cuttin heads off

“Bullchit - going there now.

I'm talking about what college allows this action?

NONE!

Why?

Because it's WRONG!

BLECH!


SUCKER!”

“I time warped back to the third grade. Thanks for allowing me to revisit my childhood, lapiss.”

“yadda yadda.



Sis Boom Bam!


This from someone who TRIES to insult me by calling my a "Jewel".....


Yer so sweet!



Smackie poos!”

“The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report.

*********

Was it a mummy bag? You kids better not be crawling into any deadly sleeping bags!”

“(CBS/AP) Arab media gave little credence Thursday to U.S. military claims that a devastating air strike near the border with Syria — in which more than 40 people were reported killed — targeted a safehouse for foreign fighters.

The newspapers instead cast the attack as another example of an American campaign against Arabs and universally backed Iraqi claims that a helicopter had attacked a wedding party.

The attack Wednesday happened about 2:45 a.m. in a desert region near the border with Syria and Jordan, according to Lt. Col. Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of Ramadi, the provincial capital about 250 miles to the east. He said 42 to 45 people died, including 15 children and 10 women. Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.

Al-Arabiya, a popular Arabic satellite station, quoted witnesses as saying 40 Iraqis were killed "in shelling that hit a wedding party."

Associated Press Television News footage from the area near the Syrian border showed a truck containing bloodied bodies, many wrapped in blankets, piled one atop the other. Several were children, one of whom was decapitated. The body of a girl who appeared to be less than 5 years of age lay in a white sheet, her legs riddled with wounds and her dress soaked in blood.

Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said revelers had fired volleys of gunfire into the air in a traditional wedding celebration before the attack took place. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.

"This was a wedding and the (U.S.) planes came and attacked the people at a house. Is this the democracy and freedom that (President) Bush has brought us?" said a man on the videotape, Dahham Harraj. "There was no reason."

Lt. Col. Dan Williams, a U.S. military spokesman, said earlier that the military was investigating.”

“hmmm.....so then clinton ordered waco and ruby ridge then.....

oh yeah...and all those civilians his bombs killed in bosnia...about 2,000 if i remember....

it is really sad about the terrorist that got tortured....those poor poor souls....too bad they weren't treated really nice like the mayberry jail and aunt bee could make them apple pie...cuz they're such nice people and all....it's not like they're alqueda insurgents or anything...so so heart breaking that people responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths of people in their own country...they should get their own key to their cell like otis the town drunk...

wonder what they saddamized soddam with....heh heh

the only people who can bring down america are americans.....and you all are leading the charge...oh we're baaaahaaad baaaahad people. maybe you can convince the whole world that we're really bad and theywill hate us even more.

where is your compassion for nick berg? whydon't theyshow those pictures on NBC or CNN?

hmmm....

liberalism is a mental disorder...”

“Stratdewd, you proud you decapitated a child today?

Several were children, one of whom was decapitated. The body of a girl who appeared to be less than 5 years of age lay in a white sheet, her legs riddled with wounds and her dress soaked in blood.”

“"hmmm.....so then clinton ordered waco and ruby ridge then.....


Ahhh, that was the BATF that did that. If there is immediate blame, it goes to Reno, with yes, Clinton on top of it by default. Just like by default, Bush is to blame for this big mess.

BTW - Ruby and Waco were a little smaller than this action and the Military was not involved.


"oh yeah...and all those civilians his bombs killed in bosnia...about 2,000 if i remember...."


And do you even know how much policy, diplomacy, arm twisting and SUCCESS happened there? Everything that was built during that situation, Bush ruined in two years.

BTW - Isn't is about time Reps like you start taking responisbilty for stuff? I mean, Clinton's been out for 4 years, Reps like you STILL bash him and his old lady. Looks like yer afraid of something, or at the very least, beating a dead horse.

Must suck to be a Repub that still lives under the Spector of the Clintons.



"it is really sad about the terrorist that got tortured....those poor poor souls......."


And you were there, processed them and know for a fact that they were ALL "terrorists"? What about the 3,000 "terrorists" released right after this sotry broke? Did they hand their guns back to them on the way out?”

“Fish monger!”

“Bacon Ring Monger!”

“lapkiss is robert reisch....”

“Well, there is that...”

