America’s Concentration Camps category archive
Geneva Conventions 0
The Booman uncovers a little history.
All Over Once Again Redundantly, Except . . . 0
Dick Polman recounts the history of American waterboarding, which dates back to the Moro uprising in the Phillipines over 100 years ago (it was called the “water cure” back then when I was a young ‘un).
Once again, there was a Republican president.
This one, though, wasn’t having any of it (emphasis added):
But Theodore Roosevelt, the new president, didn’t buy those arguments. He didn’t try to manufacture any legal justifications. He didn’t bless the errant behavior by claiming that it was all conducted at the behest of his all-powerful executive authority. Instead, he kicked butt in a cable sent to the U.S. military authorities in the Philippines. The text can be found on page 100 of “Theodore Rex,” the second volume of the TR biography written by Edmund Morris. The key passage:
The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts…for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American military.
But Wait! There’s More! 0
At least five more torture memos, that is, including one that concluded that the Military Commissions Act, which specifically prohibited “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of U.S. prisoners” somehow authorized that same treatment. Follow the link to the AP story.
In the Orwellian Bushie world, down is up, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
Via Raw Story.
Thanks for the Memos 0
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| We Don’t Torture | ||||
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Via Jack.
Sophistry 0
The torture memos:
Emanuel and other presidential aides also pushed back against a GOP contention that national security was undermined by the release of memos detailing controversial interrogation methods approved under President George W. Bush.
The only security that is threatened is the security of those who think that the Gestapo is a fitting role model.
Evil in Our Name 0
Phillipe Sands writes of the torture memos in the Guardian:
When the memo was written, the administration had already fixed a policy of abuse, and the torture had already started. Lawyers were needed to provide the “golden shield” against prosecution. The memo did not benefit from the usual consultations; the many lawyers who would have objected were simply cut out of the process. A small group of lawyer-ideologues became participants in international crime, acts for which any state may, under the 1984 torture convention, exercise criminal jurisdiction. The evidence suggests complicity with the consequences that flowed from these flawed opinions – which went on to underpin CIA and military interrogations in Guantánamo, Iraq and beyond in the rendition programme.
(snip)
Obama is right not to target the interrogators in the sense that real responsibility lies much higher up. The senior lawyers and their patrons should derive little comfort from his intervention: they remain at risk of criminal investigation – or worse, in a legal black hole of their own making.
Evil in Our Name 0
Tortuous Question 0
From the Booman.
The Truth Shall Set You Free (but Only If You First Set Free the Truth) (Updated) 0
Evil has no better friend than the dark.
What, one wonders, do they fear, other than the truth.
Via Andrew Sullivan.
Addendum, the Next Morning:
The Booman has some thoughts.
Sins in Our Name 0
Andrew Sullivan, q. v.
Sins in Our Name 0
From the New York Review of Books. Read the whole thing.
The most pernicious evil is evil done in the name of good.
International Legality 0
Moving back towards sanity:
The “enemy combatant” classification was created out of whole cloth with the sole purpose of evading the Laws of War.
It was nothing more than a cover story for concentration camps.
It is good to see it going away.
Truth. No Reconciliation. 0
Sign Senator Leahy’s petition here.
I Get Mail 0
From the Forces of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Join now.
Dear ACLU Supporter,
The truth is finally starting to come out — and it’s happening because of the sheer persistence of you and the ACLU.
Yesterday, in response to an ACLU lawsuit seeking government torture documents, the CIA acknowledged that it destroyed 92 tapes of detainee interrogations.
Covering Up 0
CIA destroyed 92 tapes of its interrogations of prisoners. The tapes were subject to a discovery proceeding:
The ACLU immediately called for the judge to issue a “prompt finding of contempt” against the CIA.
Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU and counsel on the case said to Raw Story, “The large number of video tapes destroyed confirms that this was a systemic attempt to evade court orders.”
Singh added, “It’s about time, now that the court knows 92 tapes have been destroyed, that it hold the CIA accountable for the destruction of the tapes.”
In other news, Attorney General Holder again rules out Bushie torture:
“Waterboarding is torture. My justice department will not justify it, will not rationalize it and will not condone it,” Holder said in a speech to the Jewish Council of Public Affairs.
