Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt

President Clinton, is that you?

No. You're thinking of our criminal justice system.

I don't believe that we do this.

Frankly, I really don't care.

They're professionals, I am not. I will defer to their judgement.

If it saves the life of one American, I really don't care if we shove bamboo shoots up every fingernail in Iraq.

My one and only priority is that innocent Americans and our allies are safe at the end of the day.

 

Mike Mck writes:

Frankly, I really don't care.

They're professionals, I am not. I will defer to their judgement.

If it saves the life of one American, I really don't care if we shove bamboo shoots up every fingernail in Iraq.

My one and only priority is that innocent Americans and our allies are safe at the end of the day.
---------------------------
I fully agree.

 

Torture and humilation may be of the secular world
and you can justify its legality of the fallen world, but Torture and
humilation is not an American Christian Value..PERIOD.

Torture lite and humilation lite is still what it
is Torture and Humilation and from a spiritual perspective the Holy Spirt
rules the still quiet voice in our hearts.

 

No, I answered your question.

The idea that one is "innocent until proven guilty" refers to the American criminal justice system, not intelligence gathering among enemy combatants during a time of war.

No, please feel free. I havn't evaded anything and I'll be happy to answer this to the best of my abilities.

That's a rather unfair attack on our troops, don't you think?

Been there, done that. And you?

I don't know about the "spreading democracy" part, but I definitely believe that we need to widen our scope. It's not enough to fight insurgents once they come into Iraq, we need to cut the snake off at the head.

 

Jesus said that we should love our enemies, not that governments, charged with protecting their citizens, should love their enemies.

In any event, if you love your enemies at the cost of the safety of your friends, that's not very loving to your friends, is it?

 

It appears that we have some on this board who would believe anything said about this nation, true or not, just so long as it is negative. These same people always resort to tactics of evasion, distortion and introducing claims that they cannot support with fact.

"bamboo shoots under fingernails"--Poncho you have accused a member of this board of performing such acts. It seems to me that once again you have gone far beyond the bounds of good taste. You, Straight and Narrow, ASLANPAL, Brother James and others continue to argue that something which has never been proven as if it were a fact. You make assertions of torture, accuse your Brothers in Christ of performing such heinous acts as driving bamboo shoots under the fingernails of prisoners, and then try to look as if you are taking the high road and those who disagree with you are sinking to some depraved argument. You try to reinforce your argument by asking "Would Jesus approve?", or "Did Jesus say He was okay with torture?", etc. Your arguments are from absurdity and move to absurdity. Do you claim that you lead your life exactly as Jesus would have you lead it? Do you really believe that He would condone everything you have done since being saved? If you don't then why do you attack these brothers in such a vehement and un-Christlike manner?

Now you are saying that Baptist pastors approve of torture? Shame.

 

No, I did make a comment about shoving bamboo shoots under people's fingernails, but I thought it was understood that it was a figure of speech.

Sorry for any confusion.

I was kind of wondering that, myself.

 

My priority is to win the wars we fight using every legal means possible, putting every resource necessary to the cause, staying focused on the final goal of full victory without letting the "ups" lull us into comfort and the "downs" drive us into hopelessness, and, then, establishing a lasting peace.

I understand how some of you might feel about this. I admire your zeal for defeating our enemy. However, I beg you to reconsider you views on this. Please take into account the experiences of some of us old grey haired former warriors who've seen war up close and personal. We do not need torture to defeat this evil we face.

How we, as a nation and as individuals, conduct war is very important to our long term victory. If we do it outside our law we will loose our sense of values and our credibility with both our friends and our enemies. We lower ourselves to the standards of those we fight.

Torture is not an acceptable practice according to our existing law of war. We must not use it. Aggressive legal interrogation techniques are acceptable practice according to our existing law of war. We should use every available means within that law. Categorizing detainees to limit legal protections and rights according to classification is also perfectly legal. We should not give up that ability.

Soldiers are trained to kill the enemy. Killing is brutal and has no real bounds. However, even in the act of killing an enemy there is mercy and compassion. Killing or harming an enemy who has ceased to fight is a grave wrong doing. Soldiers fight to win wars to secure peace. They long for wars to end. Thugs are trained to use torture to force cooperation or for pure sadistic pleasure. Thugs have no concern with mercy or compassion. Thugs enjoy brutalizing their victims and lust for the opportunities to do so. They desire no end to the pleasure of it. Torture leads to cruelty which leads to criminal acts in the name of a greater cause.

Soldiers of a nation such as ours must never become thugs. We would regret that very much. We would also lay upon our soldiers a tremendous sense of guilt for any acts of torture they might commit. We would become like those enemies in times past we have reviled for their cruelty.

