Bush Advisor : President Has Legal Power to Torture Children

blatham wrote:

McG

Regardless of what you believe is the President's intention or regardless of whether you believe his words, do you grasp that the consequences of both Yoo's reasoning and of Bush's signing statement on the McCain bill DO grant the President the legal right to crush a kid's nuts?

It was a hypotheical question that was answered. The president DOES have that authority, but that does not mean he would use it. Clinton had the same authority, just no one asked about it. Same with every President. The President has a lot of authority that is not used for lots of reasons. I thought that would have been obvious.

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" This convention bans torture under all circumstances". Also, "The CAT requires states to make torture illegal". This America has done led by McCain. Yet "When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief." Now that's some arrogance there. BUSHitler believes he's above the law even as he signs it into law. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/01/04/bush_could_bypass_new_torture_ban/

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Brandon9000 wrote:

Setanta wrote:
No, Brandon, you didn't "just say" that . . . you specifically said that there are fundatmentalist Islamic (your capitalization, not mine) societies who wish to destroy western culture. You do not define western culture. You do not define fundamentalist islamic societies.

I don't define "the" either. This is a widely known and understood truth in the public domain. Tell you what. I'll give an example. Al Qaeda is trying to either destroy the US or make it Islamic.

More typical idiocy from Brandon. The public domain refers to use of works of art by the public because all legal claims to copyright have expired.

Al Qaeda is not a society, it is an off-shoot of the Wahabbis of Saudia Arabia. Your nonsense proceeds from one absurdity to another in a downward spiral as you more hysterically lash at anyone who criticizes the Shrub and his Forty Theives of Baghdad.

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DrewDad wrote:

FreeDuck wrote:
Everything is partisan to you. What standard are you willing to apply, the administrations new revised determination of what constitutes torture?

They actually made a determination of what constitutes torture? Last I heard they were unwilling to discuss particular methods, which I took to mean "'torture' is always at least a little more severe than what we're currently doing."

I recall the pentagon saying something like "pain like that of organ failure" being the threshold. I have no idea how one would know the level of another person's pain. Do they ask them to draw happy faces? Uplifted mouth for no pain at all, straight mouth for adequate pain, downturned mouth for pain to the point of organ failure?

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The Geneva Convention also " forbids activities which do not rise to the level of torture, but which constitute cruel or degrading treatment."

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For POW's.

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And for civilian prisoners.

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But not illegal combatants which do not fall under the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

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In an Iraq which we occupy, they are either prisoners of war or civilian prisoners.

I can't understand why you want this to be legal.

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Actually, the Geneva conventions do refer to paramilitary and un-uniformed fighters . . . before you post such crap, go get a link . . . you make an extraoridnary claim, but you don't back it up.

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And, besides that, what is immoral to do to one, is immoral to do to all, whether they wear a uniform or not.

Cycloptichorn

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I have done so before Satana, you can do a search if you like. I have clearly outlined where illegal combatants are not covered.

FD is right that the prisoners in Iraq DO fall under the provisions of the Geneva conventions as POWs and that is why the scandal in the prisons were a scandal. Because they should not have happened. Torture is unwarranted against POW's and I have always said so.

However, terrorists and illegal combatants do not get the priviliges afforded by the Geneva conventions.

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However, terrorists and illegal combatants do not get the priviliges afforded by the Geneva conventions.
..............
Once a war is declared, all prisoners are covered by the G.C.
To pick and choose the ones that need to be tortured is illegal and immoral. The Gestapo and the NKVD did that.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

And, besides that, what is immoral to do to one, is immoral to do to all, whether they wear a uniform or not.

Cycloptichorn

Morality... I find it immoral to attach a bomb to oneself, wrap it with bb's, nails, misc fragments and then walk into a crowd and explode. Do you find that immoral as well?

I do not find it immoral to do everything within ones power to stop that immoral behavior. Especially on a grander scale of using an airplane or other weapon that can inflict massive casualties.

Our morals do not seem to align.

