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UN Officials Demand Prosecutions for US Torture

It is a fact that we did more than waterboard people. It is also a fact that torture has a tendency to produce unreliable information. Again that is not to say that it always produces unreliable information, but rather that it has a tendency to produce unreliable information. There is much to back that up. It is also a fact that terrorists frequently use torture as a matter of routine policy.

This report was a partisan political hatchet job that cherry picked information and didn't allow for interrogation of the leaders who authorized it. Yours is speculation which normally for liberals means speculation means facts especially when they are damaging to the security of this country. I am just glad you aren't in position of authority or leadership called on to make extremely difficult situations that affects lives.
 
Nonsense on stilts. Like other crimes, rape is mostly the subject of state law, not federal. In any case, it should be obvious that the U.S. Department of Justice, as part of the Executive Branch, would have no authority to amend or repeal any law enacted by Congress--including any law against rape.

Because torture is a crime under section 2340 of the U.S. Code and other federal law, it could never be "legal," regardless of the reasons for engaging in it.


I guess that means "no, I would not consider rape to be legal even if a High Government Official declared it to be". Thanks for the straight answer.

BUT, it seems (please correct me if I'm wrong) that you consider torture to be legal as long as it's done for reasons named by a High Government Official.

Under which Title of the USC is the Section 2340 you describe?
 
Capitalization of the whole word is a very persuasive argument in your book, Sir? That would certainly correspond nicely to your understanding of language and Newspeak.

In beating around the bush to NOT use the word 'torture' (Love them EIT!!), it appears the media and perhaps yourself are the ones engaging in Newspeak....;)
 
In beating around the bush to NOT use the word 'torture' (Love them EIT!!), it appears the media and perhaps yourself are the ones engaging in Newspeak....;)

It is astounding how audaciously some activists are in spreading lies. And anyone who is not willing to be exact is a liar you know?
Actually, you see, the use of the "T" word for things that are not torture is a type of Newspeak in redefining an emotion loaded word and trying to slip it into the hearts and minds of the people that have not looked into the thing very carefully and is so rather disgusting. It may suit certain agendas and be helpful as propaganda often is, when lying is the only way of projecting ones ideas, but it also does a lot of damage. It especially harms the human rights agenda and will slow justice by making it easier to laugh about the stupidity and/or dishonesty of the accusing moralizers that cannot even be straight, when things are important.
 
Some intelligent people here may want to study what U.S. law on torture actually is, instead of relying on the say-so of various leftist dopes who resent this country. Here is a very thorough, detailed memorandum on this subject prepared for the Attorney General at the time by the Office of Legal Counsel. There are at least 125,000 pages of documents on different aspects of the war on jihadists in the archive this one comes from. Let me know if the link doesn't work.


http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/70964/00355_020801_001display.pdf
 
The Justice Department did not say that in regards to the EIT methods.
And as such, there will be no prosecutions.

There mistake. An unwillingness to prosecute is not equal to it not being illegal.
 
Look, suggest you get this post published in the fiction category. You post opinions as fact and ignore that this report didn't interview key leaders who authorized enhanced interrogation so you have no idea what you are talking about or if in this case enhanced interrogation worked. You call waterboarding torture and I disagree as would Bin Laden today as that is how he was captured and killed.

I'm sorry, but your willing suspension of disbelieve doesn't make these facts fiction.
 
Some intelligent people here may want to study what U.S. law on torture actually is, instead of relying on the say-so of various leftist dopes who resent this country. Here is a very thorough, detailed memorandum on this subject prepared for the Attorney General at the time by the Office of Legal Counsel. There are at least 125,000 pages of documents on different aspects of the war on jihadists in the archive this one comes from. Let me know if the link doesn't work.


http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/70964/00355_020801_001display.pdf

The left's idea of the 'War on Terror' is to attack the American police and the CIA while removing the military from the areas known to be Islamic trouble spots..We'll soon see the consequences of this craziness when the war comes to the US in a much more serious way. No world power can remain safe and stupid simultaneously.

This is the same leadership that cannot protect the country's borders but feel they can control the earth's atmosphere. We are witnessing madness writ large.
 
There mistake. An unwillingness to prosecute is not equal to it not being illegal.

Do we have an elected government or not? We are not members of the ICC, nor do we buckle to UN demands...You must really dream of One World Government Joe.
 
