Senate Passes Torture Bill

[Hamlet]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15044215/

[Psycho4Bud]

Well, we can either bitch slap the info. out of em' or talk it over with some coffee and donuts. I wonder which method is more effective?

Have a good one!:thumbsup:

[Hamlet]

We can trash the Constitution for Bush's convenience and throw out Habeus Corpus for a 'tough on terror' political campaign--just in time for November elections.

[Psycho4Bud]

The constitution was created to protect the rights of OUR citizens. I don't think it was in any way meant to protect those from foriegn lands that mean to harm OUR people. That falls more towards the Geneva Convention and the guidelines on how to deal with "Prisoners of War". Which country do these terrorists represent again? I'll still vote for the bitch slap.

Have a good one!:thumbsup:

[Hamlet]

The Geneva Convention was created to protect OUR citizens too. Now our soldiers will have to face retaliation for the sake of a campaign slogan.

The Constituion is more than just a set of rules. It's a philosophy we adopted for our country and our lifestyles. It made us great....sad to see it go.

[birdgirl73]

Coffee and donuts have always worked best with me personally. Actually, my interrogators can just skip the coffee altogther.

I can understand why bitch slaps are necessary under many other circumstances. Not everyone becomes a spineless, blindly cooperative weakling when confronted with a Krispy Kreme. I'm one of the few. The doughnut-powerless.

[Psycho4Bud]

The Third Geneva Convention was adopted in 1929 regarding treatment to prisoners of war. How did this "protect" our people during WW2 with Germany and Japan, how bout' Korea, and Vietnam?

I'm sorry, these people represent NO country or flag. Hell, most the countries that they do come from won't even take them back!

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

To insure domestic tranquility.........if a bitch slap is needed on a terrorists face in order to achieve this, I'll follow our Constitution and the rights it gives U.S. citizens.

Have a good one!:thumbsup:

[Psycho4Bud]

Coffee and donuts have always worked best with me personally. Actually, my interrogators can just skip the coffee altogther.

I can understand why bitch slaps are necessary under many other circumstances. Not everyone becomes a spineless, blindly cooperative weakling when confronted with a Krispy Kreme. I'm one of the few. The doughnut-powerless.

LOL......I'd sell out Bin Laden for a double chocolate donut and a glass of milk. Guess I wouldn't make a good Al Quada member. :dance:

Have a good one!:thumbsup:

[Inferius]

Lol birdgirl.
This part scares me: "It also would prohibit blatant abuses of detainees but grant the president flexibility to decide what interrogation techniques are legally permissible."
I suppose watching vids of his speeches would promote interrogation success.

[birdgirl73]

LOL......I'd sell out Bin Laden for a double chocolate donut and a glass of milk. Guess I wouldn't make a good Al Quada member.
They'd have to put our terrorist images on a milk carton rather than a deck of heavy-duty playing cards. We'd have milk moustaches and sugar and chocolate on our faces. Nope, not a scary Al Qaeda image!

I'd give my right coronary artery for a doughnut right about now. . . .

[Hamlet]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15053727/

[graymatter]

Why not just threaten to bathe and shave them? ;)

Seriously, are these interrogation methods effective? I've heard people say yes and no. Either way, I don't think it's the best example to send if the goal is to spread and protect democracy and freedom. We don't allow ourselves to go there with our own rapists and other domestic sadists (I know, I know... why not). And it creeps me out to think we have government people conducting research on the response reliability of, say, water boarding.

[Dutch Pimp]

..poor young American soldiers...they have been studied...by everyone in the world. How? ...American Hollywood movies. We watch them..but... so does the rest of the world. Everything from Sgt York to Blackhawk Down. They know him ..like the back of their hand. This is not to their advantage.... "charlie" cong was like that..too.

[Myth1184]

We can trash the Constitution for Bush's convenience and throw out Habeus Corpus for a 'tough on terror' political campaign--just in time for November elections.

US LAWS APPLY TO US CITIZENS, THEY DONT APPLY TO UNLAWFUL COMBATANTS/TERRORIST, NEITHER DOES THE GENEVA CONVENTION

Using your method of reason, some1 from amsterdam would argue hes allowed to smoke pot in the us since he can do it in his home country. Think before you post

[Hamlet]

Think before I post? ....maybe you're right. Nothing I could post would possibly compare to the intellectual gymnastics and acute reasoning of your reply, but I do my best with what I've got.

