Fuck those barbarians

[GIGObuster]

@xtisme

So, assuming that though we live in a glass house we can indeed comment about Iran (and do so without bring in the requisite Bush bash…its just a dream I have that perhaps one day a thread that has little to do with Bush could actually stay on topic and not drag that asshole into it), what are your thoughts on Irans behavior?

-XT

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/irn-090205-action-eng

So far this year, Iran has executed at least four persons for crimes committed when they were children including one who is still a child. Amnesty International has recorded 42 executions so far in 2005, but the true number could well be higher.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE130382005

It is now imperative for Iran to stop sentencing children to death, to end the executions of children, and to halt all forms of violence against children.

But not all is gloom over there:

The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran

But Iranian society has refused to be coerced into silence. The human rights discourse is alive and well at the grassroots level; civil society activists consider it to be the most potent framework for achieving sustainable democratic reforms and political pluralism.

Indeed, American readers might be surprised to know how vigorous Iran’s human rights organizations are. Last fall, when security forces unlawfully detained more than 20 young journalists and bloggers because of what they had written, independent Iranian organizations like the Center for Defense of Human Rights, the Association of Journalists for Freedom of Press, and the Students Association for Human Rights campaigned for their release.

This outcry, in tandem with support from the international community and human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, led to the release of detainees. In fact, so great was the criticism of the abuses committed during these detentions that some of Iran’s most senior government officials came out in favor of releasing the detainees.

Independent organizations are essential for fostering the culture of human rights in Iran. But the threat of foreign military intervention will provide a powerful excuse for authoritarian elements to uproot these groups and put an end to their growth.

Human rights violators will use this opportunity to silence their critics by labeling them as the enemy’s fifth column. In 1980, after Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and inflamed nationalist passions, Iranian authorities used such arguments to suppress dissidents.

American hypocrisy doesn’t help, either. Given the longstanding willingness of the American government to overlook abuses of human rights, particularly women’s rights, by close allies in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia, it is hard not to see the Bush administration’s focus on human rights violations in Iran as a cloak for its larger strategic interests.

Sorry xtisme, I tried to find a cite that did not involved a Bush bash, but this cite has this interesting twist: it was written by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who is the founder of the Center for Defense of Human Rights in Tehran, Iran.

[wolfstu]

@xtisme

The Iranians hung two teen age boys for raping a 13 year old boy. THAT is the issue.

Apparently, there’s some doubt as to whether the boy was actually raped.

A later news story by Iran In Focus, allegedly based on this original ISNA report, claimed the youths were executed for sexually assaulting a 13 year old boy. But the ISNA report does not mention any sexual assault.

A report of the executions on the website of the respected democratic opposition movement, The National Council of Resistance Of Iran, also makes no reference to a sexual assault.

The allegation of sexual assault may either be a trumped up charge to undermine public sympathy for the youths (a frequent tactic by the Islamist regime in Iran).

Or it may be that the 13 year old was a willing participant but that Iranian law (like UK law) deems that no person of that age is capable of sexual consent and that therefore any sexual contact is automatically deemed in law to be a sex assault.

If the 13 year old was sexually assaulted, why was he not identified and also put on trial (under Iranian law both the victims and perpetrators of sexual crimes are punished)?

I don’t know how relaible the website is, but I got that from here.

So what “the issue” may be is that Iran hangs teens for having gay sex.

[magellan01]

@FinnAgain

Or how about this 'un?

Now, anybody with a shred of intellectual honesty would’ve known all this and more before getting into a debate, or at the very least after I provided some of the google search terms. An intellectual whore masturbating all over his keyboard, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t.

Well, well, well, maybe there is hope for you after all. Maybe you can catch on to this whole debate thing: You make a claim as a statement of fact, if I question it and ask for a cite, you provide the cites you think support your point, and then I evaluate them.

Very good.

Here’s where we are now. It turns out that the cites you’ve provided thus far do not support your claim. To refresh your memory:

You: …legalized and handwaved torture and rape…

Me: Cite? Particularly the “legalized” part.

I’ve read through the threads and nowhere in the threads supplied by you or the girls in your clubhouse can I find where Bush “legalized” torture and rape. Of course, maybe I’m mistaken. Why don’t you point me to the passgae that supports your specific claim.

If you cannot, I repeat my request that you do the honorable thing and either:

A) Retract your statement
B) Supply me with cites that prove that Bush has legalized torture and rape

Surely, you can find some blogs even further to the left than some of the ones you’ve cited that have some “proof” of this accusation.
Point of order:

How would you know if I’m wrong or not? You have no idea what the facts are because you refuse to read before or after getting into a debate. And by the way liar, I haven’t backtracked on anything.

