolutely imperative that we take an unequivocal stand against the use of torture on all enemy detainees. Not only is it the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do.

It is insulting that the President, who has never served in combat, would dismiss the credible and reasoned advice of men like Senator McCain, a brave combat veteran who endured years of torture as a prisoner of war.

This issue is an example of the President's questionable commitment to our troops, and further demonstrates his failure to grasp the true dynamics of the modern battlefield. How can the President say to our men and women in uniform that he is willing to risk their safety over this? His new rules would put the lives of our fighting men and women serving overseas in jeopardy. The move would also further undermine America's struggle to win hearts and minds worldwide. Maybe the President would understand the righteousness of our stance more clearly if he had personally served in combat.

The President repeatedly tells us that this fight is tough, but those of us who have been there know that already. And the President's stand on this issue will only make it tougher.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-r...-_b_29515.html

UN expert: Iraq torture may be worse

GENEVA - Torture in Iraq may be worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein, with militias, terrorist groups and government forces disregarding rules on the humane treatment of prisoners, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Thursday.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture, made the remarks as he was presenting a report on detainee conditions at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay as well as to brief the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global body's top rights watchdog, on torture worldwide.

Reports from Iraq indicate that torture "is totally out of hand," he said. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein."

Nowak added, "That means something, because the torture methods applied under Saddam Hussein were the worst you could imagine."

Some allegations of torture were undoubtedly credible, with government forces among the perpetrators, he said, citing "very serious allegations of torture within the official Iraqi detention centers."

"You have terrorist groups, you have the military, you have police, you have these militias. There are so many people who are actually abducted, seriously tortured and finally killed," Nowak told reporters at the U.N.'s European headquarters.

"It's not just torture by the government. There are much more brutal methods of torture you'll find by private militias," he said.

A report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq's Human Rights office cited worrying evidence of torture, unlawful detentions, growth of sectarian militias and death squads, and a rise in "honor killings" of women.

Iraq's government, set up in 2006, is "currently facing a generalized breakdown of law and order which presents a serious challenge to the institutions of Iraq" such as police and security forces and the legal system, the U.N. report said, noting that torture was a major concern.

Nowak has yet to make an official visit to Iraq and said such a mission would be unfeasible as long as the security situation there remains perilous. He based his comments on interviews with people during a visit to Amman, Jordan, and other sources.

"You find these bodies with very heavy and very serious torture marks," he said. "Many of these allegations, I have no doubt that they are credible."

According to the U.N. report, the number of Iraqi civilians killed in July and August hit 6,599, a record-high that is far greater than initial estimates suggested, the U.N. report said Wednesday.

It attributed many of the deaths to rising sectarian tensions that have pushed Iraq toward civil war.

___

Associated Press writers Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva and Nick Wadhams at the United Nations contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060921/...huBHNlYwNtdHM-

Sheesh, I hit the snooze button on this forum for a while.

Now I come back and it's still the same old shit from losers like you.

Hit and run smears. Nothing but childish attempts to imply nonsense.

You still haven't said anything.

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Originally Posted by T[i

isforterror [/i]Fan]Sheesh, I hit the snooze button on this forum for a while.

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Not to worry, no one noticed....you and the few other log-cabin repug hypocrites frequenting this TS forum all spout the same right-wing neo-nazi drivel... :lol: :P

A Missed Opportunity for Accountability
Coleen Rowley

After an all-day meeting with Dick Cheney yesterday, Republican Senators McCain, Graham and Warner emerged to proclaim that they had reached a compromise with the administration on military tribunals and interrogation tactics. McCain expressed "no doubt that the integrity and the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved," and Graham insisted it will "take off the table things that are not within American values."


They should know better.

Of the three major flaws in the bill Bush originally presented to Congress, only one has been removed: suspects will have the right to examine the evidence against them, subject to existing rules designed to protect national security. Protection against arbitrary and indefinite incarceration was not part of Bush's proposal, nor is it in the compromise bill. And despite powerful rhetoric about "the integrity and the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions," Bush got his way on that as well. Abuses which were never under discussion --- murder, mutilation and rape, for example --- are now explicitly prohibited; otherwise the President decides what can happen. In other words, this bill would explicitly allow the interrogation practices used at Abu Ghraib, so long as George Bush approved them.

As a 24-year veteran of the FBI, I know that using rough interrogation tactics to overbear a suspect's will is not only wrong ethically, it is ineffective. Subjecting someone to pain and humiliation doesn't compel them to tell the truth; it compels them to say whatever will make the pain stop. This generates bad intelligence. Moreover, when we undercut the Geneva Conventions, we eliminate any motivation for our enemies to treat our captured soldiers humanely. Our goal must be to first disrupt, then detain, interrogate, and prosecute those who would do us harm while remaining true to the rule of law and the principles which have served our country well for more than two centuries. Effective interrogation and intelligence-gathering is not at odds with established legal principles as Bush and Cheney would like us to believe. This is why the FBI forbids the use of torture and rough interrogation methods (like waterboarding), as does the Army Field Manual and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

In more than five years since 9/11, Bush's military tribunals have not tried, much less convicted anyone of acts of terrorism against the United States. It is well past time to try those in custody, punish the guilty, and release the innocent. The existing framework for military tribunals is sufficient to this task. But Bush's goal is neither justice nor security; it is power. This bill was clearly introduced as a political ploy in an election year. High political drama you might say when, whatever legislation eventually emerges, Bush can always "interpret" it to his liking via a presidential signing statement, as he has done nearly 1000 times during his presidency. Among these, the most notable was the Detainee Treatment Act --- the last bill on which McCain, Graham and Warner appeared to stand up to Bush.

But now these Senators have decided to compromise, to support legislation which trusts George Bush to do the right thing. Under any other president, this might be acceptable. But George Bush has led this country into war under false pretenses, put incompetent political appointees in charge of rebuilding Iraq, and used the war as a vehicle to transfer billions of American tax dollars to his corporate cronies with no oversight. George Bush is the man who gave us Abu Ghraib. And he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is willing to trade our American values for two more years in power. Yet instead of exercising their Constitutionally-mandated oversight, this Republican-led Congress, and especially my opponent in November's election, John Kline, has chosen to trust in Bush again and again and again.

Enough is enough. Voters need to hold the GOP lapdogs accountable for their weakness in November, so that a Democrat-led Congress can spend the next two years demanding accountability from George W. Bush.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen...-_b_30052.html

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Originally Posted by chefmike

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Originally Posted by T[i

isforterror [/i]Fan]Sheesh, I hit the snooze button on this forum for a while.

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Not to worry, no one noticed....you and the few other log-cabin repug hypocrites frequenting this TS forum all spout the same right-wing neo-nazi drivel... :lol: :P

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If we we're neo-nazi's you'd have joined up long ago, since you believe in oppressing the earner just like hitler did.

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Originally Posted by TFan

If we we're neo-Nazi's you'd have joined up long ago, since you believe in oppressing the earner just like Hitler did.

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Yes, please do enlighten us about the "earner", jackass... :P

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Originally Posted by TFan

They're regulating cigarettes and cooking oils now, but their ultimate goal is to regulate wages through wealth-transfer schemes like minimum wage laws and luxury taxes.

Their power-hunger is enormous.

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Your hypocrisy is what's enormous.
http://www.hungangels.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=11523