But here's what I think anyway. Without Habeus Corpus you are an enemy combatant because anyone says so. Pakistan is yanking hundreds of people off the streets left and right, turning them over to the U.S. with no evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever, and collecting millions in bounty money. People are being thrown into prison and tortured for months and held indefinitely without legal representation.

They just released some poor schmuck engineer from Canada after two years of abuse because someone decided he might know someone, who knows someone.

This is Orwellian 1984 shit. This isn't us. We're not war criminals....We don't torture people.

[graymatter]

Think before I post? ....maybe you're right. Nothing I could post would possibly compare to the intellectual gymnastics and acute reasoning of your reply, but I do my best with what I've got.

But here's what I think anyway. Without Habeus Corpus you are an enemy combatant because anyone says so. Pakistan is yanking hundreds of people off the streets left and right, turning them over to the U.S. with no evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever, and collecting millions in bounty money. People are being thrown into prison and tortured for months and held indefinitely without legal representation.

They just released some poor schmuck engineer from Canada after two years of abuse because someone decided he might know someone, who knows someone.

This is Orwellian 1984 shit. This isn't us. We're not war criminals....We don't torture people.


Well said, Hamlet... but Myth has a one way radio, transmits but doesn't receive... sort of like the assholes he voted for.

[birdgirl73]

That's right, isn't it? I remember now. You told me about that, too, Gray, after an earling pwning Myth got once, as I recall. And now Hamlet's given him another simple, far less wordy pwning than that previous one, which was on another topic. And off Myth'll go . . . no doubt returning to traipse the halls of a presigious Ivy League academic institution before he returns again to impress us with his intellect here.

[Breukelen advocaat]

US LAWS APPLY TO US CITIZENS, THEY DONT APPLY TO UNLAWFUL COMBATANTS/TERRORIST, NEITHER DOES THE GENEVA CONVENTION

Using your method of reason, some1 from amsterdam would argue hes allowed to smoke pot in the us since he can do it in his home country. Think before you post

Myth is right about this. Personally I would argue that the Taliban and Al Queda captured in Afghanistan should have been killed, in greater numbers, but the interrogations that have been carried out may have prevented further attacks on our soil.

Let's be honest: a conventional, legal trial for them would have been a circus, making us look bad, and stupid, in many ways - not to mention leaving us wide open for more of the same attacks. We made a mistake supporting them in their battle with the U.S.S.R, and they turned on us by allowing the people from outside to use them for jihad against us. This was more than outrageous, it was unforgivable. After they drove out the Russians, with our training and equipment, we continued to give the country millions a year in foreign aid - and we were thanked with thier providing a base for the people responsible for attacking and , eventually, 9/11. They don't deserve the Geneva convention.

[halo]

The constitution was created to protect the rights of OUR citizens. I don't think it was in any way meant to protect those from foriegn lands that mean to harm OUR people. That falls more towards the Geneva Convention and the guidelines on how to deal with "Prisoners of War". Which country do these terrorists represent again? I'll still vote for the bitch slap.

Have a good one!:thumbsup:

I could have sworn somewhere it said INALIENABLE RIGHTS GRANTED TO ALL MEN.

[Hamlet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRjbIQMXGQ

[Hamlet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL3__pxKUkI&NR

[MastaChronic]

man, torture is wrong. they might not be americans, but they are still humans. this is just a stepping stone, watch, in a few decades the government will be yanking AMERICANS off the streets because they MIGHT now something or are SUSPECTED of something. they will be taken to an empty warehouse where the FB..excuse me, governemnt sanctioned american inquisition will squeeze you testicles until you talk. this might be considered paranoid, but remember, marijuana wasnt outlawed in one fell swoop either. VIVA LA RESISTANCE!

[MastaChronic]

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: and i just watched those videos and i am so pissed off right now, want the names of the people who did this to that man, and the names of the people who let it happen, so i can go and beat their asses down!:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Krogith]

it's not just him or some few people this is happening and we need to all wake up and see how this world has fallen apart. Hate leads to Hate. And thoses who pick up the sword will die by it. Do not judge others just judge yourself and let god sort the Evil out. Do not let Greed and Hate Blind sight you.

