When Daniel Pearl was decapitated...did they call that torture or were they interigating him?

Or you could all come down to Pioneer Courthouse on Thursdays at noon and join in our impeach Jay Bybee for conspiracy to commit torture demo.

* United States Code o TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE + PART I - CRIMES # CHAPTER 113C - TORTURE U.S. Code as of: 01/19/04 Section 2340A. Torture (a) Offense. - Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life. (b) Jurisdiction. - There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if - (1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or (2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender. (c) Conspiracy. - A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

"I think people responsible for illegal torture should be held truly accountable."

Steve, All torture is illegal.

When Daniel Pearl was decapitated...did they call that torture or were they interigating him?

Actually, it IS called murder.

Seriously? You think an attorney who is hired to give his personal legal opinion (of which he is entitled to express according to the First Amendment and common sense) should be prosecuted?! Do you think John Yoo actually committed torture? No. He did not. Advocating an act is NOT the same as committing that act.

As for prosecuting Bush et al: Do you really want to open that can of worms? Well then just wait until a pro-life administration takes over and prosecutes Mr. Obama and his administration for torture and crimes against the unborn (remember Mr. Obama is now allowing federal funding of international abortions). Imagine the kind of chaos that will ensue when each subsequent administration forces its own morals on the policymakers who came before. That is a very dangerous policy to be advocating.

As for prosecuting Bush et al: Do you really want to open that can of worms?

YOUR DAMN RIGHT I DO

M

Try sipping on a glass of wine before typing.

BTW, didn't we just have 8 years of a "pro-life administration" and WTF did they do for you, not a damn thing.

Also, just to enlighten your troglodyte brain, abortion is legal in the United States of America. What President Obama (remember, you respect the office even if you don't respect the man)is allowing is legal and what the Bush administration did was considered a crime.

STFU. You are pissing me off!

I'm not sure to what extent attorneys should be criminally prosecuted for telling a criminal his planned actions are legal. I mean, if a guy goes into an attorney's office and says "How can I kill my wife legally?" and the attorney tells him "it's legal if you sedate her with sleeping pills and then drown her in the bathtub, as long as you've got a phone next to you to call 911 if you change your mind" -- should the attorney be held criminally liable as an accomplice to murder if the guy acts on it? Obviously, he should face major malpractice liability and probably be disbarred -- but thrown in prison? After all, he didn't tell the guy, "go kill your wife" or do anything to help carry it out. He just gave atrociously wrong legal advice when he said "you can do this."

As for the public officials who directed the torture, or gave orders freeing their underlings to do it ... yeah, they should be held criminally responsible, and that should go all the way to the top.

As for prosecuting Bush et al: Do you really want to open that can of worms?

If Bush et al committed criminal acts, then YES! YES! YES! PROSECUTE THEM TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW!!! If a President can't be prosecuted for criminal actions, it puts EVERY president above the law. If means we're no longer a country under rule of law, we're under an elected monarch who complies with the law only to the extent that he feels like it.

That nonsense about some future president prosecuting Obama for crimes against the unborn and "each subsequent administration forces its own morals on the policymakers who came before" is so stupid on so many levels I can't even figure out where to start. So I'll skip it and boil it down to simple terms (even though I suspect this will be over your head)

THIS IS ABOUT CRIMES, NOT POLICY!!!!!

Bush administration officials are accused of BREAKING THE LAW, NOT policy choices that other people disagree with. Neither the President nor anyone else should be allowed to break the law with impunity.

This isn't rocket science. If Obama or anyone in his administration BREAKS THE LAW, he absolutely should be prosecuted for it.

"Seriously? You think an attorney who is hired to give his personal legal opinion (of which he is entitled to express according to the First Amendment and common sense) should be prosecuted?! Do you think John Yoo actually committed torture? No. He did not. Advocating an act is NOT the same as committing that act."

C Mitchell, I suggest you read Jane Mayer's book THE DARK SIDE.

If, after finishing it (the audio book is very good if you don't have time to read) you believe there was no wrong doing, fine--you are entitled to your opinion.

But the idea that on Jan. 20 any actions of a previous presidency become immune from investigation is not something I support.

