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: 04-16-2003
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 10:54am
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We have no idea how many innocent Iraqis have died during the occupation because the numbers aren't reported. "Compared to Saddam's tyranny up until the war" do you have any idea how many years Saddam was in power? If you are going to compare death's you need also to compare length of time. Did you really mean to say "keeping" Saddam in power?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 11:13am
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I might add that by our actions the US has given the terrorists a victory. The purpose of terror is to cause fear, and to cause a lack of faith in the government's ability to protect the country. Fear has made the US irrational. We launch an attack on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11; and justify this by saying we were afraid they were going to attack us. This action has turned much of the world against the US. The terrorists have, with America's help, been successful.


Edited 6/20/2004 11:13 am ET ET by hayashig

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 11:26am
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I use to think that way, now I think "4 more" for Bush might be very interesting. He will have to clean up the mess he has made or watch the US become a object of ridicule. He has a plan to cut all social spending to bring down the debt--will the people stand for this? Will the public continue to let the gov't take from the poor and give to the rich? Will America learn to cope with its fear and demand the return of freedoms? Can one man really do this?

If a minority votes him into office again, what follows will be the end of the Republican party as it currently exists. This will definitely not be a dull time.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 11:30am
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How does fit with the concept of a volunteer army? Also many in Iraq are reservists or National Guard; do they have the same contract.


Edited 6/19/2004 11:37 am ET ET by hayashig

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 12:59pm
I don't know that. I was tempted to look it up anyway but I'm pressed for time today.

:o)

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 1:42pm

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/pdf/enlistment.pdf


10. Military Service Obligation for all Members of the Active and Reserve Components, including the National Guard.


b. If I am a member of a Reserve Component of an Armed Force at the beginning of a period of war or become a member during that period, my military service may be extended without my consent until six (6) months after the end of that period of war.


c. As a member of a Reserve Component, in time of war or national emergency declared by the Congress, I may be required to serve on active duty (other than for training) for the entire period of the war or emergency and for six (6) months after its end.


There is more information in that pdf document if you would like to read it.

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 3:12pm
Yup, that's me! :) I had some tough medical issues to sort out. I am much better and am back to discuss what I believe. I remember at one point I was going up against the worst of them, the harsh "higher than thou" attitudes of the liberal groups on here and proudly it was me up against many. I don't care, I am still just as strong in my stance about this war and have even more respect for Bush than I did a year ago. It's nice to hear from you again too:)
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 3:13pm
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Polite? ROTFLMFAO!!!! Ahh that was a good one coming from you!

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 3:17pm
I think that one is getting quite old, try a new one woulda ya?
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-04-2004
Sat, 06-19-2004 - 3:23pm
My question for those who are just gonna vote for what now seems to be the lesser of the two evils. What is he turns out to be worse? I know that you are going to say that is impossible but think about it. Most people on here don't know squat about what Kerry stands for or what he is going to to while in office. The only thing people know of him, if asked, are links they looked up real quick to post on here to supply somewhat of an incling of what he "might" be all about. It is sad that someone wouldn't completely educate themselves on a man they are blindly going to follow in hopes he is better then GWB. It's actually scarier to me. Some people think it's scary to see the next four years with Bush in charge...I laugh at such nonsense compared to how little they know of a man they would vote to lead this country. He could be a Hitler, a leader who might turn around while in office and bomb two or three more countries. The scary thing is, most don't care, they just selfishly want Bush out and I have a strong feeling it isn't because it's in the best interest of the people, but rather in the best interest of their poitical stance.

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