Redefining Torture (Time Mag on Leaked Memos)

[Edmond Dantes]

REDEFINING TORTURE
Did the U.S. go too far in changing the rules, or did it apply the new rules to the wrong people?
By AMANDA RIPLEY

From the moment that photos documenting prisoner abuse in Iraq came to light seven weeks ago, the Bush Administration has stuck to the claim that the crimes were the vile acts of a few bad soldiers. But the effort to blame a few individuals has faltered as evidence has mounted of abuse in U.S. detention centers from Cuba to Afghanistan to Iraq. Last week the scandal seemed to drift ever closer to implicating policymakers at the highest levels of the U.S. war council.

A series of leaked legal memos has revealed that since late 2001 the Administration has been quietly but fundamentally reshaping America's stance on torture. Contradicting 50 years of policy governing the treatment of detainees captured during conflict, the memos meticulously list all the laws against torture—then offer methods of evading them. The White House insists that these documents were abstract musings rather than actual policy changes. Nevertheless, they suggest that what happened at Abu Ghraib was not unique but grew out of a climate of ambiguity regarding the treatment and interrogation of prisoners that was created by an Administration determined to do whatever it takes to win the war on terrorism.

The leaked memos alone do not prove that U.S. officials endorsed the use of torture to extract intelligence from detainees. But they have put the Administration on the defensive.

Much more at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040621-650689,00.html

[lovedems]

1. I saw Kate O'Biern on Capital Gang last night stating that what happened

in these prisons "was not torture".

If she was the one being bitten by the dog, what in the hell would it be? If being attacked by a dog is not torture, then what is it? These people make me sick.

[struggle4progress]

7. Somehow I bet she'd object to being suffocated or pressed to death.

She just doesn't have the integrity to admit it.

[RedSock]

9. confess!

how about it someone smeared shit all over her and rammed a broomstick up her ass until she confessed to crimes she didn't commit? or maybe gang-raped her daughter in front of her?

what would she call that?

[2Design]

2. Bush administration has brought back concentration camps

They can mince it and dice it whatever way they want but they have condoned concentration camps and the most well known being guantamo...

When we throw out our constitution and due process, we have fallen to savage levels and endangered all of humankind. When we are afraid to realize our manuals on torture procedure because the enemy is already using our field manuals, we are the enemy. We have taught the enemy we have a disregard for their humanity and then we call them savages.

We did the same thing when we came to this continent. we raped, pillaged and then called the uprising of the Indians savages. We hurt and harmed them and when they fought back, we massacred them.

We are doing it again, and trying to call it lots of names and justify it as (this are really bad people). Our prison systems need improvement. How do other countries keep their crime rate so low?

[Maeve]

3. What we do to them, they will do to us

Justification runs both ways; when they say it's okay for us to do crap, we authorize crap on our people. You don't have to believe in karma to see the effects.

[Edmond Dantes]

4. which is why we need to aggressively discipline our own guilty...

.... before ME victims and their families--in justifiable rage--retaliate indiscriminately against our innocents. I shudder to think that my young nieces may someday pay the price for BushCo's crimes against humanity.

:scared:

So let's be vociferous in our public condemnation of BushCo's behavior, as we wait for the wheels of justice to grind out the official condemnation: war crimes convictions.

[wryter2000]

5. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[teryang]

6. Apologies for the new Gulag

<The leaked memos alone do not prove that U.S. officials endorsed the use of torture to extract intelligence from detainees.>

Bullshit. Remember the pronouncements. "Now the gloves come off." The acts of the CIA, the Army, and the defense contractors are completely consistent with the alleged "draft" policies under consideration.

Funny how this Time article gets all legalistic and tries to fashion a legal rather than political defense of the administration. Politically, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and their underlings are responsible now matter what little caveats and twists and turns the journalists obligingly fashion.

[struggle4progress]

8. Time has always been an gentle apologist for the RW.