we knew it

but he said it out loud. i guess it doesn't count when we say it because we don't have stars on our shoulders

US violated Geneva Conventions, Bush Iraq commander says

By John Byrne
The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, said Friday that the US had violated the Geneva Conventions in a stunning admission from President Bush’s onetime top general in Iraq that the US may have violated international law.

“When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it’s important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those,” Gen. Petraeus said on Fox News Friday afternoon.

Petraeus made the comment in the context of being asked about the Bush administration’s so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” ...........

over the years, i've written about how i feel

about torture. how i feel we (america and it's people) we shamed soiled ourselves by allowing it to happen. how we stomped upon our constitution and the geneva convention. how we almost overnight turned into 'those people', the brutal savages that is.

i can only hang my head (further) if we don't now DO something about this shite. something more than talk that is

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — The program began with Central Intelligence Agency leaders in the grip of an alluring idea: They could get tough in terrorist interrogations without risking legal trouble by adopting a set of methods used on Americans during military training. How could that be torture?

In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.

This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

Senate report: Bush admin. solicited torture ‘wish list,’ ordered ‘communist’ tactics

By Stephen Webster and Diane Sweet
A report by the Senate Armed Services Committee released Tuesday night says that torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib prison and approved by officials in the George W. Bush administration were applied only after soliciting a “wish list” from interrogators.

President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. This act, the committee found, cleared the way for a new interrogation program to be developed in-part based on “Chinese communist” tactics used against Americans during the Korean War, mainly to elicit false confessions for propaganda purposes.

The committee’s report was made available in Dec. 2008, but was delayed by the Pentagon’s declassification program. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) concluded that the findings were enough to warrant serious consideration by the Department of Justice..........

more of what we already know

but now the msm is actually printing it too. the king george reign was a black mark on america's soul. this is america! land of the FREE and home of the BRAVE

this is NOT chuck norrisland. nor is it glenn beckland. nor is it cheneycountry.

we have laws. we have a constitution. we don't torture. it's beneath us. it's what savages do. WE ARE NOT SAVAGES. we are human beings

(but we DID torture and now it's being said aloud. what will happen to those responsible is most likely nothing. but now the WORLD knows)

Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails
Secret Report Implies That U.S. Violated International Law

By Joby Warrick, Peter Finn and Julie Tate

Washington Post Staff Writers

The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.

The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA's "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning.........

this is a VERY good article

i have said this before and i'll say it again. i am ALL FOR punishing terrorists (or criminals for that matter). but this is the united states. people have rights here. it's a free nation. we have a constitution and laws and rules we're bound to follow. we also agreed to follow the geneva conventions. we CANNOT keep someone locked up for years and years with NO CHARGES and NO TRIAL. if they are guilty they SHOULD 'pay', however, doesn't it say SOMEWHERE innocent UNTIL proven guilty (or is that my imagination)?

Obama’s “Humane” Guantánamo Is A Bitter Joke
-Andy Worthington
The “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where the majority of the remaining 241 prisoners have been held for seven years without charge or trial, “complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva Conventions,” according to a government official who spoke to the New York Times after reading an 85-page report prepared for President Obama by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations.

The report was commissioned by the President, on his second day in office, as part of an Executive Order dealing with the closure of Guantánamo. In it, he directed defense secretary Robert Gates to ensure that the Guantánamo prisoners were being held in conditions that comply with the Geneva Conventions regarding the humane treatment of prisoners, adding, “Such review shall be completed within 30 days and any necessary corrections implemented immediately thereafter.”

According to the government official, the report’s only recommendations for improving conditions at Guantánamo are “to increase social contact among the 16 prisoners described by the Bush administration as ‘high-value detainees,’” who are held in seclusion in Camp 7, and to allow more communal recreation time for prisoners in Camps 5 and 6.

The former, modeled on the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana, and used, initially at least, to house non-compliant prisoners and those regarded as being of significant intelligence value, was long regarded as the most oppressive of Guantánamo’s cell blocks (outside of the specific isolation blocks, including the notorious Camp Echo, where a small number of prisoners are held in permanent solitary confinement), but it soon lost its reputation after Camp 6 opened in December 2006...............

whew!

i'm not used to this. morality that is. someone who seems to have a soul that is. someone who follows the law that is. whew is right

Intelligence Pick Calls Torture Immoral, Ineffective

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer
Retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair, President Obama's nominee to lead the U.S. intelligence community, told Congress yesterday that torture "is not moral, legal or effective" and that "there will not be any waterboarding on my watch."

Blair, nominated to be director of national intelligence, used his confirmation hearing to outline a new approach to counterterrorism and told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that he would not support "any surveillance activities that circumvent" the law.

"I believe we are in a new era in the relationship between the two branches of government," Blair told committee members, who over the past eight years were frequently denied information by the White House. Blair, the former head of U.S. Pacific Command who spent two years in the 1990s as an associate CIA director for military support, appeared headed for unanimous approval...........

and then we also have this! we MUST follow international humane laws. we are human beings NOT soul-less heartless evil-doers. we don't want OUR people to be tortured. we call those that do such things savages. we became those savages for eight years. we will now start to become human beings once again and i for one am comfortable with that

Army manual that bars 'waterboarding' now single standard
A US Army field manual that bars the use of "waterboarding" and other harsh interrogation techniques was set forth Thursday as the single standard for interrogations of prisoners.

