"Water Boarding is a Crime"

“Water Boarding is a Crime”, according to even neo-cons!

"Erich "Mancow" Muller, a Chicago-based conservative radio host, recently decided to silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture" (huff post).

Here is the offical video peeps!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/mancow-waterboarded-video_n_206906.html


Now, we are, still, waiting for Cheney to be put behind BARS!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Actually its not. In fact, its so not a crime that its now going to be used against all civilians when they are arrested. Its a very effective form of "enhanced" interrogation. It works like a jacuzzi, by relaxing people so much that they let down their defenses and start blabbering.

They might even have to beat off the people who will line up to be arrested just so they can get waterboarded.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

The Vice President of the USA exercises no real power, except when he's discharging his (or one day, her) duties as President of the Senate and even then that is a ministerial duty unless the Senate is tied. He cannot be granted duties by the Congress ("separation of powers") or even the President, since the Veep is a constitutionally created position, it cannot be added to or subtracted away from. It merely exists to advise the POTUS on matters of their chosing, to represent the USA in as a dignitary on matters assigned by the POTUS, and to become President upon the death, resignation or removal of the President.

While I'm not denying that Cheney weilded enormous influence within the Executive Branch, none of that authority was actually legally recognized any more than Laura Bush's power is under the law. In short, the Veep can say that torture is a great idea, he can push that agenda, but at the end of the day it was the President, Secdef, Secstat, Attourney General and Dir. of the CIA who probably were "pushing the buttons" as it were. So, if you're looking for someone to blame, you'll undoubtedly need to look a little closer to the previous president and his actual officers who had some power.

~String

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

influence equals power

 

Way to go, PJ.

You missed the entire point of String's post.

 

Who do you think was pulling the strings of the Bush administration? Let me give you a hint; Bush was a puppet, not the puppet master.

Any torture tactic that has the potential to kill is a crime, therefore water Boarding is a crime in the United States, if it wasn’t what is the current debate about?

 

This doesn't quite work as a rebuttal. If it were considered a crime by an international court or even an American he could potentially be brought in for conspiracy to torture.

 

No, I think he's on an OK track.

If it were murder, a person who wields influence to get a murder committed can be arrested. Depending on how the crime is viewed in whatever legal system we are talking about he could be vulnerable to conspiracy charges.

If it is not a crime, it is not a crime. But then the difference between influence and power is irrelevent.

Setting aside the fact that he was really in charge.

 

Got to give him credit for putting his face on the line and then admitting the truth. And it should be noted he was not tilted back and lasted about, what, 2 seconds.

He was also in a situation where he knew he could stop it any time. He knew consciously that they would not up the ante. He was not surrounded by people who hated him. etc.

So he got waterboarding lite. And very, very lite.

 

Um water boarding has absolutely NO potential to kill you.

Not true.

The International Court only functions in places where the law has usually ceased to function. It doesn't step in and prosecute in countries that have functioning legal systems, which is why it will never seriously pursue charging any Americans. And if it did, Obama would never allow it to go ahead.

 

Hello......I said....

My point was that his distinction between power and influence was not a good rebuttal. If it is a crime then conspiracy to commit it is possible regardless. If it is not a crime, then the distinction also is moot.

Notice that I wrote the sentence in the subjunctive.

It was very clear I was not saying Cheney will be brought up on criminal charges. I would be everything I own against that.

 

Dick Cheney exercised real power.

It's called "clout", in Chicago.

There are highly trained medical personnel in attendance whenever a "high value" prisoner is tortured by suffocation, to prevent accidental death. They also help reduce the chances of visible injury from broken bones, etc. The brain damage and other internal harms are of course part of the program.

As far as low value victims - - rumor has it that seven people have died of "drowning" while in detention at the desert prison in Bagram.

I mean, what kind of a moron would think that you could repeatedly suffocate already abused and frail people without endangering their - - but of course, you were joking. My apologies.

Henry Kissinger, most famously, was restricted in his travel plans - it was dangerous for him to so much as change planes in countries that respected certain international treaties. And since Pinochet's troubles, the issue has grown in significance.

Meanwhile, the question of whether the US still has a legal system capable of handling W&Co remains unanswered. We still haven't taken the first steps toward formal investigation of merely Cheney's connection with war contracting in Iraq - the tip of the iceberg.

 

No. Cheney exercised influence and since I did mention that, you probably need to re-read my post to see that point. Obviously Cheney had a great deal of influence, he practically designed our foreign policy until the Rice/Hadley faction began pushing him aside.

Again, my point was, his signature isn't going to appear on any legal paperwork tying him to torture. That would be Bush, Gates, Rice, Hayden and Gonzalez. Shit, I'm not even saying that people shouldn't be called to account for waterboarding, just that Cheney will be the toughest bird to fry on this matter.

Wow, well as long as "rumor has it" ice, I guess the case it settled. Thank Allah you chimed in with more of your "unsupported opinion as fact" to clear things up!

~String

 

Only if you don't fuck up.

I believe the rome statute allows for prosecution even people from countries that have functioning legal systems.

 

Chapter and verse please, your belief doesn't cut it.

 

Its the rome statute not the freaking bible and my belief is worth more than yours...I haven't committed plagiarism.


from the rome statute

if you need more here is the full text of it
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rome_...nal_Court#Part_1_-_Establishment_of_the_Court


It can try people connect to states part to the statute which means it can try people from the 2 most powerful states that have committed crimes under its jurisdiction.

 

So you can't answer, and have to hide in insultes.

 

I did answer you see that quote from the satute.

Bait me all you want I'm not childish to fall for you childish ploys.

 

And again from your own quote;

2. The Court shall exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression once a provision is adopted in accordance with articles 121 and 123 defining the crime and setting out the conditions under which the Court shall exercise jurisdiction with respect to this crime. Such a provision shall be consistent with the relevant provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

Plus the fact that we are no longer signators to the Statutes;

"Unsigning" the Rome Statute


May 6, 2002 -- In a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General and in a speech by Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, the Bush administration declared that "the United States has no legal obligations arising from its signature" of the Rome Statute, in essence "unsigning" the ICC treaty and withdrawing U.S. involvement in the Court.

Transcript of issues update briefing by Pierre-Richard Prosper, U.S. Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues (May 6, 2002)
Announcement of Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense (May 6, 2002)

 

which in no disproves my point. I have seen nothing in what you have posted that disproves that the ICC can in fact try people whose countries have functioning legal systems.


please try and do better. I do not wish to see yet another thread derailed by the childish antics of your born from your hatred of me.

I know my botched comment refferng to the two countries that couldn't be tried were about the US and Israel both who have unsigned it.