It is astounding how audaciously some activists are in spreading lies. And anyone who is not willing to be exact is a liar you know?
Actually, you see, the use of the "T" word for things that are not torture is a type of Newspeak in redefining an emotion loaded word and trying to slip it into the hearts and minds of the people that have not looked into the thing very carefully and is so rather disgusting. It may suit certain agendas and be helpful as propaganda often is, when lying is the only way of projecting ones ideas, but it also does a lot of damage. It especially harms the human rights agenda and will slow justice by making it easier to laugh about the stupidity and/or dishonesty of the accusing moralizers that cannot even be straight, when things are important.

No sir. By using other words to describe torture, one employs a euphemism. That is what you, Dubya, Dick and a host of others do.

As for me, I recognize a euphemism when I see one, and I completely understand why a person uses one. In this case to help rationalize criminal actions so that they appear harmless. "Oh, we didn't really torture the man, we merely interrogated him in an enhanced manner."

Newspeak, which you defend and employ, is really nothing but euphemisms.

They must employ euphemisms to disguise and deceive those gullible enough to not understand what's happening.

Torture is illegal and immoral. Those who condone it are pathetic.
 
No sir. By using other words to describe torture, one employs a euphemism. That is what you, Dubya, Dick and a host of others do.

As for me, I recognize a euphemism when I see one, and I completely understand why a person uses one. In this case to help rationalize criminal actions so that they appear harmless. "Oh, we didn't really torture the man, we merely interrogated him in an enhanced manner."

Newspeak, which you defend and employ, is really nothing but euphemisms.

They must employ euphemisms to disguise and deceive those gullible enough to not understand what's happening.

Torture is illegal and immoral. Those who condone it are pathetic.

Thing is that there are continua between the soft questioning and skinning alive as well as between the warm prison apartment and the damp, cold oublier high in the dungeon wall. Anyone that says it is a euphemism to establish the exact point on the scale of a given action is dishonest, wants to puff up their their feeling of importance by talking big or just has not given enough serious thought to the matter to understand, what they are talking about. Personally, I think that talking that way is rather disgusting and disqualifies the speaker if not utterly then at least in his thoughts to this theme.
 
Thing is that there are continua between the soft questioning and skinning alive as well as between the warm prison apartment and the damp, cold oublier high in the dungeon wall. Anyone that says it is a euphemism to establish the exact point on the scale of a given action is dishonest, wants to puff up their their feeling of importance by talking big or just has not given enough serious thought to the matter to understand, what they are talking about. Personally, I think that talking that way is rather disgusting and disqualifies the speaker if not utterly then at least in his thoughts to this theme.

It should be obvious to any adult who is not an idiot that when several of the jihadist lice who murdered almost three thousand people in their conspiracy to decapitate the government of the U.S. were captured, and when there was reason to suspect some of their pals might try something even worse at any time, and murder many more thousands of Americans, it was vital to extract any information they might have--and fast. It should be just as obvious that in doing that, we would want to use as much coercion as possible short of violating any U.S. laws, using methods designed to get results quickly.

Some people who resent this country are fond of claiming that the waterboarding technique, or some of the other enhanced interrogation techniques that were approved for use, constituted torture, which is prohibited under U.S. laws. Their problem is that the very fine legal scholars who studied that question very thoroughly concluded none of the techniques was torture, and so advised the officials directing the interrogations. Watching movies by Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, or listening to the drivel of some late-night TV comedian, or parroting the tripe some degenerate dope with green hair and a nose ring scribbled in some urban throwaway paper, hasn't given the people who resent this country enough game to make anything even approaching a real legal argument that anyone ever authorized the use of torture. The best they can do is jabber nonsense and make emotional accusations.

In some cases, running down this country and encouraging sympathy for its enemies is not just the product of ignorance, but something more sinister. This is a theme of a very fine book by Andy McCarthy, who helped prosecute and convict Abdel "The Blind Sheikh" Rahman for his part in the conspiracy to blow up the World Trade Center the first time, in 1993. The title is "The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America."
 
It should be obvious to any adult who is not an idiot that when several of the jihadist lice who murdered almost three thousand people in their conspiracy to decapitate the government of the U.S. were captured, and when there was reason to suspect some of their pals might try something even worse at any time, and murder many more thousands of Americans, it was vital to extract any information they might have--and fast. It should be just as obvious that in doing that, we would want to use as much coercion as possible short of violating any U.S. laws, using methods designed to get results quickly.

