Bush, today, in his press conference, discusing the torture legislation:
PRESIDENT BUSH: You know, look, Caren, I’ve watched all this finger-pointing and naming of names, and all that stuff. Our objective is to secure the country. And we’ve had investigations, we had the 9/11 Commission, we had the look back this, we’ve had the look back that. The American people need to know that we spend all our time doing everything that we can to protect them. So I’m not going to comment on other comments.
But I will comment on this — that we’re on the offense against an enemy that wants to do us harm. And we must have the tools necessary to protect our country. On the one hand, if al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates are calling somebody in the country, we need to know why. And so Congress needs to pass that piece of legislation. If somebody has got information about a potential attack, we need to be able to ask that person some questions. And so Congress has got to pass that piece of legislation.
It isn’t torture we are legalizing! We are just asking questions!
Wonder what this guy was being asked?
That is, btw, a picture of the ‘abuses’ by a ‘few bad apples’ at Abu Gharaib, which actually, while degrading, is less physicallly painful than the torture that Bush wants to legalize.
But it doesn’t leave any marks! And we are just asking questions!
MN Politics Guru
You know, part of me wants to see a rider attached to the torture bill, should it pass: members of Congress must be involved in actually torturing detainees.
I think that this would rather quickly show our esteemed leaders exactly how evil and degrading it is to torture. And those few sickos who actually enjoy it will be exposed for the psychopaths that they are.
jg
Bush is starting to resemble the guy in Office Space who lost his composure in teh interview with the efficiency experts.
“I’m a people person goddamnit. What’s wrong with you people.”
Zifnab
But John, they want to kill us. Don’t you want to help the President protect America from people who want to kill us. Us, John. That means you and your wife and your kids. Dead. Because of terrorists. They’ll do it cause they’re crazy and wear funny head dress thingies and worship not-Jesus. Why can’t you support our President?
KC
What gets me is that the torture bill doesn’t really have the support of many of our most esteemed intelligence and military leaders. It’s basically being pushed at the moment not out of necessity for safety, but out of necessity for political control. I mean, we’re really going to sacrifice all the years we’ve held to higher standards with respect to enemy captures than the Russians and the Chinese just for political expedience? It truly boggles the mind.
RSA
When will people realize that if Congress does not pass this legislation, Bush will not be able to ask terrorists some questions?
Bush: Okay, where’s–
Terrorist: Muahaha! You can’t ask me questions, because Congress has not passed your legislation!
ThymeZone
That picture really pisses me off.
I cannot believe that we’ve come to this.
Tsulagi
Maybe they can use that photo in a new Rummy/Gonzales approved field manual.
Caption under the photo: Thumbs up, this is A-OK.
Release dog to chew on balls? Maybe OK, but we won’t say for sure.
Dog chews on balls and it’s reported in a newspaper? You’re a bad apple.
Sojourner
They’re pushing the legislation because they have tortured, they have failed to respect basic human rights, and they know they’re subject to accusations of international war crimes. So their goal is to get the Republican whores to make what they’ve done legal.
Why would they care about redefining the Geneva Conventions if they haven’t already trashed them?
DougJ
Better to torture possibly innocent people in our secret prisons than to fight terrorists in our cities’ streets.
Nat Echols
This is my theory too; the Republic will not catch fire if we can’t waterboard the occasional Arab, and Bush (and the GOP) know this damn well. There have now been enough stories of detainees (at multiple sites) who turned out to be innocent, many of whom were also tortured, that the administration is scrambling to legitimize its policies after the fact. But they can’t just come out and say, “okay, we may have zapped an innocent man’s testicles.”
This was also my theory for the abortive appointment of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Bush knew the NYT was sitting on the NSA story, which, while relatively trivial compared to the rest of the administration’s abominable record, was a clear example of violating federal law. The “unitary executive” theory has relatively few adherents, and most of them appear to work in the White House.
I’m trying not to think about what could possibly drive them to demand the ability to conduct extra-judicial Star Chambers that will never see the light of day. I just pray they haven’t been doing this all along.
F. Authoratah
You know, what we need is a waterboarding contest in front of Capitol Hill. Prominent lefties would subject themselves to it, and invite those on the right if they had the courage to join them.
Waterboarding would continue until:
1) those on the left agreed that it wasn’t torture
2) those of the right agreed that is was torture
I wonder who would break first.
Zifnab
Sleep better at night knowing they probably just stick you in a box and forget about you, extra-judical Star Chambers be damned.
VidaLoca
John,
I just read that you have been inducted into the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill and declared a “fine, tentacled, eldritch American”.
Un-balanced.
Un-serious.
Good on you, sir.
mrmobi
Good for you John. I continue to be surprised by you.
