Bush & Rumsfeld Out of Control
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| 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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Yes this point has been brought up many times and is also why many hate the United States. Many Americans do not know the foreign policies that America has and do not care what they are. They believe that if America is behind them then it is fair and just. To believe the jealosy issue is to find the easiest excuse. It is easier for people to believe "jealosy" is the issue then to actually look and research at exactly what these foreign policies are. When someone has a stomach ache you do not say oh so and so is sick and forget about it. If the stomach ache persists for a period of time you go to the doctor and the doctor does tests and researchs the problem. The doctor usually comes up with a diagnosis and treatment for the patient. This is not about jealosy it has a more deeper root to the problem. Like the stomach ache one should take the time to try to research fix and analyze the problem not just make excuses in hopes it will go away. If the original problem does not get fixed many other subproblems come about and the stomach ache loses the focus.
I couldn't agree more. As an American citizen living in Canada, I am appalled of what I see going on in my own country. I am so proud to be an American, but so terribly embarrassed and disgusted by our current leadership. I'm not a Liberal, not a Conservative, but a Moderate who calls things like I see them. I cannot defend the actions of Bush & Rumsfeld... there is no defending the acts of ignorance and egocentrism.
I will add... my DH and I were planning on moving back to the States in the near future. I am in Canada because of my Canadian DH... he owned a business here, and it was necessary for us to be here until all loose ends were tied up. Now that everything is done, however, we've decided to stay. We have a child now, and I honestly believe that it's safer for him north of the border. I marked my third year anniversary of coming to Canada in May, and am now eligible for citizenship. I've decided to pursue it... I will not renounce my American citizenship (will have dual status), but will say this... once I have my Canadian passport, I will travel only with that. The world's a dangerous place for American tourists these days... we have Bush to thank for that.
So, in a way, my resentment towards this man is deeper than that of many... he's now made it so that I don't want to return home. And what hurts even more is that, unless things change, my beautiful son will only now the America that has come to be.
-- Laura
I don't believe the world despises us because they are jealous, I believe they despise us because America portrays itself as superior to other countries - no one enjoys being looked down upon.
The world is much like a group of neighbors with small to large families. America is the neighbor that is rich, loud, and self-righteous. It takes it's bible to the other neighbors and insists they convert. It does not respect other religions - it says God loves only them. It uses the entire street for it's own flashy vehicles, it throws it's garbage in the community pool. It never notices that it's parking in front of other houses, using other people's property. It's sneaky, if it wants something from one neighbor it gives candy to the other neighbors to bribe them so they will help it have it's way. When the neighbors with the candy expect more and get demanding - America
gives the candy to the neighbor it originally targeted, and the game is played over with different teams. One day it loses patience with everyone and simply unleashes it's rotweillers. This is certainly simplistic but it's not entirely inaccurate.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gw1.html
Oh, I believe Vice-President Cheney should be riding into battle right beside, possibly a little to the rear, of him.
To be fair, I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are doing the opposite of protecting the world. Foreign policy in America is set up not so much to protect the world but to serve the interests of America. Sometimes these interests coincide nicely (World War 2 for example) and things end up that both America's self-interest is preserved as well as the interests of the world. Often however, these two things do not always line up so neatly. Using the example of World War 2, America entered the war later than most of the other countries and they entered it ONLY when their self interest was on the line.
The problem lies in the fact that there are many Americans who believe that American foreign policy is geared towards the best interests of the world. This is not the case. In fact, this attitude in the US is so prevalent that many Americans do not bother following their own foreign policy and therefore do not know what is happening in the name of America. Others, who are directly effected by the fallout have a vested interest in following American foreign policy and the result is that many people from other countries have a better understadnig of what is going on than the average American does.
Throughout the course of it's history, there are many who have suffered in the name of protecting America's self interests. This is where the anger and confusion comes in.
Edited 6/18/2004 12:56 pm ET ET by suemox
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You're right. The father of our country was a very brave man. But, as sometimes happens, the line weakens as it progresses and we are left with a weak, demanding and selfish child.
I have to agree with you. Would that be a more logical excuse in your opinion then that of jealosy? If so then why do you think President Bush emphasizes so much that these terrorists attacked because of America's freedoms? Why not admit to what it actually was and still what the terrorist say? In Osama's last statement he still brings up the same statements he has made for many years and yet the United States never speaks on those. It is like the main reason for the attacks are being ignored still.
I agree. We don't have to go back as far as George Washington either. Just one generation of the Bush family would suffice.
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