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.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Tue, 12-30-2008 - 9:25pm

>>> Just because I say something doesn't mean all of what you call "liberal" think the same.

Hmmm…I thought it was like a big club where y’all got together and agreed to agree on the same things…like Obama is qualified to be President, for instance. ; )

>>> Shades of gray are great if you know who you are dealing with(honestly know).

Shades are always great…it’s the reality between the two extremes.

< Um…what? If China wanted to “cripple us” then it would seem far smarter to NOT give us money and to do things that would tend to COST us money.

>>> We differ in our opinion on this.

Obviously…still, it’s tough to financially “cripple” someone by giving them money.

< LOL! But considering the TRILLION dollars the Congress just threw at the banks, the BILLIONS they’re going to throw at the car companies and the TRILLION that Barry wants to spend on his stimulus package, it really doesn’t appear as though footing the bill for the Iraq war would “cripple” us.

>>> We are in massive debt(as a nation) and just printing more "money".

Yeah…but saying that spending a trillion dollars for a war, over seven years, will “cripple” us, when the government just spend a couple of trillion in a few months doesn’t sound very logical.

< LOL! Coming from a master…” You didn't answer the question, nice way to duck a weave, did you learn that from Bush??”

>>> Still haven't answered the question. Do you even remember what the question was?

Nope. But you can ask it again if you like.

>>> Please, give me a list of the questions I didn't answer, not the ones I didn't give the answer you wanted, and I will answer them.

I’ll see if I can come up with anything.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Tue, 12-30-2008 - 9:53pm

>>> Yes, that is correct. Our allies were getting the heck kicked out of them, and Hitler was poised to take over Europe. Aren't we supposed to help our allies? Isn't that what the free world does?

In my opinion, yes...but many on the left disagree...as they disagreed at the time and held back the help we "owed" our friends and allies.

>>> This was Great Britain fighting as hard as they could and France was AWOL.

France was hard at work devising a strategy to surrender.

>>> I find it kind of hypocritical that you would take this stance on our entry into WWII after being attacked or going to the aid of our allies as my being hawkish and, yet, think preemptive wars for whatever reason are A-Okay.

I'm of the opinion that talking will only get you so far...so I agree with you that we should have jumped into the fray much earlier in WWII. It may have cowed Hitler and brought the war to and end sooner and certainly would have been more "noble" on our part. I also don't believe that you have to be attacked in order to take steps to defend yourself if the belief in the threat is reasonable. The simple fact is that Hussein was perceived as a threat and, after a decade of failed diplomacy, he left only one option to quell that threat.

>>> And I certainly had no problem with Bush I and the Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait. And if Iraq had attacked one of our allies in 2003, wouldn't have had a problem with going in then. Of course, they didn't. The "decider" just decided it was the thing to do.

A grossly ill-informed point of view.

>>> As far as the "threat posed by communism," there's little I can do to keep you from being afraid of whatever it is that neoconservatives fear.

True...especially since the left embraces so much of it.

>>> But you can make your opinion-type attempt to tell me all about the threat of communism. I thought it was socialism that the right was so fearful of.

Same ideology...but since you embrace that ideology it's not surprising that you're not afraid of it imposition...until it's imposed, that is.

>>> Gosh, it must be hard to even go out of the house to work. There might be a communist, or a socialist or a leftist just waiting to indoctrinate you.

Not likely...not that there aren't communists or socialists out there, heck, liberals abound...just that it's unlikely that I'd be indoctrinated to such an absurd, failed ideology.

>>> What about fascism? Now, I had some concerns about that myself at one time. But come Jan. 20th, that concern will be null and void.

I don't think fascism was ever a potential threat...but as of Jan 20th, when a Marxist sits in the Oval, the rise of socialism is a very real threat.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2008
Tue, 12-30-2008 - 10:17pm
Most of those criteria are pretty subjective...but even so, do you have evidence that those were the conditions of the factory in the Chinese factory? Or at WalMart?
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Tue, 12-30-2008 - 10:47pm
the walmart thing of not shopping there because of where they get their stuff is pretty funny. been into nordstrom's, macy's, sears, target, etc lately? guess where 90% of their stuff is from....same place as walmarts is made. go figure! *LMAO* i bought a made in the usa marshmallow shooter for my husband and son for xmas, guess where the pvc is made, china. yup i just supported someone in the usa to take something from china and slap it with a made in the usa stamp because that was where the pvc it is made out of was cut and actually made into the shooter. and this was off of that made in the usa website that i thought was so cool....i'm quite disappointed in this, if you ask me.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-16-2008
Wed, 12-31-2008 - 6:30am

>>> Gosh, it must be hard to even go out of the house to work. There might be a communist, or a socialist or a leftist just waiting to indoctrinate you.


Not likely...not that there aren't communists or socialists out there, heck, liberals abound...just that it's unlikely that I'd be indoctrinated to such an absurd, failed ideology.


And with that statement, therein lies the reason I don't worry about being "taken over" by communists and apparently neither do you - "such an absurd, failed ideology."

"

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-30-2008
Wed, 12-31-2008 - 9:59am
Durendal, you better hurry and write up some letters to your
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2008
Wed, 12-31-2008 - 3:49pm


<>

 

 

Guild Member since 2009

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2008
Wed, 12-31-2008 - 3:55pm
I liked the related article about the minimum wage too.

 

 

Guild Member since 2009

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2008
Wed, 12-31-2008 - 4:13pm
I agree - the closemindedness is extraordinary - I had thought things would improve after the election but it seems to have gotten exponentially worse. I think talking to a brick wall might be preferable sometimes!
.
.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Wed, 12-31-2008 - 4:22pm
*winky wink*

Pages