You Want Impeachment? I Give You GENEVA CONVENTIONS Common Article 3

[BroncoBuff]

Khaleed-Sheikh Muhammad (KSM) and 14 other prisoners being transferred right now from the (heretofore unacknowledged) CIA secret prisons in the Middle East to Guantanemo, will soon be visited by Red Cross workers. For many, it will be their first contact with outside people in several years, and Bushco is VERY nervous about what they will say.

They might tell stories of - not just waterboarding - but of coffin-sized cells and other tortures like those suffered by Canadian Muslim Maher Arar, who was tortured by the CIA and their "extraordinary rendition" torture accomplices in the secret prisons.
Read Arar's Story, Day-by-Day (http://www.maherarar.ca/mahers%20story.php)

The Upshot is ... that although these seem like clear violations of Geneva Conventions Common Article 3's prohibition against "inhumane and degrading treatment," Bushco is not so clear ... he's trying to get Congress to do a quickie re-definition of what "inhumane and degrading treatment" is, such that it would include the kinds or torture we will soon be hearing about from Gitmo.

Such a new definition, as an amendment to an international treaty, would be retroactive in application, allowing Bushco to claim "clean hands" when stories like Arar's are relayed by Red Cross workers. Problem is, three powerful Republican Senators are opposed: John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham. There's been some wild stories the past couple days from Capitol Hill as Bushco proxies frantically try to get it moving ... Senators sneaking past waiting camear podiums to avoid q's .... House pages racing through hallways to bring members to committee votes (Bush won one such vote 20-19).

If these re-definitions don't pass ... then such torture violates US law (Geneva Conventions ratified by Senate) ... and as such, they constitute high crimes and misdemeanors .........

We should all keep an eye on this one ... there could be some real drama. The Red Cross report should be interesting ...

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/geneva-prisoner-of-war.jpg

[BroncoBuff]

This whole thing just reeks of Cheney .... remember he threw a huge tantrum when McCain and the Seante voted, like 91-8 against torture?

Cheney = :devil:

[Rohirrim]

It's an odd thing, to my mind. The slimeball Mehlman is forwarding two talking points for this election. Number one is, "If you elect Democrats, we'll be attacked." Number two is, "If you elect Democrats, they'll start investigating us." Number one is ludicrous, and my response to number two is, "And that's a bad thing?" Given that the entire U.S. government was designed as a system of checks and balances against the tyranny of avaricious men, isn't that EXACTLY what is supposed to happen? Just because the GOP has put party ahead of country and refused to fulfill its oversight responsibilities, does that mean we should all just ignore the extremism of the Bush cabal and its blatant violations of our laws? I read a report the other day about Halliburton's gross war profiteering in Iraq. The GOP congress refuses to investigate. I would think that the average American would actually like these crimes to be investigated.

[alkemical]

[QUOTE=BroncoBuff;1281448]
The Upshot is ... that although these seem like clear violations of Geneva Conventions Common Article 3's prohibition against "inhumane and degrading treatment," Bushco is not so clear ... he's trying to get Congress to do a quickie re-definition of what "inhumane and degrading treatment" is, such that it would include the kinds or torture we will soon be hearing about from Gitmo.

QUOTE]



For the bolded section, please see doublespeak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

[SPfloppy]

Ok I gotta side with the party on this one. Normal police style interviews are what you are basically asking for here. That will simply not work and it is ignorant to think otherwise. Al Quaeda agents are trained and prepared mentally for interogation with a police style interview in mind because they think we lack the stones to hurt them to get intell.

We have had ZERO attacks since sept 01 because we have thwarted or deterred such potential attacks. How do you suppose we gather that kind of information. If I were to for some reason be captured by the DPRK (north Korea) I would expect torture and interigation. If I were captured by Al Quaeda or a similar terrorist group I would expect interogation and then beheading while video records it for distrobution.

I gree with torture as a method of excrating information useful to the US war-fighting capability.

[Rohirrim]

Ok I gotta side with the party on this one. Normal police style interviews are what you are basically asking for here. That will simply not work and it is ignorant to think otherwise. Al Quaeda agents are trained and prepared mentally for interogation with a police style interview in mind because they think we lack the stones to hurt them to get intell.