Seriously? You think an attorney who is hired to give his personal legal opinion (of which he is entitled to express according to the First Amendment and common sense) should be prosecuted?! Do you think John Yoo actually committed torture? No. He did not. Advocating an act is NOT the same as committing that act.

There is probably more bullshit written about the Second Amendment than any other. The First Amendment must be a close second in this unsavory category. The First Amendment does not give you a right to say anything and everything. There are several proscriptions. And there are consequences for saying the wrong thing. If you think you can say anything you want, try threatening a federal employee or making a joke about a bomb when you check through security at the airport. Sit in on a congressional hearing and call the committee members some epithet. No matter how true that name calling may be, you'll most likely soon learn the hard way the First Amendment is no help.

Or check the history of the Nuremberg Trials and note that Jules Streicher was sentenced to death for publishing a racist rag attacking the Jews. Apparently he never killed anyone, but he followed others up the steps to the gallows for inciting others to do the killing.

As for the Obama administration, it looks like change is going to be very limited and a lot of that will be smoke and mirrors.

The Bybee Torture protest at Pioneer Courthouse is every Thursday at noon - 2:00 The courthouse where the protest happens is the 9th circuit court for this region.

Here is a link to the calendar post on portland indy media, announcing the vigil

http://tinyurl.com/dyzqe7

How does torture "by our country" make you feel? Come join us, in public and let it be known that America should not be condoning torture. Rise Up & Say No! Rise Up & Demand Justice & Dignity

when attorneys "re-write" and "write in" loopholes... and write "policy" and "define law" to the extent that they are "breaking the law" and are circumventing the "intention of the law" then they are "acting criminal"

...to all those that "don't care" or don't want to "go there" you are complicate. The lawyers "made it happen" instead of giving sound lawful advise they gave the (sic) advise that Mr Darrkside wanted them to write.

Waterboarding, slamming heads against the walls, stress position's, etc... this is SICK stuff. And it did the US no good.

When citizens back up their deranged leaders by encouraging and accepting torture practices and then brow beat any one who protests the atrocities, it shows these folks in their true light. They will protect those that are abusing other human beings. How sad and disgusting that they advocate for torture instead of life and respect.

Dang. I hit a sore spot didn't I? Lets stay civil people! I took a class in law school that discussed (in depth) the torture memos. My professor was vehemently opposed to torture, some students were ok with it (end justifies the means). But after reading all of the sources we all ended up agreeing that this is a pretty gray area of law and that there are reasonable arguments for both sides, although many felt strongly about its moral implications). I never settled the issue in my mind and still have not. Legally, I think the memos fall in a gray area. Morally, I don't like torture. But legally, I understand the torture memos and think they have reasonable footing overall. I have read some serious law review articles on the subject and since so many attorneys fall on various sides of the argument, I do not think you can easily classify this as a criminal act. Since this is a legally gray area, it would be wrong to prosecute someone for these actions. Prosecution now would be purely out of bitterness and pretense of having the moral high ground. It might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but two wrongs don't make a right.

I never said that a President and his administration should be completely immune from subsequent prosecution. But they should be safe from prosecution for policy decisions that fall within a legally gray area (especially, if they thought they were acting within the law).

Without a legally clear line, I think that only leaves you with the moral argument (which is why I brought up the subsequent pro-life administration analogy). As I already explained, it is dangerous policy to prosecute on the basis of morality alone, lest you lose the rule of law in the tyranny of the majority and to the "clamor of the times." Ex post facto laws are illegal in the US and most states because most people recognize them as dangerous. The Nuremberg trials were extremely controversial for this reason. The only reason that I can personally look favorably on them is because the crimes committed by the Nazis were so extremely horrendous that the world still shudders at their memory.

As for the First Amendment, I know the exceptions (although I would not be so foolish as to call myself an expert). And I don't think that the torture memos fit under any of them. Although I would enjoy reading a legal argument to the contrary. (I could change my opinion about this issue). You make the argument about which one it fits under (e.g., obscenity, fighting words, etc.) and I will respond.

Peace.

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I despise the using of the "gray area for torture" then skirting the laws to say "well this is a gray area" .... and "its not so clear, therfore its ok that we do as we are"

Common sense and Geneva Conventions, and International laws about human rights arent gray. Those lawyers knew they were manipulating the law.

