Posted on 04/22/2009 9:32:19 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Jay S. Bybee has been the forgotten man among the legal architects of the torture policies of the George W. Bush administration.
But the release Thursday of several additional memos by the Justice Department puts Bybee, then an assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, front and center. He is the author of an August 2002 memo, to CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, concluding that waterboarding, among other enhanced interrogation techniques, did not meet the legal definition of torture.
The 18-page memo authorizes such methods in language that is stunning for its detail and detachment. As the New York Times wrote of the four memos in its lead editorial Sunday:
(Excerpt) Read more at news.muckety.com ...
Hey Obama!....leave the man alone!....waterboarding saves lives!.....
Isn’t a legal opinion just that... an opinion?
I guess we can only hope that it is Obama voters who die in the next attack. Whether Obama knows it or not (and I think he does) he has pretty much neutered the CIA just in the same way that Bush neutered the US Border Patrol.
The torture gig is only a DNC smokescreen to hide the kingfish’s slow erosion of our Constitution.
You are correct. He is just buying time until he gets his storm troopers in position. Then he will strike.
He may be learning from Hugo Chavez, who summarily replaced most of Venezuela’s judges, and those who remained were left intimidated by him and his thugs.
“Isn’t a legal opinion just that... an opinion?”
Evidently not when it is requested by a Republican
The torture gig is only a DNC smokescreen to hide the kingfish’s slow erosion of our Constitution.
Exactly!....He doesn’t give a crap about the countries founding documents!
He is just buying time until he gets his storm troopers in position. Then he will strike.....
I will never accept this ass clown as my president because he is trashing the countries foundations!....
Congress and Administration torture (?) abhorrence requires validating asymmetrical morality, which embraces a goodness undefiled by perception of danger. Placating those coveting such luxurious, dilemma-free morality ignores military and intelligence professionals facing shrewd, ruthless enemies obscured behind frightening uncertainties. Terrorists are unresponsive to direct questioning and psychological gambits. Effective interrogation necessitates all stress and coercion techniques our military encounters in survival schools.
Our elected officials should clarify their position much as follows:
WHEREAS we must accept our friends definition of torture.
WHEREAS it is all about whom we are.
WHEREAS torture is beneath the United States.
WHEREAS prisoner/detainee abuse and torture must be avoided at all
costs.
WHEREAS we guarantee terrorists citizenship rights under Fifth, Eighth,
and Fourteenth Constitutional Amendments.
BE IT RESOLVED 10,000 or fewer potential American deaths per incident, with 75% or less certainty, shall be acceptable loss
not requiring Congressional interrogation policy review.
My Representative quoted 20 former U.S. Army interrogators saying, “Prisoner/detainee abuse and torture should be avoided at all costs.” I find the assertion disturbing, because on 9/11 we were prepared to shoot down any civilian airliner, which did not land immediately, regardless of crew assertions.
An incredible moral disconnect enables killing our own citizens, but forbids subjecting terrorists to severe discomfort to prevent extravagant murder and destruction. At what point in application of chemical, biological and atomic weapons to our society must we protect the American people “at all costs”?
Given that the attackers will go after target rich environments, namely cities, you can pretty much guarantee that. Karma is a b!tch.
Nor do I and I will go you one better, I do not brlieve that the first American voted for the bastard. As far as I am concerned, everyone that voted for the sob is not fit to be called an American.
But, regardless as to how you and I feel about him and the parasites that put him in power, he is in the White House and he is in power.
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