A fourth-grader at a Washington, D.C., school asked former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the weekend about the Bush administration’s torture policy. Rice responded that “the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country.”
But when pressed last week by two students at Stanford University, Rice claimed that waterboarding wasn’t torture because President Bush authorized it (see YouTube video). “By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture,” she said.
That sounds a lot like President Nixon’s claim in defense of Watergate that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
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78 Comments
I’m sure the Unitarist purist will agree with Condi. But then they have to give the same defference to Obama.
Sounds like Rice is grasping at straws.
Her excuse “By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture” is just silly. She is an intelligent woman and cannot really believe that.
If she does, she would have to excuse the Nazi gas chamber operators because their president authorized their activies. She would have to excuse many things similar that surely she would not want to explain.
I wonder if Condoleezza would have any problems with it if Obama ordered Rush Limbahghahauh declared an enemy combatent for his anti-American and subversive speech, shipped to Guantanamo before it closes, then waterboarded and subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation, etc…
No doubt if Obama had Rice tortured she’d be arguing for her rights. It’s a shame these criminals are still walking free.
She did point out that the Nazis never attacked America, the terrorist did.
Her career in politics is dead.
She might have a problem with that, unless ofcourse ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ were utilized.
That sounds a lot like President Nixon’s claim in defense of Watergate that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
—————————————————-
Shouldn’t a journalist know the difference between domestic crimes and decisions made in a time of war by the Commander in Chief?
Mr_Kia
Posted May 4, 2009 at 1:32 pm
shouldn’t the laws specify the difference, if there
is one?
Another horse, beaten (tortured) to a pulp. I bet he wishes they had just poured water on him.
Look, everyone has pretty much has their minds made up. No one will likely change their minds.
Move on.
Nixon was a War President too.
Nah, Nixon couldn’t be a Republican, he shook hands with Mao.
No doubt if Obama had Rice tortured she’d be arguing for her rights
No doubt that Rice is a US Citizen.
Waterboarding is not torture.
Next topic.
“RFL
Posted May 4, 2009 at 1:50 pm | Permalink
No doubt if Obama had Rice tortured she’d be arguing for her rights
No doubt that Rice is a US Citizen.”
Has she produced her birth certificate?
“KSGolfnut
Posted May 4, 2009 at 1:52 pm | Permalink
Waterboarding is not torture.
Next topic.”
Wrong.
Back to this topic.
FYI –
“Frost/Nixon” is out on DVD.
(The original 8-hours or so Frost/Nixon interviews are available, too.)
Ron Howard’s film is quite good and surprisingly empathetic with Tricky Dick.
Anyone else wonder what is taking place in the picture at the top of this thread?
Photo shop brian?
Condi was really born in Kenya, I mean come on, what kind of name is Condi?
From the pic, Condi really was bush’s 2nd wife.
“donndublin
Posted May 4, 2009 at 2:52 pm | Permalink
Photo shop brian?’
No but thanks for asking.
So if Obama rounded up all the dittoheads and packed them off to Gitmo to be tortured that would be OK as long as he says it is OK.
Theirs was a sheriff in Texas who Reagans DOJ put in prison for a decade for water boarding perps
Darned drive-by fourth graders and their ‘gotcha’ questions!!!
Well Texas is a whole other Country, just ask their guv.
Torture can be defined as inflicting physical or mental pain.
Panic is not pain – which is what the style of CIA water boarding did.
“Regular
Posted May 4, 2009 at 3:22 pm | Permalink
Torture can be defined as inflicting physical or mental pain.”
Torture can also be defined as reading your posts.
SFW?
If there is anyone that thinks waterboarding inflicts no physical or mental pain and would like to volunteer to be waterboarded to prove they are right, please speak up…
brian_nuevo
Posted May 4, 2009 at 3:27 pm | Permalink
If there is anyone that thinks waterboarding inflicts no physical or mental pain and would like to volunteer to be waterboarded to prove they are right, please speak up
—————————-
Sure.
I would, if done by the CIA and a physician present, just like during their interrogations.
“Regular
Posted May 4, 2009 at 3:29 pm | Permalink
…I would, if done by the CIA and a physician present, just like during their interrogations.”
That can be arranged. Tonight, the U-stor facility at Harry and Rock, 9pm work for you?