“Strat say liberalism is a mental disorder and critical thinking is a liberal trick to cause doubt in the minds of righteous "anti-liberals" like himself.

I do't even have to add anything to that!”

“Strat, you ignorant slut! Liberalism is NOT a mental disorder. Quit listening to Savage Nation. Everyone knows it’s a moral disorder.”

“Technically speaking, could nick berg be called a modern day carpetbagger?”

“Re: the Denver Post story

"Another Iraqi prisoner was assaulted by interrogators... U.S. forces arrested him for allegedly possessing explosive devices, and..."

The Iraqi gets an "allegedly" but not the U.S. forces???”

“Here you are:

...including the handling of prisoners at a detention facility in Samarra, Iraq, where soldiers allegedly "forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees."”

“Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings

Could Bush administration officials be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new measures used in the war on terror? The White House's top lawyer thought so

May 17 - The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.

The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes—and that it might even apply to Bush adminstration officials themselves— is contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes—defined in part as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to "U.S. officials" and that punishments for violators "include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that "it was difficult to predict with confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions—such as that outlawing "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners—was "undefined."

more...”

“Phaedy, soldiers like to practice their choke holds. No big deal.”

“
And it's One, Two, Three...
What're We Fightin' For?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop will be Iran

And it's Five, Six, Seven...
Open up the Pearly Gates!
Ain't got time to wonder why
WHOOPEEE, we're all gonna die
”

“"lapkiss is robert reisch...."


So, would this qualify as a "Hate Monger" remark. I mean, there are two insults involved in that one (two for the price of one. Must be a sale going on or somethin`).

Keep NOT answering the questions.

You prove my point with every breath you take.”

“Cool. Vote Bush, Inc. out of office and have Justice prosecute them for war crimes. Non-participation in the International Criminal Court won't exempt them from federal statute -- OOPS!”

“Honestly, how terrible would it be if they did at least get charged?

I mean, all BS aside, considering what we have went through, we'd never be able to live it down.”

“I guess I'd rather see the guilty prosecuted and thrown in prison. Wouldn't it be worth it to regain SOME integrity?

I always thought they should've tossed Nixon's ass in Attica, too. Not Country Club Prison... the Real Deal. These idiots who think they're above the law make my blood boil.

No BS ---”

“Do you think Junior would still be so gung-ho about the death penalty?”

“"Do you think Junior would still be so gung-ho about the death penalty?....."


Well, let alone if we have to go into another country to stamp out Terrorism.

It looks like Fox News is laying the foundation to hit Iran.”

“For those who haven't read the New Yorker article:



-Snip-

In 2003, Rumsfeld’s apparent disregard for the requirements of the Geneva Conventions while carrying out the war on terror had led a group of senior military legal officers from the Judge Advocate General’s (jag) Corps to pay two surprise visits within five months to Scott Horton, who was then chairman of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on International Human Rights. “They wanted us to challenge the Bush Administration about its standards for detentions and interrogation,” Horton told me. “They were urging us to get involved and speak in a very loud voice. It came pretty much out of the blue. The message was that conditions are ripe for abuse, and it’s going to occur.” The military officials were most alarmed about the growing use of civilian contractors in the interrogation process, Horton recalled. “They said there was an atmosphere of legal ambiguity being created as a result of a policy decision at the highest levels in the Pentagon. The jag officers were being cut out of the policy formulation process.” They told him that, with the war on terror, a fifty-year history of exemplary application of the Geneva Conventions had come to an end.”

“The gestapo must go!”

“The more I read from all different sources, the more I believe this is a top-down systemic pattern of abuse, ordered by a leader not lower than the secretary of defense.”

“Sy Hersh is apparently getting fed info from pissed off CIA and military intelligence people who are horrified about this special-access program. Thank God there are still people of conscience. Have you read the non-denial denials?”

“Yeah. My wife was quick to pick up on that when we were watching CNN.

"Rife with factual errors? Which facts are in error?"”

“link to a review of the non-denial denials from a squirming pentagon.”

“They were replaying the hearings from Wednesday on C-SPAN a few minutes ago.

good grief.”

“We caught two suspects in the Berg slaying:



Thankfully, we managed to do it without the use of nuclear weapons.”

“Nuclear weapons are for sissys.”

