Obama must be lawfully compelled to stop damaging our Constitutional Republic.
More and ever growing TEA PARTIES are one way to help accomplish that.
As pointed out, they were not upfront about techniques and the memos drafted were tailored to a legal end that they wanted. If they omitted legal information to congress to specifically get the permission you refer, then is it congress's fault?
Yes. A method for being able to withstand ILLEGAL interrogation techniques.
So is a simulated fake execution, but that is illegal. It's illegal specifically because of it's psychological in nature.
If I stick pins in you, slap you lightly repeatedly, or pluck your hairs out one by one is it not torture if done with medical supervision? I mean, those are even less likely to cause permanent damage than waterboarding. What about medical supervision makes it not torture?
So the same act would be torture if not in a time of war?
So the same act if done on a soldier would be torture?
When did we declare war?
Do other legal terms like theft become null if done to a terrorist?
What trial found these people guilty of being a terrorist and thus by your reasoning made them eligible for a method that would be torture for any other person?
No not aside. You've not answered to this. What these officers did was the exact same act. It was torture. No circumstances such as a kidnapped girl or any other ticking bomb threat would have redefined the act they did as anything other than torture. Perhaps a court in those circumstances would have found them innocent by means of temporary insanity (as in they had no care for the consequences) but even a verdict saying they were innocent would not have changed the definition. Do you understand this?
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
The Constitution of the United States of America
Effective as of March 4, 1789
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Article I
...
Section 8. The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Section 9. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.
No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.
No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another.
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
Article II
Section 1.
...
The President ... shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
...
Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
...
Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
Article VI
...
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
...
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html
Amendment XVI (1913)
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
You haven't demonstrated any awareness let alone knowledge of the subject. You have nothing of substance to offer this discussion so you resort to attacking my character and posting nonsensical dribble.
Torture is torture regardless of the identity of the perpetrator. Both our civilian and military authorities are prohibited from torturing detainees.
What the hell are you talking about? You're not making any sense and that is your modus operandi. Both our civilian and military authorities are prohibited from torturing detainees.
Look it up. I showed you a famous picture of a U.S. soldier performing water torture on a prisoner. That soldier was court-martialed for what he was caught doing as evidenced by the picture. It should be very easy for you to educate yourself. Look it up.
I responded to your posts. You don't return the courtesy. You're simply employing one of Foxfyre's favorite ploys by accusing others of your own sins.
Cicerone imposter, PRECISELY WHAT IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE USA DO YOU THINK THAT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND?
Quote:
As pointed out, they were not upfront about techniques and the memos drafted were tailored to a legal end that they wanted. If they omitted legal information to congress to specifically get the permission you refer, then is it congress's fault?
Source? According to the Washington Post, Nancy Pelosi and other liberal members of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed on waterboarding; "a virtual tour," as it has been described, in 2002. Pelosi has been twisting her statements since (after calling for a 'truth commission') no less.
Quote:
Yes. A method for being able to withstand ILLEGAL interrogation techniques.
This is one of the problems when we have multiple responses; please go back and read the discussion between me and Deb.
I asked her if waterboarding during training should be considered torture. After all, if a trainer beat a trainee during this, he would be prosecuted.
Is it the act of waterboarding that some of you consider torture? The intent?
A former Navy survival instructor subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training told Congress yesterday that the controversial tactic should plainly be considered torture and that such a method was never intended for use by U.S. interrogators because it is a relic of abusive totalitarian governments.
Quote:
So is a simulated fake execution, but that is illegal. It's illegal specifically because of it's psychological in nature.
You actually make a good point here, tko. But then again, interrogators will often tell a suspect they are facing the death penalty. Does this rise to the level of a fake execution? Neither does waterboarding.
Quote:
If I stick pins in you, slap you lightly repeatedly, or pluck your hairs out one by one is it not torture if done with medical supervision? I mean, those are even less likely to cause permanent damage than waterboarding. What about medical supervision makes it not torture?
What permanent physical damage does waterboarding cause? Slapping, even lightly, can cause bruising. Plucking hairs out can cause bleeding.
Quote:
So the same act would be torture if not in a time of war?
So the same act if done on a soldier would be torture?
When did we declare war?
Do other legal terms like theft become null if done to a terrorist?
What trial found these people guilty of being a terrorist and thus by your reasoning made them eligible for a method that would be torture for any other person?
Hmm. I guess every soldier and administration official during the Korean, Vietnam, and every other military action since WWII should be prosected for war crimes?
After all, war wasn't declared in those 'police actions' and conflicts, were they?
Quote:
No not aside. You've not answered to this. What these officers did was the exact same act. It was torture. No circumstances such as a kidnapped girl or any other ticking bomb threat would have redefined the act they did as anything other than torture. Perhaps a court in those circumstances would have found them innocent by means of temporary insanity (as in they had no care for the consequences) but even a verdict saying they were innocent would not have changed the definition. Do you understand this?
Again, you are losing context from failing to read the prior discussions.
I'll ask you the same question I asked Deb: Civilian police officers are also not allowed to clear rooms in buildings by tossing hand grenades. Using a case with police officers to set military standards is pretty silly, isn't it?
BTW, I'm glad to see you agree that Nancy Pelosi and other dems on the House Intelligence Committee should be held to the same standards re prosecution as those repubs and others in the Bush admin.
It's good to recognize those with selective outrage.
Section 8. The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Rumsfeld Rejected Waterboarding
Pelosi Did Not Object After Being Informed Of Practice
By MICHAEL P. TREMOGLIE, The Bulletin
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
In a role reversal that some will find troublesome, it has been learned that, in December 2002, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rejected a request to use waterboarding to interrogate terrorist prisoners. But, other sources claim, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., did not object to its use after she had been informed of the practice months earlier in September 2002.
