Senate approves torture for terrorists
 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...09-28-19-09-50
While I can hear the clicking figers of typed outrage from here, we can now put to rest the whole 'does the president have the power' or 'do terrorists have rights under the constition' argument.

I of course have long advocated the use of torture for terrorists, being that you can't expect people willing to turn themselves into human bombs for the gift of magic virgins from their invisible friend in the sky to give information willingly and it will save innocent lives. Being US methods are not maiming and more along the lines of discomfort I don't shed any tears or feel we left some mythical high road in light of how our enemies treat prisoners.

This is a needed tool in the war on terror, I'm just surprised so many democrats signed on but I'm willing to be that every one of them is up for re-election this year or thinking of running for the presidency in 2008.

The thing that puts this in perspective for me is that my boss, who is a resident alien, will now be subject to detention and torture without trial. I'm proud of Specter for standing up. McCain in particular is a reprehensible coward for agreeing to this. As for the mythical high road we've abandoned, I guess Nietzsche's Aphorism 146 says it all.

one of the few things emanating from a republican that i agree with on this latest travesty the bush administration has foisted upon us:

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2800824_2.html

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.

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.

So, all Bush has to do is declare someone and enemy combatant and they can be 'dissapeared'? Seriously, it doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not, if they say your an enemy combatant then there's no habeas corpus.

Of course they would NEVER use it on a citizen...right? right...:rolleyes:

I welcome our new military dictatorship.

Are Republican senators always this logically fallacious, or is this reduction misleading?

And as far as American interrogation techniques are concerned...
* Induced hypothermia
* Forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods
* Sleep deprivation
* The "attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized
* The "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage
* The "belly slap"
* Sound manipulation
* Light manipulation
Source:The Guardian

...a Wet Willy or demeaning language causes "discomfort," the above techniques are more along the lines of inhumane. It's disappointing that they're actually legislating the practice of terrorizing the terrorists. And is this before or after being proven guilty? I guess we'll have to wait until the president is finished with his signing statements.

This is yet another sign that this is not a war against terrorism.

This is very bad.

Uhg. How many times do you have to hear this? Torture is not a reliable means of extracting information. You must know this, so I am left thinking that you advocate torture as a means of vengeance, and retribution.
Fight terror with terror? That's a great idea! :hmm:

Query: If it was your family (or yourself) that would die in the next terrorist attack on the US, would you support harsh measures like the 'attention slap' or would you allow your family to die (or yourself) for a terrorists right not to be slapped?

Would you condem innocent people to death so that a terrorist doesn't have to stand for too long, or have a wrinkled shirt? Not have a bright light shined in his eyes or listen to loud sounds?

We do worse to Navy Seal recruits.

No, I wouldn't. How many of these terrorists being tortured have killed US families? Also, not supporting the "attention slap" means my family will die? If me or my family is killed, then those responsible should be tried, convicted, and sentenced. Torture is not just behavior.
Condem? I fail to see how not supporting torture is condeming innocent poeple to death.

Hey Ustwo, to repeat what I've said a thousand times and what Ch'i just got through saying: torture is useless as a means of extracting reliable information. How in God's name do I know this? Well I spent 6 years studying psychology, and have a degree in it, and ALL national psychologist and psychiatrist organizations agree with me. So, to make it even more clear: torture = stupid becuase it does not bear good fruit. Torture = a waste of time and money and our national dignity. Torture = wrong, and you know it.

Toruting a terrorist (or more correctly a SUSPECTED terrorist) will never save my family. It won't save yours. It won't save anyone's.

Show me a war where captured American soldiers were not tortured.

Explain to me when it became acceptable to sink to the level of our enemies. Will we hire terrorists to blow up buildings and make our soldiers into suicide bombers next? Maybe we should.

Ustwo, I wonder if you would continue your willful support of torture if it were you on the recieving end. Do you support the torture of US troops? We have no right to torture, when we abhor the idea of US citizens/soldiers being tortured. Hypocracy, of this fashion, is idiotic and contrived through vengeance.

Second part first: You mean like the 10 000+ innocent civilians we have killed or have been killed through our actions in Iraq? I bet if Iraq started torturing soldiers for killing innocent civilians you'd have a problem with that.

First part second: We've fought many wars, many innocent lives have been lost on our own side on 'the enemy's' side, but in all that time, have we ever advocated the use of torture? Have we ever thought it would be an effective way to extract information from enemy troops, civilians, etc? No. What makes any of this any different? What makes you think that torture now will help bring the 'terrorists' to justice, whomever they may be? Did it somehow not help before? Would wars have be shortened or conflicts ended sooner if we used torture against them, or as punishment against us? What makes everyone so certain that we could stop a future attack on our soil if only we had torture at our disposal? And this is all assuming one wouldn't happen anyway. You seem to have the horribly disgruntled notion that torture will effectively stop any and all future terrorist attacks against our nation. Because we all know the terrorists work together, and destroying the leader will stop the minions, right? If another attack happens, what will we blame it on next? We didn't torture enough prisoners? We didn't take enough redemption on people who've done NOTHING to this country directly since the attacks?