[Krogith]

least the nazi's didn't make it law(they just did it) this is just horrable

[Breukelen advocaat]

City University of New York professor of Philosophy Michael Levin wrote this essay in 1982. Levin is well known in Libertarian circles, and continues to defend The Case for Torture.


THE CASE FOR TORTURE
Michael Levin

It is generally assumed that torture is impermissible, a throwback to a more brutal age. Enlightened societies reject it outright, and regimes suspected of using it risk the wrath of the United States.

I believe this attitude is unwise. There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory. Moreover, these situations are moving from the realm of imagination to fact.

Death: Suppose a terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on Manhattan Island which will detonate at noon on July 4 unless ... here follow the usual demands for money and release of his friends from jail. Suppose, further, that he is caught at 10 a.m on the fateful day, but preferring death to failure, won't disclose where the bomb is. What do we do? If we follow due process, wait for his lawyer, arraign him, millions of people will die. If the only way to save those lives is to subject the terrorist to the most excruciating possible pain, what grounds can there be for not doing so? I suggest there are none. In any case, I ask you to face the question with an open mind.

Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional? Probably. But millions of lives surely outweigh constitutionality. Torture is barbaric? Mass murder is far more barbaric. Indeed, letting millions of innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice, an unwillingness to dirty one's hands. If you caught the terrorist, could you sleep nights knowing that millions died because you couldn't bring yourself to apply the electrodes?

Once you concede that torture is justified in extreme cases, you have admitted that the decision to use torture is a matter of balancing innocent lives against the means needed to save them. You must now face more realistic cases involving more modest numbers. Someone plants a bomb on a jumbo jet. I He alone can disarm it, and his demands cannot be met (or they can, we refuse to set a precedent by yielding to his threats). Surely we can, we must, do anything to the extortionist to save the passengers. How can we tell 300, or 100, or 10 people who never asked to be put in danger, "I'm sorry you'll have to die in agony, we just couldn't bring ourselves to . . . "
Here are the results of an informal poll about a third, hypothetical, case. Suppose a terrorist group kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital. I asked four mothers if they would approve of torturing kidnappers if that were necessary to get their own newborns back. All said yes, the most "liberal" adding that she would like to administer it herself.

I am not advocating torture as punishment. Punishment is addressed to deeds irrevocably past. Rather, I am advocating torture as an acceptable measure for preventing future evils. So understood, it is far less objectionable than many extant punishments. Opponents of the death penalty, for example, are forever insisting that executing a murderer will not bring back his victim (as if the purpose of capital punishment were supposed to be resurrection, not deterrence or retribution). But torture, in the cases described, is intended not to bring anyone back but to keep innocents from being dispatched. The most powerful argument against using torture as a punishment or to secure confessions is that such practices disregard the rights of the individual. Well, if the individual is all that important, and he is, it is correspondingly important to protect the rights of individuals threatened by terrorists. If life is so valuable that it must never be taken, the lives of the innocents must be saved even at the price of hurting the one who endangers them.

Better precedents for torture are assassination and pre-emptive attack. No Allied leader would have flinched at assassinating Hitler, had that been possible. (The Allies did assassinate Heydrich.) Americans would be angered to learn that Roosevelt could have had Hitler killed in 1943, thereby shortening the war and saving millions of lives, but refused on moral grounds. Similarly, if nation A learns that nation B is about to launch an unprovoked attack, A has a right to save itself by destroying B's military capability first. In the same way, if the police can by torture save those who would otherwise die at the hands of kidnappers or terrorists, they must.

Idealism:There is an important difference between terrorists and their victims that should mute talk of the terrorists' "rights." The terrorist's victims are at risk unintentionally, not having asked to be endangered. But the terrorist knowingly initiated his actions. Unlike his victims, he volunteered for the risks of his deed. By threatening to kill for profit or idealism, he renounces civilized standards, and he can have no complaint if civilization tries to thwart him by whatever means necessary.

