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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We should remember that during the crusades, it was christians that killed muslims, because we thought it was 'justified'. It really was terrorism whose purpose was to convert them. Christians are the ones in history who did the more 'efforts' to convert others. Neither jews nor muslims did nearly as much evil as christians to force their religion on others. Sad but true.
I don't agree that most people want Bush out because it is in the best interest of their political stance. I am not a very political person. I have a very busy life and if our leaders are competent, even though I may disagree with some of the things they are doing, I don't get that upset over it. The world doesn't revolve around me, not all laws will be in my own personal best interest. However I don't believe George Bush is competent. It should embarrass out great nation that we chose someone of his caliber to be our leader. You're right, I don't know everything there is to know about Kerry, but I'm not paranoid or fearful enough to believe he is a Hitler or a war monger. I know enough about him to know he is bright, thoughtful and doesn't see the world in the simple, child-like way that Bush has proven he does. I will vote for Kerry, unless of course either the democrats or republicans come up with someone better.
And who says they are? I'm saying it's ridiculous to claim that our fighting against al quaeda (you're not arguing they aren't terrorists, are you?) has something to do with us trying to "force" our religion on anyone. It has to do with defending ourselves against a group who is attacking us based in part on their religious beliefs. So IMO your conclusion is exactly the opposite of reality.
And that was wrong-just as wrong as what what groups like al quaeda are doing today. Not sure what you're trying to argue here-Christians did it once so that makes it ok? Because of what some Christians did hundreds of years ago we have no right to defend ourselves today? I don't see the US attacking anyone because they're "not Christian"-we are fighting against people who are plotting to KILL US. I've never claimed that all Muslims are trying to force their religions on others, but Islamic fundamentalist extremist groups, by their own admission, believe they have a right to kill "infidels", those who do not believe as they do. It's typical left wing rhetoric-if anyone says anything negative about extremist groups, they are accused of stereotyping all Muslims, and inevitably the crusades are mentioned. Newsflash-no one has any desire to force Muslims to give up their religion-Muslims are good people-those who slaughter innocent civilians in the name of their religion are not. And I would feel the same way whether they were Christian, Jewish, or atheist.
Again, ancient history. No one is trying to force anyone to convert to Christianity today.
This is a little OT but I was curious.....where are you from (without getting too specific). I'm from somewhere a very important governemnt town in Ontario (I'm sure you can figure it out) but I don't work for the government. Also, speaking of election dilemnas, we've got quite a dilemna coming up ourselves don't we? One leader supports the War in Iraq too. Frankly, I'm not too sure what I'm going to do.
I wonder if the technicality that we have not actually "declared war" is an issue? The war on terror is basically a war without end. I mean it seems to me it puts the contract into a grey area. Is there a definitive ending to the contract?
I know what you mean but the problem is that he doesn't think he *has* a mess to clean up. He thinks things are going fine. And if he gets another four years he will see it as a mandate to do whatever. That frightens me. I also believe that the rest of the world is quite willing to consider this last four years a bad dream. They don't consider Bush to be a legitimate president anymore then half of America does. If we get someone new in there I believe they will once again be willing to work with us. But if this man actually wins this elections? I think the rest of the world will turn on us.
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