The stupidity of torture is beyond all comprehension and logic that I can see... Tis a sad day.

I believe I mentioned this before, but if we don't condemn the use of torture, then we have no right as a country to condemn others. Morals aren't relative. I can't kill you in cold blood and but have it okay for you to kill me in cold blood. Just as I can't torture you and be it okay for you to torture me, no matter what the circumstances or how pure our rationale is.

something else to think about is that the french military's use of torture during the algerian war was not only ineffectual as an information gathering tool---it was a powerful mobilizing tool for the fln (who i guess would be "terrorists")---but it gets better: when reports about the extent of brutality of that torture surfaced publicly in 1957, not only did it contribute to the political crisis of the 4th republic (1958), but it also created a mass anti-war movement, providing it with the basis for a moral critique of the war and of the french presence in algeria. not only that, but the scandals created around the use of torture generated lasting political damage for the state--you can connect the conflicts the problems of torture created before 1962 directly to 1968--and it still continues to dog french politics today in a variety of ways--research the matter for yourself---this indeed was the gift that kept on giving---and in the main, people still dont really talk so much about algeria---it is a strange, touchy subject.

say the french government acted in algeria to protect families concerned about "terrorism" and to do this the army instituted a program of systematic torture, imprisonment without due process and in the end they got bad information, steadily intensifying opposition, increased casualties, mounting political costs until not only could they not protect the families they started out to, but they could barely extricate themselves at all. best of all, the political damage has never gone away.

The Supreme Court will have the final say.

Earlier this year, the Court declared Bush's military tribunals unconstitutional based on two arguments - it did not have Congressional authorization and it violated sections of the Geneva Conventions, of which the US is a signator.

The Court vote was 5-3, with Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Suter and Kennedy in the majority.

The first hurdle has been overcome. The second still stands and without knowing the details, I dont think it will pass the test and change any of those 5 votes.

I can hear the clicking figers of typed outrage from here at the activist Court.

despite all the 'what if it was your family being killed' or poo pooing the 'it's only standing too long', etc......this is just one more step in the 'slippery slope' to giving more power to a government. Some people might like to think 'the government is protecting us', but it isn't.

This quote is apropos as well:

Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin.

Navy SEAL recruits volunteer for TRAINING that is designed to allow them to withstand things like...torture.

How about this:

Query: If it was your child that would be tortured upon capture by foreigners, as revenge for this policy, would you still support it?

What complicates this issue is how Bush constantly makes references to morality, using ideas of "good" and "evil," yet there is a moral dilemma here.

Causing pain and misery is evil. This is why war is always a barbaric act, you must commit evils no matter whose side you're on. But there are varying degrees of severity, of course.

Upholding a humane standard of conduct in these affairs is a work in progress that is hundreds of years old. What the American government is doing is undermining these standards.

Causing suffering to possibly save lives is a deplorable practice. And can we please avoid resorting to the "what if it were you" "arguments"? If it were you, it doesn't change anything; it's still wrong.

PER CURIAM, Chief Justice Stone

I wonder if historical precedent will regain its stature as it once did in America.

By sheer happenstance, very recently, I heard a former Vietnam POW, Captain Mel Moore speak (he's not the same POW I've mentioned before). He opposed torture, his reasoning being:

1. It makes us no better than them
2. It makes prisoners even more unwilling to give us any useful information. He definitely considered waterboarding to be torture. (He was subjected to their rope trick three times in his first five days, I think. It didn't make him particularly anxious to help his captors.)
3. We would get more information from terrorists by treating them more humanely.

What made things more interesting was a couple of SEALS I talked to there, who heard him but were of different opinions. Not only did they think torture was appropriate in some situations, but they said "Shit, we waterboard our OWN guys, to get them used to it."

Torture was not an unfamiliar subject to these SEALS. Other ways they were well aware of: Torture a buddy of a guy whom you'd like to talk. In view of the guy who potentially has info. At least for Americans, that can be more effective than torturing the actual potential informant.

Another nasty one: Have a female interrogate a naked male prisoner. That one makes my skin crawl. Not exactly sure why. But our SEALS occasionally do it to their trainees.

Anyway, the phrase they used was that they respected Captain Moore's opinions and his service, but they didn't agree with him.

And no, I can't give you a link.

I think Stone died before the last of the Geneva Conventions were signed.

In terms of precedent, I suggest the Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2.

Article. VI.
Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

It doesnt give the President the authority to "clarifty" treaties.

I agree. The executive branch has no authority (shouldn't now) to interpret the law. That's for the judicial system to deliberate. I remember there being a reason for keeping the executive, judicial, and legeslative branches separate.

Also, I think the president being able to chose chief justices is bullshit.

If you are going to boil our torture techniques down to a slap in the face than you are a liar. The CIA uses waterboarding and I'm sure they ahve done worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbo..._waterboarding

Per request....

^ Host, please edit the above post so that it has SOMETHING to do with the thread. The entirety of that post could have been contained within these two sentences:

does anyone have the thomas link to this bill/law?
I'd like to give it a full read.

