Bush & Rumsfeld Out of Control

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Bush & Rumsfeld Out of Control
504
Tue, 06-08-2004 - 5:48am

The team of Bush & Rumsfeld have reduced the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />United States government to the level of the Spanish inquisition. They’re ruined my wonderful country so that now, instead of the light of the world, we are an evil power. Torturing POWs is abhorrent to all civilized people that’s why nations agreed to accept the first Geneva Convention in 1864, right up to the fourth in 1949 .  The United States signed all the additional protocols added up to 1977, but congress didn’t ratify the 1977 addition concerning the treatment of guerilla fighters.  Bush is using this to claim that he had the right to order torture. He has even flaunted our own country’s law against torture.  The man is an out of control menace to civilization.  He has not learned from history, perhaps because he read any.


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 http://hnn.us/articles/586.html


 


I don’t want to hear the childish “Well, Saddam tortured them worse” line of reasoning.  I’ve had it. Two wrongs have never made a right. These people need to be impeached.


 


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/politics/08ABUS.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=


 


June 8, 2004
Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush

By NEIL A. LEWIS and ERIC SCHMITT







 


WASHINGTON, June 7 — A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.


The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons.


One reason, the lawyers said, would be if military personnel believed that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful."


"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign," the lawyers wrote in the 56-page confidential memorandum, the prohibition against torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogation undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority."


Senior Pentagon officials on Monday sought to minimize the significance of the March memo, one of several obtained by The New York Times, as an interim legal analysis that had no effect on revised interrogation procedures that Mr. Rumsfeld approved in April 2003 for the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.


"The April document was about interrogation techniques and procedures," said Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman. "It was not a legal analysis."


Mr. Di Rita said the 24 interrogation procedures permitted at Guantánamo, four of which required Mr. Rumsfeld's explicit approval, did not constitute torture and were consistent with international treaties.


The March memorandum, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, is the latest internal legal study to be disclosed that shows that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the administration's lawyers were set to work to find legal arguments to avoid restrictions imposed by international and American law.


A Jan. 22, 2002, memorandum from the Justice Department that provided arguments to keep American officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated was used extensively as a basis for the March memorandum on avoiding proscriptions against torture.


The previously disclosed Justice Department memorandum concluded that administration officials were justified in asserting that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees from the Afghanistan war.


Another memorandum obtained by The Times indicates that most of the administration's top lawyers, with the exception of those at the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, approved of the Justice Department's position that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war in Afghanistan. In addition, that memorandum, dated Feb. 2, 2002, noted that lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency had asked for an explicit understanding that the administration's public pledge to abide by the spirit of the conventions did not apply to its operatives.


The March memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, was prepared as part of a review of interrogation techniques by a working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes. The group itself was led by the Air Force general counsel, Mary Walker, and included military and civilian lawyers from all branches of the armed services.


The review stemmed from concerns raised by Pentagon lawyers and interrogators at Guantánamo after Mr. Rumsfeld approved a set of harsher interrogation techniques in December 2002 to use on a Saudi detainee, Mohamed al-Kahtani, who was believed to be the planned 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 terror plot.


Mr. Rumsfeld suspended the harsher techniques, including serving the detainee cold, prepackaged food instead of hot rations and shaving off his facial hair, on Jan. 12, pending the outcome of the working group's review. Gen. James T. Hill, head of the military's Southern Command, which oversees Guantánamo, told reporters last Friday that the working group "wanted to do what is humane and what is legal and consistent not only with" the Geneva Conventions, but also "what is right for our soldiers."


Mr. Di Rita said that the Pentagon officials were focused primarily on the interrogation techniques, and that the legal rationale included in the March memo was mostly prepared by the Justice Department and White House counsel's office.


The memo showed that not only lawyers from the Defense and Justice departments and the White House approved of the policy but also that David S. Addington, the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, also was involved in the deliberations. The State Department lawyer, William H. Taft IV, dissented, warning that such a position would weaken the protections of the Geneva Conventions for American troops.


The March 6 document about torture provides tightly constructed definitions of torture. For example, if an interrogator "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith," the report said. "Instead, a defendant is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his control."


The adjective "severe," the report said, "makes plain that the infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture. Instead, the text provides that pain or suffering must be `severe.' " The report also advised that if an interrogator "has a good faith belief his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture."


