Torture Party's Bush Does It Again

[Kulindahr]

I've never understood the "no attacks since 9/11" argument. There have only been 2 Islamic-extremist terrorist attacks in the USA, the other in 1993. What evidence suggests their frequency would be any greater since 2001?

And considering the failure of the Bush Administration to recognize clear warning signs of impending attack, what makes you think they're any more likely to spot the signs because of torturing people?

That's an excellent point.

Bin Laden is no fool. He knows that lulling the enemy into a false sense of security is as good a weapon as many others. He also knows that making a new attack worse than the last will have terrific impact.
So to regard this peaceful period as one of enemy preparation for some real horror is just as valid as to think it's the result of security work. Mixed among illegal immigrants from Mexico there could be a hundred Al Qaeda operatives by now, in ten teams just waiting to do ten things on a single day, or successive days -- say, the St. Louis Arch, the Golden Gate Bridge, Giants Stadium, Grand Coulee Dam, Mt. Rushmore, Disneyland, Ohio Stadium, the Washington Monument, the I35/I20 interchange in Fort Worth, a levee in New Orleans....

Beware overconfidence: when the enemy is quiet, he's usually planning something.

 

[White Eagle]

No boy george is going to wait until just before the election to get some of his arab friends to do something. He's hoping it will throw the election to repugs.

 

[chance1]

And Chance apparently has forgotten the Anthrax attacks later that same fall. Didn't prevent those, did they?

Oh, wait, I forgot that if you're a Bushista it doesn't count as a terrorist attack unless it was prevented. This is because "there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11" is taken as divine scripture, therefore anything that has happened since 9/11 is not a terrorist attack.

Six guys with a vague plan to attack a military base, that they only thought they could do because a government provocateur told them they could? Terrorists, OMG I'm so glad Our Government Saved Us! Someone specifically targeting Congress and several newspapers with a bioweapon? That's not terrorism, that's just some crazy.

Even the old Soviet Union ("But he is not being executed. He is being shot") simulated logic better than that.

"Bushista"?????

yikes

what is that btw? pls explain

u can have ur anthrax - split hairs all u want

not another bomb, not another plane into building, not another big city disaster

get it?????????

try real hard

cuz now ur just doing the attack dog thingy - too bad

only the partisan extremists give gwb/his admin no credit for no other catastrophies - and we gotta million of them - and i guess ur on that team - thought diff

and the times square thing hardly qualifies - someone brought that up

too hard to be nice i guess criostior

not sure why though

keep em coming

 

[chance1]

No boy george is going to wait until just before the election to get some of his arab friends to do something. He's hoping it will throw the election to repugs.

yeah

that's for certain

yeesh

 

[chance1]

That's an excellent point.

Bin Laden is no fool. He knows that lulling the enemy into a false sense of security is as good a weapon as many others. He also knows that making a new attack worse than the last will have terrific impact.
So to regard this peaceful period as one of enemy preparation for some real horror is just as valid as to think it's the result of security work. Mixed among illegal immigrants from Mexico there could be a hundred Al Qaeda operatives by now, in ten teams just waiting to do ten things on a single day, or successive days -- say, the St. Louis Arch, the Golden Gate Bridge, Giants Stadium, Grand Coulee Dam, Mt. Rushmore, Disneyland, Ohio Stadium, the Washington Monument, the I35/I20 interchange in Fort Worth, a levee in New Orleans....

Beware overconfidence: when the enemy is quiet, he's usually planning something.

if bin laden is no fool - then attacking again woulda been smart - why didn't he do it" making the public loathe gwb and repubs more woulda been smart - why didn't he do it?

cuz he can't

cuz he's got no cock - cuz our intelligence efforts have worked

yup

oh that's right

gwb/his admin can do NO right

that's the rule

 

[LaloGS]

The hate between Democrats and Republicans as illustrated in this forum doesn't help.

Kuli, we need to keep in mind who the real enemies of America are. The Repuglicans have done more damage to us than any other entity in the history of the country. Notice I said Repuglicans and not Republicans. There is a difference, but any Republican can become a Repuglican as can any Democrat by voting for McCain.

I'm sure there are good Republicans, however misguided they are, but the Repuglican party has done us nothing but harm. They ought to wake up and either do something about their sick leadership or vote for Hillary to show the Repuglicans they are not running the party anymore. Then maybe they will deserve some respect. But until then . . .

