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To: OldDeckHand

First you would have to have a legal definition of torture and then you would have to see if the memo descriptions allow them. THEN you would have to find whether it is illegal under federal law. Then you would have to ascertain whether a memo can be considered a criminal act... etc etc

blah blah blah

I bet they never get around to any of that


6 posted on 09/26/2009 1:31:59 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: GeronL

Same old same old BS from the left. L&O has a history of hiding Islamic terrorism, left wing terrorism and torture by terrorists - boo hoo, someone was hung up, well at least they didn’t have their heads sawn off for video! As always, the left projects their crimes on everyone fighting to preserve our civilization while making victims of terrorists. And again, there’s the same old BS about getting better information by “respecting” your enemies. Torture is only ineffective when getting confessions, not information as information can be verified.


8 posted on 09/26/2009 1:37:42 PM PDT by JMS
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To: GeronL

You are quite correct.

However, there is a slippery slope argument here I’ve seldom seen addressed with the seriousness it deserves.

There were three basic groups involved in the whole “torture” issue:

1. Attorneys who gave their legal opinion on what interrogation methods are permitted under the law.

2. Policy makers who decided whether to implement those opinions.

3. Interrogators who followed the policies.

My concern is that the conservative position in general appears to be that none of these three groups can be held responsible for violation of law.

The attorneys didn’t break any laws, they just gave their opinion. (We’ll just ignore the rather glaring likelihood that their opinions were tailored to what their bosses wanted.)

The policy makers were just following advide of counsel, so they can’t be held accountable.

The interrogators can’t be prosecuted, they were just implementing policy.

My concern is that if this paradigm is allowed to stand, it would permit any administration to implement just about any policy it cares to, as long as it distributed responsibility for the policy in this way.

I’m not saying laws were broken in this whole “torture” issue, I’m saying that if they were broken somebody should be prosecuted for doing so. Failing to enforce the law sets a really bad precedent.

Certainly similar methods could be used against “right-wing domestic terrorists.”


10 posted on 09/26/2009 1:43:55 PM PDT by Sherman Logan ("The price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections." Thomas Sowell)
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