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Originally Posted by host
Bush: <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9956644/">"We do not torture" terror suspects</a>
Bush defends interrogation practices: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-07-bush-terror-suspects_x.htm">"We do not torture"</a>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4415132.stm">US does not torture</a>, Bush insists
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/08/wbush08.xml">We do not torture detainees</a>, says Bush
Bush: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110700772.html">"We do not torture"</a>
The record indicates to me that waterboarding is a form of torture. it looks to me that president Bush approved of the discussion and methods, taking place in the white house, of interrogating prisoners, including the method of waterboarding, yet he publicly denied that the US was torturing prisoners.
Doesn't this seem a huge departure from longstanding US policy and principle? Isn't Bush's admission, grounds for impeachment, based on the precedent of a US general's court martial for the same thing happening, on his watch? |
I read you post and the links. Based on what I read there is no legitimate basis for impeachment in my view. Your post shows no evidence that a law was broken, nor do you show any evidence that Bush authorized that any law be broken regarding torture.
Members of the Bush administration met and discussed the issue of interrogation techniques and gave CIA agents clear guidelines on what they thought would be legal and acceptable questioning techniques. There is no evidence that these people failed to act in good faith. In fact I think they showed a high level of responsibility in meeting and issuing guidelines on this subject.
The legality of water boarding as a questioning technique used by the CIA against military combatants was not clearly defined as illegal at the time it was used by the CIA. In 2007 Bush signed an executive order banning torture during the interrogation of terror suspects.
Certainly we can debate the complexities of the issue, however, there is no clear argument that Bush or members of his administration violated any law. some people even disagree if water boarding is torture depending on how the technique is administered.
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Andrew C. McCarthy, a licensed attorney and former U.S. federal prosecutor now serving as director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism, states in an October 2007 op-ed in National Review that he believes that, when used "some number of instances that were not prolonged or extensive", waterboarding should not qualify as torture under the law. McCarthy continues: "Personally, I don't believe it qualifies. It is not in the nature of the barbarous sadism universally condemned as torture, an ignominy the law, as we've seen, has been patently careful not to trivialize or conflate with lesser evils,"[46]. Nevertheless, McCarthy in the same article admits that "waterboarding is close enough to torture that reasonable minds can differ on whether it is torture" and that "[t]here shouldn’t be much debate that subjecting someone to [waterboarding] repeatedly would cause the type of mental anguish required for torture."[46]
Some American politicians have unequivocally stated that it is their belief that waterboarding is not torture. In response to the question "Do you believe waterboarding is torture?" on the Glenn Beck show, Representative Ted Poe stated "I don't believe it's torture at all, I certainly don't." Beck agreed with him.[49] The American conservative media commentator Jim Meyers has stated, in a December 2007 Newsmax.com opinion piece, that he does not believe that waterboarding should be classified as a form of torture, because he does not believe it inflicts pain.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding