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The CIA prisons really existed after all?
But I really believed and trusted dubya/ head when they said there no such secret CIA prisons.
I feel so betrayed.
Fits in with the "WWIII" rhetoric, IMO.
BUSH ANNOUNCEMENT: HIGH-VALUE PRISONERS IN SECRET CIA PRISONS WILL BE GRANTED SAME PROTECTIONS AS OTHER PRISONERS
High-Value Detainees Will Be Given Prisoner-of-War Status
President Bush Expected to Announce Major Reversal in Handling of Terror Suspects
By JONATHAN KARL
Sept. 6, 2006 — ABC News has learned that President Bush will announce that high-value detainees now being held at secret CIA prisons will be transferred to the Department of Defense and granted protections under the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It will be the first time the Administration publicly acknowledges the existence of the prisons.
A source familiar with the president's announcement says it will apply to all prisoners now being held by the CIA, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks, and senior al Qaeda leader Ramzi Binalshibh.
The source says there are "about a dozen" prisoners now being held by the CIA.
Until now, the U.S. government has not officially acknowledged the existence of CIA prisons.
The Bush administration has come under harsh criticism for its handling of detainees captured in the U.S.-led military campaign to root out al Qaeda terror cells abroad.
Many detainees have been given the legal status of "enemy combatant," which includes both lawful enemy combatants and unlawful enemy combatants.
The CIA prisons really existed after all?
But I really believed and trusted dubya/ head when they said there no such secret CIA prisons.
I feel so betrayed.
flip-flopper
Running scared and trying to head off impeachment when the House flips in November.
ing total bull ... no reason to give these ing terrorists anything except a bullet
"except a bullet"
Why weren't they shot when captured or since then?
Because the American government seperates itself from others by trying to be civilized to their captives. Plus, I think the buy that made the "except a bullet" comment was just making a point and didn't want a reply you jackass. Now go back to posting other people's stories because when you don't, you end up sounding like an idiot.
except when they might actually not be terrorists...
Did any of you even listen to the President's speech yesterday? He gave detailed information on what the CIA was able to learn from these prisoners. They were able to thwart several attacks, as well as the development of anthrax. Since all of them are still alive, it doesn't seem as if the "torture" was that severe - nothing like what the terrorists themselves employ (beheading)!
Personally, I don't care what they do with these pigs - they deserve everything they get - and, if the information gathered saves the life of just one American, it's worth it!
SC said dubya broke the law, and honorable military lawyers and military law scholars, and so now dubya is litmus-testing Congress by saying "Give the law I want to keep the SC out of it." Repugnant.
Americans do just as bad things to other Americans, and they have protections AS HUMAN BEINGS, not as American citizens, against abuses of the law. Those Americans still get successfully prosecuted and executed. Military prisoners are still humans, and are much more susceptible to being abused by military procedures and insane/violent/sicko military people than are civilian prisoners.
================
September 7, 2006
Plan for Tribunals Would Hew to the First Series
By KATE ZERNIKE and NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — Under the measure that President Bush proposed on Wednesday, Khalid Shaik Mohammed and other major terrorism suspects would face trials at Guantánamo Bay in military tribunals that would allow evidence obtained by coercive interrogation and hearsay and deny suspects and their lawyers the right to see classified evidence used against them.
The proposed tribunals would largely hew to those that the Supreme Court rejected in June. The measure says Congress would, by approving the proposed tribunals, affirm that they are cons utional and comply with international law, which the Supreme Court said they did not.
Senate Republicans, who have been working on their own bill, said they were wary of the provisions on hearsay and classified evidence and questioned whether the administration had resolved the problems that the court raised.
( ... is exactly why the Framer have 3 branches pitted against each other with checks and balance. The Repugs are all for strict Cons utional interpretation when it is to their political advantage. )
The Republicans said that the administration had come a long way in resolving differences with Congress in the last month and that they expected to smooth over remaining differences in time to pass a bill before breaking for the final burst of election campaigning.
“I do not think we can afford to again cut legal corners that will result in federal court rejection of our work,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said.
A former military judge, Mr. Graham is pivotal in the negotiations between the White House and Congress.
At the same time, the Pentagon released a new Army Field Manual that requires humane treatment of all terrorism suspects and sets strict limits on interrogation techniques.
( one has to respect the Army for the Army respecting itself. The Repugs don't respect the Army, or the Repugs wouldn't have started a trumped, phony war to throw the Army into.)
The rules apply to the 14 members of Al Qaeda who the president announced had been transferred from Central Intelligence Agency prisons to the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Those prisoners have been interrogated in C.I.A. prisons and could be questioned further and brought to trial under whatever provisions Congress approves.
