CIA broke the Geneva Conventions... again
 

I'm secretly predicting what board-members will respond to this story along the lines of

a) interesting
b) more of the same
c) who cares?

:)


My personal opinion? It just goes to show how Ashcroft is one of the most dangerous AG's the US has had. Whatever you say about Bush, Ashcroft is just plain scary.


Mr Mephisto

That is a C sir.

And again as an AG I can state happily that Aschroft has not killed any innocent American citizens in seiges or sniper attacks like happened in the last administration.

I didn't realize that the actions of a former attorney general had any bearing on the conduct of the present one. By that logic we should all be thanking the lord that Reno or Ashcroft aren't A. Mitchell Palmer.

haha... I thought you would pick C Ustwo.

I'm afraid the reference to sieges or sniper attacks goes over my head. What has the AG got to do with these?

Mr Mephisto

i assume that ustwo is talking about waco and/or ruby ridge.

see when a democrat is in office, the right is sure to individualize and make martyrs of people who in their view are victims of problematic choices made by the attorney general--regardless of whether the accusations make sense (waco? ruby ridge? what the fuck?)

but when a conservative is in office and the human rights being violated are those of brown people far away, they do not care about it in principle, are not interested in putting names or faces to the victims, etc. geneva convention and other such elements of international law are not important to conservatives when a conservative is in power. no dissonant information is important to them so long as a conservative is in power.

when that changes, they become scrupulous observers of questions of legality.

so there are no question of principle involved.
that is why fatuous comparisons between violations of the geneva convention undertaken by the bush administration to things like waco or ruby ridge are even possible.
they do not make sense logically, but logic is not part of this.
all that matters is who is in office.

Heh...

Thanks for the explanation roachboy. I think it might be a bit biased, but it's probably quite near the truth. Can't say I could see what the AG had to do with Waco or snipers etc.


Mr Mephisto

PS - Wasn't Waco a legal operation anyway? If memory serves me correctly, didn't those crazies buy those weapons illegally? If so, what the feck does this have to do with the Geneva Convention?

Well again, this would tend to be an arguement of words and definitions. If they are foreign infultrators or "Iraqi freedom fighters", I don't care, they are illegal combatants. After the massacre of the 44 Iraqi Soldiers today, I could care less what they do to any and all Iraqi's who are not helping the situation. Kill them all and let God sort them out... hell they'll probably be happier with Allah anyways, I mean that is what motivates their sadistic and sociopathic behavior, right?

"These conventions and these rules are in place for a reason, because you get on a slippery slope and you don't know where to get off," said Senator John McCain, who has campaigned for George W Bush, in an interview with ABC television.

"The thing that separates us from the enemy is our respect for human rights."

If McCain's is really concerned with human rights, why is he campaigning for Bush???

Mojo, if the US were invaded and occupied by a foreign power, would you be an insurgent or would you obey your new masters? If you resisted, would you welcome help from another country in fighting against the occupation, or tell 'em thanks, but bite me?

Just wondering.

Both Ruby Ridge and Waco were "legal" was the gov't right in what they did? Well, those 2 groups both hoarded illegal weapons, both had made threats against the government, and both had been warned, had had the option for peaceful surrender and were developing terrorists and plotting terroristic activities. Both were situations of damned if you do damned if you don't.... if they hadn't done something and Koresh or those groups had done something first, people would have asked "why didn't they do anything?". When they did do something people said, "look what CLinton and Reno are doing."

It was George the I that started Waco. He knew what was happening and allowed it to get to the point it had. (He was probably scared of it being in his home state.) He was even advised by the ATF and FBI to watch them and do something.

As for what the CIA has been doing, these articles like the one above are just WHAT WE KNOW. I'm sure there are a lot of illegal activities we don't know about.

I just don't understand how people can cry foul and carry on about how these terrorists are fighting when we are doing things just as evil. Don't cry or get pissy over a beheading when you sit there and say in the next breath "Abu Gahraib and what we are doing to these people is just the evils of war. It's hypocritical and shows ignorance and self righteous holier than thou bullshit.

