Why America Must Prosecute War Crimes

[CrackerJax]

Laughable....



out.

 

[GrowRebel]

Laughable....out.

Yeah ... you are ...
way out ...

more on torture ...
Journalist bets he can stand waterboarding for 15 seconds (Video)
A Playboy journalist bet he could withstand 15 seconds of waterboarding by a trained US soldier. Watch to see how it turned out.

Still haven't heard anything about that chicken shit hannity taking obermann up on the waterboarding ... hannity claimed on his show that he would do it ... yet he has not ... looks like he's all take and no action ... kiss-ass

 

[CrackerJax]

Did you hear the number of water boarding fell from 266 to ..... (drum roll).....15!



out.

 

[GrowRebel]

It doesn't matter how many times they did it ... the fact remains that it is torture ... the law says it is ... and the people that subjected themselves to it say it is ... nuff said ...
more torture news and videos ...

Chris Matthews wonders what Jonathan Turley's motives are
You would think that Chris Matthews would know something about Jonathan Turley, since he's been on MSNBC for years and has openly spoken about the Bush administration and torture, and has consistently said that waterboarding is a war crime and should be prosecuted.
The key exchange:
TURLEY: You know, Chris, the thing that disturbs me most, the thing that I think is most grotesque, is not the thought of prosecuting high-ranking officials, it's that high-ranking officials ordered war crimes. And if we need to prosecute it to show the world that we are not hypocrites...
MATTHEWS: When did you first say that?
TURLEY: When did I first say that we should prosecute?
MATTHEWS: Yes.
TURLEY: Back in the Bush administration.
MATTHEWS: And why—I remember that. Why did the—why do you think there was no call within the legal community to do what you‘re saying right now? Why was this country so relatively silent? You were out there alone. Why was this country so silent on the possibility that war crimes were being committed in this country for eight years?
TURLEY: Well, unfortunately, that was part of the distortive effect after 9/11. And quite frankly, we lost our bearings. And this really shows how dangerous torture can be. When you hate someone enough or you‘re afraid enough...
MATTHEWS: OK, so what you think is possible here...
TURLEY: ... that you can violate the law.


Unfortunately they don't do the whole exchange between Turley, and Buchanan ... but they are peddling bullshit ... the law is clear ... it doesn't matter if the polls indicates the people don't want investigations ... which isn't true by the way ... we don't decide to prosecute crimes base on popularity



New Evidence of Torture Prison in Poland
The current debate in the US on the "special interrogation methods" sanctioned by the Bush administration could soon reach Europe. It has long been clear that the CIA used the Szymany military airbase in Poland for extraordinary renditions. Now there is evidence of a secret prison nearby.


Children as Unlamented Victims of Bush’s War Crimes
Torture has received the most attention among the many war crimes of the Bush administration. But those who support Bush’s pursuit of the "war on terror" have not been impressed by recriminations over torture. Worse than torture are the murders of at least 50 prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo, but again the hard-hearted are unimpressed when those whom they perceive as terrorists receive illegal extrajudicial capital punishment.
The case for abusing children, however, is more difficult to support.

It's pretty obvious the dim leadership is in on the torture ... that's why ... no investigation ... no real one anyway ...



Pelosi playing defense on torture
Nancy Pelosi didn’t cry foul when the Bush administration briefed her on “enhanced interrogation” of terror suspects in 2002, but her team was locked and loaded to counter hypocrisy charges when the “torture” memos were released last week.
Many Republicans obliged, led by former CIA chief Porter Goss, who is accusing Democrats like Pelosi of “amnesia” for demanding investigations in 2009 after failing to raise objections seven years ago when she first learned of the legal basis for the program.


this is exactly why Pelosi put impeachment "off the table" ... she herself would/will be implicated ...



Torture Memos Expose Dark, Imperial Presidency
This was not a happy week for the torture lobby, nor its defenders, derailing months of charm offensive by Bush-Cheney legacy boosters. A wary President Obama backed off attempts to defuse the torture parade – fretting over divisive investigations and hard-to-win court convictions. Public indignation likely surpassed February polling when 65% favored torture investigations, 40% criminal prosecutions.

