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Then change the Constitution legally to embrace torture as an acceptable mode of interrogation. Then get out of treaties that prohibit that sort of conduct. But don't just decide that it's expedient in a particular moment to ignore it and treaties.Quote:
Originally Posted by jack sommerset
Amend the Constitution and repeal treaties. You can't just set them aside willy-nilly, if you care about our form of government.
Bush never tortured durning his presidency.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
Noone has been tortured. I am saying we should!Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
Of course. This is entirely academic because nobody has actually been tortured. Nevertheless, we should torture even if the Constitution and treaties prohibit it; we can just ignore those things whenever we feel like it, eh?Quote:
Originally Posted by jack sommerset
Quote:
Originally Posted by jack sommerset
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigat...ory?id=1322866Quote:
According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerson and issued in 2004, the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention," the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005.
There were criminal referrals to DOJ. Cheney quashed them.
That's not torture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
From Ex Parte Milligan:Quote:
Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown
Quote:
When peace prevails, and the authority of the government is undisputed, {124} there is no difficulty of preserving the safeguards of liberty, for the ordinary modes of trial are never neglected, and no one wishes it otherwise; but if society is disturbed by civil commotion — if the passions of men are aroused and the restraints of law weakened, if not disregarded — these safeguards need, and should receive, the watchful care of those intrusted with the guardianship of the Constitution and laws. In no other way can we transmit to posterity unimpaired the blessings of liberty, consecrated by the sacrifices of the Revolution.
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But we shall be answered that the judgment under consideration was pronounced in time of war, and it is, therefore, at least, morally excusable. There may, or there may not, be something in that. I admit that the merits or demerits of any particular act, whether it involve a violation of the Constitution or not, depend upon the motives that prompted it, the time, the occasion, and all the attending circumstances. When the people of this country come to decide upon the acts of their rulers, they will take all these things into consideration. But that presents the political aspect of the case, with which we have nothing to do here. I would only say, in order to prevent misapprehension, that I think it is precisely in a time of war and civil commotion that we should double the guards upon the Constitution. In peaceable and quiet times, our legal rights are in little danger of being overborne; but when the wave of power [71 U.S. 2, 76] lashes itself into violence and rage, and goes surging up against the barriers which were made to confine it, then we need the whole strength of an unbroken Constitution to save us from destruction.
Arbitrary application of law is exactly what the Constitution of this country was created to address and eliminate (as much as possible, anyway).
It is the proverbial "take the good with the bad".
The CIA's IG thought so. So does the Red Cross. The FBI pulled its agents from the program because they thought so too. Recent declassifications strongly suggest it, and the trend of anecdotal evidence isn't pretty.Quote:
Originally Posted by jack sommerset
What do you base your opinion on?
The inconvenience of dealing with the possibility that it might be torture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
To borrow a phrase from CD, he uses his ignorance like a shield.
Since none of them thar Muslims will tell us what we know they know, let's round 'em all up, confine them, and put 'em in ovens and gas chambers. They're all threats, after all. And they hate us because we're us. That kind of hate jest won't go away. And they might steal our precious bodily fluids too.
jack, don't you just feel their beady little eyes on you right now?