another low down stunt, from our favorite president Options

[Mommy]

If that is the case, so be it...


This could set a dangerous precedent; presidents should not be ABOVE the law. Is that too difficult for you to comprehend?

i would like to know what this piece really says. first off, a president shouldnt be the only one guilty of war crimes....or just his administration at that. there are a TON of people that would go down with him. I want to know the specifics of what exactly he is above... like what cant he get away with and what can he. There is no damn way that Congress would pass a law putting the administration completely above the law. I comprehend what you are saying. I just think its unnecessary to bitch about the same shit over and over, especially when none of us know the full story or law.

[Mommy]

so....

It is better for presidents to be criminals and not prosecuted then to waste money just on the off chance that they may be innocent because they get blaimed for everything. Even though that COMES with the job and it is prefectly fine to be critical of the gov. Oh wait, we should make a law that anyone who bad mouths the executive should be executed!

if this is in any way a reference to 1984, I will hereby stop reading your opinoin alltogether. Great book, but people compare it to everything and its a FICTIONAL book. Yes, be critical of the government...WITH THINGS THAT MATTER. this doesnt matter right now because we dont know the full scope of the law. Find out what the law says from something other than a news commentary show. I can guarantee he is blowing it way out of proportion.

and just for the record, I dont like bush so im not sucking his dick. I just think that its retarded to start 4 billion threads all about the same damn thing.

This post has been edited by Jessica: Oct 4 2006, 02:18 PM

[pebkac]

I dont see how that is solid evidence. Some amateur writer...



Better luck next time

Edit: He doesnt even know how to write a damn sentence.

Of course I'm sure you noticed that his source was the Washington Post. But if that doesn't suit you, do a google search for Maher Arar. I'm sure you'll find one that meets your exceptionally high standards.

[cupcake]

You guys always seem to think... well bush can not do anything wrong, he is a god. This is just crazy.

I think Bush is an idiot.

but the simple fact is, some people need the fear of god put into them in order to gather valuable intel. it's how it's always has been and always should be.

there is the possibility of getting bum scoop from them, because they could just tell you anything they want to hear for fear of their safety/life, but that is a distinction best left to experts in interrogation and intel fields.

not some legislative body.

america's pussy-ness is reason #1 we're gonna go down in flames...

[pebkac]

if this is in any way a reference to 1984, I will hereby stop reading your opinoin alltogether. Great book, but people compare it to everything and its a FICTIONAL book. Yes, be critical of the government...WITH THINGS THAT MATTER. this doesnt matter right now because we dont know the full scope of the law. Find out what the law says from something other than a news commentary show. I can guarantee he is blowing it way out of proportion.

and just for the record, I dont like bush so im not sucking his dick. I just think that its retarded to start 4 billion threads all about the same damn thing.

The fact that he took away the most fundamental right in our constitution to certain people doesn't matter?

[Mommy]

The fact that he took away the most fundamental right in our constitution to certain people doesn't matter?

if those certain people arent citizens then no, it doesnt matter

[cupcake]

You know what, I should be able to do the same thing damnit. If i feel like robbing a store, it should be legal.

your analogy has zero fruit.

you robbing a store is not going to possibly save lives or strike a blow against the enemy of the america.

[Mommy]

your analogy has zero fruit.

you robbing a store is not going to possibly save lives or strike a blow against the enemy of the america.

exactly

[pebkac]

I think Bush is an idiot.

but the simple fact is, some people need the fear of god put into them in order to gather valuable intel. it's how it's always has been and always should be.

there is the possibility of getting bum scoop from them, because they could just tell you anything they want to hear for fear of their safety/life, but that is a distinction best left to experts in interrogation and intel fields.

not some legislative body.

america's pussy-ness is reason #1 we're gonna go down in flames...

Yes of course. The myth that terrorists are using our pussified "human rights" against us. Did anyone stop and think about whether or not torture is effective in the first place?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...s_opinion/opeds

The Torture Myth

By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A21

Just for a moment, let's pretend that there is no moral, legal or constitutional problem with torture. Let's also imagine a clear-cut case: a terrorist who knows where bombs are about to explode in Iraq. To stop him, it seems that a wide range of Americans would be prepared to endorse "cruel and unusual" methods. In advance of confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales last week, the Wall Street Journal argued that such scenarios must be debated, since "what's at stake in this controversy is nothing less than the ability of U.S. forces to interrogate enemies who want to murder innocent civilians." Alan Dershowitz, the liberal legal scholar, has argued in the past that interrogators in such a case should get a "torture warrant" from a judge. Both of these arguments rest on an assumption: that torture -- defined as physical pressure during interrogation -- can be used to extract useful information.