“Three children found decapitated in Md.

By FOSTER KLUG
ASSOCIATE PRESS WRITER

BALTIMORE -- Three young children were found decapitated Thursday in an apartment in northwest Baltimore, police said.

The mother of the two 9-year-old girls and 10-year-old boy found their bodies when she arrived home late Thursday afternoon, said Deputy Police Commissioner Kenneth Blackwell.

Blackwell said a weapon was found outside the apartment but he did not elaborate.

The mother, who neighbors said was Hispanic and speaks little English, notified a neighbor, who called 911.

Homicide detectives were questioning a "person of interest," said police spokeswoman Nicole Monroe. The man was located a few blocks away from the crime scene, she said.

Blackwell said the man's relationship to the children, if any, was not known.

One of the children was completely decapitated and two were partially beheaded, said Kevin Cartwright, a fire department spokesman. They were found in separate bedrooms of the first-floor apartment, Blackwell said.

The crime scene left police shaken.

The first officer on the scene "couldn't handle it" and had to give the call to another officer, Blackwell said. "Walking in on a scene, seeing children of that tender age in that condition, certainly breaks your heart.

"I've been around for 35 years and I've seen, unfortunately, my share of murders, but I've never seen something as bad as this."”

“Disgusting.”

“Bacon has been found

Posted: Friday, May 14, 2004 - 02:43:51 pm PDT
By Dennis L. Clay
Herald Columnist

Several people responded to the plea for info about Bacon.

"Dennis,

"Bacon is not far from the intersection of Pinto Ridge Road and Dry Coulee Road.

"I believe the name Bacon came from a lack of supplies at the general store, with one exception, bacon. Not sure what year that was. Others should be able to add to this as I cannot find the book that I had which mentioned Bacon.


"As the rumor goes, Monte Holm has the station sign from Bacon from when he scrapped that rail line in 1979.

"I have never seen any foundations for buildings due to the rattlesnake factor, but I would really like to go look around some time."

Dan Bolyard

Carl Smith writes:

"What is Bacon? To me it was a main repeater hut located on the Ephrata to Spokane toll telephone cable, linking many Columbia Basin towns together and with the rest of the world.

"I've spent many a hot hour working in that building and other main repeater huts during my career as a telephone company technician up until 1990.

"Bacon main repeater's location is on the Pinto Ridge Road, just north of its junction with Dry Coulee Road and the Summer Falls junction.

"On the geological survey map, Coulee City Quadrangle 1965, Bacon is shown as a siding with two tracks. There is an intermittent spring passing through from the south changing direction north of the tracks and heading west.

"The Bacon Siding is located west of Pinto Ridge Road and south of Dry Coulee Road, about 3/4 of a mile west of Pinto Ridge Road on the railroad route."

From Larry Lenz:

"Dennis:

"So glad to see someone looking for another old town in Bits & Pieces. It got me digging into the old maps and Grant County Atlas once again. This is what I have found so far.

"Bacon, Wash is shown on the 1917 Grant County Atlas as being on the Connell Northern Railroad. Several years pass and in 1928 Bacon is shown to be serviced by the Northern Pacific railroad.

"Now in the 1917 Atlas it also shows that 160 acres in a zig -zag pattern was owned by a Etta Bacon.

"I also find that there is a small square dot beside the track which indicates a building or structure near the word Bacon with no other dots to indicate other building for a town.

"No when in the atlas do I find a town plat of Bacon so I feel that it was most likely a water stop for the train as you said Dennis.

I sure hope others can help John Bacon find information on the little lost town of Bacon, WA.

From Karen Rimple:

"Dad (Monte Holm) bought and took out the railroad that ran through the town of Bacon. He has the station sign. The town was built and named Bacon because of the homesteads behind the station. Bacon syphon was named after the town of Bacon."

Well there you go, John Bacon. Now let us know if Etta Bacon is a long lost relative.”

“Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use of Torture
Security or Legal Factors Could Trump Restrictions, Memo to Rumsfeld Argued

by Jess Bravin
Monday, June 7, 2004
Wall Street Journal

Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

The advice was part of a classified report on interrogation methods prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after commanders at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained in late 2002 that with conventional methods they weren't getting enough information from prisoners.