Just as torture is justified only to save lives (not extort confessions or incantations), it is justifiably administered only to those known to hold innocent lives in their hands. Ah, but how call the authorities ever be sure they have the right malefactor? Isn't there a danger of error and abuse? Won't "WE" turn into "THEM?" Questions like these are disingenuous in a world in which terrorists proclaim themselves and perform for television. The name of their game is public recognition. After all, you can't very well intimidate a government into releasing your freedom fighters unless you announce that it is your group that has seized its embassy. "Clear guilt" is difficult to define, but when 40 million people see a group of masked gunmen seize an airplane on the evening news, there is not much question about who the perpetrators are. There will be hard cases where the situation is murkier. Nonetheless, a line demarcating the legitimate use of torture can be drawn. Torture only the obviously guilty, and only for the sake of saving innocents, and the line between "US" and "THEM" will remain clear.

There is little danger that the Western democracies will lose their way if they choose to inflict pain as one way of preserving order. Paralysis in the face of evil is the greater danger. Some day soon a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them. We had better start thinking about this.

http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/torture.html

[Hamlet]

You can always come up with an extreme hypothetical situation to justify anything. For instance: What if a nuclear device was planted in a baby, and you had to chop the baby in half to get the nuclear bomb out?! Once you concede 'baby chopping' is justified in extreme cases....etc.

Yeah, if you had Bin Laden by the short n' curlys and the only way to save a million people was to skin him alive, you would probably have to do it. But it still wouldn't be moral or right, and it wouldn't be a precedent for making torture 'business as usual'.

That's what terrorism is all about. A few madmen aren't killing people just for the sake of eliminating those people. They are striking at our weakness and fear. --to terrorize us into destroying ourselves. And it's working if we abandon everything that makes us a class act.

It's more important than ever to conduct ourselves with absolute dignity. When someone from another country is dealing with America, they need to know they're dealing with a just and responsible code of values,....not nazi ghouls.

http://www.tortureisnotus.org/torture_is_wrong.php

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm

[Breukelen advocaat]

You can always come up with an extreme hypothetical situation to justify anything. For instance: What if a nuclear device was planted in a baby, and you had to chop the baby in half to get the nuclear bomb out?! Once you concede 'baby chopping' is justified in extreme cases....etc.
Yeah, if you had Bin Laden by the short n' curlys and the only way to save a million people was to skin him alive, you would probably have to do it. But it still wouldn't be moral or right, and it wouldn't be a precedent for making torture 'business as usual'.
That's what terrorism is all about. A few madmen aren't killing people just for the sake of eliminating those people. They are striking at our weakness and fear. --to terrorize us into destroying ourselves. And it's working if we abandon everything that makes us a class act.
It's more important than ever to conduct ourselves with absolute dignity. When someone from another country is dealing with America, they need to know they're dealing with a just and responsible code of values,....not nazi ghouls.

The terrorists that killed 3000 innocent people on 9/11 are not people "from another country" that care about justice and a "responsible code of values" - they are madmen that must be treated as rabid animals. Since they are not afraid of death, then other methods of convincing them to cease their acts must be employed when necessary. Killing the families of jihadists is a good idea to discourage their suicide missions. Fuck 'em. I act like a fucking Nazi when I have to. Street problems with lunatics are solved very quickly, usually without violence, when the troublemakers know that you're crazier than they are. Morality is NOT constant, or without change. It IS immoral to allow people to get away with murder and terrorism - and not immoral to use any means necessary against the guilty to stop it.

[birdgirl73]

As usual, I agree with you, Hamlet. I also think it's important, if we're telling the world our supposed aim in fighting terrorism is helping bring freedom and democracy to the unenlightened world (which I don't buy for a second as our real goal but which our leaders have nonetheless used as the official position), then we have to conduct ourselves and our treatment of others in a way that reflects that freedom and democacy, our alleged core values. Basically a different way of saying what you said in your last paragraph, now that I look at it again. . . .

[MastaChronic]

You can always come up with an extreme hypothetical situation to justify anything. For instance: What if a nuclear device was planted in a baby, and you had to chop the baby in half to get the nuclear bomb out?! Once you concede 'baby chopping' is justified in extreme cases....etc.
[/url]

this is just my personal opinion on that matter and im not saying its right-far from it, but, i think that would be kinda fun:p

[MastaChronic]

forget about what i just posted, im sorry i didnt mean it like they way most of you are looking at it. its just..."baby chopping" lol i think thats a hilarious term

[Hamlet]

My fault mastachronic...I used a facetious example inappropriately.