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TexasPete
Joined: 24 May 2006
Location: Koreatown
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 Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="TheUrbanMyth"][quote="TexasPete"]
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
(sob, sniff, sob, sob, sniff)
Oh no a murderous terrorist got some rough treatment!
What is the world coming to, when savage thugs get a little of their own medicine?"
(runs off crying)
Is that a little better "attitude"?
Listen knucklehead, I wasn't talking about some hypothetical situation or some nameless faceless people. I was talking about Zubaydah. Got it?
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Realllllly? Well then perhaps you ought to be more clear with what you write in the future because to me and anyone else who read that post, it looks like you're a torture apologist. You're right, i don't know you from anything except what i see you've written, so i've gotta take tripe like that for face value and assume you don't care if innocents, real terrorists or whatever have been tortured in our name.
The story incidentally is not just that Zubaydah got tortured, but that the Red Cross independently interviewed 12 other individuals who all had the same (or nearly the same) stories to tell and who could have had no possible contact with each other to corroborate their stories. This means that the use of torture was given the go-ahead, was systematic and was widely used. Now whether those other 12 are innocent or guilty of anything is pretty much a moot point as any evidence or information obtained in that manner is inadmissible in court. Essentially the use of torture or cruel and inhumane punishment (see the Eighth Amendment) makes for verrrrrry difficult prosecution or justice to be served.
I suppose what it all comes down to is whether we want justice or vengeance for 9/11. The Bush administration decided very early on apparently that cowboy justice was the (un)official policy they would seek and if it violated our own Bill or Rights to get these guys, who cares? Now i may not be a legal scholar but i fail to see how repeated violation of our Bill of Rights honors the sacrifice of those who put on the uniform to defend our nation and its Constitution and I fail to see how it honors the Oath of Office or the Founding Fathers.
John Adams, our second President and one of the Founding Fathers, believed that even those British officers and soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre deserved justice and a fair trial which they got. Insofar as the use of torture violates our Constitution and Bill of Rights, it's not an unreasonable position to say that it creates a mockery of justice while lowering our standing in the world. When John Yoo--a US Attorney in the Bush Administration--testifies before congress that crushing the *beep* of a child of a suspected terrorist could be warranted if the POTUS thinks its necessary, then what does that say about us and how far we've gone adrift in our supposed moral superiority above those we seek to stop? |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="TexasPete"][quote="TheUrbanMyth"]
| TexasPete wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
(sob, sniff, sob, sob, sniff)
Oh no a murderous terrorist got some rough treatment!
What is the world coming to, when savage thugs get a little of their own medicine?"
(runs off crying)
Is that a little better "attitude"?
Listen knucklehead, I wasn't talking about some hypothetical situation or some nameless faceless people. I was talking about Zubaydah. Got it?
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Realllllly? Well then perhaps you ought to be more clear with what you write in the future because to me and anyone else who read that post, it looks like you're a torture apologist. You're right, i don't know you from anything except what i see you've written, so i've gotta take tripe like that for face value and assume you don't care if innocents, real terrorists or whatever have been tortured in our name.
The story incidentally is not just that Zubaydah got tortured, but that the Red Cross independently interviewed 12 other individuals who all had the same (or nearly the same) stories to tell and who could have had no possible contact with each other to corroborate their stories. This means that the use of torture was given the go-ahead, was systematic and was widely used. Now whether those other 12 are innocent or guilty of anything is pretty much a moot point as any evidence or information obtained in that manner is inadmissible in court. Essentially the use of torture or cruel and inhumane punishment (see the Eighth Amendment) makes for verrrrrry difficult prosecution or justice to be served.
It means nothing until they have had their day in court and their allegations have been proven or disproven. And as far as claiming torture, how do we know that's not one of the things taught to them in training camp? So far all we have is allegations not evidence...of anything.