I think people who try (as the Bush administration did) to go into the "gray area" may (will) regret it.

Torture turns my stomach and I will use all my energy to stop it.... For too many people seem to think they can go into the so called gray area and thus they try to create a legal "gray-buffer" so they can torture others with (confusing / unsure / secret laws) impunity....

heh...its all a bunch of spin and BS!

Just because its deemed legal its OK? Not with me, "torture is unacceptable" no matter how high of a position or how many law degrees you have. Putting lipstick on a pig, then saying its fine because "it was done in a gray" area still looks like a pig to me.

Its black and white not gray! And if you really look at that gray ...you will see its blood red now.

Let's be clear here: there is no doubt whatsoever that the Bush Administration explicitly authorized the use of torture against detainees. GW said many times, on the record, that "America does not torture." He knew this was untrue. Techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, bodily injury, humiliation -- all were explicitly permitted for a time by the Bush Administration, which either denied that the activities were going on or tried to argue they were not exactly torture. The Geneva Convention prohibits the use of all the above interrogation "techniques." The Bush Administration excused its activities by creating a special class of prisoner, which it argued was not covered under the Geneva Convention. Yoo's infamous memo reasoned that anything short of inflicting a mortal injury was OK for this class of prisoner and the Bush Administration forged its policy for a time based on this interpretation.

Torture is the act of inflicting excruciating pain, especially as a means of punishment or coercion. Our government would howl in protest if one of its citizens, accused of some crime overseas, heinous or not, were to be tortured by a foreign power.

The Bush Administration has permanently and irrevocably tarnished the USA's reputation. We're no better than our worst enemies. Our soldiers are put at greater risk. We no longer own the moral high ground (if we ever did). We became one of the bad guys, the bullying, spoiled superpower.

What I want to see more than anything else is an open and honest revelation of what we did. Obama is doing this. I would love to see Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Yoo, and Bush himself called to account for their actions and made to apologize. I doubt that will happen. Necessary for me, though, is this public accounting of a despicable policy I hope will never again be embraced by our government.

Torture does not work. The USA should never torture.

What is the legal term for conspiring to circumvent the law by attempting to change the law to cover an illegal act? I can't recall if I ever knew the word(s) but I have my own ideas for what to call it anyway. Among them is "criminal".
Considering that in these cases the subject matter is one of the most heinous crimes on the international and national lawbooks, prosecution should not be a matter for debate but swift implementation. Besides, sentencing is where the mitigation is brought forward, not before the trial. None of those who furthered the torture program should be without stain on their records no matter how light their sentences in mitigation for having "only" helped legally justify the torture program.
The fact that this is even coming up, that torture ever came up at all as a matter for debate and implementation, is still amazing to me. Expert after expert, study after study show torture does not work but even if they showed it did torture is still such a moral and philosophical negative that anything gained by it's use has too high a price to be worth it.

If they truly did nothing wrong, why would they fear an ethics investigation? This makes it look like they knew they did something wrong and don't want to be found out!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/05/AR2009050502219.html?hpid=topnews

Bush Officials Try to Alter Ethics Report Focus Is Approval of Harsh Interrogations

By Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Former Bush administration officials have launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften an ethics report criticizing lawyers who blessed harsh detainee interrogation tactics, according to two sources familiar with the efforts.

Speaking of torture, and GOP idiocy, nice piece from the Salem News Service blasting Boquist and Atkinson:

http://salem-news.com/articles/may052009/iran_slander_5-5-09.php

Too bad only three Democrats had the sense not to embrace this nonsense.

@Mad Mal: The term you're looking for is "compounding."

Right on steve...i've always wanted to be in the same facebook group as khalid sheik mohammed...thanks for giving us all a shot at that! (Obama is allowing these detainees access to facebook now, right??)

Steve, did you ever consider maybe spending a little more time supporting the prosecution of the war on terror and a little less time supporting the prosecution of US government officials and lawyers for helping protect us from these terrorist acts? I know 9/11 was a few years back now...but for those of us who actually care about the thousands of Americans we lost that day...I am a lot more concerned about uncovering as much information as we need to help prevent those attacks in the future..and a lot less concerned about reading these animals their rights and giving them a fresh cup of coffee in the morning. I'm glad Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded...and I'm grateful for the wealth of information about al qaeda that those enhanced interrogations produced....the guys who helped uncover that information are heroes to this country.

