Law School Conference to Design Plan For Prosecution and (If Convicted) Execution of President Bush and Other Officials:
I'm not positive that this is real, but I think it is. And if it is, Michelle Malkin is going to have a field day with it. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Secret Service finds it worth following up, too. Hat tip: Victor Steinbok.
lol. indeed.
Never give up power?
Dems don't do well absent a double standard.
They going to hang Bill Clinton too for his war crimes? Didn't he actually invade more countries than George?
Can't send them to Europe for trial. No death penalty. Life of luxury.
After they get Gitmo cleared out of those poor innocent devils, we can send the evil Booosh and Cheney there.
Holy sheet!... we could even have fun putting any religious artifacts they might have in their possession (you know, like crucifixes) in jars of urine!
Hey, c'mon, it's just ART!
Even if you factual assumption were correct, your inferential reasoning would still leave a lot to be desired. As of 2006, there were 193 ABA-approved law schools.
But one (that isn't even approved) does something funny, and that's evidence that "ABA schools" are full of radicals?
You know, after reflection and deliberation, people can and do disagree about lots of things. But there's really no excuse for sloppy thinking.
reasoning inspires an "LOL" in me, too.
Suppose a couple of these nutcases decided to try a citizens' arrest on GWP.
What is the Secret Service supposed to do? Let them haul the pres off and wait for a bail hearing?
The reason I ask, is that if this doesn't get enough ink, that would seem to be the next step in getting publicity.
Marxist LS ... MSL... ABA approved ls {subset Regent &Ave Maria}
I think that's the point of the joke. . . MLS makes the ABA seem conservative by comparison.
http://www.mslawevents.com/
Before Leftists accuse me of being some sort of far-right conservative, I should note that I am far more moderate than the leftists discussed here: while I do believe that the Boumediene ruling amounts to treason (unless someone can make some sort of argument to the contrary, which I am open to hearing), I also believe that, if the five "Justices" were sentenced to death, President Bush should use his presidential pardon on their behalf (how ironic would this be).
Oh yes, that makes sense. And why not execute Boumediene's lawyers, and the legal academics and journalists who supported the decision? And what about the presidents who appointed these guys, and the senators who confirmed them? And naturally Obama, since he supports the decision.
Next, let's go after Scalia, since his Hamdi dissent gave "aid and comfort to the enemy," too. And Pat Robertson, who blamed 9/11 on American sexual mores, and Dinesh D'Souza, who thinks we wouldn't have been attacked by Wahhabi freaks if we just had a decent theocracy of our own. So many traitors, so little time. Dust off your guillotines, folks.
What the Boumediene majority did, however, is to lie about, among other things, the content of the Eisentrager opinion, and reach a decision on constitutional grounds that has absolutely no basis in the U.S. Constitution AND gives comfort to the enemy (the argument that they are traitors is of course premised upon their decision being incorrect, and being so incorrect as to be wholly indefensible). There have been other SCOTUS decision that were so incorrect as to be wholly indefensible in the past, e.g., Lawrence v. Texas, but while these decisions should be ground for impeachment, they did not amount to treason because they did not give aid and comfort to the enemy.
And, of course, your "slippery slope" sarcasm could just as easily be used in the other direction to show that nothing anyone could ever do would ever be considered treason.
How about the fact that the writ of haebeus corpus was designed by common law. It was designed to keep the King from creating legal black holes that He could throw undesirables into with no hope of reasonable charges, reasonable bail, or eventual actual trial. The common law around this changed over the years, as the King and His judges kept finding creative ways around the law to force His subjects back into jail.
And so when our current day justices work to restore that writ, only because the President decided to create yet another legal black hole to jail people with no hope of a hearing or understanding what came next (6 years long enough ?) then I am quite alright with your facile definition of treason. Look up the writ and its home in common law, and you would almost comprehend that the Founders had a clue when they thought that this was a good idea to copy and emulate in our own country. NO slippery slope required.
Aid and comfort to the enemy would be creating a country ruled by prejudice and fear. That is the kind of place that Afghanistan and Iraq have become under the influence of terrorists. Would you allow Star Chambers and kangaroo courts in the land of the free?? I would submit the charge of treason against you as well.
