Posted on 09/18/2006 7:43:27 PM PDT by tobyhill
WASHINGTON - The White House told lawmakers it would send Congress a revised proposal late Monday for dealing with terrorism suspects as the number of GOP senators publicly opposing President Bush's initial plan continued to grow.
A Republican-led Senate committee last week defied Bush and approved terror-detainee legislation that Bush vowed to block. Sen. John Warner, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Senate Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote.
John Ullyot, a spokesman for Warner, said the Virginia senator expected to receive another draft of the legislation. No details were immediately available.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
If we get hit again these RINO's weasels should be made to pay BIGTIME. Down the dumpsters with these wobblies wussies.
This all blows my mind. What the terrorist want to do is nuke a US city, as soon as they can possibly get their hands on a device. We might not be able to stop them no matter what we do, but to take these tools away from the CIA is the height of madness.
We need a landslide to eliminate the compulsion for RINOs to oppose the President...
With this in mind, let me make a comparison to the "Wall." Many of us are still angry at what Gorelick did. She made it virtually impossible for Intelligence and Law Enforcement to talk to each other. Ultimately, thousands of lives were lost, and we entered into a war on terror. It seems that McCain is also setting up a "Wall." He, and other cynical RINOs want to make it extremely difficult for interrogators to get information from terrorists. This suggests a scenario in which our interrogators are blocked from doing their jobs effectively. It may happen that they may someday fail to get vital information because of the "Wall" that Mcain and other RINOs erected, and once again, many thousands of Americans will be killed or injured in a preventable terrorist attack. Am I hyperventilating here?
No, the administration has written "guidelines" of its own. And they want Congress to ratify them. Why have we been able to function under the Geneva convention for more than 50 years without a need to "clarify" the supposedly "vague" provisions? Maybe we never did the kind of treatment of prisoners, before, that's happening now? I'm not sure that's progress.
You got it! I heard the show and believe Rush hit the nail on the head. I believe that McCain will try to run with Graham as VP and Powell in the cabinet but at the rate he's alienating the base he won't even get the nomination.
Because we are fighting stateless, unlawful combatants. Iraq I, Vietnam, Korea, WWII were all fought against nation states. That's the difference. Detainees in the WOT are not entitled to Geneva convention protections. Furthermore, it's not like the Geneva convention helped McPain avoid torture in Vietnam.
Supreme Ct decision.
The Supreme Court ruled differently. And if we water down Geneva Convention, it will apply to detainees from states as well as stateless. A bad idea all round. I grew up on movies like "Stalag 17," which made a point of showing it was the Krauts who violated international accords on prisoners by, for example, keeping men standing long periods and interrogating them without giving them sleep. Billy Wilder (director of Stalag 17) seemed to think this verged on torture (that was the clear implication in the movie), but now has it become acceptable practice in the US military and CIA? That's not progress, in my opinion.
I've analyzed it and all I see is Clinton raising the right hand.
yes, but what americans even see that? sure, we know it here - but the sheeple are clueless as to what this all means.
We didn't need "clarifications" to treat Japanese prisoners, even though the Japs attacked us out of the blue and we feared they were planning sabotage on the West Coast. But then, our moral code was higher back then. That was before abortion and porn and gay rights (notice that two of those cultural depravities - porn and gayness - were part of the abu grab mistreatment; our military - the military of MacArthur, Washington, Grant and Jackson - now takes porno pictures of captives. Sick. Apparently we need "clarifications" in Geneva Convention to permit this without the perpetrators being prosecuted.
In this case, the "sheeple" include Reagan's Secretary of State (Schultz), his Jt Chiefs Chairman (Vessey), his National Security Advisor (Powell), and a career JAG lawyer, (Sen. Graham). You may disagree with these people for not wanting the Geneva Convention watered down unilaterally, but you can't call them stupid, "sheeple," or leftists.
the rules for what the military can do aren't even an issue here - its all about what the CIA is allowed to do under presidential directive. any bill that seeks to water that down, is a disaster for this country in the war on terror.
I can surely call them stupid - and I am.
I can call Einstein stupid. Doesn't make him dumb, or me smart.
that analogy is meaningless to the issue at hand.
