quote: A Pentagon report last year argued that President George W Bush was not bound by laws banning the use of torture, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The document also argued that torturers acting under presidential orders could not be prosecuted, the paper said.
quote:The Army confirmed Tuesday that a former military police officer was injured while posing as a prisoner during a training session at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year.
Picked these up off SE.
So, should we have the right to torture prisoners if we're not getting enough information out of them?
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posted
Well, seeing as the francophobes just got done roasting the French for torture in the Algerian war, I'd say we're pretty hypocritical to claim that we have the right.
And it's things like this that give me the screaming heebie jeebies....
quote: The report then offers a series of legal justifications for limiting or disregarding antitorture laws and proposed legal defenses that government officials could use if they were accused of torture.
A military official who helped prepare the report said it came after frustrated Guantanamo interrogators had begun trying unorthodox methods on recalcitrant prisoners. "We'd been at this for a year-plus and got nothing out of them" so officials concluded "we need to have a less-cramped view of what torture is and is not."
posted
The United States should be obeying the Geneva Convention. If it were our people being held, they might have a different view of it.
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quote:Those who man our defenses and those behind them who build our defenses must have the stamina and the courage which come from unashakeable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all the things worth fighting for.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jan. 6, 1941
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posted
From todays wallstreet journal; full article
quote: Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department.
quote: The president, despite domestic and international laws constraining the use of torture, has the authority as commander in chief to approve almost any physical or psychological actions during interrogation, up to and including torture, the report argued. Civilian or military personnel accused of torture or other war crimes have several potential defenses, including the "necessity" of using such methods to extract information to head off an attack, or "superior orders,"
quote:The Convention Against Torture was proposed in 1984 by the United Nations General Assembly and was ratified by the U.S. in 1994. It states that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture," and that orders from superiors "may not be invoked as a justification of torture."
That prohibition was reaffirmed after the Sept. 11 attacks by the U.N. panel that oversees the treaty, the Committee Against Torture, and the March 2003 report acknowledged that "other nations and international bodies may take a more restrictive view" of permissible interrogation methods than did the Bush administration.
[ June 08, 2004, 04:55 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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posted
No wonder that the Bush administration has pushed so hard to have Americans Exempted from prosecution by the international war crimes tribunal.
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posted
For information, I'm not francophobe (of course...) and still think the torture in Algeria was infamous, and that the government should apologize and try to repair.
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posted
If you recall, the reason we refuse to sign/honor treaties involving international human rights courts is (supposedly) that we already hold violations to higher standards.
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Richard, it doesn't seem like the US is holding itself to a particularly high standard now in this regard.
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posted
I cannot believe what these neo-cons think they can get away with.
Sadly, I've heard from a number of people (though not on Hatrack) that torture is justified in Iraq, not only for information-gathering purposes, but also as a vent for our troops' aggression.
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posted
I know (I hope) that everyone here has thought this next one out, but I'll post it nonetheless, just to make sure.
If our government can decide--unilaterally--that the rules of the Geneva Convention don't apply to us, how can we continue to expect other countries to continue to apply the rules of the Geneva Convention to our soldiers (or civilians) when they are captured.
IS THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GEORGE W. BUSH AND SADDAM HUSSEIN THE DEGREE OF TORTURE THEY ARE WILLING TO IMPOSE ON THEIR ENEMIES?
quote: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."
(From the lead article in today's New York Times)
Please note the following:
1)...because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve ANY technique needed to protect the nation's security.
2) Do please note that we have now officially justified the "I vas only following orders" defense so much in favor by NAZI WAR CRIMINALS.
All of you, please do me this one favor:
DO NOT VOTE FOR GEORGE W. BUSH IN THIS YEAR'S ELECTION. HE IS DESTROYING THE COUNTRY AND WHAT IS LEFT OF OUR GOOD NAME!
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posted
Troub, of course not. No country should be expected to judge itself impartially, which is why our attitudinal shift against international law was fantastically poor. Just doing my part to point out the hypocracy for those with shorter memories.
[ June 08, 2004, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: Richard Berg ]
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quote: WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday he was not aware of any order by President Bush that would violate U.S. laws or treaties banning torture of military prisoners captured in Iraq or elsewhere in the war on terrorism.
"This administration rejects torture," Ashcroft declared under tense questioning by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he steadfastly refused to comment directly about a policy paper on this issue, or say whether Bush ever responded to it.
Seems like we have the Bush admin. refusing congress a look at documents that are neither intel. sensitive nor tactically sensitive. In short they don't want to be caught going completely against what Ashcroft said they are doing: there can be no other reason for not allowing Congress to see this document.
quote:Ashcroft would not comment directly on the 2002 departmental memo that laid out a rationale in which the president was not necessarily bound by anti-torture laws or treaties because of his authority as commander in chief to protect national security.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., asked Ashcroft whether there is any presidential order that "immunizes (from prosecution) interrogators of al-Qaida suspects?"
"The president has issued no such order," Ashcroft replied.
