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-   -   Senators Clash With Nominee About Torture (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=15733)

rkzenrage 10-22-2007 02:45 PM
Senators Clash With Nominee About Torture
 
Senators Clash With Nominee About Torture
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/wa...th&oref=slogin

Quote:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 — President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, declined Thursday to say if he considered harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which simulates drowning, to constitute torture or to be illegal if used on terrorism suspects.

In His Own Words On the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey went further than he had the day before in arguing that the White House had constitutional authority to act beyond the limits of laws enacted by Congress, especially when it came to national defense.

He suggested that both the administration’s program of eavesdropping without warrants and its use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including waterboarding, might be acceptable under the Constitution even if they went beyond what the law technically allowed. Mr. Mukasey said the president’s authority as commander in chief might allow him to supersede laws written by Congress.
You realize this means they feel that this it is acceptable for US soldiers to be treated in these ways.
We are now the enemy.
You ARE your tactics.

xoxoxoBruce 10-22-2007 06:37 PM
Fuck the waterboards... this scares the hell out of me.
Quote:
Mr. Mukasey said the president’s authority as commander in chief might allow him to supersede laws written by Congress.
WTF?

BigV 10-22-2007 07:06 PM
You didn't hear that before?

I was the only person whose head exploded?

(near quote, from memory--fuggedaboutit... skimmed this from slate.com)
Quote:
Judge Mukasey's views on presidential power are also disqualifying. When asked about the secret surveillance program authorized by President Bush in plain violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he responded that the Constitution authorizes the president to ignore or disobey statutory law when he thinks it necessary "to defend the country." When Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked whether the president could authorize illegal conduct his response was this lawyerly formulation:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mukasey
The only way for me to respond to that in the abstract is to say that if by illegal you mean contrary to a statute, but within the authority of the president to defend the country, the president is not putting somebody above the law; the president is putting somebody within the law. Can the president put somebody above the law? No. The president doesn't stand above the law. But the law emphatically includes the Constitution. It starts with the Constitution.

xoxoxoBruce 10-23-2007 09:10 PM
Shoot the fucker... do it now. This asshole should not be allowed out on the street, let alone in office.

Urbane Guerrilla 10-25-2007 12:04 AM
As usual, trying to win the war gets short shrift with you guys. One thing I am certain of, Bruce, RKzen, V: none of you could win this war. You've not thought how, you know no method nor strategy that would succeed better, yet look how bloody willing you are to -- demonstrate that. I'd thought better of all of you.

Happy Monkey 10-25-2007 12:37 AM
We don't want Bush to win the war against the rule of law.

Ibby 10-25-2007 01:25 AM
UG, you're right; none of us could win it.
However, bush has proved to everyone in the world except the most die-hard, blind, resolute, blinkered republican fanatics, that he can't either.
Personally, i doubt that it CAN be won, beyond simply redefining failure as success.

Undertoad 10-25-2007 07:28 AM
It's being won right now, you're just not hearing anything about it.

piercehawkeye45 10-25-2007 11:26 AM
What is winning the war in Iraq? I seriously haven't heard a good definition.

Undertoad 10-25-2007 12:14 PM
The new definition is returning to civil society and rule of law by Iraqis, in order to keep most of the country out of the hands of Al Qaeda.

xoxoxoBruce 10-25-2007 08:12 PM
I don't know if the war is being won, but we've shown how quickly the natives settle down to a normal routine, if they perceive they are safe.

TheMercenary 10-25-2007 09:58 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by rkzenrage (Post 398147)
Senators Clash With Nominee About Torture
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/wa...th&oref=slogin



You realize this means they feel that this it is acceptable for US soldiers to be treated in these ways.
We are now the enemy.
You ARE your tactics.
ROTFLMAO! You have a point. We should just chop off the heads of those we capture. I am all for it! Treat them like they treat us, maybe we could get somewhere if we did that.:D

Urbane Guerrilla 10-25-2007 10:29 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45 (Post 399401)
What is winning the war in Iraq? I seriously haven't heard a good definition.
Which is only because your definition of a "good definition" is a) not mentioned, and b) not good for the Republic or shrinking the Non-Integrating Gap areas of the globe. I won't get into how often you've ignored my answer on this very point, and wholly without reason, except to say I think I've told you what victory in the Iraq campaign would be about three times. Somehow, you think you know better than that. I do not understand why you do.

Sure, I'm open to honest differences of opinion -- but where the hell are they?

rkzenrage 10-26-2007 01:56 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMercenary (Post 399650)
ROTFLMAO! You have a point. We should just chop off the heads of those we capture. I am all for it! Treat them like they treat us, maybe we could get somewhere if we did that.:D
Wrong... I said we now feel it is RIGHT for ours to be treated this way.
We are our tactics.
Therefore, we are stating that this behavior is ok for others to treat ours in the same way.

Clodfobble 10-26-2007 11:15 AM
Yes, well, FWIW I personally would feel that it is okay for them to make our soldiers climb into human pyramids, scare them with dogs which are safely tethered, verbally and symbolically insult them, tear up copies of the Bible in front of them, and even waterboard them on occasion. If multiple journalists will willingly take part in it to "find out how bad it really is," it can't be that horrific.

Things I am not okay with them doing to our soldiers are the things they actually do to both them and civilians: burning, cutting, dismembering, disemboweling, and cutting off heads. (You go ahead and let me know when someone from Al Jazeera lets Al Qaeda cut off his head so he can report back to his viewers how bad it really is.)


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