Is it acceptable for the US government to torture people?

[BigSky]

 

[Bill Peckham]

Is it acceptable for the US government to torture people? My answer is "NO!". Once people are detained and completely under our control it is unacceptable for us to torture them. It is shocking to me that this point is even under discussion and I believe that the acceptance of torture by the current administration will result in damage to the interest of the United States for generations.

Today's children and tomorrow's grandchildren will be paying the price for decisions made in our name today. I think future generations will curse us.

This post from the Hill pretty much sums up where we are with the whole torture approach to prisoners.
http://pundits.thehill.com/2007/12/19/torture-tapes-are-the-watergate-of-our-times/

Mr Budowski highlights shocking Congressional testimony:
"In unprecedented congressional testimony Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann recently refused to say it would be illegal for American POWs to be tortured through waterboarding by our enemies. He couldn’t because a policy claimed to be legal when committed by our government would be equally legal when committed by our enemies against our troops and POWs."

Budowski concludes by noting:
"Military families oppose torture because they have a profound respect for military honor, military justice and military values. Like every previous generation of American presidents and American commanders, they know that torture endangers those they love, who serve so bravely."

Indeed. Like I said originally "Today's children and tomorrow's grandchildren will be paying the price for decisions made in our name today. I think future generations will curse us." Yup.

[Katonsdad]

I appreciate and respect the information you have provided , but with all due respect
Every generation curses past generations for something they have done .  And future
generations try and fix the problems left to them .   But to get to the question at hand
about torture , and the use for the Meddle Eastern detainees ......We need to let that
question be answered by the hundreds of people that were killed by these same people ,
who snuck into this country and did their misdeeds on 9/11 .   Katonsdad

[George Jung]

Hate begets hate.  Violence begets violence.   Only with forgiveness will you be free.  Those "hundreds of people" cannot speak in this life so it is up to us, it is up to you and me.

[BigSky]

If our so called torture saved one single life, it was worth it.

[Bill Peckham]

That's not true. I would give my life in defense of the Constitution.

This administration and its supporters have lost all perspective.

[BigSky]

That's not true. I would give my life in defense of the Constitution.

This administration and its supporters have lost all perspective.

Easy enough to say the words.

Hmm,  yet you havent even put your life in danger when you claim this government is violating the Constitution all the time.

[Bill Peckham]

I'm saying if this administration has to wiretap US citizens, open first class mail, use rendition and torture to keep me 100% safe I don't want to be 100% safe. I would rather live by constitutional law. I fully accept the dangers that implies.

[BigSky]

I'm saying if this administration has to wiretap US citizens, open first class mail, use rendition and torture to keep me 100% safe I don't want to be 100% safe. I would rather live by constitutional law. I fully accept the dangers that implies.

Like I said.  Easy enough to say the words.

[Bill Peckham]

I'm voting the vote. Writing the checks. I did what I could to keep these people out of power, I'll never support security at the expense of the constitution.

The thing about democracy is that you get what you vote for - I think the consequences of these people's policies will keep them out of power for a generation. I would say that 2008 is looking to be another 1932. I trust the American voters to do the right thing next November.

[BigSky]

I'm voting the vote. Writing the checks. I did what I could to keep these people out of power, I'll never support security at the expense of the constitution.

The thing about democracy is that you get what you vote for - I think the consequences of these people's policies will keep them out of power for a generation. I would say that 2008 is looking to be another 1932. I trust the American voters to do the right thing next November.

Really now?   2008 looking like 1932?

Lets hope not!

Hmm seems you forget the biggest violator of the US Constitution and usurped the most power in US history was that of FDR and the democrat controlled Congress of the 1932 election.

You claim you will never support security at the expense of the Constitution.  So does that mean you support elimination of Medicare and Social Security since both were done in DIRECT VIOLATION of the Constitution?  Feds were NEVER given such a  power but yet FDR and the democrats rolled over the Constitution with the "New Deal".  From FDR's attempt at packing the SC to his eventual blackmailing of the SC to get them to favor his unconstitutional actions.

Both of those programs are good and are a security for the American People. 
However FDR and the democrat Congress did not have the right to usurp power and violate the US Constitution to bring those programs about. 

