I believe that's one of the weapons that are, according to one of the addendums to the Geneva Conventions, not supposed to be used against personnel, but only against vehicles (like .50 cal machineguns). I could be wrong, though.

No one asked Bush (or any other president for that matter) to get involved. This is a humanitarian issue and an internal issue. This is a call for solidarity with people of Iran which have their human rights violated at unprecedented scale.

The sad part is that US can’t even tell Iran not to torture, because they lost the high ground with Bush/Chaney torturing detainees against Geneva Conventions.

We can’t do anything when China suppresses Tibetans or Uighurs. We can’t do anything when US violates human rights in Iraq with an illegal war. We can only appeal to the human condition and spread our disgust with this type of government actions. Otherwise everybody’s rights starts to evaporate globally.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Modern liberalism seems to be trouncing real individuality at every turn: no longer are you allowed to choose what to drive, what to eat, whether to buy health care, whether to use tobacco, whether to own a gun, what you're allowed to say in public, whether you may express religious thought in public, what you can do with your own land.

All of those things are still permitted, and will stay that way, if the actual (as opposed to fictional) "modern" liberals have anything to say about it.

However, in the wake of a series of conservative administrations, we seem to have lost the ability to marry who we choose, take the drugs we want to take, and the ability to practice a non-Christian religion without persecution.

I also seem to have lost the ability to sue telephone companies who eavesdrop on my conversations without warrants, my right to habeas corpus, and the protections of the Geneva conventions. Again, thanks to the "modern" conservatives.

I have never, ever seen you preach tolerance for a viewpoint other than your own myopic view of the world. We tolerate you, because we pride ourselves on tolerance of people who are different from ourselves, but your hyopcritical, sanctimonious horseshit makes it a little more difficult than it really needs to be.

FYI, here is the transcript of that portion of Obama's speech:

I want to be honest: this is the toughest issue we will face. We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who have received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.

As I said, I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture - like other prisoners of war - must be prevented from attacking us again. However, we must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. That is why my Administration has begun to reshape these standards to ensure they are in line with the rule of law. We must have clear, defensible and lawful standards for those who fall in this category. We must have fair procedures so that we don't make mistakes. We must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified.

I know that creating such a system poses unique challenges. Other countries have grappled with this question, and so must we. But I want to be very clear that our goal is to construct a legitimate legal framework for Guantanamo detainees - not to avoid one. In our constitutional system, prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man. If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight. And so going forward, my Administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution.

Not quite what Rachel made it out to be.

I don't blame her for being attentive on this issue -- I sure as hell am. I also don't blame her for using her show to try to build political pressure for Obama to Do The Right Thing^TM, but I don't see any reason to think from this speech that he's decided to do something bad, or even left the door open to do something bad.

What I heard was what he's always said: we don't have to choose between our values and our safety.

He's just pointing out, in a very, very delicate way, that Guantanamo as is operates entirely outside of the law, but that it would be irresponsible to release the people we can't try because Bush ignored due process and the Geneva conventions and made it impossible to build a legitimate legal case for holding some of these people.

I think the idea is to come up with a way to charge them for "conspiracy to commit terror attacks" that passes muster, so that their detention ceases to be unlawful and indefinite. As Xaielao said, there is some precedent for this with Prisoners of War, though most of the law written about that assumes there's a state with a government to deal with in some clear way about the release, so we'd need a new legal framework for dealing with non-state actors...

I think I'll be watching it for the gadgets & locations & explosions (probably not in the cinema though), and to see a Hollywoodified CERN.
I actually read the book on a train trip from Rome to Geneva, so I couldn't help but visit CERN, and suffice it to say, Dan Brown went a little bit overboard on the Q division stuff there.

