A Lone Voice wrote:
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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, and if YOU'VE read this thread more thoroughly, you'd know that the briefs that people like Pelosi got were not so specific. Go back and read.
Pelosi was briefed that the white house believed they could legally do it (theoretical) not that they actually had or would. Further they were told that congress would be specifically told if they would use the technique (which they had already done, so they did not tell congress).
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0409/Pelosi_I_didnt_know_about_waterboarding.html
DKO. Look at the date on your Glen Thrush Politico article, and look at the date of this:
Pelosi playing defense on torture
By GLENN THRUSH | 4/27/09 4:33 AM EDT Text Size:
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.
“As soon as the president made the decision to release [the memos], I was telling people that the Republicans were going to come after us, saying she knew about it and did nothing,” said an adviser to Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaking on condition of anonymity. “And I’m sure we’re going to get hammered again when they release all those new torture photos,” the person said.
But Pelosi’s allies were less prepared to confront the fallout from her convoluted answers during three sessions with reporters last week " answers that raised new questions and handed Republicans a fresh line of attack on a speaker at the height of her power.
“I’m puzzled, I don’t understand what she’s trying to say,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and currently the committee’s ranking minority member.
“I don’t have any sympathy for her " she’s the speaker of the House; there should be some accountability. She shouldn’t be given a pass,” added Hoekstra.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised to keep up the heat, telling reporters last week, “She and other leaders were fully briefed on all of these interrogation techniques. There’s nothing here that should surprise her.”
Democrats dismiss such talk as a sideshow, arguing that the criticism of Pelosi is nothing compared with the long-term damage done to Republicans by the disclosure of Bush administration interrogation abuses.
“The Republicans may have won a news cycle, but we’re doing what we want to do,” said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly, pointing to Pelosi’s legislative successes during President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office.
Nonetheless, Pelosi finds herself on the defensive at a time when she needs to be on the offensive, pushing through a record-breaking budget, health care reform, a controversial cap-and-trade proposal and a supplemental funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.
To make matters worse, Pelosi’s troubles cast renewed scrutiny on her fraught relationship with Rep. Jane Harman, the hyperkinetic California Democrat who lobbied her relentlessly " and unsuccessfully " to become Intelligence Committee chairwoman in 2006.
A week ago, Congressional Quarterly reported that Harman had been secretly wiretapped by Bush administration intelligence officials and was overheard promising a suspected Israeli agent she would advocate on behalf of two pro-Israel lobbyists accused of espionage.
In return, CQ reported, the agent promised to enlist Pelosi’s friend Haim Saban to pressure the speaker to tap Harman as committee chair by threatening to withhold contributions. Nothing became of the scheme, and Pelosi says Saban, a billionaire and major Democratic benefactor, never strong-armed her.
At a roundtable discussion with reporters in her office on Wednesday, Pelosi claimed government officials had told her “maybe three years ago” that Harman had been bugged " but indicated she hadn’t been told of the content of the recorded conversation.
A day later, CQ reporter Jeff Stein cited three former intelligence officials who contradicted that account, saying Pelosi was, in fact, told of the substance of the wiretap.
Daly said the speaker stood by her version of events.
Pelosi also complicated matters at the roundtable by telling reporters, “Many, many, many of Jane’s friends talked to me about her being named chair of the committee” and scoffed at Harman backers’ charge that she had been promised the post.
“I’ve heard some people say to me, ‘Oh, she was promised in writing she would be the chairman’ " completely not so,” Pelosi said.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21724.html
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I know you didn't post a deceitful link on purpose, but you should really be careful when you are posting dated info.
A Lone Voice wrote:
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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?
Quote:I have read this thread. Since the first page. I am more than familiar with the discussion. The very specific difference here is that those soldiers are being mentally and physically prepared for torture and doing so in a environment that they have the ability to control i.e. - They can signal the waterboarding to end.
You need to read up on the opinions of the military trainers who do this exercise. It's pretty cut and dry: Torture.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110802150.html
Quote: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.
We can both post numerous links from former military personnel who either agree or disagree with our positions.
I appreciate you've read the whole thread. You are aware that Deb was using the military/police comparison as a point of law? I simply asked her to prove it with cases that show precedence, which she was not able to do.
A Lone Voice wrote:
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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:Facing a death penalty still means a trial where you are considered innocent until proven guilty. It means you can face justice on a equal footing against your accusers. They are not the same ALV.
But as a point of law, police using threats in this manner do not get a suspect's confession tossed. The suspect will own his statement at trial.
A Lone Voice wrote:
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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:Any interruption of oxygen to the brain can cause permanent brain damage. A bruise heals, bleeding stops, and hair grows back. The point here is not that we should be slapping, poking, and pulling hair, but that the notion that medical supervision make waterboarding not torture is an invalid argument.
Permanent brain damage does not occur until a number of minutes have passed. Protocol from the admin layers indicated it would be used less than a minute.
A Lone Voice wrote:
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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 prosecuted for war crimes?
After all, war wasn't declared in those 'police actions' and conflicts, were they?
Quote:You didn't answer my question ALV. The point here is that "war-time" is a fuzzy term. The point is that committing certain acts are illegal no matter who they are done to. You can't go hunt down and shoot a murder in the name of justice. Being a time of peace/war in no way makes the act not torture. Being the person a civilian/solder/terrorist in no way makes the act not torture.
But a soldier can hunt down a terrorist and shoot him under military law. Or under the rules of war.
Fuzzy how?
I do agree that the US has opened the door to waterbording by other countries of US terrorists who attempt to overthrow foreign governments.
A Lone Voice wrote:
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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?
Quote:You are convoluting the issue here. Police may not have the authority to use certain methods that the military uses, but that doesn't change what those methods are. Silly it is not.
Neither the solder nor the police officer is allowed to use torture. This is not the police being held to military standards. The bottom line here is that Deb's court case illustrates waterboarding as a legal entity to be torture.
I agree the solder nor the police officer is allowed to use torture. But waterboarding isn't torture, as the Obama admin and AG Eric Holder are soon to agree.
A Lone Voice wrote:
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.
Quote:If Nancy Pelosi knew that the technique was actually being used, then yes. I'm not convinced that they knew more than the white house thought it could use it theoretically. I'm also not convinced that the legal briefings to congresspersons accurately outlined the legality of the technique.
There is a valid argument based on intel statements that she knew.
A Lone Voice wrote:
It's good to recognize those with selective outrage.
Quote:It's good to recognize those with selective reasoning.
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