Bill Clinton Approves of Torture

[fossten]

From an interview on NPR:

"Look, if the president needed an option, there's all sorts of things they can do.Let's take the best case, OK.You picked up someone you know is the No. 2 aide to Osama bin Laden. And you know they have an operation planned for the United States or some European capital in the next three days. And you know this guy knows it. Right, that's the clearest example. And you think you can only get it out of this guy by shooting him full of some drugs or water-boarding him or otherwise working him over. If they really believed that that scenario is likely to occur, let them come forward with an alternate proposal.

"We have a system of laws here where nobody should be above the law, and you don't need blanket advance approval for blanket torture.They can draw a statute much more narrowly, which would permit the president to make a finding in a case like I just outlined, and then that finding could be submitted even if after the fact to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

[snip]
http://www.nysun.com/article/41792

 

[Joeychgo]

Well, since according to you, everything Clinton has done and does is wrong, then torture must be wrong too..

 

[fossten]

Well, since according to you, everything Clinton has done and does is wrong, then torture must be wrong too..

Nice try, Joey. But exposing hypocrisy on the left is my specialty. And I don't hear you defending him right now. Wonder why that is.

 

[Joeychgo]

Because I dont always side with Clinton and the dems - but you always seem to be against him and the dems --

 

[fossten]

Because I dont always side with Clinton and the dems - but you always seem to be against him and the dems --

Have you ever stopped to wonder why that is? I mean really wondered?

 

[Joeychgo]

Yeah, cause you dont seem to be that dumb as to think dems are 100% wrong, 100% of the time.

But you probably think everything is going well in Iraq too.

 

[fossten]

Yeah, cause you dont seem to be that dumb as to think dems are 100% wrong, 100% of the time.

But you probably think everything is going well in Iraq too.

Do you think ANYTHING is going well in Iraq?

 

[TheDude]

It isn't look so good these days...

We've lost battle for Baghdad, US admits

· President concedes war may be at turning point
· Mounting death toll brings comparison with Vietnam
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday October 20, 2006
The Guardian


Victims of a roadside bomb in Baghdad yesterday. Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP

A day after George Bush conceded for the first time that America may have reached the equivalent of a Tet offensive in Iraq, the Pentagon yesterday admitted defeat in its strategy of securing Baghdad.
The admission from President Bush that the US may have arrived at a turning point in this war - the Tet offensive led to a massive loss of confidence in the American presence in Vietnam - comes during one of the deadliest months for US forces since the invasion.

Yesterday the number of US troops killed since October 1 rose to 73, deepening the sense that America is trapped in an unwinnable situation and further damaging Republican chances in midterm elections that are less than three weeks away.

In Baghdad a surge in sectarian killings has forced the Pentagon to review its entire security plan for the capital, Major General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, said yesterday.

"The violence is, indeed, disheartening," he told reporters. The US has poured 12,000 additional US and Iraqi troops into Baghdad since August only to see a 22% increase in attacks since the beginning of Ramadan.

"Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations in sustaining a reduction in the level of violence," Gen Caldwell said.

The bleak assessment arrives as official thinking appears to be shifting on the war, with reports that a study group led by a Bush family loyalist and former secretary of state, James Baker, could be drawing up an exit plan for US forces in Iraq.

Such a strategy would once have been unthinkable for Mr Bush, who famously vowed to keep US forces in Iraq even if he was supported only by his wife, Laura, and dog, Barney.

But the president now appears willing to acknowledge that the public is losing confidence in his administration's involvement in Iraq.

On Wednesday Mr Bush admitted for the first time the existence of a parallel between Iraq and Vietnam.

Such comparisons had been fiercely resisted by the White House, which has insisted that the US would succeed in bringing stability to Iraq and democracy to the Middle East.

But Mr Bush appeared to agree that the rise in sectarian killings in Iraq could prove as demoralising to his administration's mission in Iraq as the Tet offensive of 1968-69. Although that offensive resulted in a military defeat for the North Vietnamese forces, it turned American public opinion against the war and the then American president, Lyndon Johnson.

"There is certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we are heading towards an election," Mr Bush said during an interview with ABC television.

He said he understood the insurgents were trying to drive American forces out of Iraq. "My feeling is that they all along have been trying to inflict enough damage so that we leave," he said.

While Mr Bush now readily acknowledges the potentially demoralising effects of the violence, there was no sign yesterday that the White House had reached the same conclusion as critics who have called for an early withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

"The president was making a point that he's made before, which is that terrorists try to exploit pictures and try to use the media as conduits for influencing public opinion in the United States," the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told reporters yesterday.

He also rejected any comparison between Mr Bush and President Johnson.

"The important thing to remember is that the president is determined it's not going to happen with Iraq, because you have a president who is determined to win," he said.

"We do not think that there has been a flip-over point, but more importantly, from the standpoint of the government and the standpoint of this administration, we are going to continue pursuing victory aggressively."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1926809,00.html

 

[Marcus]

But back to the issue at hand, I actually have no problem with the scenerio that Clinton is talking about. What he's saying (and Dershowitz has previously suggested) is this:

In a supposed "ticking bomb" situation, a president can authorize extreme means to get information out of a prisoner, even to the point of violating existing US law and international agreements. But he must later justify that authorization to a court (FISA or whatever). If it later turns out that the torture was unjustified, he can be punished. but if it turns out to have been justified, then the court can exonerate him.

This prevents torture from becoming routine, because someone (the president) is directly held accountable. If you think that this would make a president think twice before authorizing it, that's exactly the point. It should only be employed in the most extreme circumstances, and only after all other options have failed.