ya beat me to it RASCH!
the debate if torture is a political right or wrong,or if its its even justified
is IRRELEVANT.
let me say that again for those who got their intellect from a cracker jack box.
the debate on whether torture is righteous,or a political ideology is IRRELEVANT.
RASCH is correct.according to article 3 of the geneva convention,and CIA,NSA and fbi legal guidelines,waterboarding is considered TORTURE,therefore it is against the LAW.not just international law,but national.
dont like the law?then CHANGE it.
but bybee,addington and woo did not do that did they?
they created retro-active legislation that RETROACTIVELY gave immunity to those who were the architects of the iraq war.
if the bush administration was so righteous in the iraq war and its prosecution,why would they have senior white house legal counsel create laws to grant immunity..retroactively?
answer=because the prosecution of the "war on terror" was an illegal war,using illegal "interrogation techniques".
in the aftermath of world war 2,three japanese interrogators were executed.
their crime?...waterboarding.
which court prosecuted these japanese interrogators?....american.
there IS NO ARGUMENT....waterboarding is against the LAW..period.
so for those who feel they can turn this into a political diatribe are just being weak-minded,or even worse...tools for an establishment who left their ideologies a long time ago.
while bansheex may be corrct that in the past it was the democracts who were the chickenhawks,it is BESIDE THE POINT,and has no relevance to the current argument.
and QM's argument is just one big red herring,and avoids the real point in order to push his "i hate libs" polemic.
this IS NOT A POLITICAL TALKING POINT.this is about the honor of the USA and how we,as a nation,are all equal UNDER THE LAW.
jesse ventura put it perfectly,and i agree,i dont care if it was a repub,or a dem that knew about this,and either by action OR inaction allowed this perversion to go on.ALL of them should be held accountable.
this new development with the additional abu ghraib pictures NOT being revealed has me fuming.it smacks of political hubris.my guess is that some
prominent politicians will be exposed as having known about these abuses and let it slide for political expediency.i find this VERY distasteful.
no-one should be above the law.
and waterboarding is torture,it was developed for the sole purpose of producing a "false confession" and did nothing to gather or obtain pertinent information,but did a great job in making our country seem the hypocrite and made or soldiers far less safe.
and QM..please read up on the legalities please.the "national flag" defense was a construct by the bybee/addington crew to do exactly what you did here..
defend torture,and was corrected in 2006.that argument can no longer be used.
somebody else mentioned "citizen rights"..yeah..ok...
go check out MCA of 2006,patriot act 1& 2,victory act 1& 2.
all they have to do is deem you an "enemy combatant" and your whisked away to "secret rendition" club med.there was a post here a few weeks ago about a 16 yr old who was brought in under the patriot act,he lost all rights as a citizen.no habeas corpus,no rights of redress,the state does not have to produce evidence under the vague banner of "national security".
this whole things stinks to high heaven,reeking of political malfeasance and abuse.the worst thing is how it indirectly puts our soldiers in a much worse situation than before.and for what?...nothing,absolutely nothing.
i didnt serve my country to watch a bunch of gray haired chicken hawk pussies,who didnt have the balls to sign up when called, but now are all trash talking tough guys,who put MY kids in danger.
bunch of panty-waist,pussy fags.
im done...there is no argument.
against the law..period.
either change the law,or shut the fuck up.
better yet,put your money where your mouth is,and go sign up for the army.
lets see you trash talk then.
fucking pussies.
/rant OFF
thanks for tuning in to:enoch's cathartic rant.

>> ^quantumushroom:
How does Ventura--who really should know better--equate scum terrorists who are not soldiers and therefore have no rights or legal protections (except ones fabricated by the American Criminal Liars Union) with legitimate soldiers fighting under a nation's flag?
U.S. citizens, who have actual rights and protections under the law, cannot legally be waterboarded, not even a McVeigh. So that answers that.

That doesn't answer that at all. As well as being forbidden by US law, torture of POWs and civilians is forbidden by the third and fourth Geneva Conventions. The US have ratified these conventions and they must therefore be followed by the US government. In plain English this means that the US are bound not just by their own laws, but also by international law when it comes to treatment of POWs. As is the rest of the world.

The Bush administration tried to classify the captured terrorists as "unlawful combatants", ie. not POWs and therefore not protected by the Geneva Conventions. Another example of renaming someone/something to justify it. Of course this was just plain bullshit, in lack of a better word. I quote the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which sets a clear precedent:

"Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law."

Therefore, qm, captured terrorists have the same legal protection as US citizens when it comes to torture.

>> ^longde:
Is that any surprise?
Jefferson Davis, General Lee, and G W Bush are still considered heroes here by many.


G W Bush when talking about Stalin? Really? Come on, hyperbole like that just causes ill informed people to ignore the real criticisms of Bush and co. as well. He and his administration authorized torture and to this day insist that they did not need to extend Geneva convention rights to prisoners. They aught to be in jail. Stalin killed more of his own people than Hitler. He needs to be cloned and brutally murdered in the center of Moscow at the start of every year.

The amount of spin in 2:53 of video is astounding.

"Hurting America First" - Didn't it hurt America to start using torture in the first place? One of the key states to fight against the policies of Nazi Germany, the Stasi, the KGB and Khmer Rouge. One of the main founders and signatories of the Geneva convention?

"Showing military men and women in bad light" - Torture policy was top down not bottom up, we are to hold those who put these policies forward not those made to carry them out as orders. John Yoo, David Addington, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney. It was not a few bad apples.

"Voyeurism" - Was it voyeurism to cite 9/11 in almost every campaign speech during the elections? Was it voyeurism to acknowledge the victims of the holocaust? More diversionary spin. Such steps would assure these events will never occur again. One must see the mistakes of before to learn from them lest we repeat this again.