We have had ZERO attacks since sept 01 because we have thwarted or deterred such potential attacks. How do you suppose we gather that kind of information. If I were to for some reason be captured by the DPRK (north Korea) I would expect torture and interigation. If I were captured by Al Quaeda or a similar terrorist group I would expect interogation and then beheading while video records it for distrobution.

I gree with torture as a method of excrating information useful to the US war-fighting capability.

Except for two reasons: 1. Most professional agents in the military, CIA, FBI, etc. consider torture useless, usually producing more bad information than good. 2. We don't use torture because it is against our principles. It has nothing to do with what others find acceptable.

[alkemical]

Ok I gotta side with the party on this one. Normal police style interviews are what you are basically asking for here. That will simply not work and it is ignorant to think otherwise. Al Quaeda agents are trained and prepared mentally for interogation with a police style interview in mind because they think we lack the stones to hurt them to get intell.

We have had ZERO attacks since sept 01 because we have thwarted or deterred such potential attacks. How do you suppose we gather that kind of information. If I were to for some reason be captured by the DPRK (north Korea) I would expect torture and interigation. If I were captured by Al Quaeda or a similar terrorist group I would expect interogation and then beheading while video records it for distrobution.

I gree with torture as a method of excrating information useful to the US war-fighting capability.



You torture anyone long enough, they'll admit to anything.

[TailgateNut]

Ok I gotta side with the party on this one. Normal police style interviews are what you are basically asking for here. That will simply not work and it is ignorant to think otherwise. Al Quaeda agents are trained and prepared mentally for interogation with a police style interview in mind because they think we lack the stones to hurt them to get intell.

We have had ZERO attacks since sept 01 because we have thwarted or deterred such potential attacks. How do you suppose we gather that kind of information. If I were to for some reason be captured by the DPRK (north Korea) I would expect torture and interigation. If I were captured by Al Quaeda or a similar terrorist group I would expect interogation and then beheading while video records it for distrobution.

I gree with torture as a method of excrating information useful to the US war-fighting capability.


We have, as a country promoted the Articles of the Geneva Convention, now we would like to "adjust" them to suit "our" needs and desires. Just like we want to be able to have nukes with a madman in the oval office, but we want to regulate the rest of the world. Just an arrogant bunch!
If we were to re-write the Geneva Convention as it applies to us, we would create many more problems, than the few we "might" prevent.

[Mile High Shack]

You torture anyone long enough, they'll admit to anything.

unless you are freakin' braveheart
then you yell

FREEEEDOMMMMMMMM

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Ok I gotta side with the party on this one. Normal police style interviews are what you are basically asking for here. That will simply not work and it is ignorant to think otherwise. Al Quaeda agents are trained and prepared mentally for interogation with a police style interview in mind because they think we lack the stones to hurt them to get intell.

We have had ZERO attacks since sept 01 because we have thwarted or deterred such potential attacks. How do you suppose we gather that kind of information. If I were to for some reason be captured by the DPRK (north Korea) I would expect torture and interigation. If I were captured by Al Quaeda or a similar terrorist group I would expect interogation and then beheading while video records it for distrobution.

I gree with torture as a method of excrating information useful to the US war-fighting capability.

Ever wonder how the Bush cartel assumed power in this country?

See above.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

UN rights envoys condemn Bush plan on interrogation
By Laura MacInnis Thu Sep 21, 12:29 PM ET

GENEVA (Reuters) - Torture is rampant in Iraqi prisons and police detention centers, and may be worse than under Saddam Hussein's rule, a U.N. human rights investigator said on Thursday .

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20060921/2006_09_21t141051_450x295_us_rights_un_usa.jpg?x=3 80&y=248&sig=n2fQ9YOcDZMi_Dzt1fWsnQ--
Reuters Photo: President Bush speaks at a campaign fundraiser in Tampa, Florida September 21, 2006. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

"The situation as far as torture is concerned in
Iraq is now completely out of hand," Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and cruelty, told reporters in Geneva.

"The situation is so bad that many people say that it is worse than in the times of Saddam Hussein," he said.