So go ahead and burn all the flags you want to, spit on all the soldiers that you want to...but just remember that you owe every freedom that you have to the guys who help keep this country safe....you're a smart enough guy steve, you should know better than this by now.

And yes, for the record..taking the position that you have on this issue does in fact make you unpatriotic...not that it bothers you anyway...

JJ,

In Vietnam (where I served 1968-69) we were given a 3x5 "Geneva" card which gave us very clear instruction on the treatment of captives. This is the text (bold mine):

The front

The enemy in your hands As a member of the US military forces, you will comply with the Geneva Prisoner of War Conventions of 1949 to which your country adheres. Under these convnetions:

You can and will

Disarm your prisoner Immediatley search him thoroughly Require him to be silent Guard him carefully Take him to a place designated by your commander

You cannot and must not

Mistreat your prisoner Humiliate or degrade him Take any of his personal effect which do not have significant military value Refuse him medical treatment if required and available

The back 1. handle him firmly, promptly, but humanely The captive in your hands must be disarmed, searched, secured and watched. But he must also be treated at all times as a human being. He must not be tortured, killed,mutilated, or degraded, even if he refuses to talk. If the captive is a women, treat her with all respect due her sex.

1. Take the captive quickly to security. As soon as possible evacuate the captive to a place of safety and interrogation designated by your commander. Military documents taken from the captive are also sent to the interrogators, but the captive will keep his personal equipment except his weapons.

2. Mistreatment of any captive is a criminal offense. Every soldier is personally responsible for the enemy in his hands. It is dishonorable and foolish to mistreat a captive. It is also a punishable offense. Not even a beaten enemy will surrender if he knows his captors wil torture or kill him. He will resist and make his capture more costly. Fair treatment of captives encourages the enemy to surrender.

3. Treat the sick and wounded captives as best you can. The captive saved may be an intelligence source. In any case he is a human being and must be treated like one. The soldier who ignores the sick and wounded degrades his uniform.

4. All persons in your hands, whether suspects, civilians, or combat captives, must be protected against violence, insult, curiosity, and reprisals of any kind.

Leave punishment to the courts and judges. The soldier shows his strength by his fairness, firmness, and humanity to the person in his hands.

In 1968, a picture of a US Army soldier waterboaring a VC captive was published, he was Court Martialed one month later. I would not go so far to claim that atrocities did not occur during the Vietnam war, they did on both sides. And that is why war is the enemy, it makes monsters out of normally civilized beings.

Since torture is a violation of treaties which we have signed and ratified in accordance with Article VI of the US Constitution, I can only come to the conclusion that it not Steve who is "unpatriotic", it is you who are "unpatriotic" because you have total disdain for the Constitution and the rule of law.

joe anybody said: Waterboarding, slamming heads against the walls, stress position's, etc... this is SICK stuff. And it did the US no good.

eh... I don't know about your last statement there. Regardless whether the 24/7 anti-Bush crowd chooses to recognize the fact or give Bush any credit for it, we've not had one significant terrorist incident on US soil since 9/11. And I think back on 9/12 most everybody thought (at least to themselves if not publicly) that there would be more to come.

Kevin quotes: "Naturally, the common people don't want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and endangering the country. It works the same in every country." -- Herman Goering Hitler's Reichsmarschall

It's interesting reading this quote in the context of what was going on in the early to mid-1930s with Winston Churchill (and a few other outcasts) warning of the rearming of Germany and, presciently, what was to come - and being almost universally denounced as a war-mongerer endangering the peace ('the peace' evidently having been more important to people back then than country, I guess)... for naturally, people don't want war.

Churchill assuredly had faults and certainly committed (or supported) policy mistakes during his time in government leadership positions (we're still dealing with some of them in the Mideast today) - but had his warnings about Germany been heeded, history from that time would likely be very different.

"Regardless whether the 24/7 anti-Bush crowd chooses to recognize the fact or give Bush any credit for it, we've not had one significant terrorist incident on US soil since 9/11."