It's either "all evil and both sides are wrong" or it's "all just part of war and we need to move on and accept it on both sides". There is no in between, no one side is better one side is worse. War is war people die, shit happens war crimes are committed on both sides.

But should those who commit war crimes be punished? Absolutely and to the maximum extent of the law. Just because it happens does not mean those responsible should not be punished.

This is contrasted by when a Democrat is in office and the human rights of an American citizen are violated it's ok because *gasp* "those people were gun owners and we all know gun ownership is bad!!".

Yes Ashcroft is evil for nothing stopping the CIA doing things in Iraq.

Ashcroft is in charge of justice in Iraq?

Ponder....

If the table's were turned, I probably wouldn't argue with that analogy.

Only problem is, insurgent's aren't Iraqi-Nationals. Secondly They are not only killing the Evil American Occupiers, but they are killing respectable men, women, and children who are trying to better the country... they are killing their "brothers".

The reality is we are there, and the stakes are real and for keeps, I am in it to win it. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to be just as evil and ruthless as what you are fighting. These people are cowards, and they deserve no humane treatment, only the same misery and destruction as they create.

Silent enim leges inter arma.

Ponder no more.

From the original post:

Nonesense. The vast majority of them are Iraqi nationals. There is some evidence of foreign fighters, but to say that all the isurgents are not Iraqi is simply wrong. Alternatively, a blatant attempt to lie or misrepresent the facts.

Well, that's a fair statement of opinion and at least it's clearly stated. I respect your opinion, but disagree with it. I also think the people who kidnap and behead hostages are evil. Those who execute Iraqi soldiers are of the same ilk.

I just disagree that you should degenerate to their level in order to fight them.


Mr Mephisto

I see, well if they allegedly compiled a secret memo, he MUST be evil!

No one is talking about the CIA or Justice Dept being evil. Making sarcastic saltatious remarks doesn't add to the value of your position or the progress of the thread.


Mr Mephisto

Oh?


Ok now if I replace evil with scary would it be ok if I still post my position and help the thread progress? A thread based on unverifiable 'secret' information?

You've obviously missed the point entirely.

I posted this news item to foster some debate on the reported CIA actions. Personally I feel that Ashcroft has fostered an environment where such illegal activity is not only permitted but actively encouraged. This is, in my opinion scary, but peripheral to the basis of the thread itself. That is, whether you believe or support the actions of the CIA in this case. That's why I only referenced Ashcroft, after explicitly stating it was a personal opinion, in a closing paragraph in the original post.

If you want to say that Ashcroft is evil, then go ahead. Whatever floats your boat. If however you're being sarcastic or making no real contribution, then I can't stop you either. Whatever floats your boat.

Mr Mephisto

You went from denial to misdirection in the blink of the eye.

Then next time sir, comment on them, and don't bring up SCARY Ashcroft in your very limited discussion.

Let me help you out:
The CIA asked the JD for permission to do this, the JD allegedly said, sure, go right ahead - we got your back.

Well, I'm not sure I really understand what on Earth you're saying here.

Other than apparently insulting me. Something I have been very careful never to do to you.


Mr Mephisto

There were certain "irregularities" regarding Waco. First and foremost, it was a blatant violation of Posse Comitatus. The BATF got the TANG involved claiming that the Davidians had a secret methamphetamine lab running, when they knew that wasn't the case. If there had been a meth lab, it would have been legally justified, but they knew that there wasn't, so it violated the law. Secondly, there were serious problems with the search warrant.

The raid went down because BATF had their budget meeting a few days after the initial raid, and they wanted headlines to justify a budget increase. Additionally, one of the major reasons given for the raid was that Koresh was sexually abusing children. Apparently BATF had a silent (CSA) in their name somewhere, giving them jurisdiction over child sexual abuse cases. There had been accusations of child sexual abuse before, and the Texas DPS investigated and found the charges to be unsubstantiated. Strangely enough, when the DPS investigated it, nobody died, probably because they didn't take a hundred agents in a cattle truck to the church and open fire with machineguns, they went up and rang the doorbell. Go figure.