See "Fire from Heaven". The medieval mass hysterias have been thought to be the result of the incredible stress of a permanent state of hunger and instability. Or ergot.
This reminds me of Chris Buckley's book, "No Way to Treat a First Lady," where the Hillary-Clinton-like widow of a Bill-Clinton-like president is being prosecuted for the murder of her late husband, all the while receiving Secret Service protection. The book indulges some amused speculation about whether, if quasi-Hillary gets convicted and sentences to take the needle, the Secret Service would feel obliged to thwart the execution.
(BTW, I think Buckley's point is that, if the Secret Service could even imagine that it has the right to thwart the orderly execution of a legal judicial sentence, then it has an absurd view of its role. That should be the reaction to any Secret Service investigation of this proposal for prosecution.)
But all this grandstanding about "hanging" etc. just discredits whatever merits the underlying theory of liability has, in exchange for publicizing the aforesaid jerks.
What is the Secret Service supposed to do? Let them haul the pres off and wait for a bail hearing?
No. Unless, of course, the nutcase personally witnessed GWB committing a felony, which is pretty unlikely.
Last time I checked, treason is defined, not simply as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, but as "adhering to their [i.e., the United States'] enemies, giving them aid and comfort." Unless you find an al-Qaeda membership card in Souter's wallet, or some similar evidence of "adherence," I think that treason prosecution is a non-starter.
The fact is that he did not create a new catigory, he used one well understood in customery law. The detainies a Gitmo should have been given a drum head court and shot. To bad we didn't do it.
No problem with witnessing.
The Justices are entitled to absolute judicial immunity for their acts as Justices. No ruling of the Supreme Court could ever be treasonous.
Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 553-554 (1967)(citations omitted).
In other words, judicial immunity is exactly intended so idiots like you cannot declare a ruling you don't like treasonous.
You stated: "The fact is that he did not create a new catigory, he used one well understood in customery law. The detainies a Gitmo should have been given a drum head court and shot. To bad we didn't do it."
I agree with one point - the term "enemy combatants" has been around. This administration, I believe, was the first to coin the term illegal enemy combatants.
As for the second part - even the most hard right pundits do not advocate summary executions for those who may or may not be guilty of anything. I suppose you think killing anyone rounded up is the proper thing to do - facts be damned.
Don't give them so much credit. It is no different than when grade school kids hold a mock trial.
You too are guilty of giving too much credit to them. You insult and deride all fourth tier schools by comparing this place in Andover to them.
They ignored the understandings of Geneva where member countries cannot create new black holes where captured terrorists/soldiers do not fall under the protection of Geneva or the member country. That's precisely what the administration did. They acted in bad faith with the Conventions in order to reach the desired end at Gitmo.
They could have just shot them upon receipt from the bounty hunters or allied solders. They could have left them to rot in foreign jails where CIA operatives put matchsticks under thier fingernails and demanded to know where the nukes were hidden in LA. They could have nuked their host countries and occupied territories.
They didn't do any of that. They threw the scum into a legal black hole, just like the Kings of old did with other undesirables. That's why the Writ was invented and designed in common law.
I would name myself, my VP, and anyone in my administration that these nuts keep suggesting might be tried for war crimes.
As far as I can tell, it would be constitutional and not reviewable by the courts. The left could kick and scream, but not be able to do anything about it.
You cannot pardon someone who has not been convicted. There is is no get-out-of-jail card that can be handed out prior to your incarceration.
Not true -- see Ford's pardon of Nixon.
Although Ford did indeed preemptively pardon Nixon, I think it is still an open question whether the action had any actual legal effect. With his resignation, nobody had the stomach to pursue criminal charges.
Also, Bush would hardly be able to pardon himself even if such a preemptive pardon were possible.
(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
(c) Definition.— As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct—
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or
(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.
--Now, how conspiracy to commit war crimes is punishable, I leave to students of the arcane arts of criminal law.
I wouldn't be surprised, but really, is there any authority that a president *cannot* pardon himself?
If not, is there any authority on the self-application of any other "plenary" powers? (IIRC, the pardon power is "plenary," i.e., full and unlimited.)
Also, it is only traditional that the President couldn't pardon himself. Pardons are not reviewable by the courts, so what would be the remedy if he did do it?
