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14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 0 replies · +1 points

"We didn't kill them. We didn't cut their heads off. We didn't shoot them. We didn't cut them and let them bleed to death. We just did what we were told to soften them up for interrogation, and we were told to do anything short of killing them," - Lynndie England.

"If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong," - Jonathan Fredman, a lawyer for the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, October 2002, as per the Senate Armed Services Committee report. Fredman says he did not put it quite like that.

In order to qualify as illegal torture, physical pain "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death," - a legal memo authorizing abuse of prisoners, approved by president George W. Bush, primarily authored by John Yoo.

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 0 replies · +1 points

George bush in an interview on arba TV after agu gherab:

"It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered. ... It's very important for people and your listeners to understand that in our country, when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act. And we act in a way in which leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. ... In other words, people want to know the truth. That stands in contrast to dictatorships. A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this. A dictator wouldn't be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5DaY2Uyu64&eu...

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 2 replies · +1 points

Here is former Speaker Gingrich discussing whether the Khmer Rouge torture technique displayed at the Cambodian museum of torture is against the Geneva Conventions:

VAN SUSTEREN: But you said a minute ago that it was torture, waterboarding...

GINGRICH: No, I said it's not something we should do.

VAN SUSTEREN: OK. Is it torture or not?

GINGRICH: I -- I -- I think it's -- I can't tell you.

VAN SUSTEREN: Does it violate the Geneva Convention?

GINGRICH: I honestly don't know.

How many times in human history do you think Newt Gingrich has said "I honestly don't know"?

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - "Vocation" v... · 0 replies · +1 points

hey tickletext. yup your comments were great. and ... well composed.

I will attempt to emulate! :))

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - "Vocation" v... · 1 reply · +1 points

thoroughgoing masculinity...

rock hudson
cary grant
cole porter
gary cooper
the father on the tv series my three sons.
the father on the brady bunch
samantha´s husband on bewitched
marlon brando

these men all had something in common and all were icons of thoroughgoing masculinity.

Your comment is interesting in contrast. ;)

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 0 replies · +1 points

please note that most of my posts drive back to links to the ORIGINAL texts of usa law and us treaty law. these are NOT partisan documents. The logic that the us government has committed war crimes is inescapable.

If you think that is justified under the circumstances. fine.

the fact still remains.

why are we still arguing about this?

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 0 replies · +1 points

for a brief yet exhaustive analysis and listing of all us laws and domestic court decisions on waterboarding, torture and the illegality of officially sanctioned cooerced confessions please see...

washington university, st louis law review:

http://lawreview.wustl.edu/slip-opinions/waterboa...

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 0 replies · +1 points

US Legal code section 113c - torture

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sup_01_...

geneva convention

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

other treaties:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified in 1992, states that “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The united nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, signed by Reagan, ratified in 1994, provides that each Party shall undertake to prevent orture, and other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture . . . .”

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 0 replies · +1 points

Pelosi:

“We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used,” she said.

However, that account seemed to be contradicted by a Senate Intelligence Committee timeline that found House leaders were briefed “in the fall of 2002, after the use of interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaida. CIA records indicate that the CIA briefed the chairman and vice chairman of the committee on the interrogation.”

Porter Goss:

“The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists,” Goss wrote. “I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues.”

pelosi is not above the law either. Follow the law, by the book. whereEVER it leads.

14 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Publicizing torture · 1 reply · +1 points

the evolution of John McCain:

"But we are not asked to judge the President's character flaws. We are asked to judge whether the President, who swore an oath to faithfully execute his office, deliberately subverted--for whatever purpose--the rule of law," - John McCain arguing for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury in a civil suit, February 1999.

"Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot," - John McCain, October 2007.

"We've got to move on," - John McCain, April 26, 2009, reacting to incontrovertible proof that George W. Bush ordered the waterboarding of a prisoner 183 times, as well as broader treatment that the Red Cross has called "unequivocally torture."