Then ATF and the FBI said they didn't use pyrotechnic devices at the church. This is pertinent because they claimed that the Davidians set fire to the church, not the HRT. It became something of an embarrasment when the forensic evidence turned up the remnants of pyrotechnic devices (that were in a State evidence locker) that were only available to the government in the wreckage.


Then, of course, you get into the whole issue of the FLIR tapes. Parts of the final tragic act were filmed by the Government, and those films showed what appear to be muzzle flashes from outside going into the doorways that the Davidians had to try to escape from. HRT claims that they fired no shots and wanted the Davidians to get out of the burning building, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

Then you get into the constitutionality of the "screaming rabbit" tapes, and if they constituted "cruel and unusual punishment". Then, of course, you have the APC knocking down stairways to trap the Davidians in the top part of the burning structure while introducing highly flammable CS gas (which turns into cyanide gas like what used to be used in gas chambers when heated) into the structure, and the government's refusal to allow rescue services to approach the scene until everybody was reasonably expected to be dead.

Was the initial raid unconstitutional? Was the final slaughter unconstitutional? For the most part, we'll never know, because BATF, living up to their previous reputation, saw to it that all of the evidence was destroyed by fire and almost all of the people died. This isn't the first time that such a thing happened, and dead people tell no tales.

Are there problems at BATFE (they added the (E) a little while ago)? Sure. You've got an institutionalized problem with perjury (there was a guy named "Busey" who used to head the NFA branch who was stupid enough to be caught on CCTV during a training session instructing new agents that perjury under oath regarding the NFRTR was SOP, and it appears that it is STILL SOP). You've got a long history of running entrapment operations. You've got a long history of their shredding registration documents, which turned the filers of those documents into "instant felons" even though they complied with the law. And you've got a long history of their deliberately burning people to death, because a funeral is apparently much easier for them than a trial with due process of law. Has this changed since they were moved from Treasury to Justice? Not as far as I've seen.

Thanks for the very intersting post Daswig. It's completely off-topic, but I want to discuss it anyway.

You seem to know a great deal more about Waco than I do, as my only knowledge is from news items and documentaries I've seen since the siege. I don't think anyone believes the assault was a positive outcome. But are you suggesting that the Branch Davidians were wholly without fault?

They did buy guns illegally (if what I'ave heard is true).
They did practice child and sexual abuse. I've seen "survivors" openly admit such.
They did refuse to come out peacefully.

What happened was a farce, but the people holed up in that compound were criminal, religious fundamentalist (there's a word you for you!) crazies... and several innocents who were apparently kept there against their will.

Surely you're not defending them? I say, by all means criticise the FBI et al for messing up, but don't excuse what happened in that compound.


Mr Mephisto

You bet your ass I'm defending them. Why? Because Law Enforcement agencies are NOT supposed to be judge, jury, and executioners. That's EXACTLY what ATF and HRT did. you've heard of the legal concept of "innocent until proven guilty", right? Did they buy illegal guns? That's unknown, because the guns in question were destroyed in the fire. Was the gun law that they supposedly violated even Constitutional? Currently, that's debatable, since a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law (Title 27, §922(o)) down as unconstitutional on Interstate Commerce Clause grounds in U.S. v. Stewart, and the issue hasn't yet been resolved. It's a classic circuit split.

Did they commit sexual abuse of children? Again, we're at the "innocent until proven guilty" part of our justice system. No Davidian, to the best of my knowledge, was EVER convicted of sexually abusing a child. And you get to the point of "Why was BATF, a Federal agency, enforcing a STATE law, that they had no jurisdiction over?"

Did they refuse to come out? Absolutely. The first person to die in the raid was one of Koresh's daughters. She was shot as an unarmed Koresh answered the door. The bullet came from an ATF gun, went through her, and wounded Koresh, who was holding the baby in his arms. Gee....shooting an unarmed person with a baby in their arms....why does that sound familiar? If you answered the door at your house, and somebody shot you with a machinegun as soon as they saw you, would your family come out to get machinegunned too?