 

[PadawanBater]

the law is clear ... it doesn't matter if the polls indicates the people don't want investigations ... which isn't true by the way ... we don't decide to prosecute crimes base on popularity

EXACTLY! This is the most important point of this entire fucking thread.

Public opinion doesn't mean SHIT! What matters is whether or not the law was broken. The law WAS broken in this case, there's absolutely no denying that fact. The only thing they can do now is point the finger at anyone else to take the blame, which clearly they've been doing since the shit was released!

Worse than torture are the murders of at least 50 prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo, but again the hard-hearted are unimpressed when those whom they perceive as terrorists receive illegal extrajudicial capital punishment. The case for abusing children, however, is more difficult to support.

"Fuck em eh, they're just terrorists anyway, they probably deserve to die in that prison, good riddance, I'm glad they got what they deserved!" Aint that right CJ and May?

Another good point that goes right over these peoples heads...

this is exactly why Pelosi put impeachment "off the table" ... she herself would/will be implicated ...

Totally agreed, and the bitch should be!

 

[CrackerJax]

It wasn't torture at the time and that is all that matters. But you'd rather sacrifice national security for political ranting.... well done. You're both proud citizens.

 

[PadawanBater]

It wasn't torture at the time and that is all that matters. But you'd rather sacrifice national security for political ranting.... well done. You're both proud citizens.

CJ...seriously man? Seriously? "It wasn't torture at the time"? How did it magically become torture all of a sudden?? If your argument is that it wasn't LEGALLY defined as torture at the time, I'd suggest you go take a look at what the actual international definition of torture was when waterboarding was being used, then I'd ask you to tell me why they hired lawyers to write up documents to find a loophole around this already established definition.... and finally, I'd ask you how you can even say it's for ''political ranting'' when we've been advocating that ANYONE who broke the law should be held accountable, ANYONE, right, left, red, blue, left handed, bald, male, female, do you get it yet, do you get it?! It is about THE LAW! It's not about political ranting, it's not about getting back at Bush because we think he was the worst president this country has ever produced, it's about the fucking law man, get that through your head. If Bush can do it, that means Obama can do it, if Obama can do it, that means whoever the hell comes after him can do it too! Do you want this shit to keep happening with every god damn president we have!?

Nobody is above the law.

 

[CrackerJax]

How can it be illegal if all of the pol's had a chance (who had security clearance) to oversee it?

Do you really think Nancy Pelosi should be tried in court?

I still think regardless of the legality issue, that you'd rather drag the US through the mud for some "perceived" gain (there isn't one), than actually keep us all safe from harm. I think you have your principles mixed up with your priorities.

 

[TheHighClub]

oh please if waterboarding got info about a posible terrorist attack and saved even one life then stick a hose up a terrorist ass until water comes out thier ears, think about this if somebody kidnapped your child and the only way to find out where your child is being held was to waterboard an obvious suspect would you do it? your damn right i would.

 

[jfgordon1]

i'm supporting grow rebel on this one. fuck torture. it doesn't work anyway.

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.

 

[jfgordon1]

oh please if waterboarding got info about a posible terrorist attack and saved even one life then stick a hose up a terrorist ass until water comes out thier ears, think about this if somebody kidnapped your child and the only way to find out where your child is being held was to waterboard an obvious suspect would you do it? your damn right i would.

it's unconstitutional. therefore.. should not be done.

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

VIII Amendment

 

[TheHighClub]

it's unconstitutional. therefore.. should not be done.

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

VIII Amendment

TOUCHE my friend however this wouldnt be the first or more pressing matter of constitutional violation by the government and with good old obama it wont be the last and wow on another note "excessive fines imposed" I paid over 600.00 in fines for my misdemeanor marijuana posesion in south dakota

 

[jfgordon1]

TOUCHE my friend however this wouldnt be the first or more pressing matter of constitutional violation by the government and with good old obama it wont be the last and wow on another note "excessive fines imposed" I paid over 600.00 in fines for my misdemeanor marijuana posesion in south dakota

you're correct on that my friend. i'll be watching/listening carefully... that's for sure.

 

[CrackerJax]

Uhhh, they are NOT US Citizens...our constitution does not apply to them... touche!