Oh, really?

Bush has threatened to oppose any calls for oversight of the still ongoing abuse in Abu Graib. So, um, he’s just supporting and enabling and defending it, not condoning it. My mistake.

Backtrack Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com (definition #3)

You can also, if you’d like, based on the cites above, apologize for calling me a liar. I’ll tell you what, I accept your apology in advance. Thank you.

Just be glad I didn’t ask for cites on the three claims in that above statement. Your cites so far may go to supporting “enabling”, but not the others. And now why would you want to go and undo the one intellectually honest thing you’ve done in this debate? Tell me, do you do everything in your with such half-stepping?

As I said earlier, Finn–may I cal you Finn–I know you’re afraid and that peolpe will find out that FinnAgain was just a charade, a fake, all bluster and hot air. But hey, I’m sure you have some good qualities and you’re friends–your real friends–will still like you. But you’ll only know that for sure when you put an end to FinnAagain The Lie and let The Real FinnAgain blossom forth.

I KNOW you can do it, Finn. I’m pulin’ for ya’.

In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for that apology and either the retraction or the cite.

[GIGObuster]

You will have to wait longer for the apology:

@magellan01

You: …legalized and handwaved torture and rape…

Me: Cite? Particularly the “legalized” part.

I’ve read through the threads and nowhere in the threads supplied by you or the girls in your clubhouse can I find where Bush “legalized” torture and rape. Of course, maybe I’m mistaken. Why don’t you point me to the passgae that supports your specific claim.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6

Rendition was originally carried out on a limited basis, but after September 11th, when President Bush declared a global war on terrorism, the program expanded beyond recognition—becoming, according to a former C.I.A. official, “an abomination.” What began as a program aimed at a small, discrete set of suspects—people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants—came to include a wide and ill-defined population that the Administration terms “illegal enemy combatants.” Many of them have never been publicly charged with any crime. Scott Horton, an expert on international law who helped prepare a report on renditions issued by N.Y.U. Law School and the New York City Bar Association, estimates that a hundred and fifty people have been rendered since 2001. Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, said that a more precise number was impossible to obtain. “I’ve asked people at the C.I.A. for numbers,” he said. “They refuse to answer. All they will say is that they’re in compliance with the law.”

Although the full scope of the extraordinary-rendition program isn’t known, several recent cases have come to light that may well violate U.S. law. In 1998, Congress passed legislation declaring that it is “the policy of the United States not to expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.”

The Bush Administration, however, has argued that the threat posed by stateless terrorists who draw no distinction between military and civilian targets is so dire that it requires tough new rules of engagement. This shift in perspective, labelled the New Paradigm in a memo written by Alberto Gonzales, then the White House counsel, “places a high premium on . . . the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians,” giving less weight to the rights of suspects. It also questions many international laws of war. Five days after Al Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vice-President Dick Cheney, reflecting the new outlook, argued, on “Meet the Press,” that the government needed to “work through, sort of, the dark side.” Cheney went on, “A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in. And so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”

The extraordinary-rendition program bears little relation to the system of due process afforded suspects in crimes in America. Terrorism suspects in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have often been abducted by hooded or masked American agents, then forced onto a Gulfstream V jet, like the one described by Arar. This jet, which has been registered to a series of dummy American corporations, such as Bayard Foreign Marketing, of Portland, Oregon, has clearance to land at U.S. military bases. Upon arriving in foreign countries, rendered suspects often vanish. Detainees are not provided with lawyers, and many families are not informed of their whereabouts.

[wolfstu]

Terrorism suspects in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East have often been abducted by hooded or masked American agents, then forced onto a Gulfstream V jet, like the one described by Arar.

The Arar mentioned, by the way, is the Canadian citizen and engineer who, while changing planes in New York, was taken into custody by US officials and deported to Syria where he was tortured for a year before the Canadian government managed to get him back. :mad:

It is impossible to have more than Cartesian doubt that Maher Arar was, indeed, detained for a year in Syria (his wife was on the news every damned day pleading for Foreign Affiars to bring her husband home), though I suppose ( :rolleyes: :rolleyes: captial :rolleyes: ) he could be making the whole “torture” part up. The only thing to be questioned is whether this was under a policy approved by the President. If so, then it’s not much of a stretch to say he “legalized” torture. This would be a policy that allows people to be deported to third countries where they will be tortured.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@magellan01

I’m pulin’ for ya’.