I suppose what it all comes down to is whether we want justice or vengeance for 9/11. The Bush administration decided very early on apparently that cowboy justice was the (un)official policy they would seek and if it violated our own Bill or Rights to get these guys, who cares? Now i may not be a legal scholar but i fail to see how repeated violation of our Bill of Rights honors the sacrifice of those who put on the uniform to defend our nation and its Constitution and I fail to see how it honors the Oath of Office or the Founding Fathers.
John Adams, our second President and one of the Founding Fathers, believed that even those British officers and soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre deserved justice and a fair trial which they got. Insofar as the use of torture violates our Constitution and Bill of Rights, it's not an unreasonable position to say that it creates a mockery of justice while lowering our standing in the world. When John Yoo--a US Attorney in the Bush Administration--testifies before congress that crushing the *beep* of a child of a suspected terrorist could be warranted if the POTUS thinks its necessary, then what does that say about us and how far we've gone adrift in our supposed moral superiority above those we seek to stop? |
I believe what John Yoo argued was that there was no law to prevent the POTUS from doing so...not that it was warranted. And regardless John Yoo is not the POTUS, and until the POTUS does something like that, arguing over a hypothetical situation is pointless. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| catman wrote: |
Yeah, at least they weren't as bad as Al-Qaeda! Nice standard. 
We know for a fact that innocent people were detained at Gitmo and thye have claimed to have been tortured. |
I could claim that reading your posts is a form of torture as well. Doesn't make it necessarily so. They will have the chance to prove their claims in a court of law. Until then, this is so much howler monkey screaming...loud but no substance. |
1) Did the US waterboard inmates at Gitmo and does this qualify as torture?
2)You do agree that the US sent innocent people to Gitmo? Yes or No? |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| catman wrote: |
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| catman wrote: |
Yeah, at least they weren't as bad as Al-Qaeda! Nice standard.
We know for a fact that innocent people were detained at Gitmo and thye have claimed to have been tortured. |
I could claim that reading your posts is a form of torture as well. Doesn't make it necessarily so. They will have the chance to prove their claims in a court of law. Until then, this is so much howler monkey screaming...loud but no substance. |
1) Did the US waterboard inmates at Gitmo and does this qualify as torture?
2)You do agree that the US sent innocent people to Gitmo? Yes or No? |
1. You tell me. Did they and who were these people? (Names please) no vague accusations.
2. Unfortunately unlike yourself, I have not developed the art of mind-reading and therefore can not tell whether they are guilty or innocent. Let them have their day in court...the truth will eventually come out and then we will know. |
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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Murat Kurnaz was an innocent man held in Guantanamo even though the authorities KNEW he was not guilty.
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At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America's shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one.
The story Kurnaz told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley is a rare look inside that clandestine system of justice, where the government's own secret files reveal that an innocent man lost his liberty, his dignity, his identity, and ultimately five years of his life.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/28/60minutes/main3976928.shtml
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In a landmark congression-al hearing Tuesday, former Guant�namo detainee Murat Kurnaz described abuses he said he endured while in US custody � among them electric shock, simulated drowning, and days spent chained by his arms to the ceiling of an airplane hangar.
Lawmakers were also provided with recently declassified reports, which show that US and German intelligence agencies had determined as early as 2002 that Mr. Kurnaz had no known links to terrorism. Still, he was held for four more years.
Kurnaz's testimony to Congress, via videolink, as well as a report released Wednesday showing that FBI agents were troubled by the harsh interrogations at Guant�namo, are the latest signs of growing concerns in the United States about the prison camp, which has become emblematic of what many around the world see as American excess in the war on terrorism.
Nowhere was the disquiet more evident than in lawmakers' responses. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, who had once accepted Pentagon assurances that those held at Guant�namo were the "worst of the worst," reacted with outrage and regret to Kurnaz's statements, which were broadcast from his hometown of Bremen, Germany.
Rep. William Delahunt (D) of Massachusetts, who chaired the hearing, said Kurnaz's account � denied by Pentagon officials � was something "every patriotic American should find repugnant."