Some people who resent this country are fond of claiming that the waterboarding technique, or some of the other enhanced interrogation techniques that were approved for use, constituted torture, which is prohibited under U.S. laws. Their problem is that the very fine legal scholars who studied that question very thoroughly concluded none of the techniques was torture, and so advised the officials directing the interrogations. Watching movies by Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, or listening to the drivel of some late-night TV comedian, or parroting the tripe some degenerate dope with green hair and a nose ring scribbled in some urban throwaway paper, hasn't given the people who resent this country enough game to make anything even approaching a real legal argument that anyone ever authorized the use of torture. The best they can do is jabber nonsense and make emotional accusations.

In some cases, running down this country and encouraging sympathy for its enemies is not just the product of ignorance, but something more sinister. This is a theme of a very fine book by Andy McCarthy, who helped prosecute and convict Abdel "The Blind Sheikh" Rahman for his part in the conspiracy to blow up the World Trade Center the first time, in 1993. The title is "The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America."

I am mostly with you there. But I do not think we will be able to nor should avoid doing a more precise definition of where torture begins. In that respect we should be thankful to the idiots.
 
I am mostly with you there. But I do not think we will be able to nor should avoid doing a more precise definition of where torture begins. In that respect we should be thankful to the idiots.

I think the OLC memos on the subject made very clear, in great detail, what the crime of torture consists of under U.S. law. I can't imagine how it could have been defined more precisely. Torture is a specific intent crime, and that is probably the biggest stumbling block for people who assert that any of the approved enhanced interrogation techniques was torture.
 
Do we have an elected government or not? We are not members of the ICC, nor do we buckle to UN demands...You must really dream of One World Government Joe.

Again, another strawman. I said we, our government, should have prosecuted them. I didn't say a thing about the UN. For me the issue is the law, our law. Our leaders broke it.
 
Again, another strawman. I said we, our government, should have prosecuted them. I didn't say a thing about the UN. For me the issue is the law, our law. Our leaders broke it.

Our legal system said our leaders didn't break the law and you seem to relying on a partisan hatchet job report that didn't even allow the defense to be interviewed. I call that typical liberalism.
 
Our legal system said our leaders didn't break the law and you seem to relying on a partisan hatchet job report that didn't even allow the defense to be interviewed. I call that typical liberalism.

No, they didn't really answer that question. Sorry.
 
No, they didn't really answer that question. Sorry.

Really?

In March 2003, John Yoo, the acting Office of Legal Counsel, issued a fourth memo to the General Counsel of DOD, concluding his legal opinion by saying that federal laws related to torture and other abuse did not apply to interrogations overseas, five days before the March 19, 2003 invasion of Iraq. The legal opinions were withdrawn by Jack Goldsmith of the OLC in June 2004 but reaffirmed by the succeeding head of the OLC in December 2004.[14][15] During the presidency of George W. Bush, U.S. government officials at various times said they did not believe waterboarding to be a form of torture
.
 
Meaningless. They did not face a court. This was just someone trying to excuse the law breaking.

Your opinion noted, the CIA reacted to Justice Department opinions which is all that is required. It is pretty easy for people like you to be a Monday Morning QB when their family or loved ones aren't in any danger. Wonder what techniques you would authorize if it was learned that a nuclear device was located somewhere in your town and a captured terrorist knew the whereabouts?
 
Your opinion noted, the CIA reacted to Justice Department opinions which is all that is required. It is pretty easy for people like you to be a Monday Morning QB when their family or loved ones aren't in any danger. Wonder what techniques you would authorize if it was learned that a nuclear device was located somewhere in your town and a captured terrorist knew the whereabouts?

Yeah, how did you like their opinion that Obama could deal with illegals outside of congress?
 
Why would rhey face a court if they didn't commit a crime?

They did commit a crime. Unwillingness to prosecute is not evidence of a crime not being committed.
 
Yeah, how did you like their opinion that Obama could deal with illegals outside of congress?

Congress didn't seem to have a problem with it but then again I haven't seen the law that prevents enhanced interrogation outside of the United States but I have seen immigration laws that Obama violated.
 
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