This is one of the more pathetic and absurd defenses of Bush policies. Bush policies increased anti-American emotions and helped recruit hundreds of people who joined al-Qa'eda and other insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as our on-going military actions there are fueling anti-American violence. al-Qa'ida doesn't need to go to the trouble of attacking Americans in America when they have easier pickings in Iraq-nam and Afghanist-nam. There was a recent estimate that this increased hostility has cost more American lives than did 9/11. See "How Bush's Torture Helped al-Qaeda" at consortiumnews dot com for April 23.

Check Patrick Cockburn's column in today's counterpunch dot com and Ray McGovern's article at commondreams dot org for more on the Obama administration's efforts to cover up the Bush/Cheney torture program.

I think people responsible for illegal torture should be held truly accountable.

Steve, isn't there a legitimate distinction that can be made between those who provided legal opinions on torture, and those who actually approved it as a policy? As a former DOJ lawyer, I'm curious how far you think we should go with prosecuting lawyers who give bad advice about the legality of a policy decision.

When I worked at federal OMB, there was a case in the Clinton Administration where they wanted to approve a Vermont Medicaid program to expand drug coverage. The program was clearly illegal and violated the Medicaid statute, and as staff we said so. However, the Administration really wanted to approve the program for political reasons, so they asked White House and HHS counsel to "review" the issue and see if there was an argument that could be made. The lawyers wrote a strained legal opinion that gave cover to the approval, the Administration signed off on it, and we were promply sued. A couple years later the courts ruled that the program was clearly illegal and the Administration was wrong to approve it.

Steve, should those lawyers be prosecuted? What I like about this example is that morally the expansion of health care to Vermont residents is 180 degrees opposite from authorizing torture. But I'm not sure you can say that we should prosecute lawyers for one case if you're not willing to prosecute them for the other. What's the legal difference?

Just to be clear, I'm fully in support of the decision-makers being prosecuted for authorizing torture. If it was illegal (not a slam-dunk case in the US courts in my view) then prosecute those who made the decision. But I think there's a danger in prosecuting those who weighed in along the way.

"Matthew Alexander is the pseudonym for an American Air Force major who, through a series of skillful interrogations, secured the information that allowed the military to pinpoint al Zarqawi’s whereabouts and kill him. His book How to Break a Terrorist is a compelling account of the American military’s turn from highly coercive interrogation techniques, which proved consistently unproductive, to confidence-building approaches honed over decades in the American law-enforcement community, which achieved steady success."

You torture lovers might do well to read this book. From someone ACTUALLY there. Who ACTUALLY is an interrogator. Who ACTUALLY knows from what he speaks.

A. Scott,

I would investigate them for conspiracy to commit. See my above post.

So does A. S. think that lawyers have no responsibility for their advice when it will be used as part of political policy-making? Could he not know that it would be used to justify approval or disapproval of the policy in question when asked by an administration official, however it were couched? Do we not require ethical practices of them that would preclude complicity in subversion of law and international treaties?

I'm not versed in the intricacies of law, but I don't believe these people really believed they were merely straying into some 'grey area' of the law, or performing some thought-experiment in jurisprudence. These were the folks braying far and wide that the 9/11 attacks had changed the rules governing everything! They were egging the whole country to get behind their crusade to take out the unprecedentedly uncivil perpetrators, whatever it took, to go over to the 'Dark Side', if you will...