 

[LaloGS]

yeah

that's for certain

yeesh

He did it in 2004 Chance, and the scared voters went running to the polls like frightened sheep and voted for him. The only time he was actually elected, but evidence supports they were also manipulating the vote in several states just in case the escalation didn't work.

You apparently don't have a good news source. Rush never mentions the obvious failures of your hero, so you never hear about them, one would guess, from your staunch support for the imbecile.

And just why does an attack have to be of the stature of the 9/11 attacks to meet your criteria of a terror attack? When I lived in NYC, there were several bombings. Especially at the GM building which housed the Bank Liumi on the ground floor.. I was in the building when one such attack occurred, and it was scary. No one called it a terrorist attack. But it was. No one or no group ever claimed to be responsible, and I don't think it was ever solved.

The editorial offices of a now defunct magazine called Scanlans was bombed by so called terrorists, but investigations proved it was the work of the CIA. They did it because Scanlans ran a story with photos of bodies being off loaded from Air America (CIA funded) planes from Viet Nam with drugs packed into the body bags.

And it was a Federal order to National guardsmen who opened fire killing several students at Kent State. What were they doing? Exercising their freedom of speech options and opposing the war in Viet Nam.

So trust your government Chance, they have you in their hearts.

 

[Críostóir]

u can have ur anthrax - split hairs all u want

not another bomb, not another plane into building, not another big city disaster

get it?????????

try real hard

cuz now ur just doing the attack dog thingy - too bad

only the partisan extremists give gwb/his admin no credit for no other catastrophies - and we gotta million of them - and i guess ur on that team - thought diff

and the times square thing hardly qualifies - someone brought that up

too hard to be nice i guess criostior

not sure why though

keep em coming

Well, if only disasters on the scale 0f 9/11 count, then I have to agree that there haven't been any more of those. On the other hand, there were none of those before 9/11 either. In fact, the ONLY "major" terrorist attack on US soil happened in the Bush Administration, by that criterion.

They could have--and damn well should have--prevented it. And they haven't really done anything to increase our actual security since then; instead, they've aided Al Qaeda recruitment by attacking a country that had nothing to do with the attacks (instead of attacking the country where most of them came from, our so-called ally Saudi Arabia), because Dubya needs to prove he[STRIKE]'s a[/STRIKE] has a bigger dick than his father, and given us Potemkin security theatre at airports, more designed to keep people scared than safe. The liquid thing is a case in point; anyone who knows anything about binary liquid explosives knows that plastic shampoo bottles are not a danger in that regard.

But we've been through all this. I'm not quite willing to say that the Bushistas (and I mean the administration and their gung-ho allies, like that drug addicted sex tourist Rush) haven't done anything right, because I can't say I know absolutely everything they've done. What I will say is that on balance, they've been a destructive force to America and everything this beloved country of mine stands for. Our civil liberties have been drastically curtailed, our economy is in ruins, and the rule of law has crumbled; in addition, we've gone from being a beacon of hope and democracy in the world to a pariah nation, almost universally despised.

Bush and the senior members of his team should all be in prison for the rest of their lives for what they've done to this country. And I say that only because I oppose the death penalty, even for people like them who are responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths, lives spent to feed their egos and Dubya's idiotic and puerile desire to show up his father.

I do try to be nice. But when someone starts parroting freeper/dittohead garbage, I call it as I see it.

 

[jackoroe]

Torture is illegal. Water boarding is legal. Therefore, water boarding isn't torture. Why is it so hard for you bleeding hearts to understand?

 

[Kurn]

^Because, dearie, we have the testimony of various expert witnesses declaring the practice of 'waterboarding' to be torture. So it's at least up in the air somewhat.

Although I am opposed to torture, I suspect that with some terrorist psychologies that I prefer to remain distinct from, that it might be appropriate and necessary.

For instance, KSM sees himself as a mastermind, a master, the mother of all martyr wannabe's. Perhaps, although repugnant, the waterboarding routine was somehow appropriate in his case.
Maybe he's psyched against any nice-guy routines.

Dunno, just supposin'.

 

[Críostóir]

Kurn, I think jackoroe was being sarcastic.

 

[andysayshi]

Torture is illegal. Water boarding is legal. Therefore, water boarding isn't torture. Why is it so hard for you bleeding hearts to understand?

What kind of legal mumbo jumbo is that? Some Bush Administration lawyers re-define torture, and that makes it fact? Bullshit!