So did the ends justify the means by their violation of the Constitution?  Or is that one security and violation of the Constitution you are willing to overlook?

[Bill Peckham]

The Supreme Court has decided otherwise:
Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937), decided on the same day as Steward, upheld the program because "The proceeds of both [employee and employer] taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal-revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way". That is, the Social Security Tax was constitutional as a mere exercise of Congress's general taxation powers."

The Constitutional question at issue today is does the Executive branch have to obey criminal law? Or does Executive Privilege extend to exempting the Executive branch from criminal laws? John Yu thinks it does and he's a law professor but I'll be you a nickel that when the cases start coming before the Roberts court this administration will be found to have overreached, violating the Constitution and the separation of powers it outlines. See Article 2 of the US Constitution.

I think this administration is lazy. They look for short cuts. Torture is self defeating. The administration shill that came out, John Kiriakou who said torture works, said something that was astounding. http://www.forbes-global.com/feeds/ap/2007/12/11/ap4427531.html

In Zubaydah's case, Kiriakou said the waterboarding had immediate effect.

"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," Kiriakou said in an interview first broadcast Monday evening on ABC News' World News. "From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

Really. This offers a couple possibilities. Allah did visit Zubaydah which would really be astounding because it would indicate that Islam is correct and Zubaydah is worthy of celestial visits. Or the guy is lying; that he's saying what ever he has to so that he isn't tortured anymore. The FBI agents who were involved with the interrogation prior to the waterboarding have said that the only valuable information came prior to Zubaydah getting tortured http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/17/AR2007121702151_pf.html

It's hard to see the FBI's incentive to lie, while the guy doing the torturing has clear reasons to overstate the significance of Zubaydah's "information".

I guess there is another possibility that it was Jesus dressed as Allah who tricked Zubaydah into thinking Allah wanted him to talk but that seems unlikely from what I know of Jesus' view of torture.

[BigSky]

The Supreme Court has decided otherwise:
Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937), decided on the same day as Steward, upheld the program because "The proceeds of both [employee and employer] taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal-revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way". That is, the Social Security Tax was constitutional as a mere exercise of Congress's general taxation powers."

Ohh please.  It seems to escape you that FDR blackmailed the court into ruling in that manner.  The only reason the SC ruled that was was for self preservation because if they didnt then FDR would have usurped power again and packed the court.

[mcjane]

Contries that practice torture also torture their own citizens be it men, women or children.

Would you still condone torture in the USA.
If you do be assured it will eventually come to that.

[BigSky]

Contries that practice torture also torture their own citizens be it men, women or children.

Would you still condone torture in the USA.
If you do be assured it will eventually come to that.

There is no historical evidence to back up such a claim in a Constituted Republic like the US.

[Bill Peckham]

Contries that practice torture also torture their own citizens be it men, women or children.

Would you still condone torture in the USA.
If you do be assured it will eventually come to that.

There is no historical evidence to back up such a claim in a Constituted Republic like the US.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/policetorture/ here is the jump page to a series of articles on the situation in Chicago including the 2005 article Tools of Torture:
"Though he continues to deny it, Jon Burge tortured suspects while he was a Chicago police detective. Now his contemporaries from Vietnam reveal where he may have learned the tricks of his trade."

Do you think people just forget what they've learned?

[mcjane]

Quote from: mcjane on December 21, 2007, 11:37:28 PM
Contries that practice torture also torture their own citizens be it men, women or children.

Would you still condone torture in the USA.
If you do be assured it will eventually come to that.

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There is no historical evidence to back up such a claim in a Constituted Republic like the US.
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Historical evidence maybe not yet, but legalize torture as punishment & history will change.

[BigSky]

Historical evidence maybe not yet, but legalize torture as punishment & history will change.

There is no evidence of that  happening in a Constituted Republic like the US now is there.  So if fact your claim is absurd on its face.

As to history and torture of its own citizens.  Those that have done that did it long before and it was not something brought about because of terrorist attacks that killed thousands of their citizens.  Those that do, is because it is generally done for political means. Such as Russia, Hitlers Germany, Current day Iran. 