 

[jfgordon1]

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

– Convention Against Torture, Article 1.1​

^
United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

International Convention Torture signed by Ronald Reagan and ratified by the Senate, thus part of the supreme Law of the land...that makes torture unconstitutional

Checkmate bitches

 

[CrackerJax]

Great, let's all listen to the UN resolutions while the rest of the world ignores them....

 

[jfgordon1]

Great, let's all listen to the UN resolutions while the rest of the world ignores them....

well, we obviously ignore them too... considering.. we "torture". ohhh.. and the little thing called the iraq war . why do we break the rules ... then expect every other countries to follow them

 

[GrowRebel]

How can it be illegal if all of the pol's had a chance (who had security clearance) to oversee it?

I don't know what the hell "pol's" are but the law says it's illegal ... because these "pol's" disregarded the law doesn't make it legal ... nuff said ...

Do you really think Nancy Pelosi should be tried in court?

If she was in on the torture and broke the law ... hell yeah ... I want and any other descent human being would what to see her and the rest of the war criminals brought before a court of law ... only the bushwhacked minded thinks it's ok to commit war crimes with impunity ...

I still think regardless of the legality issue, that you'd rather drag the US through the mud for some "perceived" gain (there isn't one), than actually keep us all safe from harm.

Yeah ... holding war criminals accountable and ending war crimes ... there's no "perceived gain" doing that ... and the only thing you've been kept safe from was another false flag attack ...

I think you have your principles mixed up with your priorities.

Ah ladies and gentlemen ... once again the pot calls the kettle black nothing new here ... move along ... move along ...

oh please if waterboarding got info about a posible terrorist attack and saved even one life then stick a hose up a terrorist ass until water comes out thier ears,

and here again folks ...another person that fell for the false flag "they're going to get us so we have to get them" bull shit ... and waterboarding hasn't saved any lives ... it has only helped to degrade the US ... you trust and believe the same people that have been caught in many, many lies ... what's up with that?

think about this if somebody kidnapped your child and the only way to find out where your child is being held was to waterboard an obvious suspect would you do it? your damn right i would.

So you created this bullshit scenario to justify war crimes? ... anybody tried to kidnap your kid that were terriorist? ...any one try to kidnap a kid of someone you know that was a terriorist? ... So come off the "special conditions" bullshit ... torture is a war crime ...lay off the propaganda ... it's rotting your brain ... nuff said ...

i'm supporting grow rebel on this one. fuck torture. it doesn't work anyway.

See folks ... there are plenty of people out there that get it ... just because they're a few dummies out there doesn't mean we all are ... thanks for the post

 

[GrowRebel]

^
United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

International Convention Torture signed by Ronald Reagan and ratified by the Senate, thus part of the supreme Law of the land...that makes torture unconstitutional

Checkmate bitches

Oh yeah ... you slammed cjass good ... ... of course he disregards the obvious like any good bushwhacked parrot ...
another good post ... thanks ...

 

[GrowRebel]

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL

[youtube]w4thbQ0fNrs[/youtube]


http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/bruce-fein-obama-prosecute-torture-orBruce Fein Challenges Obama: Prosecute BushCo for Torture - or Pardon Them
Bill Moyer talks to Mark Danner and Bruce Fein on last night's Journal:

The President had a press conference on Wednesday night in which he was asked two questions about torture. If you'd been there, Mark, what would you have asked him?
[...] BRUCE FEIN: I would have asked him, since he's agreed that what was done was torture, and that the United States criminal code makes torture a crime. And there's no national security exception, no exception if you get useful information.How he can justify not moving forward with an investigation when we have a former President and Vice President openly acknowledging they authorized water boarding, what he has described as torture, is a crime. And because we had impeached, in the House Judiciary Committee, a former President, called Richard Nixon, for failing faithfully to execute the laws.
Or in the alternative, if he thinks that there are mitigating circumstances, and there's body language suggests that, then he should pardon them like Ford did Richard Nixon. And the reason why the difference between a pardon and non-prosecution is important, is because a pardon requires the recipient to acknowledge guilt. That there was wrongdoing. There was a crime. Just forgetting and sweeping it under the rug suggests this wasn't illegal.