On that I would agree.

[Squink]

@EddyTeddyFreddy

On that I would agree.

Now you’re just fuckin with him.

[GIGObuster]

To be fair, the beginnings of that program appeared during the Clinton era, but during the Bush administration, the methodical detective work and checks that the program had to verify the guilty were dumped. Back then, The terrorists had been convicted in absentia before their imprisonment. The recent changes had to be approved by the current administration.

Incidentally: I was looking early for evidence for my hunch that torture (scary that even some dopers like **magellan01 ** suggested elsewhere that torture was a good idea) was one of the reasons we got FALSE information to justify the Iraq war, well, look here on that article:

A few months after September 11th, the U.S. gained custody of its first high-ranking Al Qaeda figure, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. He had run bin Laden’s terrorist training camp in Khalden, Afghanistan, and was detained in Pakistan. Zacarias Moussaoui, who was already in U.S. custody, and Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber, had both spent time at the Khalden camp. At the F.B.I.’s field office in New York, Jack Cloonan, an officer who had worked for the agency since 1972, struggled to maintain control of the legal process in Afghanistan. C.I.A. and F.B.I. agents were vying to take possession of Libi. Cloonan, who worked with Dan Coleman on anti-terrorism cases for many years, said he felt that “neither the Moussaoui case nor the Reid case was a slam dunk.” He became intent on securing Libi’s testimony as a witness against them. He advised his F.B.I. colleagues in Afghanistan to question Libi respectfully, “and handle this like it was being done right here, in my office in New York.” He recalled, “I remember talking on a secure line to them. I told them, ‘Do yourself a favor, read the guy his rights. It may be old-fashioned, but this will come out if we don’t. It may take ten years, but it will hurt you, and the bureau’s reputation, if you don’t. Have it stand as a shining example of what we feel is right.’ ”

Cloonan’s F.B.I. colleagues advised Libi of his rights and took turns with C.I.A. agents in questioning him. After a few days, F.B.I. officials felt that they were developing a good rapport with him. The C.I.A. agents, however, felt that he was lying to them, and needed tougher interrogation.

To Cloonan’s dismay, the C.I.A. reportedly rendered Libi to Egypt. He was seen boarding a plane in Afghanistan, restrained by handcuffs and ankle cuffs, his mouth covered by duct tape. Cloonan, who retired from the F.B.I. in 2002, said, “At least we got information in ways that wouldn’t shock the conscience of the court. And no one will have to seek revenge for what I did.” He added, “We need to show the world that we can lead, and not just by military might.”

After Libi was taken to Egypt, the F.B.I. lost track of him. Yet he evidently played a crucial background role in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s momentous address to the United Nations Security Council in February, 2003, which argued the case for a preëmptive war against Iraq. In his speech, Powell did not refer to Libi by name, but he announced to the world that “a senior terrorist operative” who “was responsible for one of Al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan” had told U.S. authorities that Saddam Hussein had offered to train two Al Qaeda operatives in the use of “chemical or biological weapons.”

Last summer, Newsweek reported that Libi, who was eventually transferred from Egypt to Guantánamo Bay, was the source of the incendiary charge cited by Powell, and that he had recanted. By then, the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq had passed and the 9/11 Commission had declared that there was no known evidence of a working relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Dan Coleman was disgusted when he heard about Libi’s false confession. “It was ridiculous for interrogators to think Libi would have known anything about Iraq,” he said. “I could have told them that. He ran a training camp. He wouldn’t have had anything to do with Iraq. Administration officials were always pushing us to come up with links, but there weren’t any. The reason they got bad information is that they beat it out of him. You never get good information from someone that way.”

Most authorities on interrogation, in and out of government, agree that torture and lesser forms of physical coercion succeed in producing confessions. The problem is that these confessions aren’t necessarily true. Three of the Guantánamo detainees released by the U.S. to Great Britain last year, for example, had confessed that they had appeared in a blurry video, obtained by American investigators, that documented a group of acolytes meeting with bin Laden in Afghanistan. As reported in the London Observer, British intelligence officials arrived at Guantánamo with evidence that the accused men had been living in England at the time the video was made. The detainees told British authorities that they had been coerced into making false confessions.

[FinnAgain]

@xtisme

I thought the events WERE being investigated.

Nope. Some of the events at Abu Graib were investigated, but those of the other prisons in Iraq? Moreoever, the Abu Graib investigation was patently, if not a coverup, at least throwing some scapegoats to the mob. As proof of this, I would point out that there was no real inquiry into CIA involvement.

