THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Lash wrote:

Ge--

Let's see...

Gonzales defines 'torture as interogation falling just short of organ failure or death ....
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Does he give any clearer parameters? I agree, of course, that it stops short of death. Does he say where it starts?

"interrogation" is verbal. Only.
"organ failure" is physical
"death" of a captive, is murder

I think a person who can spell such a long word as Gonzales should be able to understand that. It is an indictment, yet another indictment, of the Bush administration that it is willing to be associated with such a person.

Main Entry: 1tor·ture
Pronunciation: 'tor-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Late Latin tortura, from Latin tortus, past participle of torquEre to twist; probably akin to Old High German drAhsil turner, Greek atraktos spindle
1 a : anguish of body or mind : AGONY b : something that causes agony or pain
2 : the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure
3 : distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument : STRAINING

Main Entry: 2torture
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): tor·tured; tor·tur·ing /'torch-ri[ng], 'tor-ch&-/
1 : to cause intense suffering to : TORMENT
2 : to punish or coerce by inflicting excruciating pain
3 : to twist or wrench out of shape : DISTORT, WARP
synonym see AFFLICT
- tor·tur·er /'tor-ch&r-&r/ noun

Oh, so now this vote under occupation is analogous to a popular uprising from 225 years ago?

Patrick Henry: "It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace!—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethen are already in the field. Why stay we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me: give me liberty, or give me death!"

full text of Gonzales memo:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999148/site/newsweek/

just an interesting aritcle though I really don't understand anything underneath the war crimes part.

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/05/alberto_gonzales_memo_paving_the_way_for_war_crimes.html

May 19, 2004
Alberto Gonzales Memo: Paving the Way for War Crimes?
MSNBC has the full text of the memo by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Aside from its fundamental callousness and lack of moral outrage, there are odd things about it.

Gonzales rejects, without discussion, the concept that if armed people are not entitled to POW status they might still benefit from Geneva III, protecting civilians. Or might be subject to basic norms of decency and due process arising from the Constitution which creates the powers he and his boss exercise.

Even stranger is the odd discussion of the War Crimes statute, 18 U.S.C § 2441. Gonzales opines that one good reason for NOT treating detainees as POWs is that not giving them POW status lessens the chance of subsequent prosecutions against their US captors under the war crimes statute.

Why, you might ask, worry about prosecution at all? Is Gonzales aware of a plan to mistreat the detainees? It sure looks that way.

Gonzales's first argument against treating al Queda or Taliban fighters as POWs is that doing so would increase the danger of prosecution for "vague" offenses prohibited by the Geneva convention, namely "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment". Reading those lines today, in the fullness of hindsight, it is very hard to escape the suspicion that Gonzales knew or suspected the sexual humiliation planned for Arab detainees.
This. How can you make such a serious allegation with such flimsy non-connections? In this day of nutjob litigation--and AQ's and the Taliban's hatred against the US, we would be bogged down throughout eternity with frivilous lawsuits. I don't know about you, but Al Quaida's not dragging my country into court.
Gonzales's second argument against treating al Queda or Taliban fighters as POWs is that"it is difficult to predict the needs and circumstances that could arise in the course of the war on terrorism." (Reading that today, it seems to mean "we might need to torture people".)

Good grief! You must be kidding. "We might need to torture people..."? The Geneva laws were written for a time when countries had extreme unction, but still conducted themselves (for the most part) as humane. AQ and the Taliban don't qualify. Their open policy is torture, beheadings, rape and murder. We would still of course maintain the standard of humane treatment, as a country, but they won't get the legal protections and perks we afforded POWs of legitimate symmetrical war.
Gonzales's third reason for treating is the legally weirdest of all:

"it is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges based on Section 2441. Your determination would create a solid basis in law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would create a solid defense to any future prosecutions."

I don't know whats so hard to understand. If you don't put yourself under the higher, "quaint" standards of the GC, AQ and the Taliban have less recourse against us. The don't deserve any recourse against us. How many of them do you think would like to drag our country and our President into court? I don't think so.
I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what this means, especially as Gonzales has a reputation for being pretty smart.

Does Gonzales think that the "just following orders" defense will work? I hope not. Where do you get this?They were a standing army of a nation. AQ and the Taliban are not. Terrorists don't get GC perks.
So, on the assumption that Gonzales is smart, I'm puzzled. Does Gonzales have a bad staff?1 Of course, it could be that Gonzales was making a political not a legal judgement: if the President OK'd it, prosecutors are less likely to prosecute. But to make this the centerpiece of your argument?
The more I look at this thing, the worse it smells.
Probably because you've already decided what you're going to smell.Any terrorist could come up with any number of trumped up BS and make a case against the Bush administration. It would be ridiculous to put ourselves in that position. Bin Laden would already like to have Bush on trial for war crimes and aggression against Arabs because our military was on Saudi soil. We won't be submitting ourselves to the justice of terrorists and irrational freakshows.

