Bush to veto Senate ban on waterboarding »
Posted By berkeley 8 months ago in NewsUS President George W. Bush said Thursday he plans to veto legislation passed by the Senate to bar the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods including waterboarding. "The reason I'm vetoing the bill -- first of all, we have said that whatever we do ... will be legal," Bush said in an interview with the BBC.
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Comments So Far: 47
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IcCaRus8 months ago
FTA
"The reason I'm vetoing the bill -- first of all, we have said that whatever we do ... will be legal," Bush said in an interview with the BBC."
thats like Henry VIII
"i dont love Katherine, i want to divorce her so i can marry that hottie Anne Boleyn"
"but sire, the church forbids divorce, the pope will never stand for it"
"well screw the pope, ill start my own religion."
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gamahuche8 months ago
I listened to that interview when it was broadcast. He actually surprised me by speaking much more lucidly than usual and without any "mis-speaks" but his argument about the legality of waterboarding was self-servingly tautologous. In response to some pressure from the interviewer he kept repeating his new phrase "within the law" without ever explaining what he meant by that. Expect to hear it again! Its obviously the new cliche..
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MonkeyBiz8 months ago
He is espousing the theory of the "Unitary Executive." According to this theory, first adopted by Nixon, anything a president does is "within the law" in the performance of his war duties as Commander-in-Chief, and he is not bound by any laws that he feels interferes with those duties. Very broad, very scary, very neocon, very un-American.
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tryingtofindmyway8 months ago
The American public is largely a collection of weak-kneed, easily led sheep who haven't the foggiest notion of a clue as to the means necessary to protect their way of life. Water-boarding isn't cruel and unusual torture. Sleep deprivation isn't cruel and unusual torture. Sweatboxes aren't cruel and unusual torture. Marine hazing rituals are every bit as and more "torturous" than these measures. Even if torture methods truly were brutal, torturing one or a few persons for information that might save thousands or millions is utterly worth it. But the ******-ant public and media only see that poor helpless people are being "tortured" by the big bad USA, little knowing that such methods can play a key role in keeping them safe on a day to day basis, so that they can have the luxury of pretending to have a clue and express their opinion about the real world. Defending civilians in a cruel world sometimes requires "cruel" methods, get over it.
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disraeli8 months ago
Water boarding is torture, plain and simple. No amount of legalistic parsing of words and distortion can change that. Your description is as convoluted as your thinking "waterboarding isn't cruel and unusual torture". What is it then, kind and typical torture? It is torture, which by it's very definition is cruel. It is also unusual, at least in the civilized world, a broad grouping which may now exclude the United States.
You claim no sympathy for those tortured. Most of these people have not been found guilty of anything yet, they have not been tried or convicted and yet you would torture them anyhow for the greater good of protecting the USA. Why would anyone want to defend your version of the USA, a place where torture is not "cruel and unusual" and where innocence is no bar to indefinite detention or torture.
You claim "real world" exigencies as justification. Crap - simple minded barbarity is closer to the mark.
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Dionys8 months ago
It's also interesting that someone so gung-ho to torture and kill people doesn't examine every single study done by intelligence officers and programs around the world on torture. The simple fact is that it never produces any useful or discriminatory intelligence. This is the end result of every single examination of torture from every angle.
When the US engages in the very crimes it says it dislikes in other countries it makes the US a hypocritical nation of torturing killers who will use the "ends" (in this case fake ends) to justify the means.
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gamahuche8 months ago
On this topic I think you've definitely lost your way, trying!
If the purpose is to get accurate information its completely pointless to use techniques which will push people to say whatever they believe that their persecutors want to hear in order to get them to stop.
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Candida8 months ago
tryingtofindmyway: "Even if torture methods truly were brutal, torturing one or a few persons for information that might save thousands or millions is utterly worth it."
Even if you yourself or your innocent child were among those few who are being tortured? Why do you assume that those who are being tortured hold the key to the safety of millions? They are suspects and might be completely innocent.
You know what? If that's the price of my safety, I don't want it. Nobody should be tortured in my name.
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tryingtofindmyway8 months ago
Like I said: the American public is a collection of weak-kneed, easily led sheep who have little connection to the brutal real world. Dionys, your studies don't hold water by any stretch of the imagination. The only reason any form of torture is tolerated in government practice is that is works, even though allowing it is something akin to political suicide. Disraeli, I've experienced far worse "torture" in the armed forces. The "torture" methods that the U.S. uses cause no lasting physical harm, so your argument is a pathetic cop-out. Donald, that's just a cheap shot. I don't hurt innocent kids under any circumstance, and I'd put a major "hurtin" on anyone I catch doing so. Collateral damage is part of national defense. Innocents will be put through this very minor torture. It's the price of living in an evil world folks. I acknowledge it's not a nice reality, but it is a reality nevertheless.