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-images/u...mb-ralston.jpg

Come on now, I think they make a cute couple.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/.../~c109poOXPK::

but thomas searchs are temp files. so the link wont be active for long; go to the main thomas page and search S.3930

A relevant section is SEC. 7. TREATY OBLIGATIONS NOT ESTABLISHING GROUNDS FOR CERTAIN CLAIMS.

(a) In General- No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions, or any protocols thereto, in any habeas or civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States, is a party, as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories.

This seems to suggest that the US has a right to ignore the Geneva Conventions but I would agree it is far more complex than that when it comes to "non traditional" POWs like we are dealing with today, as opposed to earlier wars.

Section 8 is relevant as well:

SEC. 8. IMPLEMENTATION OF TREATY OBLIGATIONS.

(a) Implementation of Treaty Obligations-

(1) IN GENERAL- The acts enumerated in subsection (d) of section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, as added by subsection (b) of this section, and in subsection (c) of this section, constitute violations of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibited by United States law.

(2) PROHIBITION ON GRAVE BREACHES- The provisions of section 2441 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by this section, fully satisfy the obligation under Article 129 of the Third Geneva Convention for the United States to provide effective penal sanctions for grave breaches which are encompassed in common Article 3 in the context of an armed conflict not of an international character. No foreign or international source of law shall supply a basis for a rule of decision in the courts of the United States in interpreting the prohibitions enumerated in subsection (d) of such section 2441.

(3) INTERPRETATION BY THE PRESIDENT- (A) As provided by the Constitution and by this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. (this is a key section, particularly the requirement.... AND to promulgate "higher standards" ..it seems to me that Bush cant interpret the Conventions to allow some prisoner treatments that are at lower standards)

(B) The President shall issue interpretations described by subparagraph (A) by Executive Order published in the Federal Register.

(C) Any Executive Order published under this paragraph shall be authoritative (as to non-grave breach provisions of common Article 3) as a matter of United States law, in the same manner as other administrative regulations.

(D) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the constitutional functions and responsibilities of Congress and the judicial branch of the United States.

Maybe we have a constitutional lawyer at TFP who can offer a more authoritative analysis.

an analysis of some of the problems contained in this farce of a piece of legislation--this emphasizing arlen specter's point regarding the problematic--to say the least---definition of an "enemy":


source: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail

dc, thanks for posting those parts.

To me, it looks like the president (this or any future president) can interpret/reinterpret or define/redefine anything in any law or treaty at will and totally disregard the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments of the BoR at will. Nice job. who needs rights and freedoms anymore anyway?

The nice thing is, we have the power to fix these laws. I strongly suggest that anyoen who thinks that the Geneva Convention being interpreted by one man who isn't even in the Judiciary is stupid, FEEL FREE TO VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO AGREES WITH YOU. Don't vote out of fear, vote out of mutuality and understanding.

I always thought that non-uniformed hostile personal could be shot under the geneva convention as spies. By default that would be all terrorists.

Will, the Judiciary isn't omnipotent when it comes to interpreting anything. They've gotten things wrong many times. It also isn't really going to do much to change things when the judiciary is nominated and approved by the very same politicians who think this crap up.

nobody can just be summarily shot, including spies, unless they are currently in the act of violence themselves. Otherwise they must be given the military tribunal/due process.
your default is really doing nothing more than redefining terrorist to mean all non-uniformed combatants. Given that line of thinking, hypothetically, all of us civilians could be terrorists if the government deemed it so.

My point exactly. Vote for the right president, avoid breaking the Geneva Conventions.

and let him rewrite the constitution. great choice.

A civilian shooting at you or ploting to kill you is no longer a civilian by default :)

define..."in the act" of plotting.

does that make him a terrorist?

What exactly does torture solve, except to give the terrorists more reason to hate and attack the United States?

o that's easy dc: you define "in the act of plotting" arbitrarily. then you arrest the person an throw them into on or another of the fine penal establishments that this administration has authorized in the context of its war on due process. once that person lands in whatever corner of the legal black hole, because there is no rights of habeas corpus, there is no need to bring charges. so this person, whose motives you have assigned suspicion to up front, without requirements of proof, can rot.
that is because the Law is drawn to the Guilty.
Suspicion=proof.
q.e.d.

o yeah, and a nice quote from cowboy george that i take out of context because i just like it:

and because it seems germaine here.

because it would probably be better to be left to rot without being charged than it would be to become the object of torture--which of course in the main produces whatever the torturers want to hear because the objective is to get the torture to stop---and after that, if you are really unfortunate, you might get to face on of those nice kangaroo courts that operate outside of any judicial review process.

yay american democracy george w. bush style.

Has it been mentioned that two of the "heroes", John McCain and Arlen Specter, "stood up to the pretzeldent", and then voted for this fascist abortion of the consititution, anyway....as did that "stalwart" democrat, Jay Rockefeller?
How many of our troops suffered avoidable deaths in Iraq and in Afghanistan?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092900368.html

It would make you a commando at best, a terrorist at worst (see Iraq) and would be punishable by death by the Geneva convention.

so we take criminals, call them terrorists, deny them due process, then execute them. I don't have a problem executing criminals, but do we really feel like deleting the rest of the 5th amendment?