#
brian_nuevo
Posted May 4, 2009 at 3:32 pm | Permalink
“Regular
Posted May 4, 2009 at 3:29 pm | Permalink
…I would, if done by the CIA and a physician present, just like during their interrogations.”
That can be arranged. Tonight, the U-stor facility at Harry and Rock, 9pm work for you?
——————————
heh,
I have my doubts that the CIA trained interrogators or a physician would be there. :)
I called your bluff and you contort it to fit your agenda.
Too bad – so sad…
“Regular
Posted May 4, 2009 at 3:35 pm | Permalink
…I have my doubts that the CIA trained interrogators or a physician would be there.”
They will be undercover.
It will make for a great youtube video.
Monkeyhawk is not an undercover CIA agent.
(I have to say that.)
“If she does, she would have to excuse the Nazi gas chamber operators because their president authorized their activies.”
In the mid-1960s, there was a trial of former death camp guards in Germany, one of whom was Kurt Mobius, who had been a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp. He explained that he and the others, “as police officers” had had it drilled into them that every order they received came from Hitler and Himmler themselves. He and the other guards were convinced that everything they were doing was perfectly legal for this reason.
Was he right? Evidently, in the World Accoding to Condi.
Reggie, Golfnuts,
Go get your beach towels and flip-flops and we’ll just test out your theory that it’s not torture on you, let’s see, 183 times in a row?
#
Jed
Posted May 4, 2009 at 4:04 pm | Permalink
Reggie, Golfnuts,
Go get your beach towels and flip-flops and we’ll just test out your theory that it’s not torture on you, let’s see, 183 times in a row?
===========================
Sure, as I said if done by trained CIA interrogators and there is a physician present.
You must not have done a lot of diving into water or swam underwater at depth.
I keep forgetting that fossils can’t swim. :)
Brian,
“Anyone else wonder what is taking place in the picture at the top of this thread?”
Although Bush looks about ready to bleep off, Condi doesn’t seem to be noticing anything at all. That tell us anything?
#
Jed
Posted May 4, 2009 at 4:10 pm | Permalink
Brian,
“Anyone else wonder what is taking place in the picture at the top of this thread?”
Although Bush looks about ready to bleep off, Condi doesn’t seem to be noticing anything at all. That tell us anything?
———-
That you’re the world’s oldest 7th grader?
Anyone who actually READ THE MEMOS is aware that the “harsh techniques” were no more than scare tactics. At no time was torture authorized.
The difference between scaring someone with the US version of waterboarding, and the waterboarding done in torture, is the gallon or so of water entering the lungs of the victim.
After 183 pours, the most harshly treated prisoner walked away HEALTHY and UNHARMED…something John McCain can’t say.
Face facts, people, this torture meme is both stupid…and old.
“Mom_of_5
Posted May 4, 2009 at 6:20 pm | Permalink
Anyone who actually READ THE MEMOS is aware that the “harsh techniques” were no more than scare tactics. At no time was torture authorized.”
Mom_of_5, which of your 5 will you let one of the blogger’s here waterboard – US style of course?
I mean, it will just scare them right? I can guarantee it will be done the exact same way the US did it.
So which kid gets to have some fun with this? Perhaps all 5, it is no big deal, right?
Brian wants to join the Sheriff from Texas in prison to talk about good old water boarding days. :)
“Regular
Posted May 4, 2009 at 7:02 pm | Permalink
Brian wants to join the Sheriff from Texas in prison to talk about good old water boarding days.”
Has Bush been arrested?
read my lips vendejo…
sher – iff
:D
I though Bush was your Sheriff vendejo…
payaso…
got your dicktionary out again ?
I gotta go now.
Reggie,
“Sure, as I said if done by trained CIA interrogators and there is a physician present.”
Well of course! Didn’t I tell you, I’m CIA trained, and a physician to boot! I’ll be your interrogater and you will believe whatever I tell you.
I’m surprised the fourth grader wasn’t scared to death by Condi’s appearance! YIKES, she is scary looking!
Someone should tell that little girl that her country is SUPPOSED to be better than this. But unfortunately, we must share it with Republicans, who are not quite human.
Apologists for waterboarding cite all sorts of twisted rationales…
F’r chrissake, RAPE doesn’t result in death. It’s not a cause for broken bones or physical damage.
If the CIA were accused of raping Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times in a month, might the CONs be a tad disquieted?
Probably not.
“If the President does it, it’s not a crime” and all that.