The picture is an image of how far we have fallen as a nation. I’m ashamed for America.
Many, many Iraqis were wrongly imprisoned, so I imagine that many completely innocent people were tortured, some perhaps to death.
As horrific as the image is, the President wants techniques worse than those shown to be routinely used. For me, that makes him a traitor to the most basic American values.
Isn’t there some law about “high crimes and misdemeanors?” Oops, forgot, that’s only for blow-jobs. Damn.
Jess
Nice! That would be an elegant solution. Especially since we’ve reached the point where it really could happen to any of us, and there would be nothing we could do to prevent it or hold anyone accountable for it. So it makes perfect sense to do a few practice rounds to get ourselves prepared. Michelle Malkin, you first.
stickler
Mrmobi:
You may want to imagine that “many completely innocent people were tortured, some perhaps to death.”
Your imagination, of course, is correct. Or do you not read the news? Shall I provide links?
But of course, we all know this has been happening. In our names.
Sleep tight!
Wickedpinto
The picture isn’t torture it’s cowardice.
you are apple, oranging and cantelope-ing this argument.
You served brother, I don’t support the abu-ghraib crap, that was silly sadism by a bunch of idiots, I don’t support waterboarding, that is, in my opinion, not quite, but DAMN near close ENOUGH to be thought of as torture, but rubbing red water soluable ink on someones face? is NOT torture.
If the definition is left open, alowing the prisoner to DICTATE the nature of torture? we couldn’t even insult him about his small dick, or his short beard, or his young age, because for these suicidal pricks are touchy about everything.
The legislation does not authorize the thing that is shown in your picture, and I understand your concern, and I agree. But STANDING UP for hours at a time? Well? SUCK IT UP! after all, after you stood up, you get to lay down for at least 8 hours a night.
Even servicemembers don’t get that allowance.
I agree with you in BASIC, john, but in the broad? you are looking for the worst, based on a MINUTE comparisson. I wish you wouldn’t do that, cuz I know, I’ve read you, I know you know better.
chopper
who the hell is arguing that prisoners should be the ones dictating the definition of torture?
The Other Steve
John, from now on we would prefer if you would stop calling it torture. It’s horribly inaccurate, and it promotes a negative connotation.
The correct term is Alternative Discussion Methodology.
Thank you,
The Bush Administration
The Other Steve
Mr. Strawman. He’s a nasty little bugger too.
chopper
great. now john can honestly say he’s been declared ‘shrill’ by one of those cthulu-nerds.
what’s next, called a leftist whacko by a trekkie? or a D&D-playing spazz?
“John Cole, who i previously considered a 12th-level ‘blog user’ has lost all of his charisma points with his last post critiquing the bush administration’s methods of fighting terror. I don’t think even a saving throw vs. ‘disingenuous’ will save him now.”
searp
John Cole is absolutely right about the broad outlines of the torture “debate”. The fact that the country must have this debate at all perfectly illustrates the degree to which this President has debased us all.
It is absolutely clear that the President is operating in bad faith and outside our law and custom. When have we ever condoned indefinite, secret detention? When have we ever condoned interrogation by techniques that are so sensitive that they cannot be publicly described? Why does the President insist that his job is to keep us safe as opposed to uphold the Constitution? Why does the President insist that he, the most powerful person in the entire world, needs unreviewable and unchecked powers in order to combat stateless terror, a threat that will never be existential, when we didn’t need this during any previous conflict?
This president is a law breaker and an authoritarian, and he has degraded my country in a way that may be irreversible.
Mr Furious
Wickedpinto:
Nobody is leaving the definition of torture up to the prisoner. This bullshit legislation leaves it solely up to the President! That’s actually worse in my opinion. That boils down to “I’ll know torture when I see it. And I’ll only see it when we get caught.”
Where did you get the impression that these guys are made to stand up for a day and then get to lay down for 8 hours? We’re talking 40-plus hours in a stress position. Then when they are allowed to “lay down” (aka collapse) it is on a cold cement floor and they are doused with water to induce hypothermia.
Would you have a problem with that happening to an American soldier? If yes, then it’s torture when we do it, too. If no, you’re fucking psychotic.
jh
You may not be an idiot, but this is an idiotic statement.
Likewise, you may not be a sociopath….
The definition of torture is not “open” and it’s certainly not left to the prisoner to dictate its nature.
Torture is defined pretty clearly by the Third Geneva Convention; a set of documents that was ratified by the participants of two particularly bloody wars. Perhaps you’ve heard of Them . They were called World War I and II.