The manual covers specific methods that, although never authorized in the previous version, have been disclosed in abuse cases, including at Guantánamo and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, since 2001.
The manual, held up for more than a year by debates in the administration and with Congress, specifically bans forcing a detainee to be naked or perform sexual acts; using beatings and other forms of causing pain, including electric shocks; and placing hoods over prisoners’ heads or tape on their eyes.
Also barred are staging mock executions; withholding food, water or medical care; or using dogs against detainees. In addition, the manual bans a technique known as waterboarding, in which a prisoner is strapped to a board and made to feel as if he is drowning.
( don't worry, the WH/Repugs will dream up other not explicily forbidden above )
“No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices,” Lt. Gen. Jeff Kimmons, a senior intelligence officer, said at a news conference in the Pentagon.
Democrats and Republicans praised the changes in the manual. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, welcomed them as long overdue.
“If the administration had behaved this way before Gitmo and the drifting of Gitmo to Abu Ghraib,’’ Mr. Levin said, “we would have been a lot more secure country, our troops would have been more secure, and our position in the world would have been more favorable.”
Mr. Levin and others contested points in the president’s proposal for tribunals, in particular denying the defense the right to see, and therefore respond to, classified information that is shown to the jury and allowing the introduction of hearsay and coerced evidence.
Those two categories would be allowed if the judge decided that they were probative and reliable.
“If the defense cannot see what the jury sees and argue against it in some way, then it’s inconsistent with our current federal rules, which are applied in trials against terrorists,” Mr. Levin said.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, another important Republican on the committee, which will take the lead on bills, said a judge should decide whether classified evidence could be introduced.
“That’s pretty much been a 200-year standard for treatment of classified material,” Mr. McCain said.
According to the proposal, only in “extraordinary cir stances” could a judge allow classified evidence, and if it was allowed, the defendant could not be present when it was introduced.
Senators and top military lawyers had urged the administration to use military law as its guide in drafting proposal.
Mr. Graham emphasized again on Wednesday that the military justice system outlined ways to allow classified evidence to be introduced without jeopardizing national security.
“I do not believe it is necessary to have trials where the accused cannot see the evidence against them,” he said.
He predicted that this would make the bill vulnerable to more court challenges and that it would establish a bad precedent that could be used against American troops if other countries brought them to trial. In the bill, the administration says military laws for courts-martial were inappropriate for terrorists. To use those rules, the measure says, “would make it virtually impossible to bring terrorists to justice for their violations of the law of war.”
The proposal found some support.
Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would endorse the approach over legislation drafted by colleagues.
( ... we can always count on this TX mother er to take the low road )
“I just believe that as a matter of principle that you don’t unnecessarily share classified information with terrorists in the course of a military tribunal,” Mr. Cornyn said.
( the Army justice system as is has sufficient protections, but Cornyn knows, sucking off dubya, knows better )
Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he would release the panel’s proposed measure in a few days.
The House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to meet on Thursday to hear testimony on the proposed legislation from military and administration lawyers.
In rejecting earlier tribunals, the Supreme Court said they violated a provision of the Geneva Conventions known as Common Article 3. The provision mandates the humane treatment of captured combatants and prohibits trials except by “a regularly cons uted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people.”
The court said those minimal rights were missing in the first commissions because of the failure to guarantee the defendant the right to attend the trial and the prosecution’s ability under the rules to introduce hearsay evidence, unsworn testimony and evidence obtained through coercion.
The proposed legislation deals with the objections by saying Congress stands by the president in deeming them in compliance with Common Article 3. In effect, the legislation, if enacted, would pit Congress and the executive branch against the court in interpreting what was meant by the laws that say the United States will comply with Common Article 3.
( of course, if the Repugs could nominate just one more far right radical nutcase to the SC, there wouldn't be a problem with the SC. The US would become France, where ins utions are ALWAYS given the power over individuals. )
To inoculate officials and civilian interrogators from the potential of being charged under the War Crimes Act for what they may have done, the bill has a provision making it retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks.
Yeah, John McCain is still alive, so his torture couldn't have been that bad. Why don't you tell him that to his face.Since all of them are still alive, it doesn't seem as if the "torture" was that severeOr at least hides the fact that it isn't.Because the American government seperates itself from others by trying to be civilized to their captives.
September 7, 2006
Lawyers Warn Against Evidence Limits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:27 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon's top uniformed lawyers took issue Thursday with a key part of a White House plan to prosecute terrorism detainees, telling Congress that limiting the suspects' access to evidence could violate treaty obligations.
( WH/Repug response will be: treaties, We Don't Give Them No Respect, NONE!" We can do whatever we want and we'll keep our actions secret. )
Their testimony to a House committee marked the latest time that military lawyers have publicly challenged Bush administration proposals to keep some evidence -- such as classified information -- from accused terrorists. In the past, some military officials have expressed concerns that if the U.S. adopts such standards, captured American troops might be treated the same way.