@xtisme

Its enough for me if the assholes who did the crime pay for their deeds

Have they paid? Where are the CIA Were they charged? Was the chain of command honestly investigated, or did they try to sell us a bill of goods about “a few bad apples?”

@xtisme

In addition, bad things happen in war…rape, murder, torture, theft, etc. Afaik what happened at AG were terrible, but they were individuals who mostly carried them out (well, not the torture, I’m sure much of that was sanctioned…but the rape and murders I’m fairly sure were not)…individuals who are, afaik, on trial or already sentenced. So…criminals committed criminal acts and are being (or will be) punished for them. No?

No. First off, it goes beyond just Abu Graib. Check one of my links above. The murder, most likely, was not authorized. But I simply cannot believe that a bunch of Iraqi prisoners were sodomized with foreign objects and/or raped without anybody going “Hey, you shouldn’t be doing that!” Unless, of course, it was s.o.p.

@xtisme

I’m unsure though why pointing to our fuckups (real or imagined) excuses the Iranians in this though, which was sort of the thrust of this OP. Its a completely separate issue.

Yes, as many of us, including tom, pointed out. The two issues are being conflated. Yes, the Iranians who executed the boys are evil fucks. Bush’s sabre rattling and coyboy diplomacy have also had negative effects.

@xtisme

Is your point that because we live in a glass house we can’t cast stones at the Iranians?

I thought I summed myself up on that issue quite well. Blame is not a finite resource. The Iranians who killed the boys are scum. Bush also has made cooperation with America and the west much harder due to his ‘with us or against us’ bullshit.

@xtisme

So, assuming that though we live in a glass house we can indeed comment about Iran (and do so without bring in the requisite Bush bash…its just a dream I have that perhaps one day a thread that has little to do with Bush could actually stay on topic and not drag that asshole into it)

And I, likewise, wish that one day when Bush’s effects on the world are brought up that they’re not handwaved away as “bush bashing”. Pointing out that Bush has helped radicalize our enemies is a fact, and it’s part of the nuance of the situation.

@xtisme

what are your thoughts on Irans behavior?

I thought I made it pretty clear in my first post that they should be taken to task for their actions.

[FinnAgain]

@magellan01

Well, well, well, maybe there is hope for you after all.

Yeah, assholes like you might one day not make my blood pressure rise. Here’s hoping, eh?

@magellan01

Maybe you can catch on to this whole debate thing: You make a claim as a statement of fact, if I question it and ask for a cite, you provide the cites you think support your point, and then I evaluate them.

No, you fucking diseased syphilitic coprophage.
Again, in order to have a deabate both people need to have a fucking clue, and to ya know, read stuff. Since you didn’t, and haven’t, there was and is no reason to treat you with anything but disdain. Which if you notice, is what I’m doing monkeyfucker.

You’re one step up from a troll. You don’t deserve the civility of a debate, you should be shut the fuck up like the little waste of space you are.

@magellan01

Here’s where we are now. It turns out that the cites you’ve provided thus far do not support your claim. To refresh your memory:

Oh my god you fucking apologist handwaving shitstain. You are scum. Honestly, I know someone might think this is internet shit, or just Pit flaming. But, no, you are scum. You understand asshole? You, personally, you are scum. Whoever is sittting at that keyboard is a fucking waste of oxygen. You get me? Can you feel me here chief?

Now, maybe I shouldn’t be mean to you, since you’re evidently mildly retarded. But, eh, what the fuck.

Now, if someone wants to investigate and prosecute these abuses and someone else stops that investigation and prosecution… what have they done? Stop drooling on the keyboard spunky, think. I know, I know, thinking hurts you. But try anyways.

Why… that’s right! If you stop something from being a crime, it becomes legal. Why, who’d a thunk it! Good spunky, good. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Besides, you uneducated ignorant cumbubble, you have yet again done zero research before opening your mouth. Again, asshole, google “ACLU Bush Torture” and then try to tell me he didn’t legalize it. Look at the information already provided about shipping people off to other countries where they can be tortured. Not legalized? Shit, either you’re a troll or a moron. In either case, shut the fuck up already. Mmkay?

@magellan01

I’ve read through the threads and nowhere in the threads supplied by you or the girls in your clubhouse can I find where Bush “legalized” torture and rape.

Because you’re ‘special.’