Until a few years ago, the US not only considered waterboarding torture, they TRIED, CONVICTED and IMPRISONED people for doing it. What exactly changed that allows us to redefine the meaning of words?

Here's the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese:

They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness.

And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air. . . . They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is -- as well as what it ought to be.

Evan Wallach, a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, teaches the law of war as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School.

Full Washington Post Article

 

[Críostóir]

andysayshi, thanks for that, but again, jackoroe was being sarcastic.

 

[andysayshi]

I hope so. But I'd appreciate confirmation from the source - you were being sarcastic, right, Jack? Nobody could say that with a straight face, right?

 

[jackoroe]

^Lawyers don't get to redefine law, unless of course they also happen to be legislators, which is a whole other issue. But I digress. If water boarding is illegal, why on earth is there a need to legislate against it? Surely a veto of a bill which makes something illegal, that already is illegal is redundant and pointless.

Unless of course, it isn't illegal in the first place. Which is in fact the case. If it is illegal, why has no one brought a charge? Quite simply because there is no charge to be brought. You see, the more you argue this point, the clearer it becomes. Surely there must be at least one pinheaded left wing lawyer who can find some sort of illegality if one exists. Hell, it's been going on for years now and no charge has ever been made!

Water boarding is legal, ergo it cannot be torture. You cannot escape the facts. You can stamp your feet and wring your hands, but it won't change the facts. Think with your brain and not your heart!

 

[jackoroe]

I hope so. But I'd appreciate confirmation from the source - you were being sarcastic, right, Jack? Nobody could say that with a straight face, right?

I enjoy being a devil's advocate and forcing people to think logically. It's tough on the brain, but well worth the exercise! Humor me!

 

[Críostóir]

Oh, jackoroe. You know that calling yourself a "devil's advocate" is a declaration that you were trolling, right?

Being declared legal by the executive branch doesn't make something legal (even if we had an exec that wasn't led by* lying asshole criminals, as we do now). Being declared legal by the SCOTUS makes it legal in the United States, but that's not the same as making it legal under the Geneva Convention.

Moreover, there's an essential conflict between "thinking logically" and "thinking legally." In fact few, if any, people can do both in one lifetime! Ever since I heard the story of the man who was convicted of accepting a bribe that another man was acquitted of paying (and his defense was that no bribe existed, not that someone else paid it), I have known that law and logic are uncomfortable bedfellows at best.

So, alas, are Law and Justice. If we had true Justice in this country, Alberto Gonzalez would be doing LWOP in a maximum security prison.

* I was going to say "entirely composed of," but then I realized that not every FBI agent, not every CIA agent, not every member of a Federal agency etc. ad nauseam is a lying asshole criminal like Bush, Cheney, and all the cabinet and direct appointees.

 

[jackoroe]

Define me as you like, it matters not a wit to me. You are right in that a declaration by the executive branch doesn't make it legal. A declaration by SCOTUS would, of course. But importantly, a violation of the Geneva convention is a violation of US law, by virtue of the fact that it is a treaty duly ratified by the US Senate.

Try not to bifurcate the debate into logic and law. They are mutually exclusive terms. Make it simple, it's a question of law. Absent a declaration by a competent judicial venue, it's legal to water board. The cite provided earlier relating to domestic law enforcement is irrelevant as 1983 violations apply only to those subject to the provisions of the US Constitution, not terrorists.

 

[Críostóir]

Careful. I was defining what you were doing as trolling. That's not the same as defining you as a troll. Everyone trolls from time to time. People who make a habit of it, and rarely do anything else, are called trolls.

But even if the 1983 cite doesn't hold water (sorry), the WWII cites do, and they clearly indicate that the US has taken the position that waterboarding is illegal under Geneva. This doesn't change just because some asshole says so, even if he's sitting in the Oval [STRIKE]Orifice[/STRIKE] Office. And their argument that it applies only to legal combatants doesn't work either, because there is no legal theory that EXcludes "unlawful combatants" from the anti-torture provisions of the GC, much as our jerkoff President and his handlers like to pretend there is.

 

[Centexfarmer]

The interesting FACT OF THE MATTER, is that the United States Military has dropped Waterboarding as an allowable means of torture, but Bush vetoed the CIA to continue to use it.

As I understand it:

The U.S. Army Field Manual prohibits waterboarding and seven other interrogation methods and the bill would have aligned CIA practices with the military's.

Source: Bush vetoes U.S. bill outlawing CIA waterboarding

Doesn't mean that the veto | allowance is legal.