He also had seven prisoners. He gave the wounded guy a forty-five with a full mag and one in the chamber, stuck the guy's left hand in his belt and told him to take the Germans to the rear.
One pistol, eight rounds, seven prisoners and a broken arm.
He never found out either way if anybody actually made it to the rear.
Hard to imagine a war crime didn't happen. About a million times.
Also, FWIW, neither the War Crimes Act nor the 1949 Geneva Conventions were in effect during WW2.
Back during the Watergate crisis, an article in (IIRC) the Outlook section of the Washington Post considered this issue and concluded that there was indeed no obvious authority that would prevent Richard Nixon from pardoning himself.
Actually in this case it is hard to imagine a war crime did occur. Seven prisoners could have easily overpowered one broken-armed soldier with a pistol if he had tried to shoot them all. Especially if their lives were on the line.
I am not so naive as to believe that German prisoners were sometimes shot after capature by the Americans. But generally, the vast majority of German POWs made it to the rear. In fact U.S. and British treatment of German POWs in WWII doubtless saved tens, if not hundred of thousands of allied and countless German ones. Germans were much less likely to fight to the death in the west than the east. And by early 1945, the trickle of surrenders became a flood. Hitler actually considered executing British and American POWs, hoping to trigger similar atrocities on the allied side to prevent German soldiers from surrendering.
During the battle of Berlin, German Army units were trying to break through the Russian lines just so they could surrender to the Americans rather than the Russians.
Again, this curious logic:
(1) we commit war crimes whenever we feel like it;
(2) ergo, it cannot be against the law to commit war crimes.
Curtis LeMay was surely correct that the carpet bombing of Japan's cities *was* a war crime, under the Hague Convention if nothing else, but I believe that would've had to be enforced by international law, and no one was in much of a position to do that to the U.S. in 1945.
Pardons can be before or after the person is charged (for example, Nixon). There is nothing in the constitution prohibiting the President from pardoning himself, except in an impeachment proceeding. Groups or classes can be pardoned (for example, Carter's draft dodgers and the Whiskey rebels). Case law indicates that pardons can not be refused. There is no judicial or congressional review of pardons.
Contempt and civil liability can not be pardoned.
J.F., I think the question would be why the platoon leader sent the POW's back with the wounded guy. But yes, inability to guard prisoners created practical problems that were often resolved, ah, "summarily," and (I would guess) not in violation of any laws of war.
In WWII it was quite common to send German prisoners to the rear with absolutely no guard at all. It was common to disarm them, have them remove their boots and hang them around their necks and have them shuffle towards the rear (see The Good War by Studs Terkel).
When I lived in Germany I met a guy whose father had surrendered to the Americans in late 1944. He was cut off from his unit with a friend and they mutually decided the war was over for them. They hid out in a cellar until the front passed them by and then waited until they heard vehicles passing by. Their first attempt at surrendering was a failure as the unit was too busy to accept their surrender and told them to wait until the next column came. So they just sat by the side of the road until another unit came by that wasn't in such a hurry. He spent the rest of the war, (until 1948 actually) as a prisoner of the British. He had nothing but pleasant memories of his internment.
The current GC clearly state that if you are unable to guard prisoners properly or evacuate them to the rear, they must be freed. Summary execution is never an acceptable option.
The Conventions may have been different in WWII.
Authorizing torture (including the torture of uniformed members of the Iraqi military that resulted in the death of at least one senior officer) and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Violating the GC on determination of detainee status. Rumsfeld admitted hiding detainees from the Red Cross in Iraq at the behest of George Tenet. That is a clear violation of the GC, which the president stated repeatedly were fully applicable in Iraq.
The fact is, war kills people. That other people happen to be the immediate agent of that killing does not change that. See "Bomber War" about the bombing campaign in Europe, and particularly about Bomber Harris and his blame, or lack.
In some circumstances, the killing inevitably violates one convention or another, or, later on, proves useful for revisionism.
The platoon leader in question had too few men to spare more than an ineffective soldier to guard the prisoners.
The overall point is that there will be no war without war crimes, given the inability of the convenors to foresee and address the variables of war, the double standards which give some parties free rein, and the need for revisionism for political purposes which will retroactively decide that something was a war crime because now it looks as if it should have been.
To get to Bush, the laws would have to be found which make this war illegal. UN resolutions? AUMF? Faulty intel?
