So The President Is Threatening Not To Protect The American People, Huh?

[eleny]

That's how I took his assertion that he will scrap the program involving interrogating prisoners unless he gets his way. That cavalier attitude and petulance is just another illustration that he isn't serious about American safety.

[bluerum]

1. That's it. It is a simple protection racket. Has been all along. nt.

[glitch]

35. Yep. Of all the bush family rackets this one is the most despicable.

Which says something, considering how many retirees they ruined with the S&L racket and how many kids they are ruining with the NCLB racket. Don't get me started.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. As if he *ever* cared

Its all about *his* power and *His* wants.

I'll just sing my hymn about the lad ...... himmmmmm himmmmmm ..... fuck himmmmmm .....

[Deja Q]

3. What does the Constitution have to say about that?

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

And that's just the Preamble.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

[indepat]

6. Wonder what the presidential oath says is to be preserved, protected

and defended? If the oath of office is upheld, surely everything else will fall in place.

[Cuthbert J Twillie]

9. What does the Constitution have to say about what?

There's also Seven Articles, numerous sections with sub clauses to those Articles and Twenty-Seven Amendments.

http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/

Or do you mean just this part of Article II, Section 2:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

No offense but you lost me????

[yellowcanine]

4. "We will play by MY rules of not at all. It is MY ball."

So glad the adults are in charge.

[AndyA]

5. Bush has never had the safety or protection of the American people

as a priority.

If he did, why did he ignore the August 2001 PDB?

Why did he allow innocent first responders to go into Ground Zero knowing it was full of toxins?

Why did he allow our soldiers to be shipped off to the front lines without proper armour, or a plan to succeed?

Why has he allowed our borders, ports and critical infrastructure to remain unprotected during this period when he says terrorists are determined to strike us again on our soil?

Why has he allowed relations with other nations to deteriorate when the war on terror is a world wide war?

The answers to these questions indicate the true nature of George Bush's concern for the safety of the American people. Dick Cheney said it best:

FUCK YOURSELF!

[Cuthbert J Twillie]

7. No, he didn't intimate that he wouldn't protect the USA

The problem is the recent SCOTUS ruling regarding the Geneva Convention and mainly its Article III(?) clause.

Congress now needs to pass a law 'protecting' the CIA, or other Agencies from lawsuits for War Crimes for violating the now ambiguous wording of Article III pertaining to 'degrading treatment'. And it's the CIA who are saying unless Congress passes this law, they will have to stop interrogating prisoners and end the current program.

Now I didn't see the question part by the reporters but that's what I got out of it. The CIA needs it spelled out what they legally can and can't do to prisoners.

[tkmorris]

8. How much torture is too much torture?

Is that what you are asserting the CIA needs defined?

[Cuthbert J Twillie]

10. No, well maybe, as the word 'torture' seems to be being misused

The word "Torture" is being misused IMO.

Cattle prods, electric shock to the balls, pulling out finger nails, being hung by the feet upside down while being beaten with steel rods and such is "torture". Making someone listen to Iron Maiden on 'eleven' is not. Nor is putting panties on a guy's head "torture" - heck some people do that for fun. Nor is sleep deprivation "torture".

"Torture" is physical abuse bordering on death and sometimes ending in death (KGB, Gestapo, Stassi, or Saddam's Secret Police). Or mental "torture" as used in the Korean Wat by the Chinese. Making a prisoner 'think' he may be killed by acting mean isn't.

So what some are calling "torture" is far less "tortuous" than what anyone who ever served in the military went through in Basic Training or Boot Camp.

[ProfessorPlum]

11. Tell me, quick, how many people died at Abu Ghraib

as a result of having underwear put on their heads?

[ProfessorPlum]

12. A: At least 5 died, and there are 23 other deaths being

investigated. Does that pattern fit your definition of "torture"? Do you think that more might have been going on than making them listen to loud music?

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46659-2004May21.html for some discussion of the at least 33 cases of death to detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq, and inform yourself a little bit before you embarrass yourself.