I think folks here are thinking too narrowly about the strategic importance of torture. I believe most players in the Cheney/Bush cabal understand the practical limitations of toture for information gathering (unless you need someone to "admit" that Iraqi agents plotted 9/11). I think the "24"/ticking time bomb mentality exists only on TV and the right-wing talk shows. So why torture, especially since there are so many negative reprecussions, both at home and with our allies? And why torture in such a high profile fashion, with hundreds of water-boardings/prisoner, graphic descriptions of procedure and consequences, numerous deaths, "film at 11"? I believe the answer is contained within the whole neo-con imperative: To insure a generation of neo-con domestic political domimance. To accomplish this end they (conveniently) chooose a criminal act and transformed it into a military vendetta, chose a significant adversary (Afghanistan wouldn't do, it was too easy, too much like Grenada), with a "foreign" cultur/religion (Islam fit that bill), centrally located, with internal dissension, and an easily demonized ruler. (Remember how Hans Blix insisted there were no WMD's in Iraq. And the UN refused to sanctify an invasion. The project was collapsing. Bush had to act fast.) And then they unleashed holy-hell on Iraq. "Shock and awe", blitz-kreig invasion, murderous aerial (hard to target, wink, wink) bombardment; infrastructure and cultural destruction; mass civilian casualties (collective punishment), lump all resistance into one category (terrorists) and high-visability treatment of anyone who gets captured (Abu Ghraib). Remember, it is only the US media and a few US allies who did't know or acknowledge fully what the US has been doing to prisoners since day one. Prisoner treatment was no secret anywhere else in the world, and certainly not in the Muslim and Arab world. The US has been conducting a full scale, text book terror campaign aimed at the neo-cons perceived and concocted enemies, here and abroad. (Who do you think all that wire tapping was aimed at. Certainly not Al Qaeda.) And, by the way, the Geneva Conventions ban nearly all the tactics employed by the Cheney/Bush team, so one wouldn't need to limit prosecution to just the instances of torture. Just my 2 centavos worth.

"Just my 2 centavos worth. "

jimbo: Your 2 centavos are worth a hell of a lot more than all the verbiage spouted by the neocons and their trolls who appear to be totally bereft of any sense of humanity. Unfortunately, they have brains with which to craft propaganda for the benefit of people who don't think - probably because they lack the capacity to do so - but they lack a soul or heart or whatever it is that makes people into civilized and humane beings.

So does A. S. think that lawyers have no responsibility for their advice when it will be used as part of political policy-making? . . . .Do we not require ethical practices of them that would preclude complicity in subversion of law and international treaties?

I think lawyers should be professionally responsible for their advice, but I'm not sure they should be criminally liable in this case. Disbarment may be appropriate in the torture case if in fact the lawyers failed to meet minimum thresholds of legal competence. But if we start with criminal prosecutions, I think that opens the door to a whole new danger where each new administration may start looking to see what/who it could prosecute from the past administration. My view is based on the fact that there is very little law that is truly black and white, and part of a government lawyer's job is to carry out the policy directives of elected officials, which OFTEN means crafting opinions that support the policy. It's not like there is a "right" answer in most cases of legality. It's much more subjective, and two very smart lawyers can argue vigorously over the legality of a given policy.

Again, I want to stress that those who made the decision should be investigated and possibly prosecuted. And my argument isn't meant to take away from the ethical and legal failures of these lawyers, which were profound. But nothing I've seen to date indicates that their actions were criminal.

Well now it's not torture charges. It's a Federal murder while torturing / attempting to torture case.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/51/sections/section_1111.html

Some of the cases might be 2nd degree, but not all of them...

"...United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and followup investigations.

In all, 98 detainees have died while in US hands. Thirty-four homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees — and as many as 12 — having been tortured to death, according to a 2006 Human Rights First report that underwrites the researcher’s posting. The causes of 48 more deaths remain uncertain....Perhaps the most macabre case occurred in Iraq, which was documented in a Human Rights First report in 2006.

“Nagem Sadoon Hatab… a 52-year-old Iraqi, was killed while in U.S. custody at a holding camp close to Nasiriyah,” the group wrote. “Although a U.S. Army medical examiner found that Hatab had died of strangulation, the evidence that would have been required to secure accountability for his death – Hatab’s body – was rendered unusable in court. Hatab’s internal organs were left exposed on an airport tarmac for hours; in the blistering Baghdad heat, the organs were destroyed; the throat bone that would have supported the Army medical examiner’s findings of strangulation was never found.”

In another graphic instance, a former Iraqi general was beaten by US forces and suffocated to death. The military officer charged in the death was given just 60 days house arrest.

“Abed Hamed Mowhoush [was] a former Iraqi general beaten over days by U.S. Army, CIA and other non-military forces, stuffed into a sleeping bag, wrapped with electrical cord, and suffocated to death,” Human Rights First writes. “In the recently concluded trial of a low-level military officer charged in Mowhoush’s death, the officer received a written reprimand, a fine, and 60 days with his movements limited to his work, home, and church.”...'

