The grab is on to make TORTURE ok. Let’s stop them.

[DeadElephant_ORG]

• This week, the White House admitted to “waterboarding”, the controlled drowning of terrorist suspects. It’s an ancient and barbaric technique, long understood - without any question - to be torture.

• Then Cheney gave a speech in which he acknowledged and defended the use of this known torture.

• Then the White House spokesman reserved the right to do it again! But he refused to say if it would be torture if Al Qaeda waterboarded US soldiers.

• While questioning our new Attorney General today, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) claimed that “99% of Americans would support” waterboarding. He emphasized that the Bush administration should “not be defensive about using” the technique.

• Ann Coulter this week was comfortable to acknowledge on national television that she supports the "torture" of our prisoners.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/07/lamar-smith-99-of-americans-support-waterboarding/

This is a balls-to-the-wall play to make the war crimes which this administration has now admitted to somehow, suddenly NOT BE CRIMES. It out-Cheneys Cheney for sheer aggressive, criminal hubris.

They are moving right now to make torture normal. Now is when we MUST OPPOSE THEM. We can start by demanding that the American Psychological Association ban it members from participation in waterboarding. The DeadElephant.ORG campaign has a ton of great material on torture. Support Amnesty International. There are many organizations fighting this.

Raise a stink! Torture has no part in the America that you and I love. And it’s the scariest step of all towards a police state.

A poll three months ago asked Americans whether they think waterboarding is a form of torture. More than two-thirds of respondents, 69 percent, said “yes”.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/06/waterboard.poll/index.html

We are in the right. And we are in the majority. And because most moderate Republicans and Independents are morally opposed to torture, is the ideal issue by which to wedge them away from the fanatical Right.

It’s a wedge pointed right at the heart of John McCain. Because he currently is under extreme pressure from Right wing media (Hannity, Rush, etc.), McCain has not yet spoken out about the fact that Bush and Cheney have violated the anti-torture law that he lead the fight to create.

Let’s hold his feat to that fire – PUN INTENDED.

[Fresh_Start]

1. at least they are making it easier for the international court

because I believe the only chance they will be brought to justice is if the rest of the world does it.
And unfortunately I think that is a very small chance

[ananda]

2. For them I suppose there's always Paraguay.

nt

[nightrider767]

3. I disagree

I think the PR push is not on to continue torture. I think they're making a case to stay out of jail.

I vote for jail though. The perfect place for war criminals....

[FirstLight]

4. So HOW do we fight this?

- Call McCain and demand he take a stand?
:spray:

rrrpT! (sound of screeching record needle)
.... sorry, we can call OUR candidates and flood them with emails & faxes demanding they taka a stand on this as part of their campign? but would that be biting the hand that feeds them?

and what if...the candidates never get into power to implement said "vow to end warcrimes"
I am seriously wondering if we will even GET to the November GE's if they can get away with 1/2 this shit....
AND THEY ARE GETTING WAY WITH ALL OF IT!!!!
:scared:

[noise]

5. It is sick

Q: What do you make of the torture debate? Cheney...

A (Former Delta Force Operator Eric Haney): (Interrupting) That's Cheney's pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance; it's about revenge; or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It's worse than small-minded, and look what it does.

I've argued this on Bill O'Reilly and other Fox News shows. I ask, who would you want to pay to be a torturer? Do you want someone that the American public pays to torture? He's an employee of yours. It's worse than ridiculous. It's criminal; it's utterly criminal. This administration has been masters of diverting attention away from real issues and debating the silly. Debating what constitutes torture: Mistreatment of helpless people in your power is torture, period. And (I'm saying this as) a man who has been involved in the most pointed of our activities. I know it, and all of my mates know it. You don't do it. It's an act of cowardice. I hear apologists for torture say, "Well, they do it to us." Which is a ludicrous argument...The Saddam Husseins of the world are not our teachers. Christ almighty, we wrote a Constitution saying what's legal, and what we believed in. Now we're going to throw it away.

From an interview with David Kronke (LA Daily News, March 26 2006) Link no longer available

It seems some of the most vocal advocates of torture are the same people who have not been honest about their conduct in the lead up to 9/11. Most notably would be Bush and Cheney. The CIA has never declassified the CIA 9/11 internal review by IG Helgerson (the executive summary was finally declassified due to an amendment in the Improving Americas Security Act of 2007). Helgerson stated that the conduct by high ranking officials was so questionable that he recommended the convening of disciplinary panels. Goss and Hayden refused to do so. Why should the public accept the CIA's questionable premise that torture is a required counterterrorism tool when they refuse to account for their own conduct in the lead up to 9/11?

If any officials (including Bush and Cheney) truly believe they cannot do their jobs without the crutch of illegal police state tactics then they are more than free to resign. Why is the United States resorting to Saddam Hussein tactics based on the word of corrupt officials who can only sell the necessity of such tactics by way of fearmongering, authoritarianism and propaganda?

[FirstLight]

6. Kick it!

These are the issues that can get us all arrested when the SS comes to town...but this is the REAL SHIT we need to talk about, not who dissed who, or who's hair is better or who's s*** smells best

the issues, my friends are our civil liberties, ALL of them

Let's keep the conversation going!

[bobthedrummer]

7. "In Contravention of Conventional Wisdom: CIA 'no touch' torture"

(active cross posted thread started 1-24-2008)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x333974

Btw, welcome to DU DeadElephant_ORG and Journalgrrl.

[bobthedrummer]

8. "CIA Detainee Torture, Memory Loss, and the Bush Administration's Falsification of History"

(archived leveymg thread started 12-13-2007)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2462592