The report outlined U.S. laws and international treaties forbidding torture, and why those restrictions might be overcome by national-security considerations or legal technicalities. In a March 6, 2003, draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, passages were deleted as was an attachment listing specific interrogation techniques and whether Mr. Rumsfeld himself or other officials must grant permission before they could be used. The complete draft document was classified "secret" by Mr. Rumsfeld and scheduled for declassification in 2013.

The draft report, which exceeds 100 pages, deals with a range of legal issues related to interrogations, offering definitions of the degree of pain or psychological manipulation that could be considered lawful. But at its core is an exceptional argument that because nothing is more important than "obtaining intelligence vital to the protection of untold thousands of American citizens," normal strictures on torture might not apply.

The president, despite domestic and international laws constraining the use of torture, has the authority as commander in chief to approve almost any physical or psychological actions during interrogation, up to and including torture, the report argued. Civilian or military personnel accused of torture or other war crimes have several potential defenses, including the "necessity" of using such methods to extract information to head off an attack, or "superior orders," sometimes known as the Nuremberg defense: namely that the accused was acting pursuant to an order and, as the Nuremberg tribunal put it, no "moral choice was in fact possible."

According to Bush administration officials, the report was compiled by a working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II. Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker headed the group, which comprised top civilian and uniformed lawyers from each military branch and consulted with the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies. It isn't known if President Bush has ever seen the report.

A Pentagon official said some military lawyers involved objected to some of the proposed interrogation methods as "different than what our people had been trained to do under the Geneva Conventions," but those lawyers ultimately signed on to the final report in April 2003, shortly after the war in Iraq began. The Journal hasn't seen the full final report, but people familiar with it say there were few substantial changes in legal analysis between the draft and final versions.

A military lawyer who helped prepare the report said that political appointees heading the working group sought to assign to the president virtually unlimited authority on matters of torture -- to assert "presidential power at its absolute apex," the lawyer said. Although career military lawyers were uncomfortable with that conclusion, the military lawyer said they focused their efforts on reining in the more extreme interrogation methods, rather than challenging the constitutional powers that administration lawyers were saying President Bush could claim.

The Pentagon disclosed last month that the working group had been assembled to review interrogation policies after intelligence officials in Guantanamo reported frustration in extracting information from prisoners. At a news conference last week, Gen. James T. Hill, who oversees the offshore prison at Guantanamo as head of the U.S. Southern Command, said the working group sought to identify "what is legal and consistent with not only Geneva [but] ... what is right for our soldiers." He said Guantanamo is "a professional, humane detention and interrogation operation ... bounded by law and guided by the American spirit."

Gen. Hill said Mr. Rumsfeld gave him the final set of approved interrogation techniques on April 16, 2003. Four of the methods require the defense secretary's approval, he said, and those methods had been used on two prisoners. He said interrogators had stopped short of using all the methods lawyers had approved. It remains unclear what actions U.S. officials took as a result of the legal advice.

Critics who have seen the draft report said it undercuts the administration's claims that it recognized a duty to treat prisoners humanely. The "claim that the president's commander-in-chief power includes the authority to use torture should be unheard of in this day and age," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York advocacy group that has filed lawsuits against U.S. detention policies. "Can one imagine the reaction if those on trial for atrocities in the former Yugoslavia had tried this defense?"

Following scattered reports last year of harsh interrogation techniques used by the U.S. overseas, Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice asking for clarification. The response came in June 2003 from Mr. Haynes, who wrote that the U.S. was obliged to conduct interrogations "consistent with" the 1994 international Convention Against Torture and the federal Torture Statute enacted to implement the convention outside the U.S.

The U.S. "does not permit, tolerate or condone any such torture by its employees under any circumstances," Mr. Haynes wrote. The U.S. also followed its legal duty, required by the torture convention, "to prevent other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture," he wrote.

The U.S. position is that domestic criminal laws and the Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments already met the Convention Against Torture's requirements within U.S. territory.

The Convention Against Torture was proposed in 1984 by the United Nations General Assembly and was ratified by the U.S. in 1994. It states that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture," and that orders from superiors "may not be invoked as a justification of torture."

That prohibition was reaffirmed after the Sept. 11 attacks by the U.N. panel that oversees the treaty, the Committee Against Torture, and the March 2003 report acknowledged that "other nations and international bodies may take a more restrictive view" of permissible interrogation methods than did the Bush administration.