That's not torture. One can endure the same thing, I am told, in advanced infantry camp. That is just making the prisoner uncomfortable, and thus more likely to talk. Causing them excrutiating pain with requisite permanent, or semi-permanent health problems, is torture. That we should not do. But making them stand up awhile, or questioning them until they yawn? That's not torture. It's just good interrogation tactics.
anything and everything is "torture" by these definitions. unless the prisoners are housed in hotel style accomodations, with plenty of time for rest, meals, exercise, religious practices. in the meantime, the enemy is beheading people, and idiots like McCain and the people aligned with him, saying NOTHING about that.
None of the countries that we are currently at war with, or will go to war with, are going to use Geneva Conventions...
The Congress was asked, begged, implored by SCOTUS to clarify what the hell the words mean. It is their job and they are ducking the responsibility and trying to lay it back on the court, because they are PO'd at SCOTUS for making them work.
It's a simple as that. Another power play. A feeble attempt to get the courts to do their work again.
Nobody knows what those words mean! Every county has to define it by their own cultural morays, and these Senators refuse to do so, because they can't. They don't want the responsibility, and want the issue to return, time and time again to the courts.
We cannot operate this way. It has got to end.
Maybe we should buy them dinners, chill a bottle of bubbly for them, and send them to Branson for the weekend.
county=country
alot is at stake here. do we have the votes to sustain a veto? that's the real political calculation here.
frankly, for Bush, doing nothing may be the best outcome here. continue to hold these AQ people in limbo, and let the issue be taken into the 2008 presidential race.
Don't forget the Brie!
Because of the Hamdan decision handed down by the Supreme Court several weeks ago. Try to keep up.
The congress could make it easy for everyone but putting three words into law,"whatever it takes". If it takes a bunch of belly slaps and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to save American lives then so be it but the ones interrogating shouldn't have to worry about prosecution because of subjective interpretations. I've heard the argument about only getting false information from "torture" but a good interrogator can take a page of lies and find truthful facts within the lies but sometimes it takes harsh measures to even get them lying.
The Hamdan decision.
we in essence do that now. Gitmo is a country club. the top AQ people were held by the CIA in different locations for a reason. That's the key to this issue - what the CIA can do.
Maybe we shouldn't waterboard captives. We didn't do it to Japs or Krauts, North Koreans or North Vietnamese. We have lower moral standards today, and it's causing McCain and Lindsey Graham and George Schultz and Gen. Vessy a little culture shock to get used to this. But they'll eventually give in, I suspect. It's a barbaric world, and it's high time America climed into the muck. The standards of the era of MacArthur and Eisenhower (let alone Washington and Putnam, Grant and Sheridan) have to be consigned to history's ashheap. We have to grow up and get down in the gutter with our enemies.
I see you've met Neville. LOL
Veto it! If it goes that far.
If he loses, then let history write the story.
They don't have enough to override a veto and just keeping the terrorist in limbo may end up being the best option for President Bush.
You're a sickening little twit, aren't you?
Geneva article 3 is pretty clear. all you have to ask yourself is whether the treaty would have been ratified, if the provisions in it meant what McCain thinks they mean. no way in hell would it ever have been ratified, so that tells you all you need to know about its intrepretation.
What McCain and Anthony Kennedy want to do - is REWRITE it.
You talkin to me - or to the Republican heavyweights who agree with me, like Gen. Vessey (Reagan's top general), George Schultz (Reagan's Sec of State), Gen. Powell (Reagan's, Bush I's and Bush II's everything?) A bunch of twits, all of them, yessirree.
Right, that's why we have rounded up all of the Muslims, or did you forget the forcible internment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry?
Republican heavyweights? LOL
Shultz was a fat bastard, but Powell is just a bony fool.
Keith Olberman is on your side...you should be proud
I agree - Bush has done all he can on this issue, the people have the power to vote, if they hand people like McCain and Graham and Warner the power to decide - then whatever happens, they've gotten the government they deserve.
According to an AP story tonight, so are a growing number of House Republicans. I've always been a Republican because I consider it the party with conscience., That's why it's pro-life. And that's why, in the end, it's not going to be pro-torture. The party of Lincoln, TR, Eisenhower and Reagan has too much conscience in its genetic code.
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