I think you have my point confused with a conservative point. Don't forget, I'm so liberal I think the government could be behind 9/11. When I said the right choice, that meant that anyone or anything but Bush. I would have voted for a buring pile of crap before voting for Bush, becuase at least I know that the burning pile of crap will have the common sense, loyalty, and dignity not to wire tap my phones or take away my civil liberties.

dksuddeth, just because I disagree with you on guns does not make me a conservative. I'd like to see the current administration behind bars right after they make a formal apology to everyone they've wronged.

the point of my earlier post about the algerian war addressed the ustwo approach---the manly man approach--the mode of attempting to suppress horizontally organized movements through the use of torture--was not only ineffective in itself, but the political consequences of its usage so far outstripped any possible benefit that you would think its would be avoided by any sane government. that the bush administration would prefer not to think about precedents for their actions--and algeria is a far better aalogy for the idiocy of the ongoing "war on terror" than is vietnam--is not surprising, given the administration's cavalier relation with reality, with telling the truth, with transparency, etc etc etc.

ustwo's posts here indicate that he prefers to pretend that a state is like a private individual--which is consistent with the bush people's legal philosophy in its emphasis on the overwhelming prerogatives of the Leader in a state of exception and the usage of the state of exception to suppress or dismiss democratic processes like the rule of law--the problem with this position is--quite simply--that it is insane if it is actually applied in the world that other people know about.
that this analogy would have any purchase seems to me an example of the kind of shabby thinking that conservative ideology seems to rely upon to operate at all.

so while you are fantasizing about whacking and dismembering people that you would take to be "terrorists" without any rational standard for proof or even a recognition that such a standard might be helpful, ustwo, i will consider believing in some god long enough to thank whatever that may be that you have no power.
anywhere.

i'll let y'all continue to slug it out. i have to say that while i've been fairly a-political, in practice, for most of my life - the current trends are starting to get me active. That people would let fear drive them to such positions...it is simply antithetical to everything I always believed America stood for. That I can stand for. One of the most intriguing, powerful ideas that I've always perceived in the founding stances of our nation is the position that a great society must constantly sew the seeds of revolution within its population. The government isn't supposed to be allowed to become complacent, lest it be brought down. The current positions, to solidify the power of the state over the citizen, are completely contrary to this. It just makes me sad.

it's rumored that somewhere in this bill is an amendment that pardons anyone in the administration for war crimes. Anyone familiar with that?

I heard something on NPR about that this morning - I believe it was a provision that offers immunity to any non-military personnel who committed war crimes (as defined by the current bill) going back several years. I don't think that it was specific to the administration.

this didn't take long.
i am curious about the effects of a decade or so of routinized vilification of the courts--and by extension of the legal system they are charged with administering--in conservativeland and the extent to which this appalling legislation (a) plays into it and (b) presupposes it as a kind of ideological logic so that (c) the inevitable (i would hope) rejection by the supreme court of this as unconstitutional will be coded in conservativeland as an example of "activist judges" undermining the Supreme Power of the Leader in a state of exception.

it is sometimes difficult not to become paraonoid.

anyway:

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...900511_pf.html

as for the protecting of americans from prosecution for war crimes in connectino with iraq, the case has been made for doing so by the former lead prosecutor at nuremberg:

source: http://www.alternet.org/story/38604/

I guess my question wasn't important enough to be answerd :|

i addressed it a few times above.
most directly in the context of stuff about the algerian war.
a short answer: torture does nothing to advance the stated rationale--but it does provide opposition with an extra level of moral critique of american actions under george w bush (as if more was needed) and by extension will increase rather than decrease problems the states faces internationally at that level--and the political damage to the united states and its institutions that will result from the official embrace of torture, the rewriting of the geneva conventions, the affirmation of a system of kangaroo courts, the revoking of habeas corpus, the expansion of the definition of "terrorist" in a way that makes it easier for american citizens to find themselves sucked into the black hole at the center of bush world--all this will create enormous political damage for all of us.

there is nothing good that can come of this legislation.
its primary function appears to be as a buttress for republican political prospects in november.

i would personally hope that every last one of the legislators who voted for the appalling piece of shit bill will find themselves without a job in the legislative branch at the next possible opportunity.

We changed due process, they have due process, and as a bonus we get to smack them around too. I do not see a need to grant non-uniformed enemy combatants 5th amendment rights. Apparently neither do a sizable majority of US senators. So as of now this IS the due process :thumbsup:

I have no fear of this being misused because if the government is so bent on torturing the innocent for whatever reason then the law is moot. Law is an abstract, power is what counts, and the law is meaningless if the power ignores it. The fact that this was asked for shows the power still respects the law.

Law itself is meaningless. This is something I find sort of sad in seeing how people react. People cling to the law as if the law itself gives them power, but in fact the law only applies if the powers that be accept them. I don't think there has ever been a legal revolution, a legal coup, or a legal war. Likewise there has never been an illegal revolution, coup or war if that side won.