Five surviving Davidians were tried on murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges. They were acquitted, and found guilty of voluntary manslaughter charges instead.

I don't care if they were sacrificing virgins in the church to Ba'al on an hourly basis. That's irrelevant. Law enforcement agencies are NOT NOT NOT supposed to act as judge, jury, and executioners.

BTW, Mephisto, I get equally pissed off when talking about what happened to MOVE in Philly...and being a crazy-assed religious fundamentalist is STILL not a capital crime in the US. In fact, it's no crime at all, it's a constitutionally protected activity.

a and b here. I suppose they are consistant, at elast we can give them that.

I'm to lazy to google. Was that the one where they dropped a bomb on them and burned down a city block in the process?

yup, it was more than a city block, though. IIRC, almost 90 homes were destroyed over 3-4 city blocks...

The people there were completely, totally insane. But compared to the police response, they looked REALLY normal comparatively.

This is all very interesting Daswig. And I'm hoping the emotion you are showing on this topic is due to strongly felt beliefs and not targetted at me. :)

You bring up some very interesting issues. However, I think you misundestood me and the topic (or concept if you will) that I'm trying to tease out.

I'm not arguing whether the attack was legal or illegal. You know more about that than I do. I would hazard a guess that if it was illegal then some heads would have rolled, but that's another issue.

What I'm getting at, and what you say yourself, is that their actions in the compound have no relevance whatsoever on the legal basis the authorities used to justify the ending of the siege. Conversely, the fact that they were (perhaps) assaulted on dubious grounds does not justify their actions in the compound. Hypothetically speaking, just because they were attacked illegally does not make their illegal actions, PRIOR TO THE ATTACK legal or defensible.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs. Anyway, that's what I meant when I asked if you were defending them. I'll repeat what I said earlier. By all means criticise the authorities, but don't support "child molesters" and "killers".

There's no reason to be a smart-ass. Why can't you return the respect and maturity shown to you?

Well, my memory tells me it was David Koresh who was the person the "escaped" accused, so how could he be convicted?

That's fair enough. But that statement implies that the law enforcement agencies went ahead with the expressly formulated goal of killing those inside. "With malice aforethought" I believe is the US legal term? Do you honestly believe that?

I'm just curious.


Mr Mephisto

I've never even heard of these guys.

And I never intimated that being a religious fanatic was a crime.

I applaud you in your support for these rights. I presume you extend the same rights to the Iraqi and Palestinian people who are also defending their homes and religion? :)



Mr Mephisto

I, too, feel that law enforcement agencies shouldn't act as judge, jury and executioners. Couldn't agree more.

That's why I find the CIA, Ashcroft, soldiers in military prisons, and Gitmo to be scary. Is it ok to use that word? Or does that take us off track?

I'm still missing the Jury and the Judge in much of this.




Oh, now I get it. The central fact of this dispute is that our citizens get protection of law, and other's citizens don't. Never mind, my bad. I should've realized that the Declaration of Independance has no force in law.

It depends on if they're US citizens and in the US, doesn't it?

In case you missed it, the Bill of Rights isn't valid in Iraq OR Palestine.

Also, there's a major difference between being a religious fundamentalist and a religious fanatic. I'd hope you would understand the difference.

Soldiers in military prisons are under a different set of laws, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And there are different laws applicable to people overseas who were engaged in combat operations against the US, especially when they are not part of a recognized military or act as guerillas.

Just as US "civilian" law doesn't apply to a man in Afghanistan beating his wife, US "civilian" law doesn't apply in a lot of situations overseas.

Again, the nasty sarcasm. Oh well, I'll just ignore it as I would were it to come from a child. Why? Because underneath it all you have some interesting points.

Now, with my comment regarding the Iraqis and Palestinians, I wasn't referring to their "Constitutional rights" as laid down in the US constitution and decades of case law. All of those rights are predicated upon the holder being a US citizen.

However, I was referring to the right (the "unalienable right" if you will) of normal men and women to defend their homes and beliefs against invasion or attack. It seems you have one standard for Americans and another for the rest of the world. This shows your hypocracy, at least in my mind.