[eleny]

15. Don't you get it? He never spells everything out...

He always leaves himself wiggle room. But it's plain and simply a threat to walk away from all interrogation unless he gets his way. W is a lousy president and a corporate shill who could care less about the American people.

Btw, water boarding is also torture. And we have done that to prisoners.

Enjoy your stay at DU no matter how short.

[ProfessorPlum]

16. I'm sure that when Bushy and Rumsferatu and Cheney are put

on trial for war crimes, they'll just produce the evidence that all they authorized was loud music and underwear on people's heads, and they'll have nothing to worry about. Right? Right? I mean, what else could explain this frenzied, pee-in-their-pants rush to push this legislation through right before they lose control of Congress? It couldn't possibly be that they, themselves, know that they've committed war crimes, now could it?

I mean, it was probably just some fraternity stunts. People blowing off steam, you know. Which is why Smirky had to hold an emergency press conference this afternoon to plead, and threaten, us, if we didn't let him have his way.

I don't think you can have it both ways in your argument. Either Bush is torturing people, and needs to get the law changed, or he isn't (underwear, remember?) and it's really not important that we retroactively pardon him of war crimesa and atrocities. So which is it, do you think?

[Vickers]

22. You were in the military and you think that way?

That's fucking amazing.

[bobbieinok]

25. sleep deprivation is a standard way to 'break' people

--'panties on head'--try substituting forcing a guy to fondle another's penis......they have as a goal breaking down the sense of self so that the person can be coerced to do/say what interrogater wants

Do you also think sensory deprivation is not torture?? It doesn't break bones, true, but I understand it can drive a person crazy.

'Making a person think he may be killed' is also a standard way of sadists breaking a person. I think this was used on POWs in both the Korean and Vietnam wars.

[Zodiak]

27. You have a narrow, republican view of torture, Cuthbert

Ever heard of "humiliating and degrading treatment?". Panties on the head would definitely qualify, and it is outlined in Section III already. So would being made to lie in one's own feces, forced to be naked in a cold cell for days on end, and parading prisoners in a state of undress around soldiers of the opposite sex. Then there are human pyramids, anal rape with foreign objects, and being forced to masturbate other prisoners. All of this qualifies as humilating and degrading treatment.

Surely you do not contend (along with Busholini) that the Geneva conventions, which have been clear for 50 years, suddenly is vague and needs to be redefined. Such an assertion is insulting to the American people, and twice insulting to the people here who have been watching this administration lie about just about everything for five years.

And the Geneva conventions do not cover boot camp, so the comparison is moot. If the conventions said "treat prisoners no better than bootcamp trainees", then you would have a point.

[Felinity]

28. Bullshit & You've been Served

You said, ""Torture" is physical abuse bordering on death and sometimes ending in death (KGB, Gestapo, Stassi, or Saddam's Secret Police). Or mental "torture" as used in the Korean Wat by the Chinese. Making a prisoner 'think' he may be killed by acting mean isn't."

So if you surgically removed someone's limbs to make a point, that would not be torture, because it can be done with relatively small probability of death. Or that harmless loud music prank? It would almost certainly cause permanent hearing loss so that's no big deal? Are you aware that sound can kill you? Do you know that if you were trapped in a large bell chamber and the bell was rung, you would almost certainly die?

You have got some 'splaining to do Cuthbert--it's looking like you're not here as a Progressive voice.

[BlueStorm]

34. Torture is torture..

no matter how innocuous it may seem. It appears Cuthbert that you define torture on a purely physical level, that unless you are bleeding and screaming that anything else isn't torture. Have you ever heard of some of the techniques that certain cults use for brainwashing? The techniques that you describe as "not torture" such as sleep deprivation and humiliation are designed to menatally distress the person in order for the person holding them can get what they want out of them. One of the culminations of this type of distress can result in Stockholm Syndrome where the hostage identifies with it's captors. Torture is basically another form of terrorism.

Someone can correct me on this as I am not really thinking straight today, lack of concentration, and I am not saying what I really want to say.

Blue

[leesa]

30. Ah just frat boy hijinks! Alberto, is that you?!?

[ProfessorPlum]

13. Every president up to Chimpy has somehow managed to

protect the US and conduct wars (when necessary) without violating the Geneva convention.