If the US becomes a dictatorship at some point in its history (and I'm sorry to tell you but its not, nor will it be in 2 more years) it will first be illegal, and then it will be legal. It will then be illegal to oppose the dictatorship.

If you oppose the use of torture on terrorist suspects and prisoners then just state that. To frame it around the law is pointless and silly, trying to turn it into a legal matter is a large part of the problem with the 90's in terms of intelligence gathering.

I support the use of this mild torture on terrorist suspects, a majority of senators do as well, including a good number of democrats, and I will assume a majority of the american people (though of course you could frame that question in a lot of ways in a survey).

In 2008 a democrat will be elected unless the DNC is run by a retard (debatable), George Bush will go hang out at his ranch, and all this hand wringing and fear mongering will be past us.

everything you've posted here sums up nicely as 'the constitution is what the majority makes it at that time'. never been happier to be an american by god. :thumbsup: :rolleyes:

Not quite but close. The law frequently will 'win' over the majority such as in the SCOTUS abortion decision because the power still respects the law. In other cases such as with the Cherokee in Georgia, the SCOTUS was ignored by the power and the law was meaningless.

and people wonder why I question authority like I do.

Ustwo has managed to skip over almost every post debunking his original argument. Either that, or he doesn't have a rebuttal. I take it you concede Ustwo?

I took this to be more of a law aimed at protecting the powers that be from what seems innevitable legal recourse when their terms are up. The law makes what they've previously done in the camps and abroad legal retroactively, protecting them from US prosecution.

I'm not so sure it means anything for anti-terrorism going forward. The practices don't seem to have achieved much to this point. The only bonus is that we'll now look like a country condoning the behavior and the international agreements will have to reflect our legal shenanigans. (in the open or otherwise)

not sure how the pardoning thing is going to work through the courts though, since a treaty has precedence over a law, and you can't change a multiple nation treaty by creating a new law in your own house.

It can be spun as our law vs them. Our law in their pocket creates another level of confusion and automatic us vs them nationalism when it's spun to the press and masses. At least that's the tendency I've noticed. It's their best legal bulwark given what's already happened.

Anyway, it was a slam dunk. Those who wanted it needed it to pass before a shift of control. Those who didn't necessarily want it couldn't cause a stink for fear they'd sabotage the shift with a distracting and noisy battle. Now it'll be buried as an old, possibly ill-advised pre-election issue while the new crowd try to move their agendas.

Time to go fishing or something. Gak.

Didn't read them.

This might shock you but with a job like I have, I tend to focus on one responder at a time, I don't have the desire to respond to every liberal with too much time on their hands and by skipping the usual suspects who post multiple cut and paste articles or who can't figure out where the caps key is, I'm don't feel a need to respond. I'm not even sure what could have been 'debunked'.

And you should. The difference is I trust the current authority. This is also why I am not for any sort of gun control. People who think the law has power in itself are the ones surprised when the revolution comes and fail to see how fragile society can be.

You'll notice hardly any of the posts I was reffering to have any links, articles, or excessive length...wait, nevermind; you didn't read them. I am only shocked that you would see a limitation that hinders your ability to carry out a meaningful debate, and accept it.
Sounds vaguely familiar.
How hypocritical to accuse others of not listening, while you, yourself, do not take the time to even read a post as big as this one.

It's not only nice of Ustwo to demean 'liberals,' whomever they might be, by assuming not only their political affiliation based on something that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with morals, and, also, assume that somehow those who do the research and make sound arguments and who spend the time to make this debate something that at leasts trys to be rational and containing substance seem like they have no job and somehow below him. Or, even better, that if liberals are the only ones doing research (it's fairly well implied) that conservatives don't have the time to go about such silly nonsense to make whatever garbled opinions they have be accepted as true, they just are, and if you disagree, you have to be a liberal.

So you are not here for debate and your original post was just a troll?

This is essentially what you are saying here.

You'd know about how your arguments have been torn apart for sure if you bothered to show everyone here the respect they show you and actually read all the posts. This is easily the fourth time I've rendered torture useless in Politics.

:eek: TORTURE IS AN UNRELIABLE WAY TO EXTRACT INFORMATION. I HAVE A DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY TO BACK THAT UP, ALONG WITH THE CONCENSUS OF EVERY PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PSYCHIATRIC ORGANIZATION IN THE COUNTRY. :eek:

Try skipping that. What is odd to me is that you are mighty selective in what you respond to, leading me to believe that you only respond to things that don't rip your argument apart. Coincedence? I don't belive in them.

Reminds me of a Rumsfeld quote:

"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."

Just not as clever.

Reminds me of another Rumsfeld quote:

"Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said."

and so the story of ustwo comes to a close.
it was not an interesting story, but it was one.
now the credits run.


o look there was no script.


the credits end, the television is switched off.

Yea well thats your opinion, I have mine, though mine doesn't have cool red letters. You can also find people who think you shouldn't spank your child, and I don't agree with them either, just like you can find psychologists who think violent behavior is due to low self esteem. I'm willing to go with the opinion of all of human history over some psychobabble.