The report then offers a series of legal justifications for limiting or disregarding antitorture laws and proposed legal defenses that government officials could use if they were accused of torture.

A military official who helped prepare the report said it came after frustrated Guantanamo interrogators had begun trying unorthodox methods on recalcitrant prisoners. "We'd been at this for a year-plus and got nothing out of them" so officials concluded "we need to have a less-cramped view of what torture is and is not."

The official said, "People were trying like hell how to ratchet up the pressure," and used techniques that ranged from drawing on prisoners' bodies and placing women's underwear on prisoners heads -- a practice that later reappeared in the Abu Ghraib prison -- to telling subjects, "I'm on the line with somebody in Yemen and he's in a room with your family and a grenade that's going to pop unless you talk."

Senior officers at Guantanamo requested a "rethinking of the whole approach to defending your country when you have an enemy that does not follow the rules," the official said. Rather than license torture, this official said that the report helped rein in more "assertive" approaches.

Methods now used at Guantanamo include limiting prisoners' food, denying them clothing, subjecting them to body-cavity searches, depriving them of sleep for as much as 96 hours and shackling them in so-called stress positions, a military-intelligence official said. Although the interrogators consider the methods to be humiliating and unpleasant, they don't view them as torture, the official said.

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere. It concluded that neither the president nor anyone following his instructions was bound by the federal Torture Statute, which makes it a crime for Americans working for the government overseas to commit or attempt torture, defined as any act intended to "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Punishment is up to 20 years imprisonment, or a death sentence or life imprisonment if the victim dies.

"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority," the report asserted. (The parenthetical comment is in the original document.) The Justice Department "concluded that it could not bring a criminal prosecution against a defendant who had acted pursuant to an exercise of the president's constitutional power," the report said. Citing confidential Justice Department opinions drafted after Sept. 11, 2001, the report advised that the executive branch of the government had "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity in purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress."

The lawyers concluded that the Torture Statute applied to Afghanistan but not Guantanamo, because the latter lies within the "special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and accordingly is within the United States" when applying a law that regulates only government conduct abroad.

Administration lawyers also concluded that the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 1789 statute that allows noncitizens to sue in U.S. courts for violations of international law, couldn't be invoked against the U.S. government unless it consents, and that the 1992 Torture Victims Protection Act allowed suits only against foreign officials for torture or "extrajudicial killing" and "does not apply to the conduct of U.S. agents acting under the color of law."

The Bush administration has argued before the Supreme Court that foreigners held at Guantanamo have no constitutional rights and can't challenge their detention in court. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on that question by month's end.

For Afghanistan and other foreign locations where the Torture Statute applies, the March 2003 report offers a narrow definition of torture and then lays out defenses that government officials could use should they be charged with committing torture, such as mistakenly relying in good faith on the advice of lawyers or experts that their actions were permissible. "Good faith may be a complete defense" to a torture charge, the report advised.

"The infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture," the report advises. Such suffering must be "severe," the lawyers advise, and they rely on a dictionary definition to suggest it "must be of such a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure."

The law says torture can be caused by administering or threatening to administer "mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the sense of personality." The Bush lawyers advised, though, that it "does not preclude any and all use of drugs" and "disruption of the senses or personality alone is insufficient" to be illegal. For involuntarily administered drugs or other psychological methods, the "acts must penetrate to the core of an individual's ability to perceive the world around him," the lawyers found.

Gen. Hill said last week that the military didn't use injections or chemicals on prisoners.

After defining torture and other prohibited acts, the memo presents "legal doctrines ... that could render specific conduct, otherwise criminal, not unlawful." Foremost, the lawyers rely on the "commander-in-chief authority," concluding that "without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president's ultimate authority" to wage war. Moreover, "any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the commander-in-chief authority in the president," the lawyers advised.

Likewise, the lawyers found that "constitutional principles" make it impossible to "punish officials for aiding the president in exercising his exclusive constitutional authorities" and neither Congress nor the courts could "require or implement the prosecution of such an individual."

To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."