The lawyers' testimony contrasted with the panel chairman's assertion that the United States must take a harder line when prosecuting terrorists.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, who heads the House Armed Services Committee, said at the hearing that any military commission established to prosecute terrorists must allow the government to protect intelligence sources. In saying so, the California Republican aligned himself with the White House position.
''While we need to provide basic fairness in our prosecutions, we must preserve the ability of our war fighters to operate effectively on the battlefield,'' Hunter said.
( well of course. Helping/protecting our military is being falsely made incompatible with human rights. Why don't the military lawyers themselves see it that way? )
Hunter presented the military lawyers with various scenarios in which it might be necessary to withhold evidence from the accused if it would expose classified information. But the service's top lawyers said other alternatives must be explored -- or the case dropped.
''I believe the accused should see that evidence,'' said Maj. Gen. Scott Black, the Army's Judge Advocate General.
Black and the other lawyers said such an allowance was a fundamental right in other court systems and would meet requirements under the Geneva Conventions.
But Hunter suggested that such a requirement could hamper prosecutions.
''Some of these acts of complicity in terrorist acts are very small pieces . . . and you don't have a lot of evidence,'' he said. The chairman repeated a scenario where the only piece of evidence would expose the iden y of a secret agent and asked whether it would make sense to drop the case entirely.
''You get to the end of the trail, then yes sir, you do,'' Black responded.
The hearing came a day after Bush acknowledged for the first time that the CIA had secret prisons overseas and defended the practice of tough interrogations to force terrorists to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies.
He revealed that 14 suspects, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, had been turned over to the Defense Department and moved to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for trial.
Separately, State Department legal adviser John Bellinger III told foreign reporters Thursday that if additional members of the al-Qaida terror network were captured, ''We reserve the right to have those people questioned by the CIA.''
Bellinger said foreign governments were free to decide whether to look for the locations of any CIA prisons on their territory, but ''we are not going to talk about that.'' European lawmakers on Thursday demanded to know the exact location of the prisons.
The president proposed legislation Wednesday that would aid the government in prosecuting terrorists using secret military tribunals. The proposal left Republicans again divided over how the nation should treat its most dangerous terror suspects, setting up a showdown in Congress just weeks away from elections when all members will try to sell themselves as tough on terror.
Bush's announcement was immediately praised by those who said his policies were necessary to win the war on terror.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he would like to take up the bill on the Senate floor as soon as possible, leaving open the door for a vote on the measure before lawmakers break at the end of the month for election campaigning.
But some GOP moderates are challenging the proposal. They include three senators with hefty credentials: Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam; Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a former military lawyer who still serves in the Air Force Reserves as a reserve judge; and Sen. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Bush's decision to prosecute the terrorists held by the CIA was long overdue. But, he added, the military commission system should be properly vetted through the Armed Services Committee.
''The last thing we need is a repeat of the arrogant, go-it-alone behavior that has jeopardized and delayed efforts to bring these terrorists to justice for five years,'' Reid said.
------
Eds: AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report.
Yeah, why get intelligence that can prevent future attacks and save lives when we could just shoot them?
Damn boutons, you are one dumb son of a .
Typical for an Al Qaeda sympathizer here though.
Aggie father er
OK, deal. Torture the prisoners to near death, get a bunch of coereced BS, then shoot them. happy?
There are 2.5 million criminals, nearly all of them US citizens, in US prisons, many of them are just as monstrous as any terrorist, but they all have right to due process that protects against abuses.
You call this BS? If so, you are stupider than I thought.
Administration Outlines Foiled Plots
Foiled terrorist plots, according to the Director of National Intelligence and President Bush's speech on Wednesday:
- In 2002, officials disrupted a plot by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to crash hijacked airplanes into targets on the U.S. West Coast.
-In mid-2004, officials discovered a plan to bomb urban targets in the United Kingdom.
-Terrorists involved in a well-advanced plot to attack targets in Karachi, Pakistan, were detained in the spring of 2003.
-A plan to use hijacked commercial airplanes to attack London's Heathrow Airport was disrupted in 2003.
-A plot to attack ships in the Persian Gulf was foiled in late 2002 and early 2003.
-One of the plotters involved in the plan to attack ships in the Gulf was also part of a foiled plot to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
-After a plan to blow up tall buildings in the U.S. was disrupted, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said he directed his operatives to attack the buildings because they were too tall for victims to jump out of, ensuring they would die by smoke inhalation.
-In early 2004, a captured al-Qaida facilitator revealed a plan to send suicide truck bombers into Camp Lemonier, a Marine Corps base in the African nation of Djibouti. This information caused security at the base to be enhanced.
