The Tortured Party

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
The Tortured Party
472
Fri, 12-12-2008 - 11:15pm

Now that he's got nothing to lose by dropping the pandering, McCain issued a joint report just that found that Rumsfeld was right in the middle of authorizing the torture:

"Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld Approves Aggressive Techniques (U)
(U) With respect to GTMO’s October 11, 2002 request to use aggressive interrogation
techniques, Mr. Haynes said that “there was a sense by the DoD Leadership that this decision
was taking too long” and that Secretary Rumsfeld told his senior advisors “I need a
recommendation.” On November 27, 2002, the Secretary got one. Notwithstanding the serious
legal concerns raised by the military services, Mr. Haynes sent a one page memo to the
Secretary, recommending that he approve all but three of the eighteen techniques in the GTMO
request. Techniques such as stress positions, removal of clothing, use of phobias (such as fear of
dogs), and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli were all recommended for approval.
(U) Mr. Haynes’s memo indicated that he had discussed the issue with Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, and General
Myers and that he believed they concurred in his recommendation. When asked what he relied
on to make his recommendation that the aggressive techniques be approved, the only written
legal opinion Mr. Haynes cited was Lieutenant Colonel Beaver’s legal analysis, which senior
military lawyers had considered “legally insufficient” and “woefully inadequate,” and which
LTC Beaver herself had expected would be supplemented with a review by persons with greater
experience than her own.
(U) On December 2, 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld signed Mr. Haynes’s recommendation,
adding a handwritten note that referred to limits proposed in the memo on the use of stress
positions: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
(U) SERE school techniques are designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our
enemies. There are fundamental differences between a SERE school exercise and a real world
interrogation. At SERE school, students are subject to an extensive medical and psychological
pre-screening prior to being subjected to physical and psychological pressures. The schools
impose strict limits on the frequency, duration, and/or intensity of certain techniques.
Psychologists are present throughout SERE training to intervene should the need arise and to
help students cope with associated stress. And SERE school is voluntary; students are even
given a special phrase they can use to immediately stop the techniques from being used against
them.
(U) Neither those differences, nor the serious legal concerns that had been registered,
stopped the Secretary of Defense from approving the use of the aggressive techniques against
detainees. Moreover, Secretary Rumsfeld authorized the techniques without apparently
providing any written guidance as to how they should be administered. "

http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2008/Detainees.121108.pdf

What a surprise! There will be a lot more on this. If we don't hold those who broke the law accountable, the rampant rate of lawbreaking in the Republican Party will not slow down in the slightest. It will also be a good message to Democrats not to make the same mistakes.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 4:21am
You made the accusation...you back it up.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 4:25am
Sounds like the jobs were voluntary, where the workers were free to leave as well as file protests. It also seems as though the personal accounts related in the story have been disputed.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 4:49am

>>> Why would you do business with someone who is distasteful?? Do all morals go down if it means saving money?

That sounds like a good question for Obama. LOL! But as I mentioned, trade is a great peacemaker...and it's easier to get concessions when both parties have an investment.

< Trade builds allies...and it's probably a good idea to have a burgeoning economic superpower with billions of citizens as an ally...and maybe "friend" some day.

>>> China will never be our allies.

But it will likely be an ally in the not too distant future.

< We do support democracy, human rights and respect for international law. I don't see how that is inconsistent with trading with China. Trade is the best hope for things in China to change.

>>> You really don't?? Do you really believe workers in China are treat right??

According to many on the left, workers down the street at WalMart aren't treated right. LOL! You can't wait until a country fits every one of the items on your "do what I say" checklist before making forays.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 4:53am
Still no links to support your outrageous accusations of "many of our soldiers" committing atrocities murdering innocent women and children.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 5:26am
LOL! OH!...sorry, I forgot that having a family member in the military automatically bestows "patriotism" on you, even though you compare the President to a mass-murdering psychopath dictator and try to smear the country. (darn, where's my "eye-roll" icon?)
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 5:40am
Right..."Y"...not "U." Just checking.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 5:55am

>>> That's about all we haven't done, as far as we know, in our "patriotic" endeavors of torturing and bending to the breaking point our Constitution.

Aah...the "patriotic" machinations of the left.

>>> You won't receive a call in the next four years at least after Jan. 20th. The neoconservatives, the patriotic torturers, will no longer be in power after that time.

And the"neoconservative patriotic torturers" were intending to call me? Why, I think I feel a thrill running up my leg. LOL!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-16-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 6:12am

And the"neoconservative patriotic torturers" were intending to call me? Why, I think I feel a thrill running up my leg. LOL!




I would have expected you would.

"

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 6:13am

It's a marvel how the word "patriot" is being thrown around. Military families with qualms about the Iraq war aren't patriotic; while another man, with sporadic "service" in the TANG during a time when his peers were fighting, dying and being maimed in the killing fields of Southeast Asia (even though he has no combat zone experience and has been directly responsible for the needless deaths of thousands of U.S. troops), is a "patriot"*****gasp, cough, choke, wheeze*****.

We had this same sort of arrant stupidity at the outset of the Iraq war. Those on the right, most of whom wouldn't know the sacrifice or pain of true patriotism if it came up and bashed them over the head with a heavy iron skillet, claimed that anybody who didn't support the Iraq war was a traitor, not a patriot.

The purpose is to demonize those who don't buy the totally flawed and immoral cant, that any war the POTUS pursues is endowed, somehow, with sanctity and rectitude which cannot be questioned critically. There is no logic, no morals, and no democracy in such a rigidly ideological, mindless and authoritarian attitude.

So they needs must resort to re-defining "patriot" in a way which allows them the luxury of freedom from harm, without pain or sacrifice, while at the same time belittling anybody who doesn't agree. As you noted in another post--not worth the time, the effort, or the words. Those who talk but don't walk are utterly clueless and totally contemptible.

Edited to amplify and correct a verb.




Edited 12/29/2008 12:53 pm ET by altered08ego
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Mon, 12-29-2008 - 6:25am
Indeed I would...I'm all a-titter at the prospect of pouring a few cup-fulls over the face of a terrorist to save a few innocent lives. Gad! I'm getting all goose-pimply.

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