Moscow, Russia - It is highly unusual for a leader of a great nation to publicly justify torture, but this is pretty much what President Bush did last week. Talking about the interrogation of a terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah the...
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February 18, 2007 2:06 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on February 18, 2007 14:06
human right abuses
January 27, 2007 8:27 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on January 27, 2007 08:27
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January 27, 2007 8:27 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on January 27, 2007 08:27
Ms. Lipman's well-written and -argued posting would have been accurate if the USA had legalized and approved torture. It has not. Coercive interrogation has never been disallowed by the Geneva Conventions or any international or national laws. In fact, in countries like France, citizens are brutalized at police stations and on the streets by government agents, and there is no real protection against that in their legal systems. What sets America apart is that the legality of coercive interrogation is questioned and addressed openly and explicitly. It is certainly most unfortunate that anybody would have to resort to coercive interrogation--just as it is equally unfortunate that people may hurt each other in a war.
September 24, 2006 3:22 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 24, 2006 03:22
Ms. Lipman's well-written and -argued posting would have been accurate if the USA had legalized and approved torture. It has not. Coercive interrogation has never been disallowed by the Geneva Conventions or any international or national laws. In fact, in countries like France, citizens are brutalized at police stations and on the streets by government agents, and there is no real protection against that in their legal systems. What sets America apart is that the legality of coercive interrogation is questioned and addressed openly and explicitly. It is certainly most unfortunate that anybody would have to resort to coercive interrogation--just as it is equally unfortunate that people may hurt each other in a war.
September 24, 2006 3:17 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 24, 2006 03:17
I am sadly not surprised by the human rights absolutism of almost all commenters. The writer is also confused:
"It's hard to imagine that anybody would be fooled by this euphemism. The U.S. president thus reduces the problem to a hideous simplicity: We needed the information badly, he wouldn't share it, so we tortured him; there was nothing else we could do.
This logic is especially immoral since it offers to those U.S. citizens who tend to trust their president (but of course are not personally responsible for life-or-death decisions) an easy way to justify a cruel and unusual punishment."
Presumably someone in her position understands the difference between torture and coercive interrogation. Today there are a many techniques for getting information that do not involve torture. Waterboarding itself does not fit the definition of torture, and in fact our own troops undergo training in which they are waterboarded.
But her real confusion is revealed by the last word: "punishment."
Authoritarian regimes use torture for punishment.
We use (in rare cases) coerceive interrogations to get information.
The very assumption that this is punishment shows the mindset of the author .
Many here describe long slippery slopes from torture to totalitarianism - King Bush or whatever. But such reasoning is always specious. It is very rare that situations are so clear that we can draw a line not on a slippery slope.
The author uses this reasoning, arguing that using these techniques (which she asserts are illegal) will lead to political repression. She should read some American history - how our civil liberties have survived and grown even though our greatest leaders in our worst wars (Lincoln and FDR) went far beyond the practices of George Bush (or even Nixon).
The Geneva convention (#3) is so vague that a European judge ruled that not providing a prisoner with a private toilet violates the convention (hence, presumably, making the jailer a war criminal)!
Does the west really want us to give such royal treatment to, for example, the mastermind behind 9-11? Wouldn't it be better to use the capture to prevent other atrocities?
Is it immoral to inflict minor pain (severe pain WOULD be torture) or fear in order to prevent the deaths of innocents?
Many here seem to imagine that doing this somehow immediately transforms us into a fascist state, a rogue state, or loses us the moral high ground.
That is nonsense, and moral blindness.
There is a consistent pattern from many commentators on "torture." They lecture us on the use of torture by evil regimes, and then imply or state that if we use torture (or whatever they think is torture), we become the moral equivalent of those regimes.
By that logic, the waterboarding of KSM makes us the equivalent of members of the regime that made lamp shades of the skin of Jews.
By that logic, the waterboarding of KSM makes us the equivalent of Stalin's henchmen.