Convention on Torture
PART I
Article 1
1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
Boy, the libs are out in full force today.
You bunch of self rightous bums whine about the way we obtained info that kept us safe and at the same time support the murder of millions of unborn children. You are screwed up. You will get what you want with Obuma and his crowd. The only satisfaction I will get is your taxes, medical care, and various suffering will be as bad as mine.
BlueJay
Posted May 4, 2009 at 8:47 pm | Permalink
I’m surprised the fourth grader wasn’t scared to death by Condi’s appearance! YIKES, she is scary looking!
Someone should tell that little girl that her country is SUPPOSED to be better than this. But unfortunately, we must share it with Republicans, who are not quite human.
Spoken like a true lib, condemning someones appearance, and a bluejay whining about someone not being human, you libs are laughable.
outlander
Posted May 4, 2009 at 1:45 pm | \l “comment-566219″
Another horse, beaten (tortured) to a pulp. I bet he wishes they had just poured water on him.
Look, everyone has pretty much has their minds made up. No one will likely change their minds.
Move on.
You know in a sense I kind of agree, you remember the day that the Challenger blew up. The news was constantly playing the video over and over till finally it became just sickening to see it. Not because of the
tragedy but because it was just over kill. Likewise this too is getting sickening, the pudding headed argument that water boarding is not torture.
The whole comparing a lawless group of thugs beheading their captive so we are allowed as a lawful country to torture. The President of the Israeli supreme court said it best in 1998 on the subject of torture and the laws of a Democracy.
. .What distinguishes the war of the State from the war of its enemies is that the State fights while upholding the law, whereas its enemies fight while violating the law.
The moral strength and objective justness of the Government’s war depend entirely on upholding the laws of the State: by conceding this strength and this justness, the Government serves the purposes of the enemy. Moral weapons are no less important than any other weapon, and perhaps more important. There is no weapon more moral than the rule of law. Everyone who ought to know should be aware that the rule of law in Israel will never succumb to the state’s enemies
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Politics/sctterror.htmlIn
wrote that even though a “democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand.”
#
Jed
Posted May 4, 2009 at 8:43 pm | Permalink
Reggie,
“Sure, as I said if done by trained CIA interrogators and there is a physician present.”
Well of course! Didn’t I tell you, I’m CIA trained, and a physician to boot! I’ll be your interrogater and you will believe whatever I tell you.
===============================
Lies!
You just stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.
I will point this out again, with modern medicine there is little that can happen to the human body that is lasting or without relief. There has been the statement that for some detainees there were incidences of pouring alcohol over their hand and setting it on fire.
Would that be torture? With skin graphs and medicine the burns will heal and not leave a lasting scar.
The Doctors had a tracheotomy kit with them, the reason is that during water boarding the esophagus contracts and often closes off the airway. Water can seep in and cause a failure of breathing and lung function. As evident by the numbers of people that has survived open-heart surgery. You can split open the chest and spread it out like the wings of a butterfly. Alter the human heart and then close the chest, the patent lives and recovers.
So why not do or threaten to do the same thing to a detainee?
International agreements and treaties by U.S. law are also the same as U. S. law.
Shall we continue to use the argument that the detainee’s treatment was not also subject to U.S. treaty? To do so means you are not defending the United States of America.
By using the same evidence for the effectiveness of the Bush administration in protecting the U.S. I have a dust bunny under my couch for years and it is what kept America safe from the terrorists. A lack of an occurrence to prove the effectiveness of an action without evidence that the act actually did anything is trying to prove a double negative.
“Torture was legal because Bush authorized it?”
Bush never authorized any “torture”
Bush authorized harsh interrogation techniques.
It was not “torture”
And the Democrats on the select intellenge committee which included Pelosi knew all about what was authorized.
They said nothing.
“Nathaniel
Posted May 5, 2009 at 12:30 pm | Permalink
…Bush authorized harsh interrogation techniques.
It was not “torture””
Whether the ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ that Bush, et. al. authorized constituted torture will be up to a court to decide.
I think the techniques were torture; you think they weren’t. Until a court settles the issue, it will not progress beyond that.
“brian_nuevo
Posted May 5, 2009 at 12:46 pm | Permalink
…Until a court settles the issue, it will not progress beyond that.”
And probably not even after a court decides will it be settled.