Mr. Rumsfeld was, and is, a lightning rod for criticism by Democrats and leftists. He has been accused by some Democrats, and others who oppose the global war on terror, of not only sanctioning the torture of al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners, but proactively ordering it.
Yet, according to testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Dr. Stephen A Cambone, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, said Mr. Rumsfeld had rejected a request to use waterboarding as an interrogation technique. The request came from Joint Task Force 170 (JTF-170), the military’s team responsible for questioning prisoners at Guantanamo.
The committee, of which Mrs. Pelosi was the ranking member, held the hearing, which they called “Critical Need for Interrogation in the Global War on Terror,” on July 14, 2004. Mr. Cambone was one of a panel of three testifying about the efficacy of interrogations.
He said the interrogations provided very valuable information about terrorists, terrorist groups, terrorist networks and terrorist plans. He also said that interrogations yielded information on terrorists that was not able to be gleaned from any other type of intelligence collection.
“For example, interrogations at Guantanamo have yielded information on individuals connected to al-Qaida’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction,” he said, “(also) front companies and accounts supporting al-Qaida and other terrorist operations.”
He went on to detail how certain al-Qaida members at Guantanamo had critical information about planned attacks on the U.S. and that on June 17, 2002, U.S. Southern Command commander, Gen James T. Hill, requested a review of interrogation methods.
The review called for guidelines in questioning detainees. It wanted to establish “rules of engagement” for interrogations.
In response to this, JTF-170 proposed techniques divided into three categories. Based on the opinion of the Staff Judge Advocate, Gen. Hill ruled Category I and II techniques were “legal and humane.” He then requested a review and approval, via the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of Category III techniques. This set of techniques were to be used for prisoners “who resisted [JTF-170’s] current interrogation methods.”
Gen. Hill wanted “counter-resistant” methods that they could “lawfully employ” testified Mr. Cambone. On Nov. 27, 2002, Defense Department officials authorized all of the Category I and II methods. They authorized only one of the Category III methods. This was the use of mild non-injurious physical contact.
Mr. Rumsfeld approved of this authorization on Dec. 2, 2002. Mr. Cambone then testified what techniques Mr. Rumsfeld did not approve " one of which was waterboarding.
“He did not approve for use from Category III,” he said, “the use of a wet towel and dripping water.”
Ironically, three months earlier, in September 2002, Nancy Pelosi, who now wants to prosecute those engaged in waterboarding, had been informed about the use of this tactic and did not object.
According to a December 2007 Washington Post story, “In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk ... Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding ... on that day, no objections were raised.”
Donald Rumsfeld, the man liberals and some Democrats accused of being a torturer, had disapproved of the use of waterboarding, a method that had been, at the very least, tacitly endorsed by Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who are now expressing outrage about it.
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/04/29/top_stories/doc49f821cd5d0ae182977392.txt
Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page A01
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Senate investigators said the seeds of the policy originated in a Feb. 7, 2002, memo signed by President Bush declaring that the Geneva Conventions, which outline standards for the humane treatment of detainees, did not apply to captured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.[24]
ABC News reported on April 9, 2008 that "the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency." The article states that those involved included:
Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.[36]
In December 2007 CIA director Michael V. Hayden stated that "of about 100 prisoners held to date in the C.I.A. program, the enhanced techniques were used on about 30, and waterboarding used on just three."[37][38]
Waterboarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Material is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over them. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said on BBC Radio 4 that since these methods are not intended to punish they do not violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, barring "cruel and unusual punishment", and as such may not be unconstitutional.[39]
Antonin Gregory Scalia (help·info) (born March 11, 1936)[2] is an American jurist and the second-most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan. He is considered to be a core member of the conservative wing of the court.
ALV, Nancy Pelosi is a power-monger, and I trust her as much as Bush.
The two witnesses tesitfying had a lot less personal motive for what they said than Pelosi has for what she is saying now. If anybody is dancing around a nice time line it is Pelosi unless you would accespt ANYBODY saying that it was fully explained to me and shown to me but I wasn't told they would actually do it. I suppose to some people it would make perfect sense to build and conduct a tour through a facility that was never intended to be used.
Again the issue here is not what is or is not torture, but rather what was or was not legal. The practice, whatever it was, was year after year funded by Congress with appropriate people having been informed of what was included in the appropriations.
And THAT is what made it legal for those authorizing, approving, and doing the interrogations and why there should not now be a formal investigation to go look for somebody to hold up and punish for political purposes.
If they do that, then Pelosi should be the first one hung as she was in the best position to explain why the appropriations should not be authorized.
President Obama has it right and he should stick to his guns that we learn from the past but we don't go back and dredge it through the dirt. We move on.
The two witnesses tesitfying had a lot less personal motive for what they said than Pelosi has for what she is saying now. If anybody is dancing around a nice time line it is Pelosi unless you would accespt ANYBODY saying that it was fully explained to me and shown to me but I wasn't told they would actually do it. I suppose to some people it would make perfect sense to build and conduct a tour through a facility that was never intended to be used.
Again the issue here is not what is or is not torture, but rather what was or was not legal.
The practice, whatever it was, was year after year funded by Congress with appropriate people having been informed of what was included in the appropriations.
And THAT is what made it legal for those authorizing, approving, and doing the interrogations and why there should not now be a formal investigation to go look for somebody to hold up and punish for political purposes.
If they do that, then Pelosi should be the first one hung as she was in the best position to explain why the appropriations should not be authorized.
President Obama has it right and he should stick to his guns that we learn from the past but we don't go back and dredge it through the dirt.
We move on.