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No doubt about that--you consider the killing of dozens of innocents immoral . . . and you sneer at us because we condemn the killing of tens of thousands of innocents . . . yes, to a certainty, our points of view differ significantly.

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McGentrix wrote:

However, terrorists and illegal combatants do not get the priviliges afforded by the Geneva conventions.

Again, I'm trying hard to see why you want this to be legal. If torture is inhumane, which it is, then to suggest that it's ok to torture some people is to strip those people of their humanity. Legal or not, how do you justify that?

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McGentrix wrote:

blatham wrote:
McG

Regardless of what you believe is the President's intention or regardless of whether you believe his words, do you grasp that the consequences of both Yoo's reasoning and of Bush's signing statement on the McCain bill DO grant the President the legal right to crush a kid's nuts?

It was a hypotheical question that was answered. The president DOES have that authority, but that does not mean he would use it. Clinton had the same authority, just no one asked about it. Same with every President. The President has a lot of authority that is not used for lots of reasons. I thought that would have been obvious.

Obvious? No one, not even Yoo, considers this notion of constitutional theory obvious. What constitutional theorists or what legal tradition are you referring to here which holds that a President may torture a child in front of that child's parent?

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Quote:

Morality... I find it immoral to attach a bomb to oneself, wrap it with bb's, nails, misc fragments and then walk into a crowd and explode. Do you find that immoral as well?

I do not find it immoral to do everything within ones power to stop that immoral behavior. Especially on a grander scale of using an airplane or other weapon that can inflict massive casualties.

Our morals do not seem to align.

Do you think is would be immoral to stop this by killing many innocent people?

What you have essentially stated is that once the enemy abandons his morals, you are free to do the same. This is untrue. The fact that the enemy chooses to use a moral-less structure of attack and conduct does not give us free reign to do the same; if anything, it forces us to deliniate ourselves from the enemy by being MORE moral, or we otherwise lose our moral authority.

You're right, our morals don't match up; my morals aren't given up in a flash of fear, quisling.

Cycloptichorn

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I can't seem to see where I said anything about killing innocent people. Do your morals allow you to see unwritten words as well?

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Setanta wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
Setanta wrote:
No, Brandon, you didn't "just say" that . . . you specifically said that there are fundatmentalist Islamic (your capitalization, not mine) societies who wish to destroy western culture. You do not define western culture. You do not define fundamentalist islamic societies.

I don't define "the" either. This is a widely known and understood truth in the public domain. Tell you what. I'll give an example. Al Qaeda is trying to either destroy the US or make it Islamic.

More typical idiocy from Brandon. The public domain refers to use of works of art by the public because all legal claims to copyright have expired.

Al Qaeda is not a society, it is an off-shoot of the Wahabbis of Saudia Arabia. Your nonsense proceeds from one absurdity to another in a downward spiral as you more hysterically lash at anyone who criticizes the Shrub and his Forty Theives of Baghdad.

I guess Infoplease is as idiotic as I am:

Quote:

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda (or al-Qa'ida, pronounced al-KYE-da) surpassed the IRA and the PLO as the world's most infamous terrorist organization

Infoplease

However you classify them, they do have some common goals, one of which is the to eliminate the US or convert it US to Islam. Wikipedia says:

Quote:

Al-Qaeda (..."the foundation" or "the base") is the name given to an international Islamic fundamentalist campaign comprised of independent and collaborative cells that all profess the same cause of reducing outside influence upon Islamic affairs. Though al-Qaeda is philosophically heterogeneous, prominent members of the movement are considered to have Salafi beliefs.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) says that al-Qaeda is responsible for a large number of high-profile, violent attacks against civilians, military targets, and commercial institutions in both the west and the Muslim world.

Wikipedia

Al Qaeda is an Islamic organization portions of which have attacked us and will continue to do so. Osama bin Laden's open leter to America of 2002 reads, in part:

Quote:

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Source

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Bush Advisor : President Has Legal Power to Torture Children

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