HyperIon
bingo! this is exactly what the Hamdan lawyers said right after the decision came out. our war crimes laws are based on common article 3 of the Geneva conventions.
basically we have to either change the law or repudiate the GC…otherwise, folks who have violated article 3 can be charged with war crimes under US law.
this is major retroactive CYA.
Zifnab
It’s all kinda empty until someone gets sued, though.
scs
So again, John, is it better to let hundreds of thousands of innocent people die in a terrorist attack than throw a terrorist in a cold room? Is it better like TimF said, to let some lowly military schmoe risk his freedom and the future of his family so that he can save our asses when he is confronted with the ticking timebomb scenario, in hopes he’ll get a presidential pardon afterwards, than to craft a law protecting him? We can engage in all kinds of activities where innocent people will be hurt, such as bomb neighborhoods where we know there will be civilian casualties, but god help us if we throw a guy in a cold room to get information that might save lives! “Oh no, that’s not who we are!” they say. It’s hypocrisy. Let’s get real, there is no debate there. War is hell and we need to save innocent life.
What we need to do is craft laws that ensure that only guilty people are subjected to this treatment, just as only guilty people should be subjected to the death penalty. There should be some legal procedure beforehand to state the case why an individual deserves this treatment – such as a military judges injuction, so that we have accountability and we discourage any “freelancing”. We should have laws that make sure the treatment is just coercion and not actual torture, and only enough to extract information and no more.
Torture should be like abortion or the death penalty- rare but legal.
PeterJ
Here’s how you do it.
A possible terrorist is captured. You are allowed to do anything to him (or her), to make him (or her) talk. This intergation/torture should obviously be monitored by others than the government.
If you get him (or her) to talk you get a medal and some cash.
But if the man (or woman) is proven not to be a terrorist or you don’t get anything out of him (or her), then you get to face a firing squad.
I think that should do it.
scs
I like it. A Type A solution.
Sojourner
How do you know which ones are the terrorists? The vast majority (including those released) have never had a hearing.
Do your homework, girlfriend.
gus
PeterJ, that’s a lot like the witch test. Throw a woman in the water. If she floats, she’s a witch, if she drowns, she wasn’t a witch. And scs, the ticking timebomb scenario is a canard. I’m still trying to figure out if your post was serious. Asserting that only guilty people get the death penalty has to be a joke, but you seem to be good at hiding your tongue in your cheek.
searp
If the latest position of the President’s supporters is the false dichotomy, then they are, or should be in deep do-do.
There is a lot of room for realism between hundreds of thousands of people dying in a terrorist attack and making people stand in a cold cell.
The people we have actually beaten, etc. do not seem to possess knowledge of a doomsday attack. Some of them didn’t seem to possess anything other than a dislike of Americans, a trait shared by more and more of the world.
I suppose if you want to debate the straw man, then you are welcome to it.
Moreover, if the treatment of secret detainees is actually discussed anywhere public, and war crimes violations end up being described, then whether you like it, I like it, or W likes it, there will be a move to indict those responsible.
I wouldn’t want to fess up if I were planning to go, say, to Belgium anytime soon. I know W doesn’t like France.
PeterJ
gus said:
Actually I think it’s more like an inverted witch test. If the woman doesn’t float, the guy who threw her into the water gets executed. Obviously there is a problem that the woman would still be dead.
In the end I would guess that only a few people would agree to torture just anyone to get information from them if failure would mean that they would die. So you would pick who to torture very carefully. And if find you out that torture doesn’t work, then most people won’t do it. This is until the Jesus camp kids get a bit older…
Anyway, you could add something extra to it just to piss scs off ;), everytime you’re wrong the CIC has to cut of one of his fingers, then his (or her) toes. Could be interesting.
Or to be able to torture someone you would have to be sponsored by a senator. And if you would fail they too would have to die. There’s lots of senators who believes that torture works, I wonder if any of them would want to bet their lives on it though…
(I’m obviously thinking way too much about this…)
jg
Did scs just quote Clinton in her defense of torture?
BTW in regards your ticking timebomb scenerio I give you Darrell responding to JC making a ticking time bomb argument:
gus
PeterJ,
My point was it’s cold comfort for the woman that she’s innocent of being a witch, just as it would be cold comfort for the tortured prisoner that the torturer got it in the end. I, also am thinking way too much about this.
PeterJ
I’ve would guess that there would have been far less “witches” being drowned if those who had drowned them had to die too.
And to remove the possibility of any terminally ill, suicidal or stupid would agree to do this, it must be sponsored by a senator. And since I guess no senator would trust anyone to do a good enough job if their lives depended on it, there’s an obvious solution.
Only senators are allowed to torture. And if they fail or are mistaken they die. Also, if they are executed than a member of the other party will take their seat.