Bush FORCED TO RESTORE Geneva Conventions
Bush FORCED TO RESTORE Geneva Conventions
#0Bush FORCED TO RESTORE Geneva Conventions
Posted: 7/12/06 at 10:00am
Wasn't that nice of him? But he only did it because Congress and the Supreme Court MADE him do it.
He will go down in history as the worst president in history and the first to try to make torture the American way of life.
snippet:
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...the White House acknowledgment on Tuesday that a key clause of the Geneva Conventions applies to Qaeda detainees, as a recent Supreme Court ruling affirmed, is only the latest step in the gradual erosion of the administration’s aggressive legal stance.
The administration’s initial position emerged in 2002 only after a fierce internal legal debate, and it has been revised in the face of international opinion, Congressional curbs and Supreme Court rulings. Two central ideas of the war on terror — that the president could fight it exclusively on the basis of his constitutional powers and that terrorist suspects had few, if any, rights — have been modified repeatedly.
Scholars debated the meaning of a Defense Department memo made public on Tuesday that declared that the clause in the Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3, “applies as a matter of law to the conflict with Al Qaeda.”
Administration officials suggested that the memo only restated what was already policy — that detainees must be treated “humanely.” But what was undeniable was that the president’s executive order of Feb. 7, 2002, declared that Article 3 did not apply to Al Qaeda or to Taliban detainees, and that the newly released memo, written by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, said it did.
After the Pentagon released the memo, the White House confirmed that it had formally withdrawn part of the 2002 order and accepted that Article 3 now applied to Qaeda detainees. That article prohibits “humiliating and degrading treatment” of prisoners and requires trials “affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”
Terror and Power: Bush Takes a Step Back
#1re: Bush Restores Geneva Conventions
Posted: 7/12/06 at 10:43am
From an AP article last February of the possible death-by-torture of Manadel al-Jamadi at Abu Ghraib:
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CIA stopped reportedly practice
The Washington Post reported last year that after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the CIA suspended the use of its “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including stress positions, because of fears that the agency could be accused of unsanctioned and illegal activity. The newspaper said the White House had approved the tactics.
Navy SEALs apprehended al-Jamadi as a suspect in the Oct. 27, 2003, bombing of Red Cross offices in Baghdad that killed 12 people. His alleged role in the bombing is unclear. According to court documents and testimony, the SEALs punched, kicked and struck al-Jamadi with their rifles before handing him over to the CIA early on Nov. 4. By 7 a.m., al-Jamadi was dead.
Navy prosecutors in San Diego have charged nine SEALs and one sailor with abusing al-Jamadi and others. All but two lieutenants have received nonjudicial punishment; one lieutenant is scheduled for court-martial in March, the other is awaiting a hearing before the Navy’s top SEAL.
The statements from five of Abu Ghraib’s Army guards were shown to The AP by an attorney for one of the SEALs, who said they offered a more balanced picture of what happened. The lawyer asked not to be identified, saying he feared repercussions for his client.
Interrogation described
According to the statements:
Al-Jamadi was brought naked below the waist to the prison with a CIA interrogator and translator. A green plastic bag covered his head, and plastic cuffs tightly bound his wrists. Guards dressed al-Jamadi in an orange jumpsuit, slapped on metal handcuffs and escorted him to the shower room, a common CIA interrogation spot.
There, the interrogator instructed guards to attach shackles from the prisoner’s handcuffs to a barred window. That would let al-Jamadi stand without pain, but if he tried to lower himself, his arms would be stretched above and behind him.
The documents do not make clear what happened after guards left. After about a half-hour, the interrogator called for the guards to reposition the prisoner, who was slouching with his arms stretched behind him.
The interrogator told guards that al-Jamadi was “playing possum” — faking it — and then watched as guards struggled to get him on his feet. But the guards realized it was useless.
“After we found out he was dead, they were nervous,” Spc. Dennis E. Stevanus said of the CIA interrogator and translator. “They didn’t know what the hell to do.”
Reports detail Abu Ghraib prison death; was it torture?
#2re: Bush Restores Geneva Conventions
Posted: 7/12/06 at 10:47am
Re-Phrase:
The Supreme Court Restores Geneva Conventions.
#3re: Bush FORCED TO RESTORE Geneva Conventions
Posted: 7/12/06 at 10:50am
Changed.
The American tradition of standing up AGAINST torture goes all the way back to George Washington.
When he was commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he explicitly renounced acts of military terror "against Loyalists and the Undecided," and he forbade any acts of torture or war crimes on the part of American soldiers against British--and in particular Hessian--forces who were captured in battle.
#4re: Bush FORCED TO RESTORE Geneva Conventions
Posted: 7/12/06 at 10:53am
I bet Bush had a temper tantrum after the ruling.
2.5 years and counting.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
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