Even Dana Rohrabacher, a stalwart Republican and defender of the Guant�namo prison system, voiced concern, saying, "It could be after seeing those buildings go down and 3,000 of our people were slaughtered, we moved so quickly that some mistakes were made.... The documents seem to indicate mistakes were made in this case."
Among the documents given to lawmakers is a May 2003 report from Brittain Mallow, the commanding general at the time of the Criminal Investigation Task Force, a Pentagon intelligence unit that interrogates and collects information on detainees. It notes, "CITF is not aware of evidence that Kurnaz was or is a member of al-Qaida."
Another memo, from German intelligence agents who interrogated Kurnaz under CIA supervision in 2002, reads, "USA considers Murat Kurnaz's innocence to be proven."
'Innocent' but not set free
The papers are only the latest batch to surface in Kurnaz's case, where the record clearly shows that he was repeatedly designated an enemy combatant despite evidence of his innocence.
Much of the testimony given by Kurnaz, the first former Guant�namo detainee to appear before Congress, focused on his treatment at Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan, where he was taken after being arrested in Pakistan in December 2001. While there, he said was subjected to "water treatment," which involved having his head dunked in a water-filled bucket. "They stick my head in the water and at the same time they punched me in the stomach so I had to inhale the water," he said, using English he picked up in detention.
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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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Now this article is more vague but it has importance because it comes from an ex-Bush aide:
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico � Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday.
"There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years."
Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a "mosaic" of intelligence.
Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on Wilkerson's specific allegations but noted that the military has consistently said that dealing with foreign fighters from a wide variety of countries in a wartime setting was a complex process.
Some 800 men have been held at Guantanamo since the prison opened in January 2002, and 240 remain. Wilkerson said two dozen are terrorists, including confessed Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody in September 2006.
"We need to put those people in a high-security prison like the one in Colorado, forget them and throw away the key," Wilkerson said. "We can't try them because we tortured them and didn't keep an evidence trail."
But the rest of the detainees need to be released, he said.
Wilkerson, who flew combat missions as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and left the government in January 2005, said he did not speak out while in government because some of the information was classified. He said he feels compelled to do so now because former Vice President Dick Cheney has claimed in recent news interviews that President Barack Obama is making the U.S. less safe by reversing Bush administration policies toward terror suspects, including ordering Guantanamo closed.
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Also, an admission of torture. |
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ChopChaeJoe
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:14 am Post subject: |
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I dunno, the ability to torture someone requires a 'special' kind of creep. There is an almost pre-adolescent mentality that has no problem being cruel and causing harm, but in adults it's a much rarer property.
(as an aside, why is it so distinctly American for so much of this mistreatment to be sexual and borderline homo in nature?)
These torturers are not looking out for the well-being of America. They are psychotic individuals being used in the service of keeping America safe (as if America ever was a safe country.)
Would you want them around your loved ones? What if their dog turned up missing and they thought your kid had something to do with it?
Of course innocents are tortured in any society that condones torture. Maybe someday there will be a society that does not condone torture. It isn't America at this time. |
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TexasPete
Joined: 24 May 2006
Location: Koreatown
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:18 am Post subject: |
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| ChopChaeJoe wrote: |
I dunno, the ability to torture someone requires a 'special' kind of creep. There is an almost pre-adolescent mentality that has no problem being cruel and causing harm, but in adults it's a much rarer property.
(as an aside, why is it so distinctly American for so much of this mistreatment to be sexual and borderline homo in nature?)
These torturers are not looking out for the well-being of America. They are psychotic individuals being used in the service of keeping America safe (as if America ever was a safe country.)
Would you want them around your loved ones? What if their dog turned up missing and they thought your kid had something to do with it?
Of course innocents are tortured in any society that condones torture. Maybe someday there will be a society that does not condone torture. It isn't America at this time. |
It's apparently not all that hard to turn someone into a torturer. Do you think the thousands of torturers who participated in the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia were born that way?
Here's an interesting discussion on Youtube to check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjHTDY2ECRU&feature=PlayList&p=30D9CEFBB905624D&index=4 |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 7:56 am Post subject: |
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Now don't just jump all over the Cuba News Service messenger. Refute the claims if you can.