But, I didn't feel any hostility toward you. Just what you said.

I did appreciate you bringing that article--but was confounded that you hadn't read it--but were making the above charges against Gonzales, and seemed to be straining to believe the worst about Gonzales with no proof.

Worse things have happened. [citation corrrected 6/6/04]

So, Ican wants to torture people now, sorry, can justify the use of torture, and Lash thinks interrogation techniques should involve physical means- stopping short of organ failure and death, of course. This is a new definition to me. I think what is "pathetic", Lash, is your lack of any understanding.

What continues to be pathetic is your insistence in avoiding the specifics in someone's post, ignoring the precise wording of memos and the like, and just spewing whatever you want to say--regardless of it's accuracy.

You were incorrect when you said I think interrogation should involve physical means. If you have a disagreement with my opinion--feel free to disagree, but do restrict yourself to the truth. I said interrogation obviously isn't just verbal. How on earth could you change my statement so obscenely? I can see easily how some people are so wrong in their views. I just don't know if you did it on purpose, or if your reading comprehension is reflected.

You were incorrect when you said I think interrogation should involve physical means.

Interrogation is obviously NOT just verbal, McTag.

Main Entry: in·ter·ro·ga·tion
Pronunciation: n.tergshn
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: Middle English interrogacioun, from Middle French interrogation, from Latin interrogation-, interrogatio, from interrogatus + -ion-, -io -ion
1 a : the act of interrogating b : a question put : INQUIRY
2 a : a question regarded as a type of sentence or unit of discourse b : a questioning with the force of an emphatic affirmation or denial

I consider the Geneva Convention neither obsolete or quaint," he said at the hearing, promising to ensure U.S. compliance "with all of its legal obligations in fighting the war on terror."

Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined in on some of the criticism, saying the administration "dramatically undermined the war effort" by "getting cute with the law."

"I think you weaken yourself as a nation when you try to play cute and become more like your enemy instead of like who you want to be," he said.

Gonzales objected to Graham's characterizations, noting the beheadings of Americans by terrorists. "We are nothing like our enemies, Senator," Gonzales said.

"But we're not like who we want to be and who we have been, and that's the point I'm trying to make," Graham retorted. "When you start looking at torture statutes and you look at ways around the spirit of the law, you're losing the moral high ground. ... I do believe that we've lost our way."

McTag wrote:

Lash wrote:

Ge--

Let's see...

Gonzales defines 'torture as interogation falling just short of organ failure or death ....

"interrogation" is verbal. Only.
"organ failure" is physical
"death" of a captive, is murder

I think a person who can spell such a long word as Gonzales should be able to understand that. It is an indictment, yet another indictment, of the Bush administration that it is willing to be associated with such a person.

Pathetic.

Interrogation is obviously NOT just verbal, McTag. If Gonzales is so despicable, why no quotes?

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Saturday, January 15, 2005


The Phantom Weapons...
The phone hasn't been working for almost a week now. We just got the line back today. For the last six days, I'd pick up the phone and hear... silence. Nothing. This vast nothingness would be followed by a few futile 'hellos' and a forceful punching of some random numbers with my index finger. It isn't always like this, of course. On some days, you can pick up the telephone and hear a bunch of other people screaming "allooo? Allooo?" E. once struck up a conversation with a complete stranger over the phone because they were both waiting for a line. E. wanted to call our uncle and the woman was trying to call her grandson.

The dial-tone came about an hour ago (I've been checking since morning) and I'm taking advantage of it.

The electricity situation isn't very much better. We're getting two hours of electricity (almost continuous) and then eight hours of no electricity (continuous). We still can't get the generators going for very long because of the fuel shortage. Kerosene is really becoming a problem now. I guess we weren't taking it very seriously at first because, it really is probably the first time Iraq has seen a kerosene shortage and it is still difficult to believe. They say in 1991 when there was a gasoline shortage which lasted for the duration of the war and some time after, kerosene was always plentiful. This isn't the situation now. We're buying it for obscene prices and it's really only useful for the lamps and the heaters.

It feels like just about everyone who can is going to leave the country before the elections. They say the borders between Syria and Jordan might be closed a week before elections so people are rushing to get packed and get out. Many families are simply waiting for their school-age children to finish mid-year finals or college exams so they can leave.

This was an interesting piece of news a couple of days ago:

The United States has ended its physical search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which was cited by the first administration of President George W Bush as the main reason for invading the country, the White House has said.