Detention, interrogation and torture are difficult subjects. Absolutism, slippery slope fantasies, and overdrawn moral equivalencies detract from an important debate.
September 17, 2006 11:01 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 17, 2006 23:01
We won in WW II, and came to a standstill in the Korean War. We lost in Vietnam. We won in the Gulf War. Winning and losing have all been accomplished without torture, on a systematic level. In Vietnam, because the CIA was given the task of running Special Operations, and there were CIA paramilitary as well as Special Forces under CIA control, the torture began.
Is it part of a cosmic pattern for us that the US, which has stood for noble ideals for several centuries, has suffered when it tortured?
This President, and yes, his Vice-President, have both argued for torture. Imagine that! Gone on line and argued for the authority to torture!
The US can walk with their head held high if the Senate rejects Bush's moves to change the Geneva Convention. Too damned bad if the CIA "interrogators" lose their right to torture. I am nauseous over an allegedly "Christian Nation" or nation where a majority of people say they believe in some kind of God ... to say that because 3000 of our people were killed in a sneak attack, we are now justified in cross a line where what ... water boarding is o.k?
Let's get real here! If we WOULD have a case where someone was in possession of true information about who, and what, when and where, someone was going to unleash a biological attack on us, does anyone believe we'd just -- JUST -- water board?
A case like that would serve as justification when taken against such a greater good, perhaps.
But, if we become more liberal with our boundaries on torture, we'll ultimately suffer worse consequences.
Read Solzhenitsyn, if you want to see torture.
Is it any coincidence that Stalin turned on his people and ordered millions tortured, then murdered? Or, put into a massive Gulag.
Does such a state come with one step? No. It comes with many.
Waterboarding was probably just one among thousands that led to the ultimate horror of 20,000,0000 Russians tortured, imprisoned, or executed by their own leader.
We cannot cross this line.
St. Paul, in one of his epistles, says: "If God be for us, who can be against us?"
Either he meant Jesus said that, or he didn't.
And let's pretend Jesus DID say that: was he just talking out of his arse?
We WON the Cold War.
We fought the most dangerlous enemy of our history, in Communism.
And yet ... we won.
This is a very dark and sinister force being condoned by a very poor leader. I think it is no accident that Bush and Cheney are trying to peddle this crap.
They are losers who, when the time came, found someway to avoid military service or service in Vietnam.
I'd trust our Generals and Admirals, because they know, sooner or later, if WE do this:
somewhere in the world, a cable pay-per-view show will spring up that will offer, for $29.95, a torture and execution showing of Americans being tortured, live, in living color, being topped off by someone having the head sawed off like Nicholas Berg.
That someone will be an American soldier, and very quickly, it'll be an American female soldier.
When and if that day comes, the world will get it's fill of torture ... or will they?
Torture, in my opinion, walks down into a labyrinth of evil, the depths of which are never to be underestimated. When humans make a decision to torture, there is NO limit to the depravity that will emerge.
I'd prefer to keep those horrors in history books of OTHER peoples: The Romans and Crucifixtion; Attila the Hun; Vlad the Impaler; Hitler; Stalin; Pol Pot. I'd think just about any American who has cherished what this country is about, would, too.
Apparently, there are elements within the Republican Party that don't care about that any longer.
That's pretty damned scary.
That's what addiction to Power can do to someone's head.
The GOP should be run out of town on a rail.
And so should any Democrats who advocate torture.
September 17, 2006 4:40 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 17, 2006 04:40
I have read the article and the accompanying posts. It appears to me that everyone is working for an assumption that The Law has been broken. I will remind people that the Geneva Convention only applies to military personel (i.e. soldiers that represent a governmant and wear a uniform). It does not apply to terrorists.
I am not sure how the US Constitution comes into play. The terrorists are not in this country and they are not citizens. Therefore, they only protections they could have stem from the Geneva Convention. However, as stated previously, they forfeit this protection when they refuse to wear a uniform and represent a nation state.