Nowak, who has not visited Iraq, said he had credible reports of torture in facilities run by Iraqi forces, as well as by the militias and insurgents who have kidnapped and killed hundreds of people since Saddam's overthrow in 2003.

"The situation as such is extremely serious, but it is not just torture by the government," Nowak said.

He also cited reports of inhumane treatment in U.S.- and foreign-run detention centers, but said conditions there seemed to have improved since an international furor over mistreatment of prisoners by U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison. Abu Ghraib was handed over to Iraqi control three weeks ago.

CONT (http://tinyurl.com/zpmsq)

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Except for two reasons: 1. Most professional agents in the military, CIA, FBI, etc. consider torture useless, usually producing more bad information than good. 2. We don't use torture because it is against our principles. It has nothing to do with what others find acceptable.

Bingo.

I was going to straighten floppy out but you beat me to it.

Ask anyone who knows anything about interrogation, and he'll tell you torture doesn't work. The subject will say anything he thinks you want to hear to end the torture. This sort of phenomenon has already generated a lot of embarrassing, bogus "intel" for the bush junta.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

GENEVA (Reuters) - Torture is rampant in Iraqi prisons and police detention centers, and may be worse than under Saddam Hussein's rule, a U.N. human rights investigator said on Thursday .


So much for "spreading democracy and freedom," huh? :oyvey:

[SPfloppy]

Go and rent the DVD "Head in the sand". It shows video of not only what Islamic gov allow and encourage to happen (public torture and execution) as well as video from Abu Graib when Hussien ruled Iraq. There is no comparisson between our methods and thiers. They were far worse.

As far as torture goes with respect to being a valid way of obtaining information once again results speak for themselves. NO ATTACKS means NO ATTACKS. You are right that if you torture someone to thier breaking point they will say anything. So if you have one piece of information before you go into a session and you want info about that subject from the guy who's balls you are smashing than you will be better able to substaciate the information. Torture for the sake of torture is useless and sadistic but torture that is careful, methodical and purposfull is a great way to get more intell.

You know what a terrorist at Gitmo and a cueball have in common? The harder you hit them the more English you get out of them.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

You know what a terrorist at Gitmo and a cueball have in common? The harder you hit them the more English you get out of them.
You clearly know NOTHING about the game of pool.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Go and rent the DVD "Head in the sand". It shows video of not only what Islamic gov allow and encourage to happen (public torture and execution) as well as video from Abu Graib when Hussien ruled Iraq. There is no comparisson between our methods and thiers. They were far worse.

So now we, as Americans, are adopting Saddam Hussein as our role model?

As far as torture goes with respect to being a valid way of obtaining information once again results speak for themselves. NO ATTACKS means NO ATTACKS.

This is one of the most ridiculous claims I've ever heard.

You have no evidence that the fact that we haven't been attacked since 9/11 can be directly attributed to torture.



Torture for the sake of torture is useless and sadistic but torture that is careful, methodical and purposfull is a great way to get more intell.


Not according to professional interrogators and intelligence professionals.

[SPfloppy]

OK LABF scroll back up for my argument about how torture leads to info, which leads to thwarted attacks bro

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

OK LABF scroll back up for my argument about how torture leads to info, which leads to thwarted attacks bro

That argument for which you have no evidence or proof?

Check.

[Stuck In Texas]

I'm not in favor of torture, but until we start cutting off prisoner's heads (slowly), I'll believe that the U.S. is on the better side of the issue.

For those of you furious at the way the U.S. is treating it's prisoners, were you this outraged over the way the terrorists were treating their captives?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

For those of you furious at the way the U.S. is treating it's prisoners, were you this outraged over the way the terrorists were treating their captives?

Ah, there are those familiar right-wing "ethics" again:

"So and so's treatment of prisoners is worse than ours, therefore torture of prisoners by America is justified."

[SPfloppy]

You will nver understand warfare LABF. You either go all in or you don't go. Torture is just one way of showing the enemy you have the capasity to do more evil than they. We won the Cold war using the same basic idea.

Burn a village, kill civilians, cut off heads. It has happed for centuries and more contries have come into being because of naked force than any other reason. It is simple and effective.