I wonder why the Cheney/Chimpy administration is so incompetant that they can't pull this off?

[ProfessorPlum]

14. I should add, since 1947

when the Geneva Conventions were put in place.

[WyLoochka]

31. The "now ambiguous wording?"

The words "cruel, degrading and humiliating" are not ambiguous, or shouldn't be to anyone with average comprehension skills. CIA agents must demonstrate higher than average intellectual skills in order to even get hired in the first place.

Cruel, degrading and humiliating actions are easy to understand. They are actions that if done to you, or your loved ones, you would consider to be beyond the pale and unacceptable, therefore you don't do them to someone else. It's clear - it's simple.

If you don't want lawsuits or criminal proceedings - stop breaking the law!

Bush and Cheney are trying - very hard - to make these words ambiguous and replace them with the words "shocks the conscience." Shocks whose conscience? There is much more ambiguity in that phrase than the existing words in Article 3.

Since Bush and Cheney have consciences that have been so seared by the total unleashing within themselves of greed and power mongering that they are not capable of being "shocked" - then anything goes in the way of treatment of these human beings they "detain," if they prevail - yet again - with this latest round of despicable, amoral propaganda.

We do not need to lower ourselves to Bush's level of comprehension to agree with him that the Article 3 words are "vague." They are not. This move should be repudiated in toto by Congress. If not by Congress then the courts should smack it down.

If he fails to pursue interdiction of terror attacks before they happen - as he clearly threatened to do - then impeach the fucker for incompetence and dereliction of duty according to his sworn oath of office.

If this were a company, the board of directors would say to the CEO - if you can't accomplish within the parameters set forth - we will get someone who can!

[LynneSin]

17. Wait a minute - when was Bush out there protecting us

:shrug:

I've never failed safe with him in the White House

[eleny]

18. My bad!

:+

[Disturbed]

19. A study of the Geneva Conventions may be helpful.

What is a war crime?
By Tarik Kafala
BBC News Online


Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as: "Willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including... willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, ...taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."


This, international lawyers say, is the basic definition of war crimes.

The statutes of The Hague tribunal say the court has the right to try suspects alleged to have violated the laws or customs of war in the former Yugoslavia since 1992. Examples of such violations are given in article 3:

* Wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity
* Attack, or bombardment, by whatever means, of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings
* Seizure of, destruction or willful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art and science
* Plunder of public or private property.

The tribunal defines crime against humanity as crimes committed in armed conflict but directed against a civilian population. Again a list of examples is given in article 5:

* Murder
* Extermination
* Enslavement
* Deportation
* Imprisonment
* Torture
* Rape
* Persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1420133.stm

[CarlVK]

20. More treasonous comments.

Oh well, pile it on to all the other ones.

[calimary]

21. Sounds like sour grapes meets sore loserman, with a side of blackmail.

He's trying to blackmail the Senate into bending to his will. Otherwise he'll kibosh the whole program. Well, perhaps the whole program, as it stands and as it's been perverted, OUGHT TO BE kiboshed?

Hmmm... and he says HE'S the one who's keeping us safer? By playing chicken with that? By using threats as a brickbat to keep us in line?

FUCKER.

[oasis]

23. Bush redefines torture since the Geneva boys got it all wrong decades ago.

Btw, the Chimperor has been doing a helluva job modifying the U.S. Constitution.

[wiley]

24. It called Taking Hostages

It's the same as if he took 50 kids hostage and said pass this bill my way or the Easter Bunny's gonna be real lonely next year. Too bad the loser didn't feel so passionately about national security before he ignored the warnings leading up to 9/11. Psycho Thugs - what their name? Republicans, right.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

26. The pathologic behavior of a sociopath

true fucking evil

[leesa]

29. Far as I could tell, he was threatening to obey the law.

[eleny]

32. I just read that Senator Snowe joined the four opposing Repub Senators

I like that trend!

And I like the way you think! :thumbsup:

[Little Star]

33. Be still my heart....

I hope more come forward.

[gulliver]

36. "Nobody move or the program gets it!" n/t