The very fact is anyone can claim torture since torture has such a vague definition.  All it takes is the person subject to it to claim pain or suffering was beyond what they could bear.


 

[Bill Peckham]

Historical evidence maybe not yet, but legalize torture as punishment & history will change.

There is no evidence of that  happening in a Constituted Republic like the US now is there.  So if fact your claim is absurd on its face.

As to history and torture of its own citizens.  Those that have done that did it long before and it was not something brought about because of terrorist attacks that killed thousands of their citizens.  Those that do, is because it is generally done for political means. Such as Russia, Hitlers Germany, Current day Iran. 


The very fact is anyone can claim torture since torture has such a vague definition.  All it takes is the person subject to it to claim pain or suffering was beyond what they could bear.

One can only believe that if history is ignored. People are people. People with unchecked power are the same everywhere. That's the whole point of the constitution - power must be checked because unchecked power leads to evil every time.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/12/16/torture_american_style/

[snip]
We think torture is mainly the province of dictators and juntas - the kind of thing that happens behind the iron doors of repressive regimes. In a democracy, with open courts and a free press, torture should be a relic. In the words of an American World War II poster, torture is "the method of the enemy."

But a closer look at the modern history of torture suggests that exactly the opposite is true. Torture isn't an alien force invading our democracy from the benighted realms of dictatorships. In fact, it is the democracies that have been the real innovators in 20th-century torture. Britain, France, and the United States were perfecting new forms of torture long before the CIA even existed. It might make Americans uncomfortable, but the modern repertoire of torture is mainly a democratic innovation.

[snip]
Early 20th-century America was a breeding ground for new ideas in electric torture, many documented by American Bar Association investigators in their 1931 Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement. Between 1922 and 1926, the Seattle police chief got his confessions from a cell with a wall-to-wall electrified carpet. "The prisoner leaps, screaming in agony, into the air....It is not fatal, its effects are not lasting, and it leaves no marks," remarked the ABA report. And until 1929, the police in Helena, Ark., used an improvised electrical chair to extract confessions. At the time, the sheriff testified that the chair came with other office furniture, and he had inherited it from "a long line of former county sheriffs."

[snip]
Electrotorture is only one example of how torture spreads via democracies. "Forced standing" is a technique used in the Soviet Union and made famous by the hooded men of Abu Ghraib: They were forced to stand for hours, balanced on a box with the threat of electric torture if they collapsed. It is not nearly as harmless as it sounds: Humans are not designed to stand utterly immobile, and accounts of the practice from Soviet-era victims and psychologists hired by the CIA describe immense pain.

Though forced standing is often associated with the interrogations of Stalin's secret police, the British had already refined the use of forced standing to intimidate and coerce prisoners. From 1910 to 1930, the practice was well known in Irish prisons and in British Indian penal colonies in the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. The British colonial police also used it in Mandatory Palestine, where they were especially concerned about keeping torture "clean": They knew scarred victims would create a scandal at home, and they knew the Nazi publicity machine would use evidence of torture for German advantage in the Middle East. Forced standing was also known in French contexts, and, in the United States, was a standard slave punishment that by the 1920s became part of American police interrogations and prison punishments. Before the 1930s, then, forced standing was the special province of democratic, not authoritarian states. W.G. Krivitsky, an Soviet secret police agent who defected, described Soviet interrogation techniques in 1939 as "improved by Stalin on the model of the latest American methods."

[snip]
If the spread of torture techniques suggests a blurry line between "us" and "them," it also teaches that there's no real boundary between "there" and "here." It would be ignoring history to assume that what happens in an American-run prison in Iraq will stay in Iraq. Soldiers who learn torture techniques abroad get jobs as police when they return, and the new developments in torture you read about today could yet be employed in a neighborhood near you.

[snip]
Everything torture represents - intimidation, abuse of public trust, extraction of false confessions, the blind eye of officials - is antithetical to the way democratic societies are supposed to work. But "clean" torture, leaving few marks and practiced behind closed doors, permits a kind of public silence or amnesia. The facts of Abu Ghraib were already known through testimony, but there was no public outcry until the scandalous photographs made it impossible to ignore. Even after Abu Ghraib, lawyers for Guantánamo detainees doubted allegations of torture until FBI e-mails confirmed them. Today, American authorities still shy away from the T-word, preferring terms such as "abuse" and "enhanced interrogation."

