This is topic Breaking news: Bush waived anti-torture laws/treaties after 9-11 for Afghan. and Iraq in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.
So it looks like he had a personal hand in it after all.
I wonder if Bush would still try and argue that those methods don't constitute torture if HE was subjected to them. This is very bad and as more documents come out in the next few days this could easily shape up to the worst scandal in this scandal-ridden administration so far.
[ June 22, 2004, 07:21 PM: Message edited by: BrianM ]
Posted by BYuCnslr (Member # 1857) on :
Why hasn't Bush been put up for impeachment yet? We've got many of these documented "lies" along with human rights violations...and we go after Clinton for...having an affair? I'm speachless. Satyagraha
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Believe it or not, lying isn't actually against the law.
Lying under oath to interfere with a lawful civil suit is.
Dagonee P.S., quick answer to the second post - I need to read the link to comment on the actual topic.
Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :
Reining a president in under foreign policy is very, very hard. Just look at Reagan with the Iran-Contra scandal.
EDIT: Also, Republicans have majorities in both houses.
[ June 22, 2004, 08:18 PM: Message edited by: Book ]
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Bush needs to be impeached. His actions are 10 times worse than skanking around in the oval office. This is the reputation of America at stake here...
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Find a high crime or misdemeanor. If they could have, they would have.
What Clinton did was not "skanking around in the oval office."
Not that Clinton's at all relevant to this thread, but I'm happy to discuss it.
Dagonee
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
I'm surprised more people aren't completely ticked that he used a building that WE PAID FOR for a booty call.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I'm surprised more people aren't completely ticked that he used a building that WE PAID FOR for a booty call."
Don't you think Bush occasionally has sex in the White House? I mean, we taxpayers DO pay to have the sheets cleaned.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Actually, I find skanking to be morally reprehensible and NOT something I really need to know about... In fact I wish it had been like Kennedy back in the 60s when they DIDN'T talk about that sort of thing at all... Who needs to know about sex and politicians anyway? But human rights violations and stirring up a political hornet's nest is a much worse crime.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
True, but please stop dismissing what Clinton did as a sex issue.
According to what we all heard after the Thomas hearings, sexual harassment is about power, not sex.
Clinton lied during discovery about an incident highly relevant to a case brought by a subordinate accusing him of assaulting her, and he did it to deny her satisfaction in the courts.
It's not about sex.
Dagonee
Posted by BrianM (Member # 5918) on :
Why does it seem like every thread about something horrible Bush has done seems to turn into a "ya, well look at Clinton's problems as President!" I mean, don't you think it's time we moved on?
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
it was mentioned because someone complained that Clinton was impeached when bush was not.
Anyway, memos from Bush to the people in charge of the prisons were released where the people in charge were told not to torture the prisoners...and that they were to follow Geneva Convention rules.
Posted by BrianM (Member # 5918) on :
Actually its looking more and more like that's not what Bush actually did, even though that's what he's claiming he did. Why else would Bush be so fervently asserting his supposed legal right to supercede those regulations if he hadn't done so already or was planning to shortly?
Posted by michaele8 (Member # 6608) on :
If you had a prisoner who knew where an attack was going to take place against your country, and getting this information might require something beyond serving him milk and cookies and saying "pretty please" over and over, would you consider torture?
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
I think that torture is slightly more extreme then simply withholding the cookies.
What I find absolutely incredible about the whole thing is how the Bush administration is trying to redefine torture (despite international and domestic law definitions) - 'if your main intention is to get information, it's not torture.'
Ummm...
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
"If you had a prisoner who knew where an attack was going to take place against your country, would you consider torture?"
IF I were to decide that torture would be useful in saving lives, I wouldn't be wasting anybody's time trying to set up a plausible deniability -- "but I thought it was legal" -- alibi beforehand in hopes of worming out from under possible future punishment.
[ June 23, 2004, 04:06 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Why does it seem like every thread about something horrible Bush has done seems to turn into a "ya, well look at Clinton's problems as President!" I mean, don't you think it's time we moved on?
It was brought up by someone attacking Bush. The usual lies about it were made. People responded.
Dagonee
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"The usual lies about it were made."
