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He doesn't know if it is torture...

headscratcher4 said:
Indeed...that we in this country should even be having this discussion...and trying to figure out if we can torture non-citizens because they aren't protected by the Constitution is sick-making.
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I am amazed that some are so quick to endorse this, claiming we need to do this to win the War on Terror.

Funny, we didn't need to do it to win the Cold War.
 
headscratcher4 said:
Indeed...that we in this country should even be having this discussion...and trying to figure out if we can torture non-citizens because they aren't protected by the Constitution is sick-making.
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I don't understand that conversation at all. Isn't our behavior restricted by our laws, no matter what country the victims come from? Can you rape someone, if their legal status is in question according to the White House? If not, then why would torture be acceptable?
 
JoeEllison said:
I don't understand that conversation at all. Isn't our behavior restricted by our laws, no matter what country the victims come from? Can you rape someone, if their legal status is in question according to the White House? If not, then why would torture be acceptable?
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Simple.

fasc_notus_prima.jpg
 
JoeEllison said:
I don't understand that conversation at all. Isn't our behavior restricted by our laws, no matter what country the victims come from? Can you rape someone, if their legal status is in question according to the White House? If not, then why would torture be acceptable?
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In fact, Cheney/Addington might very well argue two things...as I understand it. In his role of the Commander in Chief, the President is not subject to domestic laws that would interfere with the execution of his duties. This is the power the Constitution gives the President to ignor those acts of Congress that HE determines to be in conflict with his duties. Something like no-one is above the law, but the President has an indipendent ability to determine what the law is, if it is valid and if it applies to the Executive or its agents.

Secondarilly, the argument is very much that you can do things to non-U.S. citizens that you can't do to US Citizens.

As Ziggurat pointed out...the Constitution only applies to U.S. Citizens. You can't torture US Citizens, as it would violate their Constitutional rights as well as statutory law. Statutory law that would allow a torture...say waterborading were specifically deemed not to be torture by Congress...falls if the Court deems that it violates the Constitution. I.E. the Court finds that Congress violated the constitution, for among other reasons, deeming that waterboarding isn't cruel and unusual punishment when it clearly is.

However, those same prescriptions don't apply to non-citizens. congress could, in theory than, pass a low banning use of Waterboarding against non-Citizens declaring it torture. The President, under the Unitary Executive theory, could than issue a signing statement to the effect that the law doesn't apply to any situation that the President deems in his capacity as Comander in Chief as interfereing with his ability to defend the country, collect intelligence, etc.

Courts have long ruled that aliens are not protected by the constitution. Most of the modern law on this originated during World War II and has subsequently been restated with regard to G'tmo.

So, Congress can try to make torture illegal and define waterboarding as torture. The president can (and seeminly is) defy that by determining that a). they're not doing it, enough said; b) it isn't torture to begin with, so it doesn't violate the law, and we've got a memo from Al Gonzales to that effect that it isn't torture; c) It is torture, but they're not US Citizens so they aren't subject to the same protections, and the President in his Constitutional capacity as Comander in Chief can apply (read: ignore) the law as he sees fit so long as it is in line with his interpretation of the Constitution, the law and his duties.

In short, what the White House is pretty close to arguing is that the President is if not above the law, not subject to the law. It isn't that the President can break the law, it is that the law can not apply to the President as a co-equal branch of government.

It is a pretty neat trick actually.
 
Lurker said:
I am amazed that some are so quick to endorse this, claiming we need to do this to win the War on Terror.

Funny, we didn't need to do it to win the Cold War.
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Ah, but the cold war was a quasi-conventional war. These Islamofacists are a slick group. New rules need to apply. They hate democracy and liberty and don't even give it that old socialist lip-service. They want to destroy us for who we are.

However, the Administration seems to have concluded that it can win the battle by destroying us first...thus the Islamofacists will be shown how clever we are.
 
Ziggurat said:
Umm... torture as an interrogation technique for enemy combatants isn't a constitutional issue. There are no constitutional prohibitions on the conduct of war in regards to the enemy, only legal ones.
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The eighth amendment had something to say about torture but it has disappeared from sight. Perhaps the site listed below site explains why when it points out that: -

'In any event it is understood that it was during this trip that the Amendment chose to go for an early morning swim in company with Vice-President Cheney, a large board and several straps. Never a strong swimmer the Amendment fell into difficulty and drowned, despite Mr Cheney's heroic efforts to save it by holding a cloth over its face and repeatedly demanding "Is it safe?"'

http://asadodo.blogspot.com/2006/10/eighth-amendment-to-united-states-bill.html
 
He and the rest of the Bush administration should be made to undergo the worst of the waterboarding that American prisoners have been put through.

Then he'll have a basis for an opinion.

Waterboarding is torture and his responses on this issue are sufficient cause to vote against his confirmation. What a sleazy monster.
 
headscratcher4 said:
The President, under the Unitary Executive theory, could than issue a signing statement to the effect that the law doesn't apply to any situation that the President deems in his capacity as Comander in Chief as interfereing with his ability to defend the country, collect intelligence, etc.
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Signing statements? I thought the legal weight of a signing statement was piffle? It sure seems like Executive wishful thinking to me.
 
E.J.Armstrong said:
The eighth amendment had something to say about torture
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Not in the context of war, it doesn't. Just like the 5th ammendment doesn't extend the right to trial to POW's. That something may be illegal doesn't make it unconstitutional, and there is no constitutional prohibition on torturing enemy soldiers.
 
If it is torture and it is illegal then why is it used on U.S. troops as part of their training?

