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Democrats contended the legislation could set a dangerous precedent that might invite other countries to mistreat captured Americans.
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This is the most logical statement in this entire article, followed by the Edward Kennedy quote, but I tend to lose consciousness everytime I see Ted as the voice of reason in the Senate.
Anyway, the reason we've always opposed other country's use of torture against our own is because we viewed it as a universal immoral wrong and that it should never be done, under any circumstance, ever. Now that the Courts have opened up the idea that we are allowed to do it, we can never hold the right that other countries don't have the right to torture US prisoners held by those respective countries - this would be very hypocritical, whether or not our goals are deemed more 'pure' than their's. How this be possibly any help whatsoever? Where's any kind of support that torture is doing us great good by helping us find these terrorist masterminds that concoct all sorts of grand schemes to blow up US citizens... in the US. You're also assuming that everyone we pick up must be a terrorist who's only goal is to suicide bomb something for some narrow religious view, unlike, let's say, all the terrorists who are neither of Arab descent nor Muslim.
I'd like to think that if a terrorist is willing to blow themself up, torture isn't going to do very much in the first place, also, since they're probably smart enough to realise they can just lie and we're just as likely to believe them based on past evidence. Not to mention the fact that by skirting the Geneva Convention you undermine its entire set of principles and weaken its hold on other countries to perhaps hold those same sets of principles. But no, we have to catch them thar terrorists.
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For example, the commission would be allowed to consider hearsay evidence so long as a judge determined it was reliable. Hearsay is barred from civilian courts.
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This is sweet! I have a friend who visited Iraq a few weeks ago and he told me he was planning to blow up some shit, can you please convict him? He's a douchebag. I tried telling a sane Judge about this, and he kicked me in the shins. Then sent me to the snake pit, he believes I'm a communist, and since he's a judge, he's pretty reliable, right?
And in the time since posting this, I do have to say that Arlen Spector deserves much respect for also being one of the lone voices of reason on just about every controversial thing that's ended up in the Senate these past few years.