Apparently the Pentagon admitted to the Senate: GENEVA CONVENTIONS BROKEN

[LittleApple81]

in Abu Ghraib....
did anybody see this with Wolf? I cannot see anything here in DU.


edited to change title.

[LittleApple81]

1. He was talking to an ex-NATO-head American retired general.

They referred to Senator Warner saying they had a hearing and that they had concluded they had broken Geneva convention rules in the prison.
The General almost "tears in his eyes" and said that it was not just the young people actually doing it but it went higher up.
He didn't know how high, but definitely not just the actual torturers.

[2Design]

2. now if this can only get legs and stay in the open.....BFEE is so

awful.... I have never felt so polarized toward a person or group in my life....these are the most criminal people and why everyone can't see it is beyond me... I find myself....so angry....

[LiberalFighter]

11. They see it... they just think that "America" is better than everyone else

and it is our right. Which is bull!!!

It has been the same throughout history. Those in power will justify their actions and one of the ways to make it right is blending religion into it. All that they had to do was bring out their religious leaders to justify their actions. gw* doesn't even have to do that. He is the annointed one and his word is the word of god.

He recently has been stating in his speeches that "It was the right thing to do" regarding the removal of Saddam from power. THAT IS BULL CRAP. It is only the right thing to do if the laws are followed. Or there aren't any laws that cover the situation. Choices can only be made when they are legal choices.

It can be considered "the right thing to do" by contributing money to an organization that does research to save lives. BUT it would be illegal to do so if you stole money for that purpose or used someone else's money.

Americans are only looking at what they perceive to be "the good". They are not looking at the legitimacy of the actions.

[2Design]

15. he gets this mental problem from his parents... I saw his dad

on tv talking about fly boys and bailing out and he had no guilt because he had done everything he could....yet there he was back at the scene of the crime an in a rubber raft paddling around...like he is going to find them umpteen years later....

I would think most normal people would have some guilt that they bailed out the plane and they were the pilot.....

[LiberalFighter]

16. And his lying...

he got from his parents

With pappy bush bailing out when he should had been the last one to leave the plane.

[Wind Dancer]

8. Did they say anything else?

Anyway to get more info?

[LittleApple81]

9. I saw Senator Warner with a whole bunch of brass saying they

had had a very productive session discussing the prison abuses.

Then I had to leave the room. (anytime I see repug congresscritters I tend to scamper).
When I came back, Wolf was talking to the ex-NATO-Chair General, and he told the General that such an admission had been made to the committee in the senate. The guy was very affected, apparently.

[Wind Dancer]

12. Scampering, lol!

I hope Senator Warner will continue to pursue this, at least he seems to have a sincere passion in getting to the bottom of who is responsible.

[LittleApple81]

3. I think this is because Hersh is ready to come out with a new article.

What do you think?

[LittleApple81]

4. Why was this a little "mention" in the conversation about NATO

deciding to help train the security forces in Iraq?????

THEY DON'T GIVE A DAMN!!!!

[LittleApple81]

5. I cannot believe that nobody here in GD had mentioned it before I did.

I know people are watching because the Hillary memo has been mentioned. Did I dream this?

[Jacobin]

6. But I thought smirky already said the GC's don't apply to him

as emporer of the world?

:shrug:

[LittleApple81]

7. Cheney that! The rest of the USA that still has a brain and a heart

doesn't believe the little emperor has a right to such a thing.

[LittleApple81]

10. They are on right now with Warner!!!! 1:05 ET

[bobbieinok]

13. SEE 'Making Torture Legal' in NY Review of Books ... Anthony Lewis

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17230

Volume 51, Number 12 · July 15, 2004
Email to a friend

Feature
Making Torture Legal
By Anthony Lewis
1.
Reading through the memoranda written by Bush administration lawyers on how prisoners of the "war on terror" can be treated is a strange experience. The memos read like the advice of a mob lawyer to a mafia don on how to skirt the law and stay out of prison. Avoiding prosecution is literally a theme of the memoranda. Americans who put physical pressure on captives can escape punishment if they can show that they did not have an "intent" to cause "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." And "a defendant could negate a showing of specific intent...by showing that he had acted in good faith that his conduct would not amount to the acts prohibited by the statute."

These quotations are from a draft report to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by an ad hoc group of lawyers he chose, mostly political appointees in the Defense and other departments, to advise him on interrogation techniques for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The report is dated March 6, 2003; on the title page it says, "Classified by: Secretary Rumsfeld."

Another theme in the memoranda, an even more deeply disturbing one, is that the President can order the torture of prisoners even though it is forbidden by a federal statute and by the international Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a party.

The idea that presidential power overrides treaties and congressional laws appeared soon after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. John Yoo, a professor at the University of California in Berkeley, was then a deputy assistant attorney general. He wrote several memos in late 2001 and then, in collaboration with Robert J. Delahunty, another Justice Department lawyer, an important paper dated January 9, 2002. It was addressed to the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II. "Restricting the President's plenary power over military operations (including the treatment of prisoners)" would be "constitutionally dubious," the memo said.

.....
The Defense Department memorandum of March 2003 incorporated the ideas and much of the language in the Bybee memo. It expressed the idea of impervious presidential power in sweeping terms:

(quote)

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.... Congress may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield.... 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.

(end quote)

much more......

[slaveplanet]

17. rummyursobusted

UNCLASSIFIED WHEN SEPARATED FROM ATTACHMENT



Working Group Report
on
Detainee Interrogations in the
Global War on Terrorism;
Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy, and
Operational Considerations

6 March 2003


Classified by: Secretary Rumsfeld
Reason: 1.5 (C)
Declassify on: 10 years


Redacted
UNCLASSIFIED WHEN SEPARATED FROM ATTACHMENT
SECRET/NOFORN

II. International Law

(U) The following discussion addresses the requirements of international law, as it pertains to the Armed Forces of the United States, as interpreted by the United States. As will be apparent in other sections of this analysis, other nations and international bodies may take a more restrictive view, which may affect our policy analysis and thus is considered elsewhere.

A. The Geneva Conventions

(U) The laws of war contain obligations relevant to the issue of interrogation techniques and methods. It should be noted, however, that it is the position of the U.S. Government that none of the provisions of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949 (Third Geneva Convention) apply to al Qaida detainees because, inter alia, al Qaida is not a High Contracting Party to the Convention. As to the Taliban, the U.S. Position is that the provisions of Geneva apply to our present conflict with the Taliban, but that Taliban detainees do not qualify as prisoners of war under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention. The Department of Justice has opined that the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Personnel in time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention) does not apply to unlawful combatants.

continued-
http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_10/issue_12/news_03.html



google around for the full 49 page pdf ...it's out there

[ClassWarrior]

14. Kick for the kids in Iraq

:kick:

[ClassWarrior]

18. kicking again

:kick: