Posted on 11/05/2005 1:26:35 PM PST by jmc1969
WASHINGTON - Girding for a potential fight with the Bush administration, supporters of a ban on torturing prisoners of war by U.S. interrogators threatened Friday to include the prohibition in nearly every bill the Senate considers until it becomes law.
The no-torture wording, which proponents say is supported by majorities in both houses of Congress, was included last month in the Senate's version of a defense spending bill. The measure's final form is being negotiated with the House, and the White House is pushing for either a rewording or deletion of the torture ban.
On Friday, at the urging of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, the Senate by a voice vote added the ban to a related defense bill as a backup.
Speaking from the Senate floor, McCain said, "If necessary - and I sincerely hope it is not - I and the co-sponsors of this amendment will seek to add it to every piece of important legislation voted on in the Senate until the will of a substantial bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress prevails. Let no one doubt our determination."
(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...
> Oh, and it bans "degrading" treatment- what can't a judge do with that?
I can see the lawsuits now...
"Judge-- he-- he-- the jailer called me murderous scumbag!"
"Well, you did blow up a schoolbus full of toddlers."
"Yeah, but he hurt my feelings! I feel so degraded!"
"Degraded? Okay. Judgement for the plaintiff."
Welcome to the barbarian free-for-all.
"Able Danger" had info on Atta, the FBI had Moussaoui, the CIA knew something was brewing. Everyone had the pieces, no one put them together.
Well, while you're pussyfootin around with the police in a country where we are NOT guarding our borders and where we simply cannot afford to guard our ports because we're squandering our billions in tax dollars on a corrupt city and state that has affirmative action hurricanes, I hope some hard time hazing and discomfort is engaged in to make up for the deficiences in our intelligence inadequacies, for heaven's sake and for ours.
You've yet to prove to me that torture is any better than what I've suggested. Deficiencies in our border control and intelligence gathering systems mean that our border control and intelligence gathering systems need to be reformed, not that we should start chopping fingers off.
I got a couple of grandkids in elementary school and I don't want them hurt like those kids over in Russia!!!
Neither do I, but I don't see how torture will help that.
I don't think you and I are gonna see perfectly eye-to-eye on this issue, Zero!!!
I don't think so either.
In the first place, you're not telling the truth as there have been zero reports of lopped off fingers!!! But I understand... when your position is weak, exaggeration and overstatement become the norm.
You are exactly like McCain in that you are so overly concerned with what others will think of you and so timid and fearful that others may hate you if you should ever decide to take a hard stand on anything... that you rot with all the other roadkill moderates in the middle of the road, that think the only place they'll look wise and be considered the smartest in the room is when they don't come out too strongly in defense of the the greatest nation to ever exist... one even worth dying, or killing for, or possibly even doing some creative stressing of terrorists for!!!
That's what bothers me about attitudes of dudes like you, Zero!!!
Nursing Home Candidate John McCain......I like it!!
Where does victory fit in to your scenario of a gentle war that offends no one? Would you prefer a principled defeat to a no-holds-barred victory?
The incredible thing is there are so many brain dead robots in the house and senate willing to follow McCain like he was a pied piper.
I'm sure there's a very good explanation WHY Hanoi would repatriate the elitist son of a US admiral while concealing the POW status of thousands of lesser known servicemen. One can only speculate as to what that reason might be.
They are so emotionally confused that they are completely in reverse morally!!! They dishonor their oaths, their constituents, the nation and their creator!!!
Thank God they are all NOT currently in our military or intelligence services as they are total hipocrites as sickeningly phony politicians!!!
If terrorist were to somehow take them hostage they would sell all of us and this great nation totally out in a New York 9-11 minute!!! This vote and threat to corrupt future legislation is UN-acceptable and should be the basis of an up-rising revolt in total rejection of these 91 who are no better than the French we all rejected with vehemence in 2003!!!
These are the "bums" that must be thrown out of high office and impeached!!! They are trying to make moral equivalence between soul-less homocide bombers or even worse terrorists and uniformed soldiers of legitimate nations. This is dead wrong!!!
They are vile if they believe this is the way US Senators are to behave!!!
I like your tagline!
Why don't you and mysterio leave it to the professionals to determine the best way to extract information from the terrorists?
Would you actually be against torture if the men we charge with our protection determine that it is the best way to prevent harm from coming to innocent Americans?
In America, we judge from the top down, not the bottom up. So I don't rate America's behavior by what terrorists do or don't do, I rate it by what men like Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, and Abraham Lincoln would expect if they were alive today. They were practical, thoughtful, very moral men who were not above playing dirty if they thought that it would serve the greater good. All of them would be repulsed by the idea of torture.
In the first place, you're not telling the truth as there have been zero reports of lopped off fingers!!! But I understand... when your position is weak, exaggeration and overstatement become the norm.