Personally I'd hope they use a case by case basis. Some people will crack easily under torture, others will respond better to kindness, I would hope we have our own interrogation experts deciding whats the best method with each individual.

You're not talking about something that is in debate. This is not a 50/50 decision. 99.999% of psychologist and psychiatrists agree, and the other .001% work for the Bush administration. There has been a consensus. If all the Mathmaticians all came together and said "1 + 1 = 2", that's pretty much what we're talking about. Anyone who's actually been tortured or has tortured can tell you the same thing. It's completly unreliable, and it's done to instill fear not to extract information. My uncle happened to be a POW. He can explain it a lot better than I can. To suggest that a dentist knows more about torture than a POW is right up there with most of the other things you say. Kinda nuts, and really conceited. You can easily dismiss one of the more basic aspects of understanding the human mind, not unlike Tom Cruise telling Matt Lower that people that psychiatry* is a pseudoscience, and that taking vitamins can easily clear up postpartum depression, but for the rest of us hundreds of years of research and development in creating psychology as a science trumps your personal experience.

How do you feel about Brooke Shields?

Edit: I wouldn't assume to argue with you over matters dental. You have the schooling, and the experience that clearly and completly trumps my own. I have a degree from a well respected school in psychology. My mother has her doctorate. I am active in the psychological community. While I've never tortured anyone, I do understand the mechanics behind it quite well. If that's not enough for you, that's fine. There is plenty of evidence to back me up. There are people who are the most respected experts in the area of the human mind that agree with me. There are books and papers and textbooks that agree with me. Do all of these things really amount to nothing in your mind? Is this just another thing to skip over?

*TY, Smooth

I didn't watch the interview, but my understanding was that he was railing primarily against psychiatry, which would make sense given the context. Searching around gives me various results, some attributing his statement to psychology and others psychiatry. It's not surprising that laypeople would confuse the two, but there are lots of people that benefit from mental health professionals without the MD doping their kids up on ritalin.

Ustwo seems to be rallied against both. Tom Cruise has attacked different groups, psychology and psychiatry, in different interviews. In the Lower interview it was psychiatry. The problem was that he didn't just say "Ritilin is used too much", he said that the whole science is wrong. This, of course, is based on his massive experience and knowledge of psychiatry that comes with making mediocre movies and following the pesudo-religon of scientology.

All torture does is increase the hatred against you, increase the effort to destroy you and try to instill fear, which in the long run it doesn't.

You're going to torture suicide fighters that have pledged to die anyway in the name of their beliefs? Doesn't make sense to me.

I don't understand how we went from a nation that believed and fought for human rights, dignity and justice to using Naziesque techniques and being what we supposedly hated and fought against.

We say, "we'll go this far because our leaders tell us we need to." But do we truly even see what the whole bill states and how it was written?

And even if we do allow our leaders to only "go this far"..... what happened to the Neo-con cry of never back down against your principles?

Throughout history it hasn't been the most fearsome that has won wars.... it has been those with the best belief in what they were fighting for. It has been those that believed and stayed truest to their causes.

By backing down from being a "nation that believed and fought for human rights, dignity and justice" and lowering our standards our beliefs to suit what we need (even though we do not believe in what we do) we have already lost the battle and the war, because if we do not lose this one militaristically, we've lost within ourselves what we once knew and believed to be right. We have become the enemy and sooner or later we will lose the war.

And if an innocent person is tortured to the point of permanent physical or psychological damage because the "experts" were wrong, thats ok?

Torturer- "oops"

i am not a fan of andrew sullivan in general, but on this he has been consistent and correct.

source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...371815,00.html

Some people just can't admit being wrong.

Isn't it spelled Kamau?

I've been away from the computer for 48 hours, in case anyone has wondered at my silence on this issue. Had a great time riding roller coasters. And now I'm home to TFP's politics board, which is a roller coaster of its own.

This whole thing (not the thread, the issue) is so painfully myopic as to be laughable. To those who are in favor of this constitutional-crisis-in-the-making: your boys are only in power for two more years, at which point it'll be somebody else, and if it keeps going the way it's currently going, it'll be somebody you won't like much. Would YOU like THEM to have the legal authority to pick up anybody they deem to be "against America" without warrant or probable cause and take them away to torture? Or will you be screaming dictatorship if they have that kind of power?

Second: this whole thing (not the issue, the thread) points to PRECISELY what's wrong in American political discourse. USTWO: YOU CAN'T START A THREAD AND THEN PROUDLY IGNORE THE RESPONSES WITHOUT HAVING POSTED A TROLL. You had no intention of having a discussion here. I suspect you were mainly interested in cutting off a very likely (and unassailable) liberal point. There's no basis for discussion here. There's no point. I'm right on the edge of giving up on Tilted Politics--why the hell should I bother when there's no expectation that ANYTHING I say will even be read?

Will's learned assertion about torture is as valid as your learned assertion about global warming. My opinion on global warning has actually been swayed by what you had to say about it, and largely because of your credentials in the matter. I recommend you open your mind and pay some attention to someone who might--shocking though it may seem--actually know something you don't, politically inconvenient though it may be to you.