I wouldn't call them lies, Dag. People complained, quite rightly, that Republicans kept throwing crap at the Clintons until they could find something that stuck -- and at the end of the day, the ONLY thing they ever got to stick was that Clinton denied sexual contact between him and an intern while under oath. And even this is questionable, since the definition of "sexual contact" presented to him was, IIRC, "contact between the genitals," and no full sexual congress was ever established. If I remember rightly, that judge who disbarred him did so because she felt the SPIRIT of his answers violated the truth, despite the fact that the letter of his answers did not. The whole point of that "it depends on what the definition of 'is' is" bit was that Clinton did a fair job of weaseling out of telling outright lies while on the stand.
But let's face it: the idea of lying under oath scares the Bush administration so much that they have steadfastly avoided ANY situation in which any of their people could ever be questioned under oath. It's been a stumbling block in six separate investigations, now; they absolutely refuse to answer any questions if they're under oath unless someone obtains a subpoena (which they can't do, obviously, while Ashcroft heads up Justice and no one is willing to testify in the first place to build grounds for a subpoena.) It's my own belief that the reason the Bush Administration is running scared on the whole prison abuse thing is that it's a CRIME, and therefore there ARE grounds to call people to testify under oath -- something that might well cause grown men in that administration to writhe on the ground in agony, as if splashed with holy water.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:
there ARE grounds to call people to testify under oath -- something that might well cause grown men in that administration to writhe on the ground in agony, as if splashed with holy water.
quote:
That was priceless....
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I have an e-friend from an arab country (Gotta love the internet). We were chatting the other day when I asked, "What would convince you that President Bush was not behind the abuse of prisoners"
"Ahh. President Bush is a strong Christian. He has said these abuses are un-American and unworthy. Yet he has not said Un-Christian, though I can think of nothing more against peaceful Christianity. I will believe President Bush when he says, 'One can not be a true Christian and torture another person. One can not be a true Christian and abuse another person in your care. One can not be a true Christian and condone such abuse. One can not be a true Christian and order such abuse. One can not be a true Christian and allow such abuse. I swear, as a True Christian, that I did no such things, and will do all with in my power to stop the abuse."
If President Bush said such a thing, I would believe him too.
PS. The question is not, would you torture a terrorist to stop a terror attack. The question is how many people would you torture on the hopes that you might get information to stop a terror attack. The question is, would you be willing to be tortured, along with others in your family, in the hopes that someone else who is really a terrorist will succumb to similar torture and stop a terrorist attack.
How did Abu Grav happen? Simple. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I've got to agree that if torture were "necessary," then the authorizing official should stand up and say "I did this for this reasons and am ready to defend my justification in court."
Being necessary in my mind would require at minimum a specific known threat to specific known people, like catching a kidnapper who has buried someone alive and won't say where. Even then, I'm skeptical. Trying to get general information to preven unknown future loss of life doesn't cut it for me.
Dagonee
Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :
We must face the truth...
there are many people in America who are hellgivers, people who in their oen heart and minds decide 100% that " You are going to hell!"!
...so if you are a dirty musilm, you are absolutely going to hell, so what's the big deal in torturing you now? God's going to torture all the dirty muslim's later, right? What's wrong with killing 50,000 muslims, they're all going to hell anyways right?
Look at what Micheal8 is saying, that we were torturing these dirty iraqi muslims to find out when they were going to attack our country, even though Iraq has no power to attack our motherland.
So we are torturing them for no reason?
Also, most of the right winger absolutists declare that every Iraqi person tortured was a murderer.
How do we know thism did they get a trial?
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
quote:The memo also argued that the president's wartime powers superseded anti-torture laws and treaties
Um... except for the fact that, unless I'm quite mistaken, we AREN'T at war! War can only be declared by Congress and as far as I know that hasn't been done.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
The definition of torture and war seem to be legal technicalities that not are lost on this administration. "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is." Ahh, fond memories.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
My favorite quote from the papers--scribbled by Rumsfeld, "How come we limit these men to standing for just 4 hours. I'm on my feet for 8 hours at a stretch and I feel fine."
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
That was priceless....