Yes there is.

One inteprets their religion on a fundamentalist, literal basis. Another is fanatical about their religion.

What's your point? You think one is of more "value" (if such a word is appropriate) than another?

Did you know, for example, that religious fundamentalism originated with the Christian faith? It's not a wholly Jewish, Christian or Muslim phenonmenen you know.

I recommend Karen Armstrong's excellent book The Battle for God for a very interesting and informative history of fundamentalism. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...06205?v=glance


Mr Mephisto

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be nasty, or even terribly sarcastic. I've met people who didn't realize that the BoR doesn't apply to Europeans and other foreigners in their home countries. Of course, where I am, if you ask people about "non-Christian churches", they'll tell you about the "Papists"...Catholics. Gotta love those Public School graduates and OBE...

OK, fair enough. :)


Mr Mephisto

I find it horrible that one would apply different sets of standards to different people based upon where they live. I'm no philosophical scholar (like that's not obvious), but 'do unto others' isn't a complicated concept.

I do hear the points about 'them' not following rules, and taking advantage of that. I just don't buy it. Any chance someone could tell me what we lose by NOT following the geneva convention or by not following our own due process laws with the enemy?

At the risk of redundancy, let me try again. I understand what you are saying. You are correct, the laws don't apply equally. No one is forcing/mandating equality. By the law as is, no one is doing anything 'wrong'. I get that.


But I'm not sure you get the other side.


My issue is not the strict letter of the law. My question is: why not do so anyway? Just because we CAN do it the way we do it now, why are we locked into that? What do we have to lose by holding ourselves to a higher standard?


My belief is that the highest standards in the world are the ones we hold ourselves accountable to. That is one reason the 'American Way' is appreciated around the world. That is one reason we are the greatest country on earth.

But when we say: "these rules are for us, YOU get different treatment", we are not walking the talk.

Again: what do we have to lose?

Right now, we are losing the war on terror. And I base that purely on the rising death count. When less Americans die to terrorists in a 6 month period than the prior 6 month period, I'll believe we are not losing the war on terror anymore.

Sure, it's an arbritrary standard, but it's all I know how to use right now. Anyone is welcome to use their own yardstick, this one works for me.

It is not really a secret anymore that the USA has sent prisoners to other countries (mostly Egypt) to be interegated with tougher means, which means they're tortured.

Well, the policy makers of America once again don't give a hoot about international laws, set up to protect all POWs. I bet the CIA and Bush would say something about foreign powers using unlawful techniques against their own captured forces (unless you are getting beheaded, then it's okay). It's exactly this arrogance that fuels international dislike for the US gvt, politics and hypocracy.

Neutone, I don't care if this is arrogance that makes it easier for the international bodies to dislike us, I find the ignorance held by such people a greater threat to American security.

Read up on international law, these people are not POW's. They are Illegal combatant's who are trying to kill our boy's, and in the context of people from Afganistan they are terrorists (Gitmo detainees). God do they love bleeding compassionate hearts like your's, they'll gladly shove it down your throat after they cut it out of your body.

This is a war with real consequences, people are going to be mistreated and are going to die. I would rather have it be some fuck with a monchismo complex who thinks by murdering innocent civilians he is doing Allah's biding. George Bush and the CIA have the responsibility to do WHATEVER IT TAKES, WHENEVER, to protect all American civilians.

Also alot of you out there need to stop being so naive and ideal. Ideally none of this would be necessary, I don't think anyone wants to live in a world were stuff such as this is the reality. But buck up, this is the reality, I would rather have the government doing some shady shit, so the lives of my family and friends, even self hating American's like you are protected.