President Barack Obama ordered the change, which brings to a close the CIA's secret prisons and special interrogration authorities for "war on terror" detainees.

The manual, known as FM 2-22.3, was revised and reissued by the army in September 2006 amid a storm of controversy over abuses of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and other detention centers.

It cites the Geneva Convention's prohibition of "cruel, inhman and degrading treatment" of prisoners...........

THE three MOST absurd words in the entire universe are:

"Bush administration's interpretation "

ha

ha

ha

Administration Says Particulars May Trump Geneva Protections

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer

The Geneva Conventions' ban on "outrages against personal dignity" does not automatically apply to terrorism suspects in the custody of U.S. intelligence agencies, the Justice Department has suggested to Congress in recent letters that lay out the Bush administration's interpretation of the international treaty.

Lawyers for the department, offering insight into the legal basis for the CIA's controversial interrogation program, reasserted in the letters the Bush administration's long-held view that it has considerable leeway in deciding how the conventions' rules apply to the harsh questioning of combatants in the war on terrorism.

While the United States is legally bound by the conventions' Common Article 3 and its requirement to treat detainees humanely, the definition of humane treatment can vary, depending on the detainee's identity and the importance of the information he possesses, a Justice Department official wrote last September and this March to a Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee..........

is this book based on fact

or fiction? i know what i believe
Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture
Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods

Richard Norton-Taylor
America's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.
The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today's Guardian.
In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, reveals that:
· Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo................

and what would YOU do and say if

you happened to be in iran and were waterboarded? if a member of our armed services was in iran and was waterboarded? i know what i'd say. the same thing andrew williams said (and meant)

waterboarding IS torture

Navy JAG Resigns Over Torture Issue
"It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy," wrote Gig Harbor, Wash., resident and attorney-at-law Andrew Williams in a letter to The Peninsula Gateway last week. "There was a time when I served with pride ... Sadly, no more."
Williams' sadness stems from the recent CIA videotape scandal in which tapes showing secret interrogations of two Al Qaeda operatives were destroyed.
The tapes may have contained evidence that the U.S. government used a type of torture known as waterboarding to obtain information from suspected terrorists.
Torture, including water-boarding, is prohibited under the treaties of the Geneva Convention.
It was in the much-publicized interview two weeks ago between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who is the chief legal adviser at the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, that led Williams to resign. ...........

even these two

my polar opposites think king george and his court are wreaking havoc on america. now and for YEARS to come. sure it's only on one issue, but like the previous posting, it's a start. are we brutes and savages? i ask you that

War Crimes and the White House
The Dishonor in a Tortured New 'Interpretation' of the Geneva Conventions

By P.X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner

One of us was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps by President Ronald Reagan; the other served as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and has vigorously defended the constitutionality of warrantless National Security Agency wiretaps, presidential signing statements and many other controversial aspects of the war on terrorism. But we cannot in good conscience defend a decision that we believe has compromised our national honor and that may well promote the commission of war crimes by Americans and place at risk the welfare of captured American military forces for generations to come.
The Supreme Court held in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld last summer that all detainees captured in the war on terrorism are protected by Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prescribes minimum standards of treatment for all persons who are no longer taking an active part in an armed conflict not of an international character. It provides that "in all circumstances" detainees are to be "treated humanely."............

i wanted to link up to this article

i in NO WAY am a proponent of torture. when one uses horrid methods one gets results which are NOT reliable. if you're being tortured you'll say just about anything (you think your torturers) THEY want to hear.

this article is from another point of view. it's from the point of view of "THEM"

an american solider who was in iraq, an isreali and a brit who was in northern ireland

(amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me................

i once was lost but now i'm found...........was blind but now i see............)

The Tortured Lives of Interrogators
Veterans of Iraq, N. Ireland and Mideast Share Stark Memories


By Laura Blumenfeld Washington Post Staff Writer

CHICAGO -- The American interrogator was afraid. Of what and why, he couldn't say. He was riding the L train in Chicago, and his throat was closing.
In Iraq, when Tony Lagouranis interrogated suspects, fear was his friend, his weapon. He saw it seep, dark and shameful, through the crotch of a man's pants as a dog closed in, barking. He smelled it in prisoners' sweat, a smoky odor, like a pot of lentils burning. He had touched fear, too, felt it in their fingers, their chilled skin trembling.........

..........."I tortured people," said Lagouranis, 37, who was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq from January 2004 until January 2005. "You have to twist your mind up so much to justify doing that."
Being an interrogator, Lagouranis discovered, can be torture. At first, he was eager to try coercive techniques. In training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., instructors stressed the Geneva Conventions, he recalled, while classmates privately admired Israeli and British methods. "The British were tough," Lagouranis said. "They seemed like real interrogators.".............

i personally wouldn't use the words moral OR ethical

in the same sentence that had big dick's name in it. that's just me

when we see what some nations do to their prisoners it turns our stomachs. we think they are no more than thugs, barbarians, savages and torturers.

do WE want to become them?

Cheney criticizes the Geneva Conventions in Military Academy commencement address

Michael Roston

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the notion of applying the Geneva Conventions to individuals captured in the course of the war on terrorism in a Saturday commencement address at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.
"Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States," the Vice President said in the Saturday morning speech. "Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away."
Cheney delivered the remarks in the context of moral and ethical lessons that the graduating cadets at West Point had learned in the course of their study............