Why does this not surprise me? Does it surprise anyone? I always had the feeling that the only people who actually believed this war was about weapons of mass destruction were either paranoid Americans or deluded expatriate Iraqis- or a combination of both. I wonder now, after hundreds and hundreds of Americans actually died on Iraqi soil and over a hundred-thousand Iraqis are dead, how Americans view the current situation. I have another question- the article mentions a "Duelfer Report" stating the weapons never existed and all the intelligence was wrong. This report was supposedly published in October 2004. The question is this: was this report made public before the elections? Did Americans actually vote for Bush with this knowledge?

Over here, it's not really "news" in the sense that it's not new. We've been expecting a statement like this for the last two years. While we were aware the whole WMD farce was just a badly produced black comedy, it's still upsetting to hear Bush's declaration that he was wrong. It's upsetting because it just confirms the worst: right-wing Americans don't care about justifying this war. They don't care about right or wrong or innocents dead and more to die. They were somewhat ahead of the game. When they saw their idiotic president wasn't going to find weapons anywhere in Iraq, they decided it would be about mass graves. It wasn't long before the very people who came to 'liberate' a sovereign country soon began burying more Iraqis in mass graves. The smart weapons began to stupidly kill 'possibly innocent' civilians (they are only 'definitely innocent' if they are working with the current Iraqi security forces or American troops). It went once more from protecting poor Iraqis from themselves to protecting Americans from 'terrorists'. Zarqawi very conveniently entered the picture.

Zarqawi is so much better than WMD. He's small, compact and mobile. He can travel from Falloojeh to Baghdad to Najaf to Mosul… whichever province or city really needs to be oppressed. Also, conveniently, he looks like the typical Iraqi male- dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin, medium build. I wonder how long it will take the average American to figure out that he's about as substantial as our previously alleged WMD.

Now we're being 'officially' told that the weapons never existed. After Iraq has been devastated, we're told it's a mistake. You look around Baghdad and it is heart-breaking. The streets are ravaged, the sky is a bizarre grayish-bluish color- a combination of smoke from fires and weapons and smog from cars and generators. There is an endless wall that seems to suddenly emerge in certain areas to protect the Green Zoners... There is common look to the people on the streets- under the masks of fear, anger and suspicion, there's also a haunting look of uncertainty and indecision. Where is the country going? How long will it take for things to even have some vague semblance of normality? When will we ever feel safe?

A question poses it self at this point- why don't they let the scientists go if the weapons don't exist? Why do they have Iraqi scientists like Huda Ammash, Rihab Taha and Amir Al Saadi still in prison? Perhaps they are waiting for those scientists to conveniently die in prison? That way- they won't be able to talk about the various torture techniques and interrogation tactics...

I hope Americans feel good about taking their war on terror to foreign soil. For bringing the terrorists to Iraq- Chalabi, Allawi, Zarqawi, the Hakeems… How is our current situation going to secure America? How is a complete generation that is growing up in fear and chaos going to view Americans ten years from now? Does anyone ask that? After September 11, because of what a few fanatics did, Americans decided to become infected with a collective case of xenophobia… Yet after all Iraqis have been through under the occupation, we're expected to be tolerant and grateful. Why? Because we get more wheat in our diets?

Terror isn't just worrying about a plane hitting a skyscraper…terrorism is being caught in traffic and hearing the crack of an AK-47 a few meters away because the National Guard want to let an American humvee or Iraqi official through. Terror is watching your house being raided and knowing that the silliest thing might get you dragged away to Abu Ghraib where soldiers can torture, beat and kill. Terror is that first moment after a series of machine-gun shots, when you lift your head frantically to make sure your loved ones are still in one piece. Terror is trying to pick the shards of glass resulting from a nearby explosion out of the living-room couch and trying not to imagine what would have happened if a person had been sitting there.

The weapons never existed. It's like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit- having your country burned and bombed beyond recognition, almost. Then, after two years of grieving for the lost people, and mourning the lost sovereignty, we're told we were innocent of harboring those weapons. We were never a threat to America...

Congratulations Bush- we are a threat now.




- posted by river @ 10:53 PM

Mr Powell's bleak assessment, less than three weeks before Iraqis are due to elect a parliament, reflects what advisers close to the administration and former officials describe as an understanding in the State Department and Pentagon of the depth of the crisis. But, they say, this is not a view accepted by President George W. Bush . . .

According to Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and head of the independent Middle East Policy Council, Mr Bush recently asked Mr Powell for his view on the progress of the war. "We're losing," Mr Powell was quoted as saying. Mr Freeman said Mr Bush then asked the secretary of state to leave.

"He always has something unpleasant to say to me. I can't bear that."

It feels like just about everyone who can is going to leave the country before the elections. They say the borders between Syria and Jordan might be closed a week before elections so people are rushing to get packed and get out. Many families are simply waiting for their school-age children to finish mid-year finals or college exams so they can leave.