And the other question is the blackly humorous one as to whether the inhabitants of this blog, and the law school, would fight the imposition of the death penalty on Zarquawi, should he still be alive and in our custody. Or, for that matter, the origin of the information which allowed us to prosecute him. Or, for that matter, the jurisdiction question. Or whether the US had the sovereign power to actually arrest him in another country.
Or whether the people whose heads he sawed off were, in fact, illegal combatants genuinely subject to summary execution.
As for pardons, I would be surprised if the President issues one to Cheney, but I fervently hope that he does issue blanket pardons to all the worker bees in the CIA and the Army who have put their careers and liberty on the line for us by doing the dirty work that we don't want to know about.
The opponents of torture, IMO, WANT there to have been torture. Not that it had any intel value, but because it would be something on which to go after Bush &Co. Imagine their response if it turned out IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.
Recall that, with the exception of three examples of waterboarding, most of what has even been alleged is equivalent to survival school or fraternity hazing.
This is reminiscent of the TANG memos where the admin was going, "huh? what? erm, we haven't heard, uh, we'll have to look at it" until the media and the liberals were well and truly hooked. Hooked themselves, I mean.
And then you have the whole "authorized" piece.
I plan to conduct a trial this evening. It will take place in my back yard. One of my bulldogs will be the prosecutor, the other will be the sole jury member. We will try, in absentia, Robert Mugabe for crimes against humanity. We should have a jury verdict in time for a trip to the dog park.
Be careful: you may get what you wish for. The crimes at issue here are jus cogens crimes. One factor which militates against other countries exercising such jurisdiction is the potential that the US will deal with these crimes on its own. A pardon would remove that potential and expose the perps to the risk of prosecution elsewhere.
Law of unintended consequences.
Your buddies at Time, with their invisible Baath stringer, ginned up the Haditha war crimes trials. Command, always interested in appeasing the hippies, tried to throw a couple of dozen jarheads under the train.
Didn't work.
If you weren't so determined to get somebody, anybody, damn the facts, you'd be considerably more impressive when a real crime came along.
And I use the second person both in the single and the plura.
Nick
No problem with witnessing.
You aren't authorized to make a citizen's arrest because it's "obvious", or even "publically" obvious, that the arrestee did the crime. You actually have to witness it; it isn't sufficient for you to conclude that the guy is guilty because you read evidence in the newspaper or saw it on CNN. (Evidence of that kind falls into a special category that lawyers call "hearsay".)
The only way the real evil will be stopped is by armed men representing, on the whole, the forces of good who are willing to risk death themselves as they kill or capture those who try to protect the evil men.
Most of the claimed "war crimes" center not around specific incidents of conduct by the President but around the fact that the war exists at all. If some soldier actually did murder innocent Iraqis, say, them I'm all for prosecuting them. I'm not for prosecuting them and ruining their lives trying to second guess their actions while they were under fire in a hostile war zone. And I have absolutely no moral qualms about waterboarding 3 senior al Qaeda leaders who were known to be responsible for attacking our country and our country's allies. I'm quite certain that a decent majority of the country would agree with that, and so when you demand that President Bush be prosecuted for something like that, then you are, essentially, demanding that WE be prosecuted for electing him, supporting such actions.
Best,
Ben
Best,
Ben
link
That of course would be the purpose of an investigation, indictment and trial. Whether the documented deaths that resulted from torture of detainees (and we know that there were several--I can think of five specific instances off the top of my head, and there are thirty odd that the Pentagon admits were probably the result of mistreatment) were the result of deliberate policy authorized at the highest levels of the government or just the acts of a few bad apples.
As for the "ghost detainees" I mentioned above, that is certainly a much less serious crime than torture. But Rumsfeld admitted hiding detainees from the Red Cross at the request of Tenet in a freaking press conference! Obviously, Rumsfeld was so unconcerned about violating the GC (which the president had stressed were fully applicable in Iraq) that he was willing to boast about breaking the law to the press. No problem with hearsay there as it is a statement against interest. That Bush didn't demand the resignation of both Rumsfeld and Tenet immediately demonstrates his culpability in that violation of Geneva.
You obviously missed at least 56 people.
The get-Bush-by-pretending-stuff-is-a-crime schtick is pretty old.