@magellan01

Of course, maybe I’m mistaken. Why don’t you point me to the passgae that supports your specific claim.

Because you’re either an idiot or a troll. I’m voting for idiot. But if you understand the issue and you’re lying in order to stir up shit…

@magellan01

If you cannot, I repeat my request that you do the honorable thing and either:

Listen you stupid piece of shit. You entered this debate without having read anything. Being totally, militantly ignorant. You. Are. Scum.

Get it? You know nothing of honor. You’re a waste. And you deserve nothing from me. Get it asshole?

@magellan01

A) Retract your statement
B) Supply me with cites that prove that Bush has legalized torture and rape

Stop fucking your mother long enough to read something, asshole. And for fuck’s sake google “ACLU Bush Torture”. Just fucking do it you son of a bitch. Just for fuck’s sake have a single iota of intellectual honesty, please.

@magellan01

Surely, you can find some blogs even further to the left than some of the ones you’ve cited that have some “proof” of this accusation.

Jesus. Goddamn you’re revolting. Like shit in a birthday cake revolting. You are a contemptible piece of infectious waste, dig?

You want to impugn all the newspapers I cited as ‘blogs’ and ‘leftist’ propaganda? Intellectual whore, cowardly asslicker.

@magellan01

Point of order:

Jesus… you’re too stupid to live. How on earth do you not choke to death when you brush your teeth? You do realize that I was pointing out in those quotes how fucking stupid you’re being? Allowing it to go on is the same damn thing as condoning it. Seriously, are you this stupid or are you trolling?

You like definitions? Here’s one.To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure.

Here’s another one second definition.

@magellan01

You can also, if you’d like, based on the cites above, apologize for calling me a liar. I’ll tell you what, I accept your apology in advance. Thank you.

You’re right, you’re not a liar. In order to lie, you’d need the ability to comprehend the English language. You’re not a liar, you’re mentally retarded. My apologies.

@magellan01

Just be glad I didn’t ask for cites on the three claims in that above statement.

Oh yes. I am oh so glad that an ignorant loudmouthed handwaving apologistic piece of filth who hasn’t done any research didn’t want to challenge me on yet another issue he was ignorant of. I am so very grateful.

@magellan01

As I said earlier, Finn–may I cal you Finn–

Actually, I’d prefer if you’d go fuck yourself.
May I call upon you to go fuck yourself?

@magellan01

I know you’re afraid and that peolpe will find out that FinnAgain was just a charade, a fake, all bluster and hot air.

Spot on. Oh yeah. I wasn’t disgusted by a piece of shit like you. No, I was worried that my 4000+ posts on the Dope would be forgotten because a retarded apologist can’t seem to read English. You caught me.

@magellan01

In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for that apology and either the retraction or the cite.

Stupid piece of shit. You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re revolting.

[FinnAgain]

Oh, and, for the folks playing along at home (not for you, lumpy, you need to concentrate real hard so you don’t swallow your tongue), here’s a cite in PDF format from Physicians for Human Rights which concludes that many of the practices used in Abu Graib are most likely still in use.

Big ol’ PDF.

[Liberal]

@Magellan

I would pay particular attention to #s 1, 2, 3, 4 (Liberal), and 5 (!!!).

You would indeed, and that is why you (and your English teacher) have such a pitiful grasp of logic. First of all, you botched the link. Second, after figuring out what it really was, I discovered that Professor Dumbass botched the definition of Argumentum ad Ignorantium — it has nothing to do with negation. And finally, it isn’t a logical fallacy at all, but a rhetorical fallacy, as you can see here.

@Magellan to Finn

You’re a pussy. And not man enough to admit when you’re wrong.

When will you stop meowing and admit your error about proving a negative?

[SteveG1]

Magellan01:

First off, you can prove a negative. You can prove that something is false or wrong. Liberal was right. Second, before you go off namecalling on FinnAgain, you need to get your own facts straight. There is a lot going on, with the blessing of our government. Pull your head out of your ass and then we can talk. Since you seem to be too “busy” to go read some of the cites, here is a taste. Our government authorized torture, and now is stonewalling attempts to prosecute the guilty. Now, to sum up, if torture is A-OK with you, then I will gladly join the pile-up. Freedom. Stay the course. Christian nation. Bring em on. Buttfuck little kids for God and country.