I don't know what I hope to cause with the preceeding paragraph. He's way too busy filling cavities (isn't that convenient?) to actually engage in the conversation he started. :rolleyes:

I'm new here, so I'd appreciate it if someone would tell me if these are "flames" or "trolls."

Thanks.

This entire thread is a troll.

Flaming is the act of sending or posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board on the Internet.

A troll is often someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy or antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion, including the personal attack of calling others trolls.

(ty, wikipedia)

Those are the difinitions, you decide.

I'm not obligated to respond to every liberal poster sorry ratbastid. There are not enough hours in my day to deal with each of you, I had my say, you can have yours, I don't have to tell you where you are wrong, I don't have to read hosts links when he posts them.

I don't have to justify my opinion beyond what it is, which just so happens to be the same opinion as 65% of the US senators.

Just because you call something an opinion doesn't make it so. If I were to say, "In my opinion, the sky is red" or "in my opinion, onions are made of paper" I'd be wrong. If you had the necessary training and understanding of the history of war or psychology in it's many forms, you'd know that the "opinion of all human history" on torture can be well summarized in a small statement: torture is a tool of conrol through fear, and it has not, will not, nor will it ever produce reliable results. To suggest otherwise is to suggest an untruth; to suggest otherwise is to misrepresent the truth; to suggest otherwise is to lie.

That is not opinion. That is fact.
And when those senators go on record as saying that torture is an effective way to extract information, I will tear their arguments apart as I have done with you. Until that day, you stand in a very small group of individuals who do not have the knowledge to back up what they claim.

So if they're not liberal, its okay? Looking at one side of a debate/argument isn't a.... nevermind. Why bother.
With that kind of logic, you are never wrong because no one is ever right. Not everything is an opinion; there are facts in this world, and ignoring them will not change that. Two people doing something wrong doesn't make it any less wrong. Six billion people doing something wrong doesn't make it any less wrong.

You have officially lost your priviledge to deem anyone else a hypocrit.

couple things and i'm mainly only subscribing to this thread bc the issue in question disgusts me to the core of my being.

anyway: 1. torture does not work. period. It gets you LOADS of information, just not much useful info and you have to sort out the hundreds of lies. I would spill my guts, EVERYTHING i know, ever knew, ever will know...and i can pretty much guarantee that 80% of it will be ...questionably accurate. You deprive someone of sleep and they mess up little details such as names, places, and actions; ie, the very thing you're after.

2. Even Star Trek proved that torture does not work.

3. One of the absolute scariest parts of this for me: The inclusion of hearsay. Seriously, WTF!? someone under duress can finger someone else and there is another timewaster.

Face it, there are MANY other avenues we could pursue. as one senator said, tough on terror..light on brains.

Anyway, the thing that comes back to my mind everytime i try to wrap my head around the fact it got through the senate: Just how hard would republicans have bitched if clinton had even come CLOSE to this much unilateral power?

I'm just glad there are 2 yrs left. If the left fucks up the next election and the republicans win again...I have no idea what will happen to me but i can feel it's the big one...

After thinking about this for several days.....and reading and posting about the possibility of it....for much longer, I don't think that the main controversy is about torture. It is about a series of "tests"....."they" are probing....taking an "inch", at a time.......to measure our reaction. After each inch taken, "they" are further emboldened. Jefferson predicted their "urge":
........and from Justice Joseph Story:
I've posted about it here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...25#post2130025
This is the way what has happened, is described in an NPR piece:
"They" <b>pushed</b> with Patriot Acts I & II and Gitmo, the incarceration of Padilla, the implementation of Miltitary Tribunals, and by ignoring the provisions of the FISA law. Our "reaction" to each incremental "taking" of our former rights and protections, is observed, and the result is that they are emboldened to "take" more. More than 60 percent of both houses of our legislature voted for this:
What the post 9/11 period seems to be, is an acceleration of the "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile", that the US Constition was drafted and structured to circumvent. In 1788, it was a compromise.

The question now is.....if the US executive is hindered, as he and the majority of the legislators are claiming, in his duty of "protecting" us, by our constitutional rights....why have a constitution, at all? How much further does the "trust us", element that this new "law" reduces our formerly guaranteed "rights", down to.....have to be taken....via new laws to come....such as a law to legitimize the ignoring, by the executive, of the FISA surveillance law, before our constitution is so "hollowed out", that all of our major protections...from the government, are permitted, only at the discretion, of the government?

Isn't fear of our reaction, if "they" go "too far", the only real deterrent we can project, to discourage "them" from doing just that? They're testing us to see how much they can erode the constitution, before we rise up in protest.

We've failed every test, and the majority of our representatives now vote to transfer some of our remaining "rights" to them. We're again failing to react, by intimidating them. If the coming election results fail to shift the legislative balance towards preserving our remaining rights, and conducting a more honest, accountable, and transparent government, whether because of corrupted voting, or by the "will" of the majority, what then?

