Posted on 11/07/2005 9:01:04 AM PST by VictoryGal
he United States will do what it takes to protect itself but "we do not torture," President Bush said on Monday in response to criticism of reported secret CIA prisons and the handling of terrorism suspects.
Bush defended his administration's efforts to stop the U.S. Congress from imposing rules on the handling of terrorism suspects.
He did not confirm or deny the existence of CIA secret prisons that The Washington Post disclosed last week and would not address demands by the International Committee of the Red Cross to have access to the suspects reportedly held at them.
"We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice," Bush said at a news conference with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos. "We are gathering information about where the terrorists might be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law."
(Excerpt) Read more at alertnet.org ...
That's unfortunate.
I'd break every bone in their rotten little bodies if that meant saving the lives of American soldiers or civilians.
Only if he knew about it.
That said, torture is very unreliable at best and is only used when you don't have access (or time) to use more sophisticated chemical interrogation techniques. Load someone up with the latest products in that field and you can have them singing in less than a day.
I think there are plenty of things they use, legally, to psychologically get to the imprisoned terrorists. Like the guy with the hood on in the infamous picture, for example. AFAIK, he was never actually shocked. It was the suggestion and threat used to scare him into talking.
IMO, threatening and scaring, whether it be with dogs, dead electrodes, yelling and screaming, whatever, is not torture.
Will it take 3,000 more American lives to remind the sheeple and the media why we have "secret prisons?"
Heck no, we let the Israeli's interrogate. The French would simply serve the terrorists cheese & wine.
americans don't care about this. the media and the Dems can be be-littled on this issue if we go on offense over it, and stop playing defense.
if Khallid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of 9-11, is questioned vigourosly, or if drugs are administered to him. who cares. Let the Dems and McCain and the media argue he should receive 5 star treatment - put them on defense, let them defend their position that the war on terror can be conducted by seeing to it that only the best accomodations are made for captured terrorists.
The use of electrodes--or waterboarding--may not meet the dictionary definition.
you are correct of course. but the problem is, if you ask McCain - administering medication is "torture" also. anything is "torture" now as defined by the left, anything except hotel like accomodations, full islamic prayer services, fine foods, etc.
I'm sure there will be plenty of sadists here momentarily to explain how they would torture these guys.
Actually, I wonder if a prisoner being forced to watch lamestream news, Senate/House debates, or reruns of the "The West Wing(bats)" would qualify as "torture"?
Anything done to a terrorist that you wouldn't do to your own mother is now considered taboo.
They beat you to it. I'm sure it's tough for them to keep all that morality bottled up and not talk about it..
We aren't torturing. Jay Rockefeller knows this, but says he can't "say" it because the briefings he gets are classified. This is of course stupid, the fact that we do NOT torture terrorists is NOT classified, Bush has made it public.
Too bad George. It's never too late to start.
"we do not torture,"Why not?
The key word is "we".
The White House position is that international treaty obligations already on the books governs the treatment of suspects and that the United States is observing those rules.
"There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again. And so you bet we'll aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law," Bush said.
Enemy = bad guy who aims to annhilate the U.S.
U.S. military = good guy doing all he can to disarm and disable the bad guy.
Do you have a problem with that?
Ping.
Apparently some FReepers do not have a commitment to our military or the WOT.
One of them is Anthony Lagouranis, a Chicago-based Army specialist who recently left the military. He supports Fishback's contention that abuses in Iraq were systematic—and were authorized by officers in an effort to pressure detainees into talking. "I think our policies required abuse," says Lagouranis. "There were freaking horrible things people were doing. I saw [detainees] who had feet smashed with hammers. One detainee told me he had been forced by Marines to sit on an exhaust pipe, and he had a softball-sized blister to prove it. The stuff I did was mainly torture lite: sleep deprivation, isolation, stress positions, hypothermia. We used dogs."
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