http://www.retrovsmetro.org/blog/id/320

@news_from_a_quick_search

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Geneva Convention
Civil rights are not high on Gonzales’ list of priorities. He defended the administration’s policy of holding terrorist suspects without the right to legal counsel or a speedy trial, a position opposed by the Supreme Court. In a 1/25/02 memo, Gonzales wrote, “the war against terrorism is a new kind of war” and “this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.” Most notably, in a February 2002 memo, he claimed the administration’s right to ignore international treaties prohibiting the torture of prisoners — a position that led directly to the heinous abuses at Abu Graib and Guantánamo Bay. It was Gonzales who urged Bush to deny POW status to the Guantánamo detainees, leaving them with no protection from coercive interrogation and endless imprisonment…
The commander in chief section of the memo included the opinion that laws prohibiting torture do “not apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants” in his role as commander in chief. It also stipulates that Congress “may no more regulate the President’s ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield.” So much for checks and balances.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071305Y.shtml

@news_from_a_quick_search

When Senator Richard Durbin asked Gonzales at his hearing, “Can US personnel legally engage in torture under any circumstances?”, Gonzales failed to give a categorically negative answer. “I don’t believe so,” he testified, “but I’d want to get back to you on that.” Gonzales surely knew that the Convention against Torture, which the United States has ratified, says, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture.”
Gonzales is the very one who, as White House counsel, advised Bush that the President need not follow the law. The Geneva Conventions, which Gonzales called “quaint” and “obsolete,” are ratified treaties, and thus part of United States law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
Gonzales also counseled Bush on how to avoid prosecution for war crimes under the federal War Crimes Act.
Gonzales commissioned the August 1, 2002, memorandum by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that illegally redefined torture so narrowly that the pain caused by interrogation must include death, organ failure or serious impairment of body functions. Any treatment short of that would be allowed.
Gonzales’s advice to Bush led to the establishment of policies that set the stage for the torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and secret CIA prisons throughout the world.

It is not necessary to personally conduct the torture in order to be liable under the War Crimes Statute. Under the well-established doctrine of “command responsibility,” a superior who knew or should have known his inferiors would commit war crimes, but who failed to stop or prevent those acts, is just as responsible as those who committed the criminal acts. Gonzales knew or should have known the policies he advocated would result in the torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners in US custody.

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=246536

@news_from_a_quick_search

GONZALES APPROVED MEMO AUTHORIZING TORTURE: An August 2002 Justice Department memo “was vetted by a larger number of officials, including…the White House counsel’s office and Vice President Cheney’s office.” According to Newsweek, the memo “was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush’s chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William Haynes and [Cheney counsel] David Addington.” The memo included the opinion that laws prohibiting torture do “not apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants.” Further, the memo puts forth the opinion that the pain caused by an interrogation must include “injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions—in order to constitute torture.” The methods outlined in the memo “provoked concerns within the CIA about possible violation of the federal torture law [and] also raised concerns at the FBI, where some agents knew of the techniques being used” overseas on high-level al Qaeda officials. [Gonzales 8/1/02 memo; WP, 6/27/04; Newsweek, 6/21/04; NYT, 6/27/04]
GONZALES BELIEVES MANY GENEVA CONVENTIONS PROVISIONS ARE OBSOLETE: A 1/25/02 memo written by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales said “the war against terrorism is a new kind of war” and “this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.” The memo pushes to make al Qaeda and Taliban detainees exempt from the Geneva Conventions’ provisions on the proper, legal treatment of prisoners. The administration has been adamant that prisoners at Guantanamo are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. [Gonzales 1/25/02 memo; Newsweek, 5/24/04]
GONZALES ADMITTED HIS VIEWS ‘COULD UNDERMINE U.S. MILITARY CULTURE’: The 1/25/02 memo shows Alberto Gonzales was aware of the risk that ignoring the Geneva Conventions could create for the military. One concern expressed is that failing to apply the Geneva Conventions “could undermine U.S. military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat, and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries,” which is what happened at Abu Ghraib. Secretary of State Colin Powell strongly warned against taking this decision, as did lawyers from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, or JAG. This week, a federal judge ruled that “President Bush had both overstepped his constitutional bounds and improperly brushed aside the Geneva Conventions” when he established military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to try detainees as war criminals. [Gonzales 1/25/02 memo; Bloomberg, 6/14/04; New York Times, 11/9/04]
GONZALES BLOCKS INFORMATION FROM CONGRESS: Historically, senators have been allowed to review some memoranda by judicial nominees. But, in a letter [about nominee Miguel Estrada], Gonzales told the Democrats that the administration would not produce the memos, because to do so would chill free expression among administration lawyers and violate the principle of executive privilege, which protects the internal deliberations of the president’s aides. [New Yorker, 5/19/03]

