Torture memos

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

FTFY, the law is a messy business.

I'm not particularly clear on how someone is "entrapped" into constructing legal loopholes in the torture prohibition. These are the guys who were bending over that stop sign and making sure it stayed that way for two years.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

And if Pelosi covered up her complacency and approval.

How could she possibly have covered it up? Really?

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Then it should be the DoJ lawyers who are prosecuted.

And I have no problem with that. However, I believe it goes much further up the chain of command. I think Cheney is ultimately the one who orchestrated the whole thing.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

I'm not particularly clear on how someone is "entrapped" into constructing legal loopholes in the torture prohibition. These are the guys who were bending over that stop sign and making sure it stayed that way for two years.

When classicman asked why you said to arrest police officer, I said entrapment. What would have been your reason for arresting them?

I don't see how the whole analogy fit to the problem at hand anyway. If the police officer is supposed to represent the lawyers who constructed the documents legalizing torture, then I don't know what the charge would be. I think torture is pretty clearly defined by international law and also military law. They tried to rewrite it, and they did a pretty poor job of it IMO. One could argue collusion to commit harm or something, or perhaps conspiracy. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer.

[Happy Monkey]

UT said the cop was entrapped.

And I agree, the analogy is a bit tortured (get it?) when it equates torture with running a stop sign. More- with running a stop sign that isn't clearly marked. There's not much that is more clearly illegal than torture. I don't think the torturers should be exonerated. At the very least, they should have to plea bargain by testifying about their superiors.

I do have some grudging sympathy for the actual torturers, though. The classic Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments show how otherwise ethical people can be influenced into doing awful things when an authority gives them permission. That excuse, however, thins out the higher you get to the top.

[Ibby]

Milgram is no excuse. I'm sorry, but it's not. When you're given an illegal order, you are legally bound NOT to follow it. If you DO break the law and follow the illegal order, that is on YOU. But I agree that more blame lies at the top than the bottom.

[Undertoad]

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/...050100328.html



There were gasps in the audience at a press conference by female North Korean defectors in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday when Bang Mi-sun rolled up her black skirt and showed the deep ugly scars in her thighs. The event was part of North Korea Freedom Week.

As soon as she was asked to recount her life in a North Korean concentration camp, Bang (55) stepped on a chair and roll up her skirt. Various parts of her thighs were sunken as if the flesh had been gouged out. She also walks with a limp.

Bang had formerly been an actress with the propaganda squad of the Musan Mine. She fled the North with her children when her husband starved to death in 2002, but soon fell victim to human traffickers. She was arrested by Chinese police and was sent back to the North, where she was tortured. In 2004, she escaped again.

Bang testified that one 21-year-old pregnant woman who had fled to China and been forcibly repatriated was killed when she refused to have an abortion. Forced abortions of half-Chinese children apparently aim to prevent the proliferation of "unclean" stock due to the North's archaic obsession with the national bloodline.

She called on U.S. President Barack Obama to make sure no more North Korean women are "sold like livestock in China. Please raise your voice in the international community so that North Koreans no longer receive this subhuman treatment in prison."

[classicman]

Wow - thats awful.

[classicman]

Pelosi received a briefing on interrogation by CIA officials when she served as ranking Democrat on the Intelligence panel in 2002, but she has asserted that she was never told that waterboarding and other harsh practices were used, only that intelligence officials thought them legal.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, however, has since released information calling Pelosi’s assertion into question. A DNI chart released earlier this month asserted that Pelosi received a briefing in September of 2002 during which she was given a description of interrogation methods used on a suspected terrorist.

Pelosi has claimed a different recollection of the briefing.

“Trying to understand what she was told is almost impossible; her story changes almost every day,” said Graham.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Milgram is no excuse. I'm sorry, but it's not. When you're given an illegal order, you are legally bound NOT to follow it. If you DO break the law and follow the illegal order, that is on YOU. But I agree that more blame lies at the top than the bottom.

Agreed. Excuse was the wrong word.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

UT said the cop was entrapped.

And I agree, the analogy is a bit tortured (get it?) when it equates torture with running a stop sign. More- with running a stop sign that isn't clearly marked. There's not much that is more clearly illegal than torture. I don't think the torturers should be exonerated. At the very least, they should have to plea bargain by testifying about their superiors.

I do have some grudging sympathy for the actual torturers, though. The classic Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments show how otherwise ethical people can be influenced into doing awful things when an authority gives them permission. That excuse, however, thins out the higher you get to the top.

I don't see where he said that, but no big deal.

And yea, there is evidence that otherwise good and ethical people will resort to the worst kind of human behavior under certain circumstances. Like Lord of the Flies. Everyone isn't influenced though. Some people are strong enough to withstand mob rule or hive mentality.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Quote:
Pelosi received a briefing on interrogation by CIA officials when she served as ranking Democrat on the Intelligence panel in 2002, but she has asserted that she was never told that waterboarding and other harsh practices were used, only that intelligence officials thought them legal.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, however, has since released information calling Pelosi’s assertion into question. A DNI chart released earlier this month asserted that Pelosi received a briefing in September of 2002 during which she was given a description of interrogation methods used on a suspected terrorist.

Pelosi has claimed a different recollection of the briefing.

“Trying to understand what she was told is almost impossible; her story changes almost every day,” said Graham.

classic, there is now evidence that they were torturing people to try and make a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussien. Which they never got btw.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

I don't see where he said that, but no big deal.

Post 329, he modified my quote.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

there is now evidence that they were torturing people to try and make a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussien.

That was old news a month ago, but thanks for the update. It also has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Chicago radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided he'd get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn't torture.

It didn't turn out that way. "Mancow," in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly -- "Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop," according to NBC Chicago.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South told his audience before he was waterboarded on air. "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

Seems Sergeant South was correct.