Panetta Admits, Yes, Waterboarding Worked

[nyuk nyuk]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

I love the modern Right Wing in America. Jesus would approve of war, the Constitution says that corporations are people, torture is okay, and the 2nd amendment means you get to have your own SAM, if you can figure a way to get one. It's like their own little Wonderland.

And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy.

What does this have to do with Panetta's admission besides nothing?

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Yeah, there's no precedent for that. Ask FDR.

I can't, he's gone and I am assuming you're referring to the interment of Japanese citizens. A xenophobic, if not racist, response to Pearl Harbor.

Back to my question:

Does the Constitution forbid torture?

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

My point? It was a question.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 8th amendment.

"...waterboarding, ...is a mock execution and thus an exquisite form of torture. As such, they are prohibited by American laws and values, and I oppose them."
John McCain

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 8th amendment.

"...waterboarding, ...is a mock execution and thus an exquisite form of torture. As such, they are prohibited by American laws and values, and I oppose them."
John McCain

You could add the 5th, too. "the right against self-incrimination" "the right to remain silent."

Might as well throw in the Fourteenth: "due process"

And **** the Geneva Convention and UN Charter.

Add the Patriot Act and Homeland security and the very rights the 2nd amendment was designed to protect have quickly eroded, but let's just focus on our guns.

It is amazing how the fundamental concepts and intent of the Constitution go out the window when it's convenient, but the 2nd is sacrosanct.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

I can't, he's gone and I am assuming you're referring to the interment of Japanese citizens. A xenophobic, if not racist, response to Pearl Harbor.

Back to my question:

Does the Constitution forbid torture?

Actually I was referring to his summary execution of German operatives operating and captured on American soil.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

You could add the 5th, too. "the right against self-incrimination" "the right to remain silent."

Might as well throw in the Fourteenth: "due process"

And **** the Geneva Convention and UN Charter.

Add the Patriot Act and Homeland security and the very rights the 2nd amendment was designed to protect have quickly eroded, but let's just focus on our guns.

It is amazing how the fundamental concepts and intent of the Constitution go out the window when it's convenient, but the 2nd is sacrosanct.

And a warped interpretation of the 2nd at that.

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

I can't, he's gone and I am assuming you're referring to the interment of Japanese citizens. A xenophobic, if not racist, response to Pearl Harbor.

Back to my question:

Does the Constitution forbid torture?

it depends what your definition of the word torture is!

I love me some Bill Clinton man that dudes answer works for everything.

[cutthemdown]

I do think torture is covered under the Constitution though. If you torture someone you deprive them of the due process protection you get as an american or guest of our judicial system. I'm just guessing though really. I'm not sure if torture of enemy combatants would fall under the constitution though. We also have the geneva convention which forbids that right?

Waterboarding though IMO does not reach the level of torture IMO. Also mental torture they don't seem to count right? Even our police will **** with your head to try and get you to talk. Denverbrit would you consider depriving someone of darkness, quiet, water, food, and then grilling them for days to be torture?

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Actually I was referring to his summary execution of German operatives operating and captured on American soil.

You mean these?

President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a special military tribunal consisting of seven generals to try the saboteurs. At the end of July, Dasch was sentenced to 30 years in prison, Burger was sentenced to hard labor for life, and the other six Germans were sentenced to die. The six condemned saboteurs were executed by electric chair in Washington, D.C., on August 8. In 1944, two other German spies were caught after a landing in Maine. No other instances of German sabotage within wartime America has come to light.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...-in-washington

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

I do think torture is covered under the Constitution though. If you torture someone you deprive them of the due process protection you get as an american or guest of our judicial system. I'm just guessing though really. I'm not sure if torture of enemy combatants would fall under the constitution though. We also have the geneva convention which forbids that right?

Waterboarding though IMO does not reach the level of torture IMO. Also mental torture they don't seem to count right? Even our police will **** with your head to try and get you to talk. Denverbrit would you consider depriving someone of darkness, quiet, water, food, and then grilling them for days to be torture?

You are correct about the Constitution....see posts 28 &29 above.

As for a definition of torture, under US law...

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2340

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

And a warped interpretation of the 2nd at that.

And in the meantime, those so-called defenders of liberty were asleep at the wheel. Do they care about the Bill of Rights, or just their ****ing gun collections?