- In his speech, Bush said Mohammed and a terrorist named Yazid provided vital information on al-Qaida's efforts to obtain biological weapons that allowed officials to capture two other terrorists involved in producing anthrax for al-Qaida.
Where does anyone say that all of these very suspect "foiled plots", trotted out in the middle of a Repug election campaign that is on the ropes, were foiled by coercing confessions?
You are stupid! This information was stated immediately after President Bush talked about the 14 prisoners. He specifically stated that these plots were foiled as a direct result of information learned from these prisoners.
And he said we tortured them all too, right?
The President said the CIA used "alternative methods." But that probably means some sort of torture. But again, so what - look how many lives were probably saved by the foiling of these terror plots.
Did he say when he used torture and which information was gained through torture?
And as for "So what?"
Remember when the US used to hold the moral high ground when it came to the treatment of prisoners? Morals used to be important to the right, didn't they? Or is it only when it's convenient to you? Or dependent upon the last time you watched Jack Bauer?
How about those prisoners who we later admitted were guilty of nothing. We tortured those guys too. Do you think their thinking would be pro-US upon their release?
The President is being misunderestimated again...
An editorial in the New York Times praises President Bush's decision to transfer 14 top al Qaeda terrorists to Guantanamo Bay and push for legislation allowing them to be tried for war crimes. "Those are just the right steps," the paper declares.
But keep the presses rolling: remains hot, and the porcine have attained no relief from gravity's constraints. For there is a "But . . .":
The Supreme Court's ruling that the Times now describes as "not principle" is Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the June case in which the narrowly divided justices held that military commissions could not go forward until authorized by statute. At the time, the Times exulted:
Now that Bush has done exactly what the Times demanded, the paper accuses him of acting with a "phony" urgency. He just can't win with these guys.
Today's editorial also perpetuates an outright falsehood about Guantanamo Bay, namely the claim the detainees are held there "without due process." In fact, they have an astonishing array of procedural protections:
- Every detainee at Guantanamo (possibly excepting the 14 new arrivals) has gone before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, also known as an Article V hearing, to determine whether he actually is an enemy combatant. The Geneva Conventions require such hearings only in cases of doubt, and the U.S. Supreme Court has additionally mandated them (in the 2004 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld) only for detainees who hold U.S. citizenship, of which none remain.
- Each detainee annually goes before an Administrative Review Board--analogous to a parole board--to determine whether he can be released without endangering U.S. security. This process is described in a July 2005 Pentagon briefing.
- Pursuant to Rasul v. Bush (2004), all detainees have the right to retain lawyers and pe ion for habeas corpus.
- War-crimes trials for the four detainees who've been charged have been delayed only because Osama bin Laden's bodyguard was able to avail himself of American appellate courts to challenge the legality of the proceedings.
This is not just procedural window dressing. As President Bush noted in his speech yesterday, some 770 detainees who've spent time at Guantanamo, of whom some 315 have been released from U.S. custody. More than a dozen of those, the president added, are known to have returned to the battlefield, suggesting that, if anything, the procedures are too lenient.
In his speech yesterday President Bush described how CIA interrogation of terrorists held overseas has saved American lives. It's worth quoting at length:
Bush added: "I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world: The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it--and I will not authorize it."
Some administration critics have argued (a) that any harsh interrogation amounts to torture, and (b) that torture cannot yield useful intelligence. These claims cannot both be true. I accept the president's assurances that the techniques the CIA used did not amount to torture--but if you disagree, then you at least have to admit "torture" works.
Opponents of aggressive questioning, then, are willing to sacrifice the lives of American civilians, including women and children, for the sake of their own moral vanity. As a practical matter, they are also willing to sacrifice the civil liberties they claim to cherish. For as we have argued many times, it is highly unlikely that our current regime of civil liberties can survive another attack on the scale of 9/11.
And how many suspects were tortured with wateboarding, dogs, menstrual blood, mock execution of themselves and others that DIDN'T turn up any info, or turned up infor that was pure up-the-wrong-tree BS?
"Moral vanity."
I guess that is what amoral people call principles these days.
Only an idiot would think that move was not prompted by the Supreme Court ruling.Now that Bush has done exactly what the Times demanded, the paper accuses him of acting with a "phony" urgency. He just can't win with these guys.
Par for the course.
I am fully willing to sacrifice American lives for the principles this nation was founded on, as I was and am willing to sacrifice my own for those same principles.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died for those principles already. Are we any better than they?
We sacrifice tens of thousands of American lives EVERY YEAR in the name of convenience in the form of automobile traffic deaths.
Does this mean we care more about cars than principles?
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