CHENEY'S Torture Memo Drew The Line At Threatening To Bury A Prisoner Alive (WAPO)

[kpete]

Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power
By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 25, 2007

No longer was the vice president focused on procedural rights, such as access to lawyers and courts. The subject now was more elemental: How much suffering could U.S. personnel inflict on an enemy to make him talk? Cheney's lawyer feared that future prosecutors, with motives "difficult to predict," might bring criminal charges against interrogators or Bush administration officials.

............

But the "torture memo," as it became widely known, was not Yoo's work alone. In an interview, Yoo said that Addington, as well as Gonzales and deputy White House counsel Timothy E. Flanigan, contributed to the analysis.

The vice president's lawyer advocated what was considered the memo's most radical claim: that the president may authorize any interrogation method, even if it crosses the line of torture. U.S. and treaty laws forbidding any person to "commit torture," that passage stated, "do not apply" to the commander in chief, because Congress "may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield."

That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of specific interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government classified as a war crime in 1947. The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive.

more at:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_enevelope_on_presi/

[EFerrari]

1. See? He has limits.

[tularetom]

2. What wusses! A real man would bury prisoners alive

without even asking for something as sissified as a "legal opinion".

How can we ever win the "war on terra" with such pansies in charge?

[tyedyeto]

11. Did you forget the...

:sarcasm: tag for your post?

I certainly hope so.

[Guaranteed]

22. I know! What if there's a terrorist in Los Angeles who has threatened to set off a nuclear weapon

off within 24 hours? What, Cheney wouldn't bury someone alive to save a million people? SO weak.

[Kagemusha]

3. Oh now I get it! They see treaties as being congressional restraint!

Because Congress ratifies the treaties, the treaties may not limit the President in a way that Congress, in and of itself, cannot, because the nation's word doesn't mean dog poop so long as that is the word of Congress and not the President of the United States, and at any rate, even if the President gives his word, denying him the right to change his mind about a matter of law and principle and human rights and dignity would just not be proper because, well, he's the President, he's the Decider, he can un-Decide, what would a measely little law or treaty have to do with restraining him? Why should he be restrained? The honor of Congress? HA.

So that's the reasoning. I never understood that part before.

Edit: Shorter version: The President is King.

[aquart]

9. Don't be ridiculous. President is emperor.

The United States is merely the homeland.

[mod mom]

4. May I suggest demonstating all Cheney approved methods on the "dick" and see

what truths we can get out of him.

:sarcasm: I don't advocate torture on anyone, despicable, traitorous neo cons included. To the Hague!

[aquart]

10. There we differ.

First we torture. Then we Hague.

Since it's legal and all.

[MissWaverly]

5. I bet they would bury Democrats alive

and probably upside down too.

[Amonester]

12. Just wait 'til these crooks find a good enuf excuse (for them), and ...

they might just do that (and worse).

[MissWaverly]

29. w/o rule of law and the constitution we have no safeguards

[Olney Blue]

33. Yes, they would.

Swiftboating is a variation on the theme.
Casting Dems as cowards for questioning the war is a variation on the theme.
And on and on.....

[MissWaverly]

35. Yes and burning someone's house to the ground

and trying to run them off the road, is a variation on a theme, like Dana Simpson in Alabama, who spoke out against what she
thought was unfair practice by the Pukes in persecuting Dem. governor.

[G_Leo_Criley]

6. k&r

:kick:


glc

[proud patriot]

7. k and r

[wtmusic]

8. Treaty laws do most certainly regulate his ability to interrogate prisoners

How much more blatant can they get?

[mcg]

32. but you see Bush isn't really a part of the Homo Sapiens branch

of the family tree, he's also a part of the chimpanzee branch,
so he doesn't really qualify as 'any person', so treaty laws
don't really apply to him.

[paparush]

13. Is it ok to hang them up by their pectoral muscles ala "A Man Called Horse"?

Or, does that cross the line?

[elehhhhna]

26. Did it in Last King of Scotland, also. Where do people even

COME UP with this stuff?

[MetaTrope]

31. Come up with the stuff?

Tradition...

Bush admin's torture techniques weren't optimized to create religious experiences, however.

[Edweird]

34. How about like this?

?click
or this?
?click
or even this?
?click

[Solly Mack]

14. and yet...they are both still in office

all the moral outrage in the world against torture does nothing to erase the fact that America's war criminals are still in office - are still free.

"Grandma, why didn't anyone stop them?"

"They didn't have the votes, Honey"

[ThomWV]

15. Hold on there a minute! "the contents of which have never been made public"

If there is no publicly available source for this assertion it should not be made.

[Th1onein]

16. The thought of that idiot, Bush, directing troop movements.....

makes me cringe.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

[zippy890]

17. our government discussing torture techniques

impeach them all

[PA Democrat]

18. K & R. People need to see the evil of this administration. They are all criminals.

[The Stranger]

19. Why hasn't Cheney been arrrested yet?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

20. and we sit here typing...

and the public eats their wheaties before motoring off to the cubicle as criminals further entrench themselves in the bunkers of the WH

[Beer Snob-50]

21. Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public

we need definate documentation before we bring these charges up. if this is true, then we have no choice but impeach both to them and bring in president pelosi!

[peekaloo]

23. Dick opted for keeping the American public's head(s) buried in the sand

by constantly threatening them with "another hit" since it would be far more effective in minimizing the outrage for the accepted "tactics".

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

24. Wouldn't that make the "source with direct knowledge" a witness to a crime or,...

,...for that matter a conspiracy to commit a crime or series of crimes, war crimes?

[rasputin1952]

25. Let's see, cheney has many secrets he is withholding from the

citizenry...I think burying him alive until he talks might be a good idea. There is some rationale behind this...he goes into a bunker quite often, so underground is not off limits for hm. Depth might be an issue though, he visits his master in hell quite often, so we might need to figure out just what depth might be applicable here, six feet isn't going to cut it IMO.

There is also the option of putting his penis in a vise, (expense wouldn't be an issue, small vises are pretty cheap), then giving him a rusty knife, and setting the building on fire would be an option as well. But I kind of like the idea of putting a thermometer in this urethra, banging on his penis w/ballpeen hammer and giving him a six pack of Lone Star beer, if that doesn't get him to reveal how he's screwed over the people, not much else will...:eyes:

Then again, Lone Star might be torture enough...:D

While levity might be appropriate...the seriousness that people in this country actually believe that torture is somehow justified, is against everything this nation stands for. Torture never works, and it merely gives the sadist an excuse to practice what he loves.

What is telling, is that this evil administration would even consider such horrid aspects of the darker side of human experience...:(

[KoKo]

28. And, we wondered about all that "blasting" going on at VP Mansion...

Probably buring some of those filled "man-sized safes" with documents under 20 feet of cement wired with booby traps so that they never see the light of day.

Even with what we've managed to figure out on our own piecing stuff together through the years...it just get's worse than the darkest mind could imagine. Criminal Enterprise was what we sensed...but NOW WE KNOW!

[Bandit]

27. Legal Opinion

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Marnieworld]

30. Be still my heart! Part 2? So Soon?

I thought I would have to wait a week at least for it. The first one was such a page turner. Cheney is truly more threatening to our Country than all of Russia's missiles pointed at us.