[Stuck In Texas]

Ah, there are those familiar right-wing "ethics" again:

"So and so's treatment of prisoners is worse than ours, therefore torture of prisoners by America is justified."

Ahh, so I'm a right-winger now, huh? Thanks, I always wanted to be labled by someone who doesn't have a clue about me. I appreciate that!

I notice you didn't answer the question. I also never said it was justified, but I will say that if I'm a prisoner, I'll gladly have underwear put on my head instead of having my head cut off - if given the choice.

Maybe you feel differently - more power to you.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

You will nver understand warfare LABF.

I'm a veteran, dumbass.

I was serving in the military before you were even an itch in some truck driver's Wranglers.

You either go all in or you don't go.

Another ignorant statement. Modern wars are more about finding an effective balance between military force and political/diplomatic solutions.

Torture is just one way of showing the enemy you have the capasity(sic) to do more evil than they.

According to who? The Donald Rumsfelds of the world? We've all seen how successful they've been.

But only a moron would suggest that America's power and influence in the world and the respect we (used to) enjoy was created by doing evil or torturing people.


We won the Cold war using the same basic idea.

Another ridiculous oversimplification.

Burn a village, kill civilians, cut off heads. It has happed for centuries and more contries have come into being because of naked force than any other reason. It is simple and effective.

You are about as un-American as it gets.

Your philosophy sounds more like nazism than any princliple America was founded on.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Ahh, so I'm a right-winger now, huh? Thanks, I always wanted to be labled by someone who doesn't have a clue about me. I appreciate that!

When you employ the same spin and rhetoric as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, you're fair game.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

I notice you didn't answer the question.

The answer is affirmative.

I also never said it was justified, but I will say that if I'm a prisoner, I'll gladly have underwear put on my head instead of having my head cut off - if given the choice.

Maybe you feel differently - more power to you.

This is disingenuous insofar as putting underwear on prisoners' heads isn't the only thing or the worst thing Americans have done to prisoners.

Bottom line: We're supposed to better than all that because we're Americans.

How can we claim the high ground when we take our cues re: treatment of prisoners from Saddam Hussein?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The Torture Myth

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html

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.

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.

[Stuck In Texas]

When you employ the same spin and rhetoric as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, you're fair game.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...



But you haven't heard me call you a socialist.. after all.. "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck". I understand though, I used to label and bad mouth anyone who didn't think exactly like me, just like you do, but then I turned 6 and outgrew it.


This is disingenuous insofar as putting underwear on prisoners' heads isn't the only thing or the worst thing Americans have done to prisoners.

Bottom line: We're supposed to better than all that because we're Americans.

How can we claim the high ground when we take our cues re: treatment of prisoners from Saddam Hussein?

I doubt anybody on here truly knows what goes on in those interrogations. All we have is rumor and innuendo. I would imagine most of the things they've done are classified. I will go out on a limb, though and say we most likely haven't cut off any heads.

[Stuck In Texas]

But you haven't heard me call you a socialist.. after all.. "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck". I understand though, I used to label and bad mouth anyone who didn't think exactly like me, just like you do, but then I turned 6 and outgrew it.



Sorry, that was uncalled for. Long day. I apologize. The only reason I didn't just delete it is because I figured you read it already.

[fido]

whats the definition of torture? and who's definition?

[alkemical]

just remember - you reap what you sow

[baja]

Go and rent the DVD "Head in the sand". It shows video of not only what Islamic gov allow and encourage to happen (public torture and execution) as well as video from Abu Graib when Hussien ruled Iraq. There is no comparisson between our methods and thiers. They were far worse.

As far as torture goes with respect to being a valid way of obtaining information once again results speak for themselves. NO ATTACKS means NO ATTACKS. You are right that if you torture someone to thier breaking point they will say anything. So if you have one piece of information before you go into a session and you want info about that subject from the guy who's balls you are smashing than you will be better able to substaciate the information. Torture for the sake of torture is useless and sadistic but torture that is careful, methodical and purposfull is a great way to get more intell.

You know what a terrorist at Gitmo and a cueball have in common? The harder you hit them the more English you get out of them.

http://orangemane.com/BB/image.php?u=5618&dateline=1158954804

Nice avatar, I am sure Adolf would highly approve.