The report also said that interrogators could justify breaching laws or treaties by invoking the doctrine of necessity. An interrogator using techniques that cause harm might be immune from liability if he "believed at the moment that his act is necessary and designed to avoid greater harm."


Scott Horton, the former head of the human rights committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, said Monday that he believed that the March memorandum on avoiding responsibility for torture was what caused a delegation of military lawyers to visit him and complain privately about the administration's confidential legal arguments. That visit, he said, resulted in the association undertaking a study and issuing of a report criticizing the administration. He added that the lawyers who drafted the torture memo in March could face professional sanctions.


Jamie Fellner, the director of United States programs for Human Rights Watch, said Monday, "We believe that this memo shows that at the highest levels of the Pentagon there was an interest in using torture as well as a desire to evade the criminal consequences of doing so."


The March memorandum also contains a curious section in which the lawyers argued that any torture committed at Guantánamo would not be a violation of the anti-torture statute because the base was under American legal jurisdiction and the statute concerns only torture committed overseas. That view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in the Supreme Court, where it has argued that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not entitled to constitutional protections because the base is outside American jurisdiction.


Kate Zernike contributed reporting for this article


 


 


Elaine

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 4:25pm
When did he say he was 100% sure that Iraq had WMD right now, on their turf??? Article please.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 5:32pm
>>When did he say he was 100% sure that Iraq had WMD right now, on their turf??? Article please.<<


I didn't say right now. I had meant when the war was declared.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 5:39pm
I personally believe Bush was lying. I felt that way from the beginning. I believe the democrats you mentioned went along with it out of fear. What exactly that fear is of I'm not sure. It could be fear of losing face with the people they hope will vote for them or it could be genuine fear of more terrorist attacks.

It seems to me that they all had suspicions that these weapons were being made. However they had little solid proof. I think they planned very poorly for what their goal was. Our country could have been much more suucessful in over-throwing Saddam had they planned it better and not fed so much on people's fear.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 5:51pm
I dislike when people create laws to force people to do things that for most would be common sense. Like wearing a seat belt. A cop once made an illegal u-turn to pull my dad over for not wearing his belt. In my opinion it was hardly worth it. Or in a more extreme case, like the taxes on alcohol and cigarettes they want to put more of a tax on junk food because fat people are trying to sue fast food restraunts for their obesity. As far as guns go, I think there needs to be more gun education rather than more gun control. And frankly, I think kids need to be encouraged to fight with their fists intead of with guns. Kids are going to fight anyway might as well teach them how to do it honorably. Because living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I hear more about youngsters (teenagers and very early 20's) killing eachother with guns than any other age group.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 5:53pm
I completely disagree with you. Life is Life. If you are pro-life than you are anti-killing. Period. To discriminate is to say one life is worth more than another. I was taught no one but God had the right to judge that.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 7:04pm
Read the book "Plan of Attack"...you will come to find out that both Republicans and Democrats were against going to war to a degree, and then quite the opposite too, both Democrats and Republicans agreed with Bush. Saying the Democrats didn't do anything out of "fear" is your opinion, but a copout to say the least. Let's back up these assertions with some facts rather then assuming you knew how all Democrats in office thought and why they didn't pose any action against Bush.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 7:07pm
I completely disagree. What do you propose we do to the terrorist that killed thousands on 9/11? What if it were one of your family members in the twin towers that day? Would you be happy to just put those in prison?
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 7:12pm
One more thing...an innocent baby inside a womb ready to be born is not the same thing as an Iraqi terrorist. An Iraqi terrorist has the choice in it's actions and then has to deal with the necessary consequences of their actions (killing innocent people). An innocent baby on the other hand get's no choice and is paying the ultimate consequence for nothing he/she did themself but rather is paying the consequences of others actions. I am using this example to prove your theory that a life is a life. I disagree!
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-13-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 7:36pm
You're right. I don't know how all of the democrats felt regarding this war. I can only say how I feel about it. Yes, not doing anything out of fear is most definitely a cop-out and weak. I don't think that's ok. I suprises me how many people were willing to agree with Bush based on the information he gave us. For me it wasn't enough.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 7:36pm
"Another problem maybe is that many people do not know what is in the articles."

ITA.

I’ve mentioned some people posing dead soldiers for pictures before. I thought it was offensive and immoral. I also did not know it was against the G.C. either, something I think I should have been informed of in greater detail before being deployed there.

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