If a court says it was torture, the cons will blah blah blah about the liberal court setting laws and too much power in the judiciary. If the court says it is not torture, many liberals will exclaim that the court is covering for the Bush/Cheney empire, that they were paid off by Haliburton, and the military-industrial complex is behind the court’s decision.
Brian,
Until a court decides?
What proof do you have to even bring such an allegation before a court?
There has to be some proof of a wrong doing first.
Brian,
Why do you think it was torture?
And the Democrats on the select intellenge committee which included Pelosi knew all about what was authorized.
They said nothing.
==========================================
When did this happen?
As I recall one Republican Senator and House Member and one Democratic Senator and House Member (total of 4 out of 535), not the Select Intelligence Committee, were briefed and they said nothing because they were sworn to secrecy.
They weren’t even allowed to discuss these briefings with their staff or legal counsel to ascertain the legality or illegality of these enhanced interrogation techniques.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html
Daniel,
Sworn to secrecy?
Then why was Pelosi out talking about what was said in the meeting?
Or are you arguing that it is ok to break the law, support breaking the law, and to allow torture… because you were sworn to secrecy?
Nice excuse.
Those CIA memos were pretty secret too, but that didn’t stop Obama from outing them.
Those CIA memos were pretty secret too, but that didn’t stop Obama from outing them.
===============================================
I’m fairly certain that the memos were declassified before they were released.
Torture is defined in Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions so there really isn’t any gray area in deciding whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture.
Yes, they were sworn to secrecy. One House Member did raise an objection.
From the same link in my other post:
‘Harman, who replaced Pelosi as the committee’s top Democrat in January 2003, disclosed Friday that she filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA’s program because of strict rules of secrecy.
“When you serve on intelligence committee you sign a second oath — one of secrecy,” she said. “I was briefed, but the information was closely held to just the Gang of Four. I was not free to disclose anything.”‘
Daniel,
Who does the Geneva convention apply to?
And what was done to the terrorists was not torture.
Nathaniel a point of order they were sworn to secrecy only as long as the program was in effect. But more to the point you was trying to make, the authors of a book about the program and the ACLU both agreed that when they would speak with Democrats in Congress. The Democrats were openly avoiding speaking out or taking a stand against the program.
The Geneva Conventions apply to nations that signed and ratified the treaty. The United States signed in 1949 and ratified in 1955.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebSign?ReadForm&id=375&ps=P
You say that what was done to the detainees was not torture, by what standard do you make that claim?
The Democrats were openly avoiding speaking out or taking a stand against the program.
============================================
Publicly, or within the context of the secret briefings?
Daniel,
You are the one claiming it was torture. By what standard do you make that claim?
What was done was done under strict medical supervision with guidelines and limitations for the sole purpose of getting information and not hurting the prisoners. The prisoners were not seriously harmed.
That is why it was not torture.
You are the one claiming it was torture. By what standard do you make that claim?
============================================
You must have overlooked this is my previous post.
Torture is defined in Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions so there really isn’t any gray area in deciding whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture.
It’s two o’clock and I have an appointment I need to get to. I’ll check back in later.
Daniel,
How does what we did equal torture according the Geneva Conventions?
I didn’t overlook your post, it doesn’t answer my question.
Nathaniel,
I was mistaken earlier when I referred to the Geneva Conventions. Sorry for the confusion.
The definition of torture is spelled out in Article 1 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
This treaty was signed in 1988 and ratified by the Senate in 1994.
———————————-
Article 1 of the Convention defines torture as:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
– Convention Against Torture, Article 1.1
—————————————-
Daniel both, when the authors went to the Democratic Congressman and Senators with the detail they uncovered through the freedom of information act. They found a reluctance to even speak about it to the authors. They expressed that they did not want to cause a scene nor make it a point of contention to the Republicans. Either it was that they were in on the proceeded crimes or they were concerned that they would be proceeded as weak on the terrorists and against the President.
writerdog,
That figures. Political expediency usually trumps political courageousness. The only exception that leaps to mind is Russ Feinglold who cast the lone ‘no’ vote in the Senate when the Patriot Act was rushed through Congress in the fall of 2001.
Watched Frost Nixon tonight, was surprised that it actually evoked a twinge of sympathy (only for a moment) for Nixon.
What’s Nathan claiming this week? That waterboarding was part of a recreational program for prisoners? Of course it’s torture; they wouldn’t bother doing it if it wasn’t!
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog
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