The Patriot Act in a Nutshell
The Associated Press, Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks:

Freedom of association: To assist terror investigation, the government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity.

Freedom of information: The government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public-records requests. "Sensitive" information has been removed from government Web sites.

Freedom of speech: The government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.

Right to legal representation: The government may monitor conversations between attorneys and clients in federal prisons and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.

Freedom from unreasonable searches: The government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.

Right to a speedy and public trial: The government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.

Right to liberty: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them. "Enemy combatants" have been held incommunicado and refused attorneys.

[Pony Boy]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

You could add the 5th, too. "the right against self-incrimination" "the right to remain silent."

Might as well throw in the Fourteenth: "due process"

And **** the Geneva Convention and UN Charter.

Add the Patriot Act and Homeland security and the very rights the 2nd amendment was designed to protect have quickly eroded, but let's just focus on our guns.

It is amazing how the fundamental concepts and intent of the Constitution go out the window when it's convenient, but the 2nd is sacrosanct.

You’re missing the point here, I think everyone agrees waterboarding is torture and yes it’s very affective.

The question is why did Obama, the Commander in Chief allow waterboading to be used in the search for Bin Laden? The buck stops with him not with Panetta.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

You mean these?



http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...-in-washington

That's maybe the PG rated version.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/11/...terror-courts/

Problems with the case began soon after the saboteurs landed in two groups — one on Long Island in New York and the other at Ponte Vedra in Florida. A member of the Coast Guard came across the New York contingent, but the Germans had taken off by the time he ran back to his station to get help. One of the Germans, George Dasch, went straight to Washington and turned himself and the others in to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But when FBI head J. Edgar Hoover announced the arrests, there was no mention of Dasch’s assistance, and the media portrayed the arrests as the result of a daring capture by FBI agents.

Almost immediately, Biddle, the attorney general, sought authorization to try the Germans in a secret proceeding — in part, some historians assert, to avoid having to reveal that Hoover had embellished the story of the capture. Biddle also wanted to secure death sentences for the saboteurs, which would not have been available in civilian courts.

President Roosevelt issued an order authorizing the military commission and closing civilian courts to saboteurs and spies who entered the country on behalf of “any nation at war with the United States.” Bush’s order, by contrast, appears to apply to any noncitizen with terrorist connections, no matter what the country of origin.

The saboteur trial was quickly convened at the Justice Department, presided over by a panel of military officers who were apparently not lawyers. Biddle himself led the prosecution.

Noted lawyer Lloyd Cutler of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering was the youngest member of the prosecution team, and last week recalled moments from the trial. Procedural rules favored the prosecution, Cutler said.

“You didn’t need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt,” Cutler said. Instead, a “reasonable man” standard was used. “It was very different from a civilian trial,” he noted.

As soon as defense lawyer Kenneth Royall indicated he would challenge the constitutionality of the process, Biddle went to Roosevelt. The president reacted angrily, according to a 1996 article in the Journal of Supreme Court History.

“I want one thing clearly understood, Francis,” Roosevelt said, according to Biddle’s memoirs. “I won’t hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus.” Biddle agreed, telling Roosevelt, “We have to win in the Supreme Court, or there will be a hell of a mess.”

Political Justice at its finest. Anyway, it fully dispensed with the notion that simple exposure to American soil or the US Civil Justice System guaranteed defendants any Constitutional protections.

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by Pony Boy

You’re missing the point here, I think everyone agrees waterboarding is torture and yes it’s very affective.

The question is why did Obama, the Commander in Chief allow waterboading to be used in the search for Bin Laden? The buck stops with him not with Panetta.

Obama has been allowing a lot of the procedures, introduced by Bush, to continue. Regardless, they are both wrong.

It is one of many occasions when the Constitution/Bill of Rights has been thrown out the window.

Personal freedoms are eroded, yet there is little outrage, but try and reduce the size of a gun magazine and it's: 'The government is treading all over the Constitution and trying to deny us our god given rights.'

Seriously? That ship sailed a long time ago.

The gun lobby is very effective at misdirection.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

Personal freedoms are eroded, yet there is little outrage, but try and reduce the size of a gun magazine and it's: 'The government is treading all over the Constitution and trying to deny us our god given rights.'

Seriously? That ship sailed a long time ago.

The gun lobby is very effective at misdirection.