United States Pressure to Hide Torture at Naval Base
HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 24 (acn) With the most underhand methods, the devotees of the empire are trying to hide the torture committed by US guards against prisoners at its illegally occupied Guant�namo Naval Base.
On this occasion, it is known that lawyers from the US government tried to force a British resident imprisoned in the base - which it maintains against the will of the Cuban people and government - to sign a document saying he had never been tortured there.
Likewise, the aforementioned prisoner had to agree not to speak to the media about this ordeal - a commitment he rejected. These conditions were imposed on him in order to be released, Granma newspaper reports on Tuesday.
The lawyers also wanted Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen who was imprisoned for over four years, to plead guilty to terrorism charges in return for his freedom, although he was never charged with any crime, according to the documents formulated by two judges that participated in the case in the British Supreme Court.
The documents, related to a ruling announced by the magistrates in October, reveal that the US Army wanted Mohamed to agree never to sue either the Americans or any of its allies to force disclosure of his mistreatment.
"The accused accepts not to participate or support, in any way, litigation or challenge, in any forum, against the United States or any other nation or official from any nation, whether military or civilian�, established a draft agreement prepared by lawyers from the White House in 2008.
The text adds that "the accused assigns the United States all legal rights to sign and present any document, motion or speech necessary to implement this requirement on behalf of the accused", read a key clause of the agreement.
The proposed agreement was included in documents presented before the Supreme Court in October, when the body ruled that the files related to Mohamed�s case could not be published because they could jeopardize the national security conventions existing between Great Britain and the United States.
Mohamed�s lawyers rejected the agreement and the detainee was, eventually, released last month, unconditionally. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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The title is talking about BUSH torture crimes.
And as of yet I see no credible evidence that Bush sanctioned such events.
Until you can produce documents or links which prove this beyond any shadow of a doubt, this thread can be put with all the others you have started on Bush...in the category of Epic Fail.
How's that Bush trial coming along BTW? Good 'ole Vinny still on the job? |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:57 am Post subject: |
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| TexasPete wrote: |
| In another interview i recently that the US poloicy in Iraq/Afghanistan regarding detainees was to scoop anybody and everybody near a battlefield regardless of guilt and imprison them. In Guantanamo bay, a 13 year old kid was held for quite a lonnnng time as was a 90+ year old. Another policy that backfired was paying for information so that you literally had people settling old grudges and feuds by finger pointing, collecting the money and the pointee would just disappear. Finally, go watch the documentary, "Taxi to the Darkside" and tell me that the victim there warranted even a fraction of a percent of the actual treatment he received which resulted in an innocent man being tortured to death. |
In addition to settling grudges, our tax dollars were given to Afghans to turn in prisoners. I don't remember how much they got paid per prisoner, but it was up in the thousands. Thousands of US dollars would be a small fortune in America, but think how much money that would be to an Afghan, especially when they turned in a lot of men. They went from rags to riches like Nathan Bedford Forrest at Memphis slave auctions and probably gave as much of a shit about the men they were selling. Shit, I can think of a few assholes I would sell for thousands of dollars and I don't even need the money like an impoverished Afghan. Maybe some on here are happy about American tax dollars and money we borrowed from China being given to Afghan Muslim profiteers, but I'm not.
The thing about the finger pointing and feuds isn't just an Afghanistan thing. I read an article a couple of years ago where our soldiers were describing the door to door searches for terrorists that were being conducted in Iraq. They called them Jerry Springers because of "informants" saying Ahmed down the road or Ali across the street were terrorists, but it would end up that Ahmed had stolen the informant's girlfriend and wasn't a terrorist at all, or Ali had stiffed the informant on a loan or some shit. Even Jerry Springer himself says the war in Iraq is insane: http://www.hollyscoop.com/jerry-springer/jerry-springer-iraq-is-insane_17401.aspx
| TexasPete wrote: |
| There are real terrorists and baddies galore imprisoned by the US doubtless |
Yes, but the US prison system unleashes (or paroles, in legalspeak) murderers onto the American public every motherphucking day.