It was an exaggeration for effect. If you want me to be more accurate I can change it to "given electric shocks" or "stomp the crap out of". Both work equally well.
You are exactly like McCain in that you are so overly concerned with what others will think of you and so timid and fearful that others may hate you if you should ever decide to take a hard stand on anything...
No, I'm not exactly like McCain. I disagree with McCain about quite a few things, but I consider him to be just about the only person on Capitol Hill qualified to speak on the subject of torture. What John McCain knows, and what I can only surmise from what I've read, is that torture is an ineffective way of gathering informaton, and in the end self-defeating.
...that you rot with all the other roadkill moderates in the middle of the road, that think the only place they'll look wise and be considered the smartest in the room is when they don't come out too strongly in defense of the the greatest nation to ever exist... one even worth dying, or killing for, or possibly even doing some creative stressing of terrorists for!!!
I'm not moderate in my defense of America, I'd cheerfully admit to being a fanatic on that subject. But I don't believe that torture has a legitimate place in protecting America, it's a anachronistic piece of brutality that's only brought to the table now because people are so afraid and angry that they're willing to do anything to make themselves feel safe and avenged. Torture won't do anything in the long run except create more enemies and make beasts out of us all.
That's what bothers me about attitudes of dudes like you, Zero!!!
What bothers me about the attitude of people like you is that you're so willing to give up what makes America a uniquely moral and good place for the sake of a practice that doesn't work worth a tinker's damn.
Because I'm cynical enough to not trust the same "professionals" who let 9/11 happen in the first place. Because these same "professionals" were idiotic enough to use torture in the first place, and then compounded their idiocy to the Nth degree by letting a bunch of power-drunk dogfaces take pictures of themselves doing it and post them on the Internet.
Would you actually be against torture if the men we charge with our protection determine that it is the best way to prevent harm from coming to innocent Americans?
I'm not getting involved in hypothetical situations.
I'm talking about the military and intelligence organs (remember that "the wall" was a DOJ construct, not DOD/CIA), not politicians.
I'm not getting involved in hypothetical situations.
It's not hypothetical since, apparently, at least some in authority believe that it is necessary, otherwise why the stink over the idea?
Yeah, but the DOD and the CIA were still responsible for what happened at Abu Gharib, and however you feel about what went on there you have to admit that it was a royal screw-up.
It's not hypothetical since, apparently, at least some in authority believe that it is necessary, otherwise why the stink over the idea?
I think that too many people in government have seen too many episodes of 24 and want to be like Keefer Sutherland when they get their hands on a member of a sleeper cell. People are afriad, and fear (as know well Yoda does) leads to hate. And fear/hate is the only reason that I can find for wanting to bring torture to the table; I can't think of a rational reason why anyone in government who knows anything about history or interrogation would even toy with the idea of torture.
What a freakin' putz.
Thank you. I am a great admirer of Mr. Churchill and this quote seemed particularly timely.
"Apparently, "enemy combatants" aren't specifically protected under Geneva convention. We classify terrorists as enemy combatants."
I'm pretty sure you're right- think I read that in the WSJ a while ago. The Nov 21 National Review Online has a calming article on this- the notion that the definitions of key words like "torture" and some other words in McCain's bill ("inhumane"?) are deliberately left vague. I dunno. McCain never struck me as very subtle. Plus, now we have those gigantic hypocrits, the International Red Cross, demanding to interview terrorist detainees all over the world ... Funny, I don't remember them publicizing any complaints about Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, al Qaeda, ... And I'm fairly certain the people they "detained" weren't immediate threats to thousands of innocent people, either.
Sadly, manchurian candidate McCain exhibited no such "kinder gentler" concern for our own servicemen when he teamed up with John Kerry back in the early 90's to abandon our remaining MIA's and gain passage of a bill "normalizing" relations with Vietnam. Based on accounts by MIA families who approached senator McCain at the time on behalf of their imprisoned loved ones, they were greeted by indifferance, disdain and contempt.
Wasn't it just a week and a half ago that al qaeda poured gasoline over a US prisoner and set him afire?? In the same skirmish didn't they kill and drag 3 or 4 US contractors throught the streets? It's clear McCain is playing a treasonous game but what's going on with the rest of the US senate? They'll jump through any hoop that McCain sets up for them. Do they actually believe "kinder gentler" treatment of islamofascist prisoners will gain kinder treatment of our captured servicemen? What planet do they live on? How many living US servicemen do they (islamofascists)currently hold prisoner? How many captured US servicemen have they actually returned alive? Does any one know of a single captured US serviceman that has been returned alive?
Imagine how the international terrorists must be laughing their asses off watching these damned fools in washington jump through hoops.
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