Also, they can absolutely pass a law banning it - they insert very specific laws and exceptions to laws into bills all the time.
 
headscratcher4 said:
In fact, Cheney/Addington might very well argue two things...as I understand it. In his role of the Commander in Chief, the President is not subject to domestic laws that would interfere with the execution of his duties. This is the power the Constitution gives the President to ignor those acts of Congress that HE determines to be in conflict with his duties. Something like no-one is above the law, but the President has an indipendent ability to determine what the law is, if it is valid and if it applies to the Executive or its agents.

Secondarilly, the argument is very much that you can do things to non-U.S. citizens that you can't do to US Citizens.

As Ziggurat pointed out...the Constitution only applies to U.S. Citizens. You can't torture US Citizens, as it would violate their Constitutional rights as well as statutory law. Statutory law that would allow a torture...say waterborading were specifically deemed not to be torture by Congress...falls if the Court deems that it violates the Constitution. I.E. the Court finds that Congress violated the constitution, for among other reasons, deeming that waterboarding isn't cruel and unusual punishment when it clearly is.
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So you agree with the president that habis corpus does not apply to non citizens unless we want it to?
 
It is anything but a piffle. It hasn't really been tested. But signing statements essentially are the Administration's giving notice that it reserves the right to interpret the law in anyway that comports with its own perception of the President's Constitutional Authority. The theory is deeper, however, it is that the President, as a coequal branch, can't be subjected to any laws that conflict with its own Constitutionally defined mission...in this case, defense of the nation.

It hasn't been fully tested because GOP Controlled Congress didn't push on it, and the current group is a bunch of p****ies, especially when it comes to war and war powers.

However, read Charlie Savage's book and his great Boston Globe pieces, they have always been around, but this Administration has dramatically increased thier use and their relience upon them for its theory of how the President can operate without Congress' ok or in a manner different than the letter of the law.

Indeed, this Administration tends to believe that Congress' only real power over it is to defund...and it knows that this bunch will not defund the war, or the pentagon, etc.

But it is also more than signing statements. It also very much relies on the distinction that aliens -- especially those detained oversees as enemy combatants -- aren't protected by the Constitution or possibly even US Law. They are in a netherworld of legal uncertainty...thus torture, even if illegal in the US, might not be illegal in this instance.

Note -- Rumsfield recently had to high-tail it out of France concerned that there might be a war-crimes charge brought against him in the EU. Methinks this will be the case for many a US official of this Administration, as the civilized world doesn't think that it is ok to torture just because you define the legal status of the prisoner as ambiguous.

Note -- Morton Kondrake (SP?) was telling Brit Hume on Fox that it isn't torture because it causes no permanent damage (I guess so long as you don't drown). He's standard, apparently, is one of permanent bodilly damage, not really a legal one however. He argued that "it only feels like torture..." rather than really being torture.

He also noted that we do it to train our own people in the special forces so they can stand up to possible enemy interrogation. Funny, I would imagine, like McCain, the military guys might call it training to stand up to torture.
 
ponderingturtle said:
So you agree with the president that habis corpus does not apply to non citizens unless we want it to?
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I don't...I was just outlining some of the points of the President's argument. His position, arguably, is very radical...and I oppose it. It seems to me that the President is very close to arguing that the Administration has complete fiat to act towards non-citizens as it likes. I think that is a very bad road to go down and Congress should fight such an interpretation with everything they have...but their weenies.
 
DaChew said:
If it is torture and it is illegal then why is it used on U.S. troops as part of their training?

Also, they can absolutely pass a law banning it - they insert very specific laws and exceptions to laws into bills all the time.
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You mean their training to help them wistand torture?

They agree to undergo it as part of their training. It is a voluntary situation. If they don't, they may not get to be a ranger or a seal, but they don't have to undergo it. It isn't torture in that situation...torture, arguably, is an action IMPOSED on the prisoner by the state. The prisoner is not a volunteer. It doesn't stop because he/she doesn't think they can take it anymore. The Prisoner can't transfer out of the unit.
 
DaChew said:
If it is torture and it is illegal then why is it used on U.S. troops as part of their training?
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From what I've seen, it's only used after informed consent. And not on many.

Also, they can absolutely pass a law banning it - they insert very specific laws and exceptions to laws into bills all the time.
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Again, that's a Red Herring, they'll just come back with some other Torture Tactic that isn't specifically outlawed. They need to follow the laws, not make congress baby-sit them.
 
Isn't this somewhat moot? I'm sure the US govt under Bush's regime does not torture in any way. They simply get Blackwater or any other compliant security company to do the torture for them. Haven't these security companies been given a "free pass" against prosecution already?

As for allowing the AG nomination just because there is only a year left for Bush & cronies. I disagree. Bush must be fought at every turn. We have to mitigate the damages this POS has done.

Charlie (Waterboarding R Us) Monoxide
 
JoeEllison said:
Also stupid and anti-American... so why do Bush, and his supporters, hate America and its values so much?
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They don't. However, much like the 'constitutionalists' and so on, they particularly love their own flavor of interpretation to the extent that they disregard the rest and are honestly insulted and surprised when called on it.

Honestly, the worst part I hate about it is that no party stays in the majority power indefinitely, and when the names on the doors change the condition of (the lack of) accountability will remain. I don't care how conservative or liberal the government is-- when government gains more powers it is typically not eager to give them up. For example, the Patriot Act: the way it was laid out and worded didn't really bother me, but the important part was that it had a finite shelf-life. The day(s) it was re-upped (and worded more questionably) and when the administration began campaigning to make it permanent is when I began to oppose it.
 
DaChew said:
If it is torture and it is illegal then why is it used on U.S. troops as part of their training?
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If beating someone is illegal, why are there S&M shops? :rolleyes:

Also, they can absolutely pass a law banning it - they insert very specific laws and exceptions to laws into bills all the time.
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It's already illegal.
 
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