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Alberto_R._Gonzales

@news_from_a_quick_search

Gonzales was largely responsible for the chain of events that led to Abu Ghraib - actually writing a memo to Bush advocating the disregard of Geneva Convention torture rules, one of the so-called Torture Memos.
Gonzeles was the legal architect for the Gitmo detainee system, much of which various courts (including the Supreme Court) have ruled unconstitutional.
Gonzales had a tight financial and political connection to Enron, making him unable to impartially handle the largest corporate fraud in modern history or to enforce the laws needed to prevent the next Enron-like scandal.
Quite a track record for someone on the short list for the Supreme Court of the United States, huh? Details below:

1. Albert Gonzales, while White House General Counsel, “asked for” and received a memorandum regarding the “Status of Taliban Forces … Under the Geneva Conventions.” The memo concludes that the Taliban forces are not covered under the Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners of war from torture. Gonzales let his feelings be known in a January 25, 2002 memo to the President, writing:
   In my judgment, this new paradigm [the war on terror] renders obsolete Geneva’s [i.e., the Geneva Convention’s] strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.
   Gonzales’s pro-torture memo gave fruit to an Order by the President accepting this rationale, making it part of what what Newsweek called the “root of torture” that led to the Abu Ghraib debacle.
2. Also while at the White House, Gonzales was the author of the Gitmo detainment procedures:
   [H]e drew up the rules for holding suspected terrorists at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The detainees have been designated enemy combatants, denied prisoner-of-war status under the international Geneva Convention.
   These rules have repeatedly been rejected by federal courts as unconstitutional, including the Supreme Court last summer.

After Abu Ghraib

@news_from_a_quick_search

On December 23, the Americans arrested another of Alazawi’s brothers, Ayad, 44. It was at this point that she decided to confront the Americans directly. She marched into the US base in Adhamiya, one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces. “A US captain told me to come back with my two other brothers. He said we could talk after that.” On Christmas Eve she returned with her brothers, Ali and Mu’taz. “I waited for four hours. An American captain finally interrogated me. After 10 minutes he announced that I was under arrest.” Like thousands of other Iraqis detained by the Americans since last year’s invasion, Alazawi was about to experience the reality of the Bush administration’s “war on terror”. …
Alazawi says that US guards left her sitting on the chair overnight, and that the next day they took her to a room known by detainees as “the torturing place”. “The US officer told us: ‘If you don’t confess we will torture you. So you have to confess.’ My hands were handcuffed. They took off my boots and stood me in the mud with my face against the wall. I could hear women and men shouting and weeping. I recognised one of the cries as my brother Mu’taz. I wanted to see what was going on so I tried to move the cloth from my eyes. When I did, I fainted.”
Like most Iraqi women, Alazawi is reluctant to talk about what she saw but says that her brother Mu’taz was brutally sexually assaulted. Then it was her turn to be interrogated.

http://www.dailykos.com/

@news_from_a_quick_search

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year’s defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon’s treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.
The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter. […]
“If legislation is presented that would restrict the president’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice,” the bill could be vetoed, the statement said.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney that he still intended to offer amendments next week “on the standard of treatment of prisoners.”
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was working on legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo, also said he would offer an amendment.
So on one hand, the Bush administration is frantically blocking the release of the photographic proof of the most horrific war crimes committed in U.S. military-run prisons.
On the other hand, the Bush administration is simultaneously threatening to veto any attempts by McCain, Graham or others to establish even rudimentary rules banning such torture – or even investigating the torture already documented.
I think it’s time to invent some new swearing, because there isn’t anything currently in the language that fully encompasses the White House’s unapologetic attempts to ensure the Bush administration’s own crafted and approved “interrogation” policies be allowed to continue unhindered. Yes, according to the Bush administration, any attempts by Republican senators to legislate against, say, the sodomizing of detained children are unduly infringing on the president’s fight against terrorists.
Truly, there is no sunken depth to which this White House does not feel comfortable indulging itself in.

Sodomizing Children. For Freedom.