Under the law just enacted, the president has the power to define torture any way he pleases, thus circumventing the letter of the law, but very likely violating the spirit of it. Furthermore, there is no accountablility because the use of it is completely exempt from any review. The end result is that torture becomes commonplace instead of the last resort, and we end up with another Abu Ghraib (which are impossible to keep hidden forever), more world-wide antipathy towards us, and in the end, we lose our souls.

If your sole justification for everything we do is "keeping Americans safe" then where do we draw the line? At what point do we indeed become that which which we fight against?

 

[fossten]

It isn't look so good these days...

We've lost battle for Baghdad, US admits

· President concedes war may be at turning point
· Mounting death toll brings comparison with Vietnam
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday October 20, 2006
The Guardian


Victims of a roadside bomb in Baghdad yesterday. Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP

A day after George Bush conceded for the first time that America may have reached the equivalent of a Tet offensive in Iraq, the Pentagon yesterday admitted defeat in its strategy of securing Baghdad.
The admission from President Bush that the US may have arrived at a turning point in this war - the Tet offensive led to a massive loss of confidence in the American presence in Vietnam - comes during one of the deadliest months for US forces since the invasion.

Yesterday the number of US troops killed since October 1 rose to 73, deepening the sense that America is trapped in an unwinnable situation and further damaging Republican chances in midterm elections that are less than three weeks away.

In Baghdad a surge in sectarian killings has forced the Pentagon to review its entire security plan for the capital, Major General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, said yesterday.

"The violence is, indeed, disheartening," he told reporters. The US has poured 12,000 additional US and Iraqi troops into Baghdad since August only to see a 22% increase in attacks since the beginning of Ramadan.

"Operation Together Forward has made a difference in the focus areas but has not met our overall expectations in sustaining a reduction in the level of violence," Gen Caldwell said.

The bleak assessment arrives as official thinking appears to be shifting on the war, with reports that a study group led by a Bush family loyalist and former secretary of state, James Baker, could be drawing up an exit plan for US forces in Iraq.

Such a strategy would once have been unthinkable for Mr Bush, who famously vowed to keep US forces in Iraq even if he was supported only by his wife, Laura, and dog, Barney.

But the president now appears willing to acknowledge that the public is losing confidence in his administration's involvement in Iraq.

On Wednesday Mr Bush admitted for the first time the existence of a parallel between Iraq and Vietnam.

Such comparisons had been fiercely resisted by the White House, which has insisted that the US would succeed in bringing stability to Iraq and democracy to the Middle East.

But Mr Bush appeared to agree that the rise in sectarian killings in Iraq could prove as demoralising to his administration's mission in Iraq as the Tet offensive of 1968-69. Although that offensive resulted in a military defeat for the North Vietnamese forces, it turned American public opinion against the war and the then American president, Lyndon Johnson.

"There is certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we are heading towards an election," Mr Bush said during an interview with ABC television.

He said he understood the insurgents were trying to drive American forces out of Iraq. "My feeling is that they all along have been trying to inflict enough damage so that we leave," he said.

While Mr Bush now readily acknowledges the potentially demoralising effects of the violence, there was no sign yesterday that the White House had reached the same conclusion as critics who have called for an early withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

"The president was making a point that he's made before, which is that terrorists try to exploit pictures and try to use the media as conduits for influencing public opinion in the United States," the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told reporters yesterday.

He also rejected any comparison between Mr Bush and President Johnson.

"The important thing to remember is that the president is determined it's not going to happen with Iraq, because you have a president who is determined to win," he said.

"We do not think that there has been a flip-over point, but more importantly, from the standpoint of the government and the standpoint of this administration, we are going to continue pursuing victory aggressively."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1926809,00.html

Um...your headline is a falsehood. Nothing in the article actually states that Bush is admitting defeat in Baghdad. In fact, the last quote says the opposite.

Typical liberal MSM spin.

Do you know what happened during the TET offensive?

 

[fossten]

But back to the issue at hand, I actually have no problem with the scenerio that Clinton is talking about. What he's saying (and Dershowitz has previously suggested) is this:

In a supposed "ticking bomb" situation, a president can authorize extreme means to get information out of a prisoner, even to the point of violating existing US law and international agreements. But he must later justify that authorization to a court (FISA or whatever). If it later turns out that the torture was unjustified, he can be punished. but if it turns out to have been justified, then the court can exonerate him.

This prevents torture from becoming routine, because someone (the president) is directly held accountable. If you think that this would make a president think twice before authorizing it, that's exactly the point. It should only be employed in the most extreme circumstances, and only after all other options have failed.

Under the law just enacted, the president has the power to define torture any way he pleases, thus circumventing the letter of the law, but very likely violating the spirit of it. Furthermore, there is no accountablility because the use of it is completely exempt from any review. The end result is that torture becomes commonplace instead of the last resort, and we end up with another Abu Ghraib (which are impossible to keep hidden forever), more world-wide antipathy towards us, and in the end, we lose our souls.

If your sole justification for everything we do is "keeping Americans safe" then where do we draw the line? At what point do we indeed become that which which we fight against?

At no point do we ever become that which we fight against, because we are a nation of laws. That rhetorical question begs the question, however:

At what point to we cease to protect our people and just capitulate to the Islamofascists?

 

[Marcus]

At what point to we cease to protect our people and just capitulate to the Islamofascists?

It depends on what you mean by "capitulate". I consider the detainee act to be an act of capitulation. We're quickly abandoning the very principles that have defined us since the nation's inception.

 

[fossten]

It depends on what you mean by "capitulate". I consider the detainee act to be an act of capitulation. We're quickly abandoning the very principles that have defined us since the nation's inception.

What do you mean? The detainee act is a way to protect our servicemen from being sued or prosecuted while interrogating terrorists, who I might add, have no rights under the Geneva Conventions, regardless of what the Democrats claim.

 

[RRocket]

......especially self-torture. Lookit that thing he had bobbing between his legs....EWWW!!!!