Aside for the ethical argument, the practical knowledge confirms that torture is a very unreliable tool for intelligence. It yields results - any results - just to end the torture. There are much more effective means for interrogation and for intelligence gathering and analysis.

Nothing about what I've written should be taken to support the allegations that we have tortured detainees as a matter of policy or practice. I strongly object to those false allegations and especially those that size the events of misconduct to make political gains against our leadership at the expense of credibilty of our military. There have been infractions of our law which have been, are being, and will be dealt with.

 

Who do you think it is who is doing this?

No, obviously, I was talking about enlisting.

Are we a theocracy now? Did I miss a memo somewhere?

We are proposing the torture of enemy combatants in order to gain information to save our friends.

Do try to keep up.

Do we make more or less enemies by appeasing them?

Unless, of course, we were nurturing snakes to go and root out and kill other, more dangerous snakes, so that we don't have to.

No. This is an accepted practice around the world.

In fact, each branch of the military, plus our foreign service and intelligence agencies offers training on how to deal with this, precisely because they know that each country we may deal with does this.

 

Torture and humiliation are two entirely different things.

 

How many Soviet troops are in Afghanistan now?

 

President Clinton, is that you?

No. You're thinking of our criminal justice system.

I don't believe that we do this.

Frankly, I really don't care.

They're professionals, I am not. I will defer to their judgement.

If it saves the life of one American, I really don't care if we shove bamboo shoots up every fingernail in Iraq.

My one and only priority is that innocent Americans and our allies are safe at the end of the day. </font>[/QUOTE]How Christlike.

 

I really, really hate it when people invoke Christ's name when folks disagree with them.

Brother James, do you think the Holy Spirit needs help doing it's job ?

 

But how else would they make themselves feel superior to the rest of us?

 

Convicted US soldier speaks of worse abuse at Abu Ghraib
Mon Oct 3, 4:39 PM ET

A US soldier convicted of abusing Iraqi prisoners said, in remarks recently made public, she knew of "worse things" happening at Abu Ghraib and insisted military commanders were fully aware of what was going on in Iraq's infamous jail.

The comments, made by Private First Class Lynndie England in her first post-court-martial interview, contradicted assertions by top Pentagon officials that a small group of out-of-control soldiers were responsible for abuse at Abu Ghraib, and that no matter how repulsive that mistreatment was, it did not amount to torture.

England, who became the face of the scandal because of a photograph of her holding a naked prisoner by a leash, was sentenced last Tuesday to three years in prison and ordered to be dishonorably discharged from the Army after a military jury found her guilty of maltreating prisoners and committing an indecent act.

The trial capped a damaging scandal that erupted in 2004, following publication of pictures that showed Abu Ghraib inmates piled up naked on the floor in front of US soldiers, cowering in front of snarling military dogs, chained to beds in stress positions and forced to stand naked in front of female guards.

But England, appearing on NBC's "Dateline" program, said the pictures did not convey the full extent of the abuse that took place in the cell block.

"I know worse things were happening over there," admitted the 22-year-old convict.

She said one night she heard blood-curdling screams coming from the block's shower room, where non-military interrogators had taken an Arab detainee.

"They had the shower on to muffle it, but it wasn't helping," she recalled. "They never screamed like that when we were humiliating. But this guy was like screaming bloody murder. I mean it still haunts me I can still hear it just like it happened yesterday."

The interrogators were not identified, but several investigations into the abuse have disclosed that Central Intelligence Agency operatives worked at Abu Ghraib alongside US military intelligence, mining for useful information.

A total of nine low-ranking soldiers have now been convicted or voluntarily pleaded guilty in the scandal that has sparked condemnation of the United States around the world.

But a Defense Department probe has cleared all top US commanders of criminal responsibility in the matter.

Taking issue with that finding, England argued stripping prisoners naked and handcuffing them to steel bars was part of an officially-sanctioned strategy designed to soften inmates before interrogation and make them more cooperative.

"It was just humiliation tactics and things that we were told to do." she said.

She insisted Specialist Charles Graner, a senior prison guard and her boyfriend, would always show pictures of intimidation procedures to military intelligence (MI) officers when they came to work in the morning.

"And the MI would be like, 'Oh, that's a good job! I never would have thought of that,'" England recalled. "He'd show him and hed show the command and they'd be like, 'Oh, just keep up the good work.'"

US human right advocates argue additional light could be shed on the events at Abu Ghraib with the release of 87 more photographs and four videotapes made by guards at the prison but kept by the Pentagon under lock and key.

A federal judge in New York, responding to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ruled Thursday these materials should be made public.

But the Defense Department was expected to appeal, arguing such a release would fuel anti-American propaganda and help recruit new Islamic extremists in Iraq and elsewhere.

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