[BigSky]

No torture-- Numerous terrorists attack by Al-Qaeda on US citizens starting in 93 ending with thousands dead in a few hours on 9/11.


Torture- No terrorist attacks on US citizens by Al-Qaeda now for 6 years and counting.  Longest span to date that Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks have not occurred on US citizens.

Hmmm don't take a rocket scientist to figure it out to keep doing what works.


But hey, when Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups sign on to the Geneva Conventions, then they can claim its protections as are entitled to those that are members of the convention.

[Bill Peckham]

No torture-- Yankees win World Series four times between 1996 and 2000

Torture- Yankees have not won a World Series

But seriously there is no evidence that torture resulted in actionable information that could not have been obtained through legal interrogation methods. The only people claiming the efficacy of torture are the ones doing the torturing. The purpose of torture is torture. It really is that simple.

Your argument implies that torture could also have the effect of scaring off potential mass murderers but there is far more evidence that torture and the accounts of torture actually fuel and motivate mass murderers. Ultimately the reason the United States should stand 100% against the use of torture is because torture is dumb and self-defeating; it harms us far more than any benefit it could possibly provide.

[BigSky]

No torture-- Yankees win World Series four times between 1996 and 2000

Torture- Yankees have not won a World Series

But seriously there is no evidence that torture resulted in actionable information that could not have been obtained through legal interrogation methods. The only people claiming the efficacy of torture are the ones doing the torturing. The purpose of torture is torture. It really is that simple.

Your argument implies that torture could also have the effect of scaring off potential mass murderers but there is far more evidence that torture and the accounts of torture actually fuel and motivate mass murderers. Ultimately the reason the United States should stand 100% against the use of torture is because torture is dumb and self-defeating; it harms us far more than any benefit it could possibly provide.

Evidence enough is that this has been the longest stretch in US history of Al-Qaeda not committing a terrorist attack on citizens from the time they first attacked innocent civilians.  Or it could also be that other thing you hate Bill, the war in Iraq that has helped stop terrorist attacks for such a long period.

THe biggest flaw in your assumption that no information has been gained from such interrogation methods is that the US government is responsible enough that they would not advertise just what they got or didn't get.  As in the case of Padilla.  At no time has the US government stated what methods they used on those at Gitmo to gain the information on his plans.   That information helped greatly in the fact that Padilla was not even on the US radar.  It was such methods most likely used that they gave him up and averted the terrorist acts he was going to commit.

Somehow you fail to grasp that what happens now is not done to the point to make people confess to the point of making stuff up.  The government knows putting pressure to that point where people confess to anything is worthless.


It dont much matter as you plan to vote democrat anyway.  Maybe they will win and we will see if terrorists attack start up again if the dems revert back to their do nothing policy on terrorism.

However it is odd Bill.

Dems take Congress and Gas hits all time highs, power is going through the roof and the economy hits the skids and the huge mortgage crisis.  Lord knows what might happen if they gain control of everything.   

[Bill Peckham]

Padilla is a classic example of this administrations inability to get a significant conviction in their war on terror. The initial charges were downgraded over the course of years to finally the watered down charge of conspiracy. The Miami group, the Fort Dix six, one case after another turn out to be over hyped and aspirational rather than operational. And while the administration focuses on torturing OBL driver an actual threat to security thrives under their noses. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was busiest while this White House was planning its Iraq invasion.

The whole idea that routine torture is keeping us safe is a cynical attempt to manipulate the argument to play on people's fear. The decisions made by this president and his rubber stamp republican congress will decrease the safety of Americans for years to come, there is no helping that. Rather than chase down or "smoke out" (as the president would say) the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 the president and his rubber stamp Republican congress engaged in the disaster that is Iraq. Instead of holding to our 200 years of tradition and honor we've gone down the path of torture and dishonor. We threw away our birthright for thuggish tactics which have been systematically discredited.