*B*

What country does follow them anymore? In fact, why do we have governing laws such as the GC anymore anyhow? The U.N. is useless, the GC is useless, and America will continue to do what it sees fit. Not that I think that's a terrible thing, but with the people we currently have in power I think it's scary. Ashcroft, Bush and Cheney all need to pack their bags and get the F*&^ out!

i find it repellent that the rationale for violating the geneva convention that surfaced via a justice department memo arguing that if you do not classify prisoners as pows--like by not charging them--that they were not pows so the geneva convention did not apply--a memo that surfaced in the early phases of the abu ghiraib (spelling?) scandal, which was subject to extensive and loud distancing by the administration--who were worried that thier policies and positions relative to policy had in fact (as it has) created an atmosphere within which the use of torture and other such violations---has now surfaced as part of the johnwayne right's conventional wisdom concerning why it is just fine to violate basic human rights.

the american state is bound by law, and bound by international law.
it is not a guy in a white hat showing up in front of kitty's saloon at high noon for a showdown with a guy in a black hat.

it is not ok for the american state to both systematically violate basic human rights and to float a rationale for doing so under the pretext of the "war on terror"--a "war" that iraq is completely tangential to--which creates yet another layer of problems for folk who indulge the macho we-are-at-war-goddamn-it line as does mojo.
the bush administration can and should to held to account for this kind of action.
hopefully next week.

hmm... well, i think that it is the US's role to err on the side of human rights whenever a gray area surfaces. as snobbish as it might sound, if we don't... who will? we need to take leadership in this area as we have in others.

that being said... the circumstances the authors of the Geneva convention had in mind are not relevant to a lot of our present conflict. our enemy does not have serial numbers or a visible chain of command. they do not wear uniforms and make violence against civilians policy. our enemy is unfit for protections afforded to soldiers who fight according to the LOAC.

the US should take the lead and establish internationally agreed upon protocols for terrorist prisoners. we should get this out of the way as soon as we can so our policies have international legitimacy and so we can fully direct our attention to fighting the war. the Geneva convention in its current state is not adequate for addressing the human rights concerns that face us today.

I disagree that a new perspective on dealing with captured enemies is necessary.

But regardless - if as you say, new treaties and laws surrounding captured enemies are necessary, they should be put in place BEFORE we had started dealing with captured enemies in ways contrary to the existing treaties and laws.

As is, we have clear cut cases of International Law violations as well as subsequent National Law violations - and those responsible should be prosecuted.

well... the case really isn't a clear departure from the geneva conventions. it is a very ambitious interpretation of existing law that a bit self-serving. it could be a violation, but it hasn't been proven as such yet.

this is the gray area i'm talking about. with something as vital as human rights on the line, there must be no confusion or room for interpretation subject to political whims. the government is taking a small area of international law and doing something with it that it probably wasn't intended to even though there is no law spelled out against it. a fleshing-out of these kinds of vagaries would be helpful i think.

i do not see how the horizontal or modular type organizations that the americans are dealing with in the context of the "war on terror" should mean that basic human rights can be simply blown off by the americans. it seems like a variant on mojo's position. i dont buy it.

you had the same argument from robert macnamara in "the fog of war" when he addressed the question of whether dropping agent orange was a war crime--his claim was that it was not specifically banned in the protocols so maybe it was maybe it wasnt (macnamara was pretty forthcoming in claiming the firebombing of tokyo was a war crime--but there was someone else more directly responsible for it than himself, so it was easy)...i dont buy that either.

i dont see how the americans can make the slightest claim to anything like a high ground in this "war on terror" if they are so willing to use that "war" as a pretext to use extra-legal means to their ends--this is not even to start talking about the problems that still circle around the legitimacy of the arguments for war themselves, which failed to meet any rational criteria for self-defense and so is itself being waged in violation of the un charter.

but then again, the american right thinks the un any number of bizarre things, so i am sure that does not matter either.

but you would think that the american state acting in ways that blur the line as to what is a "terrorist" organization would be a problem.

Which is why I said prosecute, and not jail.

Many legal rulings are based on the intent of the law as opposed to the verbatim definition. It is clear that the intent of the Geneva Convention is the safeguarding of human rights. And it is clear that the intent of the manipulation of loopholes (or straight-up breaking of the laws in the case of not informing the IRC) is to sacrifice human rights for the sake of potential national safety.