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/06/us-interrogators-killed-dozens-human-rights-researcher-and-rights-group-say/

Teaching Our Children, the legal way to "do it"

Q. Daddy why do those people from another country have bags on their heads and people are saying we are torturing them?

A. oh....its OK honey, the president is doing that to keep our family safe. And its not torture dear is called "safety".

Q. Daddy when I grow up and become an FBI man will I be able to torture bad guys for you and mommy to keep you safe?

A. Ahhh thats my baby, yes you will be able to torture too honey, when you grow up, but remember our president supports only the "legal torture, that big powerful lawyers tell him is OK to be doing. Remember sweetie, when you grow up, to use just the legally lawyer approved approved style on bad guys, and call it interrogation for national security, and you will be fine. I'm so proud of my little Patriot. Come give daddy a hug

Torture is not just illegal and immoral, It's cowardly, weak and stupid. That is how we are starting to look to the rest of the world.

If we allow our leaders to commit horrible crimes with impunity, how can we expect out children to have any respect for the law at all.

"Daddy when I grow up and become an FBI man will I be able to torture bad guys for you and mommy to keep you safe?"

To be fair the FBI, were to some extent, the good guys in this situation. They were critical of the practices used at Guantanamo. It would have been much better if they had blown the whistle, but given the way the Bush Administration worked the whistleblowers might have wound up in Guantanamo or incommunicado in some Navy brig as enemy combatants.

A. Scott's parsing of lawyers' culpability for their client's bad acts is worth exploring, but I'm not sure it could be done here. Torture is a highly-charged issue, and it is difficult to separate the issue from how it may apply to different actors in the drama.

His contention seems to be that a lawyer should be shielded to some degree from criminal liability for legal advice concerning a client's bad acts. That sounds reasonable; lawyers do occupy a unique position in the legal system. They are obligated to give clients vigorous defense irregardless of guilt or innocence.

A. S. posits that the proper forum for trial in this kind of case is professional responsibility, making them face disbarment rather than incarceration. Indeed that was the point made by Jane Mayer, author of "The Dark Side" when interviewed yesterday during the Thom Hartmann Show on the radio yesterday, when she spoke on the mission of the USDOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility.

It seems that it was unrealistic to expect the OPR to be the source for a call for criminal liability for the lawyers involved in the torture memos, so Steve's seems misdirected.

My last phrase should read "so Steve's ire seems misdirected."

Waterboarding is what we know about. These spooks operate in the shadows, and that's where you have to look for them.

Remember the "American Taliban"? There were some odd facts then, that a tour to that area will usually elucidate, via military scuttlebutt. Remember how he looked burnt at the edges with carbon on him? Remember how we only knew about his capture because there had been a riot where he was held?

The CIA had been up to their usual. They had constructed what looked like a concrete basement of a new house, and installed a sprinkler system over it. One set of nozzles blew out atomized hexane, then other blew out water. It was computer controlled, so they could douse, light and extinguish in a matter of a second or two. Didn't really set you on fire, just felt like it. Sound familiar?

They all went crazy and started to break out, guns be damned, and one of the CIA consultants was killed. That's why we know about the "American Taliban". That was a long time ago. You think the issue is waterboarding?

I have know doubt, as a serviceman, that in future conflicts, someone will subject us to biological experimentation, rationalized by what the spooks have been up to.

Posted by: joe anybody | May 7, 2009 4:30:57 PM

Teaching Our Children, the legal way to "do it"

The Twin Towers dooming American democracy are not having proportional representation, and having and adversarial, as opposed to fact finding, vision of justice.

Do you curse the darkness or light a candle? We have a system that is best used the way Wu et al. are using it. I agree, it's morally degenerate. Is that their fault for being coldly logical, or the system's for stipulating that kind of behavior for success?

They are cold MFers, but if you only up the bar, you will only get colder jerks. Change the behavioral contingencies. The "how do we raise our kids" question becomes more accute every day that that is exposed. Do you raise them to be good, or successful? "Good parenting" is preparing them for success. So, yes, you hold him up as a model. You should have thought about that before you had kids.

<h2>Yuu...Google rants on the mind...</h2>