I suppose we could go back and do Clinton the same way. Something happened, then it really must be his fault and if we have a giant fishing expedition, we could have all kinds of fun. Might even find something, although that wouldn't be the actual goal, as it isn't in the case of Bush.
It strikes me that the dems are more likely to jump into the cesspool than the repubs and depend on the repubs not to pay them back in kind. Seems odd to accuse politicians of being handicapped by scruples, but if you wanted to find somebody threatening the entire nation's stability in pursuit of a bogus accusation, it would be the dems, and they don't have to worry about payback when the repubs get the chance.
Sort of a Gresham's Law.
And the actions of the dems seem to indicate they are all aware of it.
However, J.F., it might not be prudent to depend on that remaining the case. Just a warning.
That's very rational on your part, but it won't help much. To paraphrase a famous quote, prosecutors tend to go after the offenders they can get, not the offenders they'd like to get.
2. Your misreading of my post is remarkable.
3. My views should never be confused with common sense.
I hope that you saw the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings today raking William Haynes, former DOD General Counsel over the coals about the approval of techniques done by Rumsfeld in a December 2, 2002 memo. What started there migrated from GITMO to Afghanistan and Iraq as was detailed from the DOD reviews of the 2002 and 2003 periods.
One of the key points for me is that Haynes admitted that his focus was on the intelligence persons seeking information and the FBI persons objecting to techniques. He was not really listening to the military lawyers who were objecting.
In the crucial 2002 period between August 1, 2002 and the decision of Rumsfeld on December 2, 2002 to approve the techniques, Haynes says he was aware of service concerns but did not seek out or read the memos of the four service lawyers (Top Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine legal officers) objecting strenuously to the practices. He also "squelched in mid stride" a general review being done for the Joint Chiefs of Staff - something that General Dalton who testified said was unprecedented before and has never been seen after.
Alberto Mora, one of those leftist Republicans who has gone off now to work with that insidious leftist organization Walmart as a corporate lawyer, in his role as the top Navy lawyer objected strenuously to the December 2, 2002 memo. Mora testified that it was only when he threatened to go public and in writing that he forced the issue so that on January 12, 2003 the December 2, 2002 memo was rescinded orally and then was rescinded in writing on January 15, 2003. However, a memo permitting many of the techniques of the December 2, 2002 was sent on January 24, 2003 to the special ops types.
In February 2003, a DOD Working Group was formed that was to give guidance from the uniformed lawyers on the techniques. The Secretary issued new rules in April 2003 allegedly pursuant to that Working Group process. The top JAG lawyers of that Working Group were never provided the memo of the outcome of that working group until they read about it in the papers nearly a year later. In that WG discussions, the law that was to be applied was the John Yoo/Bybee torture memo of August 1, 2002 - an OLC memo that was to be binding on the Executive. So the military lawyers who objected were confronted with a binding OLC opinion that was rescinded in summer 2004 and replaced in December 2004. That is a "cramdown" in plain English on the applicable law. The OLC memo was a piece of crap.
So you guys can play word games about all this, but the facts of the 2002 period and 2001 period are coming out bit by bit and we will see pretty clearly that everything that you have seen that happened originated from decisions by high-level civilians and some generals to commit prisoner abuse in violation of US law.
There were lawyers who said some of the techniques like poking detainees are per se violations of Article 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice - let alone the more exotic things of which we have read.
I hope that you look at the hearings tomorrow in the House Judiciary Committee on the same subject.
Best,
Ben
In addition, here is a quote from Morris Davis, the JAG prosecutor who resigned because of his strong concerns about the Military Commissions process. It is from a post of his over at Balkinization.
And for those who would like to actually see the hearings here is the link at Senate Armed Services Hearings Today on C-Span.
Peace,
Ben
Lawyers: there must be some value to them, but in time of war, they are right up there with bicycles for fish.
Translation: "Bush lied, people died! He's guilty!! Hang him now, we'll have a trial later. Or not."