"Acts that have ended" - The acts were supposed to have ended with the Abu Ghraib scandal, but they didn't. It was a policy that was implemented and carried out before and after the scandal broke and would have kept going had the information not been leaked out.

"Hurting our National defense/Reason for suicide bombers" - The reasons for suicide bombing and attacks on America are plentiful for those who choose to do so. The way the statement is framed doesn't acknowledge that actually carrying out torture has been a great boon to creating more terrorists, or that its continual oppression and denial only furthers the case that America has a hypocritical stance. "It's bad when others do it, but its okay for us to do it."

"Replayed in the Arab world" - This is a lie. I live in the Arab world, we have enough of our own issues, the accusations of torture coming out were not surprising as the Arabs already know that Americans do not really care about the plight of the Arab people given the long history of political meddling in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Iran.

"Hurt the military" - Again an example of attacking the grunts instead of attacking those who created and put this forward these policies.

"Reveal intelligence gather techniques" - There has not been a single document published by the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the US military nor any other intelligence gathering component of the US government that has showed unequivocally that torture had prevented attacks and or has made America safer in anyway. What it has do is cost America the moral standing, the support of the international world and created strained relations across the world providing fuel for terrorist organizations to attack the US more then ever.

Waterboarding seems more humane than homicide bombings, honor killings, cutting the heads off journalists and flying planes into buildings.

These disgusting subhuman terrorists deserve zero protection from any court of law, certainly not the ones in countries they seek to destroy.

Let any enemy nation declare these subhumans as their own soldiers. Then they'll finally be worthy of Geneva Conventions protection while their country of origin is erased from the earth.

good for shepard smith!
i totally agree.
the fact that this is even still being debated in the media makes my head hurt.
the fact is kids:
waterboarding =torture.
not only according to article 3 of the geneva convention,but our own federal interrogation laws.
fact #2=study after study has shown no discernable,factual or otherwise,information has been obtained through the use of these methods.
regardless of the flimsy claims by the executive branch.
we are america and we dont fucking torture...
well said mr smith..well said.

For the most part, I follow and agree with what Obama is saying, in that this has to be dealt with carefully and especially in a bipartisan fashion. However, I am not as sure I agree regarding where the guilt fully lies.

Guilt at the top of the chain of command, those giving the orders, is of no debate to me. Those people need to be punished (according to Rule of Law) as they gave criminal orders to those that performed the torture. On a side note, I hate the use of the words "enhanced interrogation"... fucking call it what it is.

At the same time, "I just following orders", the Nuremberg Defense, has been used many times in modern history as an excuse for doing the inexcusable. There is a reason why international law, such as the Geneva Conventions, exist. This is specifially why the Nuremberg Principle IV was written.

There are rules, even in war. This is a moral issue that deserves greater international public debate, and I think Obama may have spoken too early, essentially giving pardons to those on the frontlines, those that performed the actual torture.

The sad thing, is that if it was a weaker country (in other words, one that could not defend it's sovereignty, not a superpower) that performed these acts the debate would be alot shorter, and those involved could expect to be punished for their actions. This will not be the first time the US government says "screw you" to international law and decide to prosecute/pardon these people under their own system, which will be much more gentle.

That is a perpetual problem with international law and world courts... ultimately a country that exercises it's sovereignty to the degree of the US (China and Russia are included in this) can do whatever they want with little consequences in the short term, if ever. They have no obligation to international law or the world courts because they can do whatever they want. The illegal war in Iraq is a perfect example of this sort of violation. A justice system with no real accountability or support is in the end a failure.

In the end, I will be happy enough if the big players, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield answered for their crimes (not just related to torture, but going into Iraq, illegal wire tapping... the works). I just think it is too early to be dishing out pardons to anyone.

I was under the impression that the Geneva convention forbids the military using shotguns on personnel. Maybe that only applies to particular ammunition like buckshot though. Not that anyone gives a damn about the Geneva convention anymore anyways.

The Bush Administration and the Republican Party have single-handedly made us hated across the globe with their needless wars, bloodshed, coups and disregard for the Geneva Convention. Anti-war, pro-labor and respect for the world we live in is the mantra of the Democrat Party, and the Republicans could take a cue from some of our presidents: LBJ, JFK, Truman, FDR and Woodrow Wilson.

>> ^SpeveO:
Did your pride also swell when Canada let George Bush, unrepentant war criminal, tap dance across the border? Oh right, he's not a war criminal, he's a humanitarian who saved the Iraqi people from blah blah blah insert hypocrisy here.


I would in fact be quite happy if Canada would try him for crimes against humanity in allowing torture and refusing to abide by the Geneva Convention. Just note that the list of people I would want to be on the list with Bush is extremely long and extends to far more outside America than in it.

What, is anyone actually surprised that attacking Bush doesn't actually fly as a defense for even worse scum like Mr. Galloway?