I think you forget that the Patriot Act used to be considered a lot bigger deal before it was Obama who started renewing it. 75% of outrage in most of these cases is political. But that doesn't necessarily make the outrage unjustified.

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

That's maybe the PG rated version.

Political Justice at its finest. Anyway, it fully dispensed with the notion that simple exposure to American soil or the US Civil Justice System guaranteed defendants any Constitutional protections.

I'm not sure what your point is other than the US Government systematically disregards the Constitution.

My point was that the Constitution was meant to protect all on US soil, not just citizens.

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

I think you forget that the Patriot Act used to be considered a lot bigger deal before it was Obama who started renewing it. 75% of outrage in most of these cases is political. But that doesn't necessarily make the outrage unjustified.

The Patriot act has always been a 'big deal,' making it a partisan issue is absurd.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

I'm not sure what your point is other than the US Government systematically disregards the Constitution.

My point was that the Constitution was meant to protect all on US soil, not just citizens.

Well, it's a nice sentiment. Unfortunately, history has shown that when it comes to war powers, that's not necessarily the consensus.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

The Patriot act has always been a 'big deal,' making it a partisan issue is absurd.

Heh, yeah, sure thing.

http://www.salon.com/2011/05/23/bipartisanship_8/

But what’s most notable isn’t the vote itself, but the comments made afterward. Sen. Paul announced that he was considering using delaying tactics to hold up passage of the bill in order to extract some reforms (including ones he is co-sponsoring with the Democrats’ Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Leahy, who — despite voicing “concerns” about the bill — voted for cloture). Paul’s announcement of his delaying intentions provoked this fear-mongering, Terrorism-exploiting, bullying threat from the Democrats’ Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, Dianne Feinstein:

“I think it would be a huge mistake,” Feinstein told reporters. “If somebody wants to take on their shoulders not having provisions in place which are necessary to protect the United States at this time, that’s a big, big weight to bear.”

In other words: Paul and the other dissenting Senators better give up their objections and submit to quick Patriot Act passage or else they’ll have blood on their hands from the Terrorist attack they will cause. That, of course, was the classic Bush/Cheney tactic for years to pressure Democrats into supporting every civil-liberties-destroying measure the Bush White House demanded (including, of course, the original Patriot Act itself), and now we have the Democrats — ensconced in power — using it just as brazenly and shamelessly (recall how Bush’s DNI, Michael McConnell, warned Congressional Democrats in 2007 that unless they quickly passed without changes the new FISA bill the Bush White House was demanding, a Terrorist attack would likely occur at the Congress in a matter of “days, not weeks”; McConnell then told The New Yorker: “If we don’t update FISA, the nation is significantly at risk”). Feinstein learned well.

If it walks like a Partisan Issue, quacks like a Partisan Issue...

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Heh, yeah, sure thing.

http://www.salon.com/2011/05/23/bipartisanship_8/



If it walks like a Partisan Issue, quacks like a Partisan Issue...

Like I said, making it a partisan issue is absurd. Both sides are guilty, as I have already stated.

Did you have a different point you were trying to make?

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

Like I said, making it a partisan issue is absurd. Both sides are guilty, as I have already stated.

Did you have a different point you were trying to make?

Well, you seemed to be asking why more noise is made about the gun issue than other similar threats. I'm pointing out that much of the noise you hear on many issues is political. On either side. Cheerleading, basically.

But there are still principles in there somewhere. Relative noise made by partisans is not an adequate barometer to judge the merit of the principles at stake.

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Well, you seemed to be asking why more noise is made about the gun issue than other similar threats. I'm pointing out that much of the noise you hear on many issues is political. On either side. Cheerleading, basically.

But there are still principles in there somewhere. Relative noise made by partisans is not an adequate barometer to judge the merit of the principles at stake.

Partisan 'noise' often clouds or distorts the truth, one must drill down to find the facts and sources.

Unfortunately, scoring partisan points is too often more important.

[nyuk nyuk]

Originally Posted by DenverBrit

A xenophobic, if not racist

Wuh oh

Labels applied. Conversation over.

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by nyuk nyuk

Wuh oh

Labels applied. Conversation over.

Why are you still here, then?

[DenverBrit]

Originally Posted by nyuk nyuk

Wuh oh

Labels applied. Conversation over.

Nice edit, yet that was unfortunately what happened.