When do we react on a grassroots level, and how? Wouldn't peaceful, persistent protest, beginning ASAP, help to avoid violent reaction, further down the road, when the transfer of our rights, to "them" continues, or will the current "process" end up eliciting no signifigant protest at all?

How do you know, when it is "too late" to resist, and to attempt to turn this power transfer, (coup?) "around"? Is life, if you accept that it is "too late", worth living?

We all just heard the flushing sound, and we're swirling about the bowl. It's only a matter of time, now.

I really think the dems that signed on are the ones that are going to have hell to pay at the polls. I honestly cannot think of a reason why they would have done that.

and again, it's not torturing people who HAVE done something, but people who MAY have done something...or MAY have been indicated by someone else to have done something...or MAY have been a brother of a cousin of a relative of a neice of a mother of a son who happened to have passed a blown up bus at some point.

IE....i do not trust the current guard with whom to torture and extract info from.

host's points about the accelerated inch into miles argument is very well apt here and it honestly makes me sick to my stomach...I just can't conceive of how this bill even got drafted.

as for a 'needed tool'..no, a NEEDED tool in the war on terror would be to actually inspect the cargo coming into this country by ship...that is a NEEDED tool in the war on terror.

I can almost guarantee that this will blow up in the faces of those who signed it.

then again, it will be spun in such a way that all dems are evil and bush is god.

set back 900 years
 

OK, if this legislation sets us back 900 years then i guess we'll be right where we need to be in dealing with terrorist. You can't be rational with irrational murderers. Why should anyone who randomly kills anyone to escalate their own agenda be given rights ?
Tora! Tora! Tora! ? If you replace Pearl Harbor with the Twin Towers and watched the movie, then you could see the striking similarities in all the mistakes we are making now. We are only serious about politics, not serious about terrorism.

Not so long ago, a Canadian was sent to Syria by the United States because it was thought he might be a terrorist. The Syrians tortured a confession out of him in one of their lovely penal establishments run by the Assad family.

As you might guess, he was eventually released and the confession proven to be bogus. An innocent man was held for a year and tortured. I'm sure this improved the security situation in the US and especially in various dental offices in the lower 48.

This is a deliberate step on a planned progression into "the executive" ruling under terms of undeclared "marshall law". Your argument attempts to justify suspension of due process and the bill of rights. If suspension of "some rights" is required...because we're at war....why stop at "some rights".

Why not argue to simply, "trust the president"....suspend the congress, exclude the courts from any interference with what "the decider", decides. After all, he's made us safer, and he's been right, most of the time, Right????

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

Okay, so Ustwo doesn't care that he's trolling. He's proud of it. He's under no obligation to actually discuss the fallout of his screeds. Fine. Great.

Pinochet legalized torture too, by the way. And there was a right-wing fringe that trusted him when he did it. He too strong-armed the rest of his government into supporting it. It became one of the worst civil rights disasters in modern history.

Remember: we're dealing with a US President who has referred to the Constitution as "just a god damned piece of paper."

I was in the lead, but ratbastid just won the thread. Thanks for playing everyone. :lol:

Phony intel extracted from false confessions given by tortured prisoners of war are necessary for the Bush administration to maintain they're many myths about the wars and to instil fear in those that they seek to control. How else will they suggest the insurgency in Iraq is run by Syria or Iran or Saudi Arabia? How else would they be able to build military bases in a soverign country that we invaded?

It's all quite simple. It's all quite insane.

Yeah, when it comes to geeky pop culture references, I'm pretty untouchable. :thumbsup:

O RLY?

Did you know that Chain of Command was directly lifeted from Orwell's 1984 when Winston was captured and tortured by O'Brien? O'Brien heald up 4 fingers in front of Winston, and tried to compel him to say there were five fingers. Winston, is inferrior to Picard, in that he broke and actually saw 5 fingers.

He really did. Congradulations ratbastid. :thumbsup:

I'm still amazed by the general reaction of the public. They really do not seem to care. It seems that if no majority makes a big deal out of it, no one assumes its a big deal. Everyone is to preoccupied with their lives, and I guess they're used to our government acting the way it should. But if the people within a democracy won't even flinch when the constitution is being battered the way it is, how can that democracy hope to function?

You're right will, it truly is insane.

Perhaps. It's also a feeding frenzy in which several people attack another (sometimes in BIG RED LETTERS) and declare themselves victorious when their target isn't interested in responding to each and every accusation.

My "flame or troll" question wasn't a request for definitions. It was intended to point out that one or the other was occurring, in spite of the forum rules. I was left with the impression that it's okay for some people, but not others, to flame or troll. I still have that impression.

There is no meaningful difference between ustwo's response and this:

That statement was accepted without the orgy of self-congratulation over a perceived "victory" that took place earlier in this thread.

The concept of "fair and balanced," is missing here, unless you're using Al Franken's version.

_God_,

I'd love it if you could direct me to some web pages where I might be exposed to the influences on the formation of your political opinions. It's not required, but I'm always engaged in doing the same....regarding my opinions, for you to examine. I may not end up agreeing with you, but if you share your sources, I might end up respecting "where you're coming from", so to speak.

We learn from each other here