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DrBenway8 months ago
Man, if I were you... I'd move to a country that's more in line with how you think things should be run. There are a lot of countries that are totally OK on the issue of torture, and would warmly embrace you way of thinking.
Obviously you're in the wrong place, and I would never want to be somewhere I didn't feel wanted.
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bluetexasvalley8 months ago
If there's nothing wrong with waterboarding, why was it, after WWII, WE hanged two Japanese for using it?
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amazed8 months ago
I do not condone torturing. I would like to think that our armed forces and our CIA and FBI would never engage in such tactics.
However (and this is a HUGE however...)
If those we are interrogating know the limits to which our interrogators are allowed to go to extract answers, if those we are interrogating know that any threat of torture is now off the table, if they know that they are at the outside limits of what the interrogators can do, it is easier to hang on. The fear of torture is often more powerful than the torture itself.
Are we just supposed to ask these suspected terrorists what they know in a sweet, polite voice and then accept it when they claim to know nothing?
That is just foolishness. Unofficially, we should not torture -- officially, we should never rule it out.
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Candida8 months ago
amazed: "if those we are interrogating know that any threat of torture is now off the table, if they know that they are at the outside limits of what the interrogators can do, it is easier to hang on."
Torture has been off the table ever since the Geneva conventions have been signed - well, at least for civilized nations, of which the US is no longer a member.
What you are suggesting is ridiculous. You are suggesting that torture should be legal, but should not be used in real life. Don't you realize that anything that is not outlawed can be done and is done by someone somewhere sometime? Do you want to rely on the goodwill of the CIA officers? Or are you suggesting that some secret laws should take care of the issue, laws that nobody knows about?
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MonkeyBiz8 months ago
Amazed
Your simplistic reasoning indicates a complete lack of understanding of interrogation methods. Not torturing doesn't necessarily mean "sweet and polite" tactics. There are a slew of different methods and pyscological ploys that are proven to be effective. If you want accurate info, torture is not one of the ways to get it.
Torture may make the torturers feel they are avenging evils and wrongs, but that is all it is. If vengence through torture is what you seek, sign up quick, there is less than a year left to get in your licks.
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Amazing18 months ago
BS! That's what I say to Bush's statement that he has never done anything illegal. TOTAL BS!!!
Torture is illegal. Waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding has been used against people captured and held by the United States. Therefore, it is illegal and Bush's statement is BS! And McCain is trying to get the same BS to float.
How about if they tried something truly different. Like putting the captives in truly lovely accomodations and showing them nothing but Bambi type movies and feeding them good food in keeping with their faith. After a while they might come around to thinking maybe we aren't so bad and start spilling their guts. It certainly is worth a try and has to be at least as successful as torture.
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Locky128 months ago
We rarely use this tactic. I have no sympathy for the THREE, that's THREE $cumbag$ that were waterboarded. Why should we permanently remove this weapon from our arsenal? (These THREE people are the same that are going to be executed I might add).
God Bless this president. I am glad the shortsighted majority of the posters on this website aren't running this country.
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Dionys8 months ago
It seems you're the only shortsighted one here. If you look back into history, even recent history, you will see that every single examination of torture as a means for discovering discriminatory intelligence shows that it is a conclusive failure.
Add to this the fact that as a torturing nation our soldiers will be put into harms way when other countries determine if they should in turn torture Americans. For whatever reason.
God bless the president? Not likely. Bush is about as far from being a Christian as most modern evangelicals -- that is to say they in no way imitate Christ. He is a genocidal, murdering ****** for big Oil and while God may be forgiving, that's a whole lot of forgivness to assume.
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gamahuche8 months ago
And I'm incredibly glad that you aren't running your country, Locky, though you may be less innane than the farting champ of a President that you have.
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donald518 months ago
Locky, you fool, just because only three tapes were revealed as destroyed in no way means there was only 3 cases of the use of waterboarding. No sane person should suck up only the governments position as gospel, like you do!
How about all those foreign nationals with lawsuits against Rummy and Dumya for torture in foreign prisons... not in your list!
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fsev418 months ago
Not only that but Locky has them being executed and they haven't even faced their "military tribunal" yet. You have to wonder if all of these bushbots have bought land in Paraguay so that they can follow their "God" there when he goes.
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gamahuche8 months ago
They contract out lots of this "work" and its done in oubliettes in countries like Egypt and former Communist republics like Azerbaijan.
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Ratskii8 months ago
Right is right and wrong is wrong. Whatever your justification, torture is evil.
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MonkeyBiz8 months ago
Torture is a war crime. We have prosecuted others for it. We have signed treaties forswearing it.
That our own Commander-in-Chief claims it is legal is incomprehensible to me. It is equally incredible that there is even a debate about it. There will come a reckoning for the criminals in our government that have sacrificed our national morality and reputation on the altar of fear. Shame on you senseless sheeple that support these atrocities, shame on us for not being more vocally opposed to it.
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