Maybe, someone could tell me which documents state the rights of terrorists?
September 14, 2006 10:41 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 14, 2006 10:41
I'll make it real simple for you. Marsha and her apologists all need several swift kicks in the ass.
September 14, 2006 10:25 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 14, 2006 10:25
Fhe bottom line is this. If our first concern is the survival of the republic, then eventually all will be sacrificed in the interest of the republic.
The first concern of the Founding Fathers was the freedom of the American people from the tyranny of the British King.
I presume they did their best to ensure that the President of the US was not the future King of the US.
One has to really examine the difference between a King and the President, right now. Is there one? Is it a *significant* difference? Or is it only on the periphery?
If, instead of a Singing Sword, he carries the staff of National Security in his hands, what really makes him any different from a king?
He may not be like King George III or Louis IX, but he's definitely a king, granted a minimum of another two years in office. All that says is that the king MAKERS have made a different type of king, one with a limited lifetime. But still a king.
There's no doubt that Putin is the king of Russia and Bush is not far behind him.
The big difference is that Bush is not involved in the details of the lives of his people. But make no doubt about it, if he wanted to be, in the name of national security, he *would* be.
If he can have the phone calls and email of every American monitored by his secret minions, and our bank transactions, if at the snap of his fingers he can have someone snatched off the street and sent to a remote prison, how is he not a king? Is this not what kings do?
I'll bet it is what Stalin did. And Hitler too, since they seem to love to bring up the Nazis, lately. Name one tyrant that did not have the power that Bush does, when it comes to "national security". And did not have the *ability* to decide what was and what was not a "national security interest".
That's the key.
It's up to *him*.
Not up to Congress or the Courts.
The Courts have clearly deferred on this issue, and Congress likewise is not going to get into the details. And even if they did write a law limiting the President in some way, he'd just ignore it. After all he is the Decider, not them.
The man has come right out and TOLD you that he is the man. What more do you want?
September 12, 2006 9:09 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 12, 2006 21:09
second, and even more ominiously, if the law itself becomes secondary to National Security, then certainly our rights become secondary to National Security.
Well, which rights, when, and for how long?
Who determines this?
If *any* right is secondary to National Security, then why not all rights?
Where does it end?
Again, who actually enforces this?
And just as importantly, *WHEN*?
First it has to get to court! Then we have years of reviews and hearings, then undoubtedly it has to go before the Supreme Court as this case is an exception, different from all others in this one critical way...and always the President can reach back through the history and find some discarded legal principle and use that as a precedent. We could take slaves today and use the slavery laws as a precedent. Precedents for wrongdoing are scattered throughout the history of this country.
And, so we arrive where we are now, where the President is knowingly breaking the law but doing it for our own good, with the best of intentions and a lot of people support him, so he gets away with it. What use is the law at all, after this?
It is simple. The law is the tool that the government uses to control us. Then it writes the law as it wishes. And then, the government ignores whatever laws it wishes to ignore, and enforces the laws that it wishes to enforce.
No longer can it be argued that that is how it is done. For that is how IT IS BEING DONE.
Every day that Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez and his supporters remain out of prison is a day AFTER the death of this Republic. It's nothing more than a party, a prom. A fraternity house. Where the most popular are anointed kings, and they rule the little party. Exept in this case the party has a military with global reach, and several dozen intelligence services, and the wealth of the US at its disposal. And 300 million "townies" to feed it and clean up afterwards.
September 12, 2006 8:55 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 12, 2006 20:55
"That being said, I do think there are times when it is necessary to take a more narrow understanding of civil liberties. The pendellum does swing."
Bending the law in the interests of national security inherently undermines the nation that is supposedly being secured. Instead of a republic, we become a dictatorship. We elect people to Congress to write the law, for the President to take it upon himself to break it, or for the Supreme Court to take it on themselves to grant him the power to do so, is a fundemental undermining of our entire political system. Each and every law can therefore be "stretched" by the President "in the interests of national security". And it is up to him to determine when that is, and how far it needs to be stretched. It becomes nothing less than an excuse for his administration to do what it wishes, as long as they can somehow tie it to that Holy Grail.