The report advised that government officials could argue that "necessity" justified the use of torture. "Sometimes the greater good for society will be accomplished by violating the literal language of the criminal law," the lawyers wrote, citing a standard legal text, "Substantive Criminal Law" by Wayne LaFave and Austin W. Scott. "In particular, the necessity defense can justify the intentional killing of one person ... so long as the harm avoided is greater."

In addition, the report advised that torture or homicide could be justified as "self-defense," should an official "honestly believe" it was necessary to head off an imminent attack on the U.S. The self-defense doctrine generally has been asserted by individuals fending off assaults, and in 1890, the Supreme Court upheld a U.S. deputy marshal's right to shoot an assailant of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field as involving both self-defense and defense of the nation. Citing Justice Department opinions, the report concluded that "if a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate criminal prohibition," he could be justified "in doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network."

Mr. LaFave, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said he was unaware that the Pentagon used his textbook in preparing its legal analysis. He agreed, however, that in some cases necessity could be a defense to torture charges. "Here's a guy who knows with certainty where there's a bomb that will blow New York City to smithereens. Should we torture him? Seems to me that's an easy one," Mr. LaFave said. But he said necessity couldn't be a blanket justification for torturing prisoners because of a general fear that "the nation is in danger."

For members of the military, the report suggested that officials could escape torture convictions by arguing that they were following superior orders, since such orders "may be inferred to be lawful" and are "disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate." Examining the "superior orders" defense at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, the Vietnam War prosecution of U.S. Army Lt. William Calley for the My Lai massacre and the current U.N. war-crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the report concluded it could be asserted by "U.S. armed forces personnel engaged in exceptional interrogations except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful."

The report seemed "designed to find the legal loopholes that will permit the use of torture against detainees," said Mary Ellen O'Connell, an international-law professor at the Ohio State University who has seen the report. "CIA operatives will think they are covered because they are not going to face liability."

Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc”

“The folks at Amnesty International are going to have a field day with this.

Accessories before the fact?”

“Whatever your political colors, it is pretty scary having a president who believes that he is above the law. That's just basic to our form of government.”

“Pretty tough talk from a people who were shrilly screaming over just the fact they showed photos of the captured group which included Jessica Lynch.”

“Wow, was that a cut and paste Violin or did you write all that yourself.

I also see it is copyrighted by Dow Jones, I presume that you do have permission to use ?”

“I plan on using the fair use doctrine if the Wall Street Journal comes after me. If I lose, I’ll pay back every penny I made by posting this.

I thought it was a pretty important article in an extremely conservative newspaper. I would only post a portion with a link to the rest like I usually do but it’s only available to subscribers. I figured many folks would be interested in knowing that the current administration has declared itself to be outside the law. If you’d rather take pot shots at me than read it and consider its implications, go ahead.”

“This is manuka you're talking to. Reading? considering?

C'mon!”

“V, if Dow came after you it would be for loss of their potential revenue, not for anything that you made from the posting.

That if you had not posted x thousand people would have subscribed.
Often no real logic why companies pick one particular transgression to sue, but they do occasionally mainly to deter others. Maybe just availablity of proof.

Loss of revenue and punitive damages.

Look at the Sony suits for music downloads.

As far as torture goes, what credibility can anyone put in information gained under extreme duress. There are enough examples of people confessing to crimes not committed just to stop the torture.
Then with the cold war we got that new word "disinformation", the torture victim is telling what they know but it is false.”

“Phaedrus,

I do not spend my days looking for your posts to add a childish insult to each.

Grow up.

We disagree on most things, leave it at that.”

“man, what a looooong C&P. i guess he has no thoughts of his own, he had to use plagurize someone else to make a point. of all the nerve.

haven't you ever seen NYPD Blue? theyscare suspects into confessions all the time. if it saves american lives in a time of war, it's for the greater good.”

“1. It's a news article, not an opinion piece like you constantly paste.

2. If you think torture is A-OK, you're no kind of American, as far as I'm concerned. It goes against everything this country was founded on.”

“Whether you have any qualms about torturing ‘them’ or not (please stop calling yourself a Christian though), you have to realize that this only invites torture of our people when they are captured. I’ve heard the mantra ‘support the troops’ enough times to think that you might at least care about that (when you’re not busy trivializing their sacrifice by comparing their deaths to California car accidents or bathtub slip & falls).”