The attorney general said the policy memo on this issue would not be made available to the committee, however. And Ashcroft said that while he respected the constitutional right of Congress to ask questions, "there are certain things that, in the interest of the executive branch operating effectively, that I think it is inappropriate for the attorney general to say."
If they have nothing to hide, then they better disclose this.
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posted
The administration may feel that releasing the policy paper may give away non-torture interrogation techniques that actually *have* worked in eliciting information from prisoners.
If they're that worried that Congress will leak the info to the press, which would then tell our enemies what techniques they need to train to counter, they could always have the representatives in question sign a non-disclosure agreement with legal penalties for revealing said info.
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posted
Do you really believe that non-torture techniques are powerful enough to need training against?
Even if you say yes, that's not what the memo is supposedly about, the memo is written by lawyers working up ways to interpret law that would allow the Bush admin. to engage in methods that are probably against geneva conventions and the Torture Act.
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posted
See, I took it to be a policy memo on what type of interrogation techniques *would* be allowed/supported. Since nobody's seen the policy memo, I guess we can't actually be sure of just what info it does contain.
And if the techniques are innovative enough, yep, I do believe they'd be classified to prevent adversaries from learning of them and learning to counter them.
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posted
Nope. Others invent the techniques. But lawyers do research and give opinions on the legality of the techniques available at the time. (Although I guess that'd be the paralegals that actually dig up the info, right?) They assemble the list of available techniques which would be viable to suggest, given the parameters that may have been elaborated after the draft was submitted, and put forth a policy for final approval. It's the way staff taskers go.
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quote: he administration may feel that releasing the policy paper may give away non-torture interrogation techniques that actually *have* worked in eliciting information from prisoners.
I can easily believe that defense.
quote: Do you really believe that non-torture techniques are powerful enough to need training against?
Yes, Human psychology is an amazing field, with endless possibilities.
I'm not sure if I buy the "torture allows soldiers to take there aggressions out on Iraqi's" defense, but I believe that if you have a high ranking officer in a terror related organization (Iraq included) torture may be the only way to get information that could save American lives, and that is what our Military is supposed to do, isn't it?
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posted
Look, the memo in question can be altered for public viewing to exclude the language specifically dealing with any of the techniques, and then a committee that signs a non-discolure agreement can view the whole thing to verify what was blanked out was not germane to the inquiry. This kind of thing happens all the time when oversight of possibly-sensitive stuff needs to happen. Why won't Bush do it?
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posted
It just blows me away that Americans aren't out there protesting in the streets. Not about this alone, but about the way it seems that your much-vaunted civil rights are being utterly swept away.
I live in a country where we don't really have a constitution that protects us like yours is supposed to. We get most of what you get by default, but it's not written into the fundamental tenents of our society.
And you're all letting it be taken away from you.
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Troub, to put it simply, I just don't agree with your analysis, and I suspect a lot of Americans would say the same.
No one has been prohibited from saying anything they want, so far as I can tell; if there is an attempt at suppressing free speech it has quite plainly failed. No one not involved in fighting in Afghanistan has been incarcerated without trial, and there is no reason to believe they won't eventually be tried. Most people I have talked to believe Dubya is a failure and will be out of office at the end of the year, and there's certainly no way he can hang onto power if we vote him out--we don't even have enough troops to occupy Iraq properly, and they're not here in America anyway, if that's what you think we should be worrying about.
So just what rights are you saying are being swept away?
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posted
No one not involved? strange . . . I know there were, among others, at least 4 british citizens who were not, as far as I know, involved in the fighting, imprisoned in guantanamo.
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posted
Furthermore, many of the prisoners of Abu Ghraib were not involved in the fighting. If there were, we wouldn't have let several hundred of them go just a bit ago -- yes, these same people we felt we could treat inhumanely we also thought were innocent enough we could just let go -- and by we, I mean the military governors of Iraq.
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posted
Thank you for the correction about Guantanmo, Fugu. Can you direct me to a news page about these prisoners?
And I said nothing about Abu Ghraib. Despicable though the events are, it's not clear to me that they are a deadly danger to human rights in general. Note that Troubadour was referring to the loss of American rights, specifically.
posted
Sure, speak out as much as you want. But then the FBI will use their newfound Patriot Act powers to check into pretty much any supposedly private record held on you. Medical, library and student records can all be accessed without your consent, and if the poor librarian even questions their right to do so, they can throw her in jail too.
So your much-vaunted free speech will get you a long way in the new America. That's how they'll know who the "terrorists" are.
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posted
Additionally, when things like this are going on to foreign nationals arbitrarily labeled as "illegal combatants" it wouldn't exactly inspire me to huge amounts of faith in my government.
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I'm not convinced, by any reporting I have seen so far, that the prisoners in Abu Ghraib (sp?) were actually innocent ("not involved in the fighting"). Where did you get that from? The info I've seen just indicates that the treatment they received as prisoners was abominable by any American prison standards, and in some cases (like the guy on the crate with the electrodes) equivalent to the type of ill-treatment conducted by Vietnam against American POWs during that conflict.