But does torture work? The question has been asked many times since Sept. 11, 2001. I'm repeating it, however, because the Gonzales hearings inspired more articles about our lax methods ("Too Nice for Our Own Good" was one headline), because similar comments may follow this week's trial of Spec. Charles Graner, the alleged Abu Ghraib ringleader, and because I still cannot find a positive answer. I've heard it said that the Syrians and the Egyptians "really know how to get these things done." I've heard the Israelis mentioned, without proof. I've heard Algeria mentioned, too, but Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway. "Liberals," argued an article in the liberal online magazine Slate a few months ago, "have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, the argument that torture is ineffective." But it's also true that "realists," whether liberal or conservative, have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, fictitious accounts of effective torture carried out by someone else.

Bill Perry, a member Of Veterans Against Torture, listens to the confirmation hearings of Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales on Jan. 6. (Evan Vucci -- AP)

By contrast, it is easy to find experienced U.S. officers who argue precisely the opposite. Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."

Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."

Worse, you'll have the other side effects of torture. It "endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity." It does "damage to our country's image" and undermines our credibility in Iraq. That, in the long run, outweighs any theoretical benefit. Herrington's confidential Pentagon report, which he won't discuss but which was leaked to The Post a month ago, goes farther. In that document, he warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees in Iraq, that their activities could be "making gratuitous enemies" and that prisoner abuse "is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry." Far from rescuing Americans, in other words, the use of "special methods" might help explain why the war is going so badly.

An up-to-date illustration of the colonel's point appeared in recently released FBI documents from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These show, among other things, that some military intelligence officers wanted to use harsher interrogation methods than the FBI did. As a result, complained one inspector, "every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative." So much for the utility of torture.

Given the overwhelmingly negative evidence, the really interesting question is not whether torture works but why so many people in our society want to believe that it works. At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.

Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well.

[pebkac]

if those certain people arent citizens then no, it doesnt matter

So you're saying legal aliens should have no rights?

[Mommy]

why do you post insanely long articles? cant you just quote the relavent part or give a quick synopsis. If i wanted to read like that, I would go to the library.

And yes, i know it says not to bitch about it in the NPR rules, but if you are going to make a point, quote pieces that are relavent.

[Jim]

if those certain people arent citizens then no, it doesnt matter

All people are created equal. Some are just more equal than others.


One of these sentences is fundamental to America. One isn't. Which is which?

[cupcake]

Did anyone stop and think about whether or not torture is effective in the first place?

save your book report for someone else, professor peabody.

I know firsthand a little wall-to-wall counseling renders effective results.

[pebkac]

why do you post insanely long articles? cant you just quote the relavent part or give a quick synopsis. If i wanted to read like that, I would go to the library.

And yes, i know it says not to bitch about it in the NPR rules, but if you are going to make a point, quote pieces that are relavent.

I think the entire article is relevant. But if you want a summary: torture is ineffective.

[The Fanatic]

Good old fashioned research... ahhh

( Protection of Personnel- Section 1004 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (42 U.S.C. 2000dd-1) shall apply with respect to any criminal prosecution that--

(1) relates to the detention and interrogation of aliens described in such section;

(2) is grounded in section 2441©(3) of title 18, United States Code; and

(3) relates to actions occurring between September 11, 2001, and December 30, 2005.

RETRO-ACTIVE RESOLUTION
Source: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109...p/~c109JjvXkZ::

Now what exactly is this amending...

Here is the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005:

SEC. 1004. PROTECTION OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PERSONNEL ENGAGED IN AUTHORIZED INTERROGATIONS.
(a) Protection of United States Government Personnel- In any civil action or criminal prosecution against an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States Government who is a United States person, arising out of the officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent's engaging in specific operational practices, that involve detention and interrogation of aliens who the President or his designees have determined are believed to be engaged in or associated with international terrorist activity ...

( Counsel- The United States Government may provide or employ counsel, and pay counsel fees, court costs, bail, and other expenses incident to the representation of an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent described in subsection (a), with respect to any civil action or criminal prosecution arising out of practices described in that subsection, under the same conditions, and to the same extent, to which such services and payments are authorized under section 1037 of title 10, United States Code.

Source: http://www.justicescholars.org/pegc/detainee_act_2005.html

Emphasis Added