@news_from_a_quick_search

Following up on Kos’ post, below; we already have some idea of what the Abu Ghraib images in question show, though we don’t know precisely which ones are in the queue to be released. The images, according to those lawmakers who have seen them, paint a picture of torture at Abu Ghraib far, far worse than most Americans have yet been willing to admit. Via the Boston Herald, May 8th, 2004:
Signaling the worst revelations are yet to come, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the additional photos show “acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.” […]
The unreleased images show American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys, according to NBC News.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the scandal is “going to get worse” and warned that the most “disturbing” revelations haven’t yet been made public.
“The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here,” he said. “We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience; we’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.”
And from investigative reporter Seymour Hersh:
The women were passing messages saying “Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened”. Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking.
Note these links are from 2004. We’ve known about the additional abuse cases for over a year. And yes, the rest of the world already knows.

[FinnAgain]

Or how about a US soldier who was beaten so badly he now has seizures. He was playing the role of a gitmo detainee and they didn’t know he was a US soldier.

[SteveG1]

@GIGObuster

!?!

I do think that some perpetrators are being punished, but it is telling that without photographic or video evidence that few bothered to stop it, and when at last the worse evidence is released, it is likely to show others involved that have not been brought to justice. Together, with the efforts to keep the worse under wraps, shows that to say that this administration is condoning torture and rape is not a stretch.

They authorized it, they condone it, they are trying to keep it going.
You want pictures? Here are some.

The Abu Ghraib Prison Photos - Antiwar.com Original

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

And here is a little more “sound bite”
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/6260/1/245/

@PeoplesWeeklyWorldNews

WASHINGTON — During confirmation hearings on Alberto Gonzales’ nomination as Attorney General, senators should question him about a recently uncovered memo that George W. Bush “ordered” the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other military prisons around the world, several human rights groups suggested last month.

The groups, who joined in an ACLU Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit, which won release of the memo and other incriminating documents, are describing it as the “smoking gun” implicating Bush in the torture scandal.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero released the memo Dec. 20 in New York. That document, a May 22, 2004* FBI internal e-mail, suggests that Bush issued a secret Executive Order authorizing the use of extreme coercive measures in interrogation, including sleep deprivation, stress positions, attack dogs, and use of hoods to intimidate prisoners. The Geneva Convention Against Torture bans all of these practices.

“These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests,” Romero said. “Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers.”

The human rights groups’ statement called on the Senate to scrutinize Gonzales, the White House Legal Counsel, on a Jan. 25, 2002, memo he wrote to Bush arguing that the Geneva Conventions outlawing torture did not apply to the war in Afghanistan. Gonzales described the conventions as “quaint” and “obsolete.”

In August 2002, Gonzales, “without consulting military and State Department experts in the laws of torture and war,” according to the Washington Post, approved a memo from the Justice Department claiming that “unlawful enemy combatants” could be detained indefinitely without criminal charges or the right of due process. The memo, the Post said, “gave CIA interrogators the legal blessings they sought.”

Physicians for Human Rights, winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, is one of the groups in the ACLU lawsuit. PHR sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee signed by 150 doctors with expertise in the treatment of torture. “There should be no place in the U.S. government for any official who condones the crime of torture,” the letter stated.

[xcheopis]

@wolf_meister

We are in the 21st century and yet there are still countries being run by barbaric bastards !!!

(I guess the “giant leap for mankind” has been delayed by a couple of millenia in Iran).

Britain isn’t even a century away from “barbarism”, so why would you assume Iran would take thousands of years to acheive the same level of “civilised” behaviour?

[tomndebb]

I’m not quite sure why this particular thread has brought out quite so much personal rage, but I can certainly feel the love.

Unfortunately, having taken the time to read through it, again, I’m afraid that I must express one point as Moderator:

FinnAgain, you have eight (that I saw) separate accusations of “nearly trolling” or claiming that a poster is. effectively, either stupid or a troll.

STOP IT. Whatever your personal level of rage, the board rules are to avoid accusations of trolling and your mincing steps around the technical rule to do not give you a pass. Your claims are sufficiently close to the claim as to have broken the rule.

Do not do this again.

[ /Moderator Mode ]

[FinnAgain]

I’ll be happy to take this to email tom. I was not mincing around any rules. I stated his conduct was near trolling. Not trolling. Near it. I was quite careful to avoid breaking any rules, as I have most certainly not accused him of troling.

I stated several times, in specific, that I thought he was ignorant and not trolling. I don’t know how much more specific I can get.

[tomndebb]

How about merely calling him all the nasty names that The Pit allows while simply leaving any mention of trolling out of your posts?

For a lot of different reasons, most of which have been discussed in earlier threads, we simply frown on invoking the word troll or the suggestion of trolling under euphemistic language. It is not necessary to the development of your argument and you are better off not doing it.

[FinnAgain]

Can we please take this to email?