Look at this website: http://www.familywatchdog.us/ There are so many convicted rapists and child molesters the government has put back on the streets in America that there's even one in my state that has the same first and last name as me, and neither my first or last name is even all that common. There's another guy in a borderstate with the same name! There's even a George Bush from Texas. http://www.familywatchdog.us/ViewOffenderDetails.asp?oID=TX4822081&aID=&at=1&sid=&sp=1&nm=
Bottom line: The government doesn't give a phuck about the safety of Americans. Or maybe non-Muslims who murder and rape Americans are okay? Let's torture some foreign guy in a foreign country because he might be a baddie, but unleash convicted evildoers onto the streets of America every damn day?
| ChopChaeJoe wrote: |
I dunno, the ability to torture someone requires a 'special' kind of creep. There is an almost pre-adolescent mentality that has no problem being cruel and causing harm, but in adults it's a much rarer property.
(as an aside, why is it so distinctly American for so much of this mistreatment to be sexual and borderline homo in nature?)
These torturers are not looking out for the well-being of America. They are psychotic individuals being used in the service of keeping America safe (as if America ever was a safe country.)
Would you want them around your loved ones? What if their dog turned up missing and they thought your kid had something to do with it?
Of course innocents are tortured in any society that condones torture. Maybe someday there will be a society that does not condone torture. It isn't America at this time. |
Great post, and I share your disgust of the gay torture. I mean, I'm all for gay men and women having consentual sex and all if that's what they want to do, but putting things up the buttholes of our POWs and putting them in nudemenpyramids? We talk about John McCain being tortured by the Vietnamese, and he was, but he didn't have things put up his butthole or put in a nudemenpyramid, right?
It all makes me worry about how we in America will treat each other when our economy collapses. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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The Woman Who Could Nail Bush
"On March 19, the nomination of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] was endorsed by the Judiciary Committee with every Republican voting against her and Sen. Arlen Spector (R-PA) abstaining. The nomination was to have been brought to the Senate floor for a vote on Monday and then again on Wednesday, but has been held back. Republican leaders, it appears, are playing with the notion of making Johnsen the target of their first filibuster.
...Right-to-life groups have targeted Johnsen over the last three weeks with a massive telephone, email, and letter writing campaign, demanding that senators oppose her nomination. Johnsen is labeled a �radical, pro-abortion activist,� although her views on the abortion issue line up very closely with the mainstream. While the noise surrounding the Johnsen nomination appears on the surface to be about the abortion issue�over which her position at OLC would have very little influence�discussions with Republican stalwarts reveal that their main concerns lie elsewhere.
The real reason for their vehement opposition is that Johnsen is committed to overturning the Bush administration�s policies on torture and warrantless surveillance that would clip the wings of the imperial presidency. Even more menacingly from their perspective, she is committed to disclosing some of the darkest skeletons of the Bush years. Already, publication of OLC memoranda authorizing torture, approving warrantless surveillance, and pronouncing the First and Fourth Amendments a dead letter in connection with domestic military operations has rocked the public. More memos, potentially even more disturbing, I have learned, are about to be made public soon. Yet these are difficult issues on which to attack Johnsen, other than through vague suggestions that she is �weak on national security.� Hence the steady stream of accusations linked to her largely irrelevant views about abortion rights."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-26/partisan-war-breaks-out/ |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent. I hope she really rocks the boat. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
The Woman Who Could Nail Bush
"�discussions with Republican stalwarts reveal that their main concerns lie elsewhere.
The real reason for their vehement opposition is that Johnsen is [b]committed to overturning the Bush administration�s policies on torture and warrantless surveillance that would clip the wings of the imperial presidency. t/ |
I call B.S on this guy. He claims that Republicans have told him this...why would they? So he can publish their claims? Does this even sound within the bounds of reality?
Also which Republicans have told him this? |
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