The voters know that it is the Republicans that are bankrupt. Bankrupt morally and intellectually. The republican party is shattered and divided. It is the actions of the first six years of this administration that has brought us today's gas prices. High gas prices and unchecked carbon emissions are the direct results of the policies pursued from 1/01 to 12/06, the voters know it and all the squirming in the world can 't erase the memory of those years and the poor decisions that were made. Easy money from the Federal Reserve and a total lack of regulation in the lending market gave us the Bush housing boom. Why not live on equity and borrowed money - if it is good enough for the President why not do it personally? Another example of poor leadership having a cost. Leadership matters.

It's all comical really. Rove saying the Democrats forced Bush to rush into Iraq. You blaming gas prices or the housing bubble on today's congress. No one is buying. They will not be able to lie their way out of this- it is a mess that the President and the 108th Congress created - there is no hiding this time.

[BigSky]

It is a fabrication on your part to say actions taken by Bush now will decrease safety to come.

Facts are facts.

During Clintons terms Al-Qaeda spread from a handful of countries to every single country on the planet.  Under Clinton Al-Qaeda struck the US for the first time and continued strikes against the US as Clinton failed to act.  Those actions by that president put this country on its greatest path of decreased safety for decades to come.   We are only now trying to regain some of that safety by taking the terrorists head on instead of tucking our tail are running like Clinton had us do.

200 years of tradition my ass.  How little you know.

You want to get into tradition, we did a hell of alot more things that were far worse when the US dealt with the Indians of the Americas.    What is occurring now is mild in comparsion to that hell fury we committed on the American Indians.

Actually you are wrong again Bill about gas prices. 

Remember it was Old Bill and Al who pushed OPEC to limit production to increase gas prices so it would benefit the American Oil Industry.  That was the start of oil prices rising and continuing to rise to this day.

Hate to admit it huh.  Dems take control and in just over  a year we have historic high gas prices.  Up over 70cents  a gallon in most places, housing market crashes, Stock Market all over the place, economy tanking.  All in a year with Dems in charge.    Not to mention that since the dems took control that Congress approval ratings are at an all time low. 

Dems forced Bush into Iraq? 

Depends on how you view it.  The fact that Clinton refused to take real action against Saddam?  His signing of the Iraqi Liberation Act which specifically stated it was the policy of the US to remove Saddam from power.  Did they force him.  Not really, Dems never had the balls to hold Saddam to the line.  Bush did and took action and removed Saddam from power.  That went about flawlessly.

As to the current action fighting terrorists in Iraq,  yes that has had problems.  However that does and can occur when a military has to deal with those that fight by no rules at all and attack innocent civilians day in and day out.  However even that asshat Reid of Nevada had to suck up his crying and admit the surge is working.

[Bill Peckham]

The price of a barrel of oil is a historic fact - going to be hard to pin this on anyone other than the current administration (see graph ... remember oil below $20 a barrel? sigh)

Not sure I understand your point about the US's treatment of Indians - is this to say that people fingered by a corrupt Iraqi secret service should be treated as sub-humans in the same way non-anglos were treated as sub-humans back in the day? Are you saying Andrew Johnson's injun policy worked so well we should use it as a guide to the Middle East?

The most serious difference between today and the numerous examples of torture in US history is that today torture is being condoned by political leaders and systematically used as a tactic of first resort. The constitutional issue is that this is being done without regard to existing US law and treaty obligations.  If the law is to mean anything then it must apply to everyone.

The current president had carte blanc for 5 years after 9/11. He could have chosen to conduct his war within our constitutional framework, instead he chose to act as an unitary executive daring the legislative and judicial branch to stop him. Administration officials have resorted to complete memory failure and contempt of Congress in an all encompassing effort to run out the clock on their term in office. Maybe if his policies were successful their legality would have been overlooked but that is not what happened. His policies have been amateurish and not well thought out. The blow back from our post 9/11 policies will haunt us for generations. Our blind blundering bluster has been a disaster. An example of defeating ones self. I don't see everyone forgetting the sequence of events anytime soon. At least I am hoping that the 40% of Americans who believe in a Saddam-9/11 tie are also mostly people who will stay home on election day, dissatisfied that Rudy lost in the primary.