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: 04-04-2003
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:18pm
1. Hate

2. Pride (hmmm....it's second on the list!)

3. Envy

4. Gluttony

5. Greed

6. Lust

7. Sloth

I'll do you one better, I stumbled across this link to a quiz (which sin are you?). It looks fun/interesting. I haven't tried it myself byut here's the link in case anyone wants a little diversion.

http://castle-diqueria.com/sin_quiz.htm



iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:27pm
<>

Oh I've noticed all right. Frankly, the style he has creeps me out totally. I find it extremely difficult to sit through one of Bush's speeches (there are ALL the same anyway....do his speech writers just cut and paste the content?) but I'm always hoping that he will redeem himself in some way but alas, it hasn't happened yet.

It's tragic. On a brighter note, there's a great many logical, bright, kind and highly moral people there. I don't think one should abandon all hope. Redemption is possible ;o)

The question is....is it possible with this administration?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:38pm
I don't envy any leader of the USA for the extremely difficult decisions he/she (just being optimistic ;o) has to make. There are always more than one side to every issue and sometimes by doing one thing you are inadvertantly harming another. If a person accidentally runs over my dog with their car but didn't mean it it doesn't make my dog any less dead or myself any less grief stricken. If this person ran over dogs on a regular basis one would have to wonder if they don't have a problem.

<>

It's not so much a cathartic confession that is needed but as you said (and to quote a "Dr. Philism") - You can't change what you don't acknowledge.

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Yes you do. America does do some great things in this world (including many individual American citizens who help others at great personal sacrifice to themselves).

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:39pm
Yes, every good quality has a counter balancing negative quality....Yin/Yang

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:39pm
Oh quit insulting my intelligence, I asked you that because you said many Kings and "Queens" fought wars or battles. I don't want to look anything up, because I don't feel it is true from my knowledge. Anyways this is a ridiculous fight. How many President's fought in any wars while in Presidency? None I do believe. Insinuating Bush to fight in the war is the single most ridiculous thing I have ever heard and argueing over it is even more ridiculous. Again don't insult my intelligence, you are quite rude.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:41pm
In the link I posted.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:47pm
Yes well I would rather you hold that opinion and feel you are right when you go to sleep at night, then be around to witness what could happen if we didn't go to war. I'll as much to say you are right and I am wrong, but it's been done and only time will tell, but you can think you are right and that's fine with me. I'd rather just let time tell.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:57pm
You brought up the kings and queens first.

Actually your exact words were:

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Looking at it, I see that it was a question....Based upon the rest of the content of the post I took it to be a sarcastic comment framed as a question....but perhaps it was a genuine question because you were very interested in history.

My reply was that yes, many kings fought in battles. I don't have sources, I just know this (well actually, I have a bookcase filled with history books but I can't very well show them to you can I). I wasn't too sure about queens...I know Elizabeth and Victoria didn't fight in any wars but it wasn't traditional then for women to serve in the military.

<>

Actually, I'm really not that rude....it's only rude people that tend to bring out the worst in me.

You are the one that keeps bringing up wanting to see sources. Practially every single time a person you disagree with makes a good argument that you can't counter (but neglected to post links) you demand to see their sources for want of addressing the issues they raised. A good tactic would be to find your own sources that prooves them wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see your demand to see sources as to which kings fought in wars as a tactic to try and attack me and not a genuine interest in learning anything. If I'm incorrect about this, and you REALLY REALLY want to know then I sincerely apologize for misjudging you.

Let me know, and when I have some time I will go through my books and give you some specific information.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 5:57pm


You wrote this as a reply to someone else but I thank you for injecting some humor into my day. I've read many posts - if we were holding an election, I believe you would win "rudest poster".

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Fri, 06-18-2004 - 6:02pm
I have and the news contradicts itself just as much as many say Bush and Co. do. Go figure!

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