Even worse, one is left to wonder, who actually enforces the decisions of the Supreme Court when it comes to the issue of limits on Presidential power? Do we seriously expect the US marshals' service to carry out the orders of the Supreme Court, when it comes to arresting members of the Administration? And what about if it has all the relevant information classified so that they can't even make an informed decision?
If National Security comes above the law, how trivial would it be for an agent of the administration to rule that in the interests of national security the judicial branch cannot be allowed to see classified information, just as was done with an internal Justice Department probe this summer? Where the administration refused to let its own lawyers have the clearances to review the NSA wiretapping program?
This is a line that knows no end. A dangerous trend to even begin. Certainly not one to be a slave to precedent.
September 12, 2006 8:52 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 12, 2006 20:52
The torture has been going on since the invasion of Iraq, and all of those in charge should be tried and punished for allowing such a hidious act. If the laws get changed so should the one's pleading the 5th while on trial, this is just the same as an admission of guilty.
September 12, 2006 12:11 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 12, 2006 12:11
The difference between a law abbiding country and terrorists should be that the first one comforms to the law and the latter does not. A government that proclaims and swears to uphold a constitution can not trample it when it's convenient, otherwise, what the difference would be between a dictatorship and a democracy? Nada, nil. The problem is that once you trample the most powerful document, The US Constitution, nothing will be sacred anymore. Secret prisons, tortures, abuses, killings in the name of fear are not the arms that a democracy uses, but the faithful application of the law.
September 12, 2006 10:26 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 12, 2006 10:26
Torture is unjustifiable no matter how we look at it. Listen to your Heart, and what does it say to you?
September 12, 2006 8:49 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 12, 2006 08:49
I do not deny that President Bush's assertions of authority are concerning, but I did think the notion that there are no circumstances under which legal restrictions should be loosened is historically inaccurate, operationally concerning, and probably not practical. In the United States, there is a long--and, admittedly, at times shameful--history of reinterpreting laws in times of emergency to afford the executive greater liberty of action. In other democracies, this practice is made explicit in their constitutions or other governing laws--e.g., Article 16 of the French Constitution, for instance. Even if the constitutive instrument does not provide explicit authority to loosen legal restrictions, a precedent has been established that does so--e.g., U.S. v. Quirin the Supreme Court case that affirmed the use of military commissions to try and subsequently execute Nazi sabetoers during World War II or, to paraphrase the Prime Minister himself, the fact that Sir Winston Churchill was vested with near total authority of the state during the same conflict.
Ignoring this historical precedent ignores the dual function of individual rights. Individuals are accorded rights, at least in the tradition of the United States, as a recognition of their inherit human dignity. There is, however, a larger societal benefit to rights: to minimize arbitrary government action by forcing the government to abide by specific procedures before acting against a citizen. Preventing arbitrary government action is good for liberty, which is a good in and of itself, but it also bolsters social stability and encourages long-term investment, as well as a several other benefits.
This view, however, acknowledges that there are some circumstances when the costs to society outweigh the benefits of an expansive interpretation of legal rights. In those circumstances, restrictions are necessary in order to preserve the structure upon which the rights are enforced.
I do not justify nor do I accept the current American policy in regard to, in the words of President Bush, "tough interrogations." I do believe torture is not only an ineffective interoggation method; it is immoral. I also do not justify the rampant use of secret prisons or, for that matter, military commissions as the President proposes.
That being said, I do think there are times when it is necessary to take a more narrow understanding of civil liberties. The pendellum does swing. And, even though this is an unusual conflict, history has shown that, while terrorism as a technique may not be defeatable, terrorist groups are. As a consequence, the President's arguments that certain tools are necessary are not unfounded, and should be considered, even if they are ultimately rejected.
September 10, 2006 11:12 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 10, 2006 23:12