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In fact, that latter article makes it clear that many people weren't picked up for violence at all, but because of "suspected links" to Al Quaeda. That's right, civilians of many nationalities ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/guantanamo_nationalities.html ) locked up without trial because we "suspected" they were involved in Al Quaeda. Furthermore, many are being released as innocent.
I can tell you right now why this administration wasn't/isn't allowing them to come to trial: because they knew/know so many are innocent, or at least have no proof they are a member of Al Quaeda. I have no proof you're a member of Al Quaeda, Mac, lets lock you up so you don't talk to your compatriots (see the flaw in this chain of reasoning?).
Also, I fail to see the problem with allowing people there access to (potentially Al Quaeda allied) lawyers.
1) they were in Afghanistan. Its unlikely they possess information that Al Quaeda didn't already know.
2) even if they did, the situation changed so much just one or two months after their capture, a slight delay would have been acceptable. A couple years is not a slight delay (and for many the delay is ongoing).
While its good the US is releasing those believed to be innocent, note that its only doing it under extreme international pressure from the countries of nationality. We should be releasing the innocent because we have given them an impartial chance to demonstrate that and they have done so, not because its politically expedient.
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posted
The problem is, Mabus, do you really want any President to have the right to ignore the law whenever s/he wants? In this case, he had his Pentagon/appointees ask some Pentagon/civilian lawyers to write up some briefs containing legal arguments "justify"ing the use of torture on foreigners. Based on war powers, true. But one would be very hardpressed to find moments in which the US wasn't at war, in one way or another.
One can always find some lawyers who will attempt to justify absolutely anything whatsoever. Should the President -- who directly or through his appointed aides selects the lawyers to write those opinions supporting what s/hewants to be law -- be the one to decide that those lawyers' supporting argumentsis the law.
If so, why not use the "War on Poverty" to justify the torture of Americans who support the SalvationArmy?
quote: If so, why not use the "War on Poverty" to justify the torture of Americans who support the SalvationArmy?
Ok, that's just silly. Are you sure you're not Bob_S in disguise? Thank you for lightening the mood.
And, I stand corrected. I'd have thought the Army would have learned better prisoner-handling procedures after the mass surrenders in the wake of Desert Storm.
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I wish it were funny, Fishtail. But the lawyers are playing absurd word games. If the mention of 'war' justifies the President doing whatever s/he wants if s/he gets a supporting statement from a lawyer, then the declaration of the War on Povery surely justifies attacking "Army"s on the wrong side of the war.
It is illegal for an American to belong to or to support an army not under the control of the US Commander-in-Chief (ie the President). According to the PatriotAct, the President (through his appointed AttorneyGeneral and Secretary of State) has the right to decide who is on the wrong side. So the "funny" legal wordgames can be used to "justify" torture of anyone whosoever for any "reason" whatsoeverPosts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Nope, sorry, can't sign on to that fear-mongering.
Your example was silly. The U.S. has plenty of lawyers to oppose the odd policeman or military commander who tries to overstep his bounds. Isn't that why the ACLU exists?
Despite the idiocy and horrible acts of Abu Ghraib, I can't see this litigous (sp?) society changing that much.
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posted
Unfortunately, in U.S. legal tradition in order to challenge a government policy or statute you must have standing. That means typical American lawyers can't do anything about this issue until one of their clients is personally affected.
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posted
Last I checked they're not letting lawyers into Gitmo...
The good news of the day is, people in Washington appear to finally have had enough. Sen. Leahy didn't mince words when Ashcroft came to visit his committee again (read the link, it's not too long and well worth it).
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posted
Torture should be an option...but as a very last resort. I am reminded of the scene in Dirty Harry where Inspector Callihan catches the murderer who has taken a young woman as hostage and inflicts great pain upon him to get him to tell where the woman is located. I think most of us would do the same thing -- or condone it if it were our daughter being in danger of death or a prisoner who has vital information that could save the lives of innocent people.
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quote: Sure, speak out as much as you want. But then the FBI will use their newfound Patriot Act powers to check into pretty much any supposedly private record held on you. Medical, library and student records can all be accessed without your consent, and if the poor librarian even questions their right to do so, they can throw her in jail too.
So your much-vaunted free speech will get you a long way in the new America. That's how they'll know who the "terrorists" are.
Troub, I'll eat my filthy Cracker Barrel cap if the FBI could find anything damning in my private records. I have all the liberal credentials of Rush Limbaugh (not saying my views are the same), I've never done anything more illegal than driving 10 mph above the speed limit, and the only fear I have regarding my medical records is that someone might use them to justify bankrupting the government to provide universal health care.
I have nothing to hide. That's how I live.
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posted
I'm in complete agreement, Mabus. However, we cannot trust the intentions of so-called authority figures to interpret public records alone, or even to leave them untampered. Now if we could all have access to the politician's records, that would be a worthy tradeoff.
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posted
Sure, Mabus, but you don't have to do anything wrong to get picked up by the authorities in the US anymore. Mere suspicion is enough.
Fine. Your record is clean. Perhaps you're the right colour and are of a religious creed that the goverment agrees with. You should be fine for the moment.
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