But a truly totalitarian society was at risk, so the intellectuals didn't have a problem with it. And history repeats itself--but in this case, the truly totalitarian society that is at risk is our enemy, and so the intellectuals are now the enemy of the U.S.
jf thomas, you still miss the point.
yes, hearsay against interest is (generally) admissable at trial. that's not the point. the point was that people can (generally) make citizens arrests for crimes that they WITNESS. one state's CA laws refer to this as the "in fact committed" standard, which is different from (for example) probable cause.
rumsfeld, or tenant, or whomever admitting they did X is groovy, but assuming they admit a crime, is not the same as WITNESSING that crime. do you grok the difference.
i can say "i just robbed a bank". in an of itself, that would give cause to a police officer to DETAIN me (it's at least reasonable suspicion) and see if he can get independent verification of at least some element of the crime (corpus delicti) but even as a cop, i can't make an arrest SOLELY based on a confession.
i can make an arrest based on PC though. generally speaking, though, a citizen can't. he has to witness the offense. NOT an admission to the offense, but the offense itself
So you guys are absolutely free to dismiss the top JAG officers strongly held views sitting comfortably whereever you are, but the JAG officers are doing things to protect our fighting soldiers and they did not buy it.
Graham says the advice of the Administration lawyers was absolutely reprehensible, short-sighted and a great disservice to this country. Please feel free to listen to the hearing above at the link as I am. I have Democrats and Republicans ripping out a new one on the detainee interrogation lawyers for Jim Haynes, the former DOD General Counsel.
So folks, you guys want to go out on a further limb on this (right or left), you are welcome to it. But, don't say you give a damn about the US military.
Best,
Ben
Best,
Ben
As for the successful prosecution thing, well sure they didn't manage a successful prosecution of Milosevic but look where he died. Arresting someone and holding them while a trial goes on and on for years until they die of old age is almost as good as a conviction and better than risking an acquittal.
FWIW, apparently Velvel was described in October 2004 "National Jurist" magazine as "one of the most influential people in legal education over the past 15 years," and the Wall Street Journal once called Massachusetts School of Law "The Little Law School That Could" - in the face of his struggles against the ABA and much of the legal establishment to establish an affordable law school focused on training practitioners, struggles in which he won support for the Justice Deprtment that forced changes in the ABA's anti-competitive accreditization procedures. Brian Tamanaha at St. John's recently praised MSL at Balikinization.
Velvel blogs and writes, frequently takes a libertarian, big-government/corporate rent-seeking/MSM bashing slant, and in criticizing the Bush administration doesn't sound much different from Bruce Fein, Bob Barr or Ron Paul.
I recall the story got a little ink--since dems were involved, it didn't have any traction--but went down the memory hole.
I wonder how the dems think it can be kept there, beyond retrieval.
And your point is? Even if the Congress was fully apprised of the techniques used, mere acquiescence and approval of criminal acts does not usually constitute a crime in and of itself. I would imagine most people were happy and secretly, or even openly, cheered the murder of Jeffrey Dahmer. That doesn't make them guilty of any crime.
I don't know ejo, what is the body count you are willing to accept for your techniques. How many people are you willing to lock up without charges and trial to protect us from our enemies, whoever they may be? We already know you are partial to summary execution? Would you be willing to kill ten, one hundred, one or ten thousand to be sure we foiled a plot? How many people will you torture to stop the terrorism. How about raping and killing the wives and children of suspected terrorists in front of them to get them to talk. When is that justified? Can you do it to save 10 lives, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand?
The ticking timebomb scenario is a fantastical strawman. Give it up.
You'll note how hard it is to get a dem to address their beliefs in WMD ca. 98, and at other times, despite its not being criminal to believe in that stuff.
Best,
Ben
Cowards.
The point is two-fold. One is whether the stuff is actually being done, and the other is whether it is worth it. Recall, we also kill people in large numbers. That is also cruel, especially as there's no attempt at painless execution. Why do you think medics carry morphine?
Your elected representatives lie to you? Wow. Especially when it's a matter of classified material. Who do you think she is; Leahy?
I spent some time watching and participating in discussions of this on another blog. What was interesting is hauling in anything they could think of in order to increase the numbers. This is a standard tactic which works until somebody finds out you include leering in your rape stats, or slamming a door in DV stats, or muttering under your breath in road rage stats, or a belly slap in torture.
Then you lose credibility.
And if the law says it's okay, it's going to be hard to figure out how to prosecute somebody for breaking it.
We're none of us as free of emotion as we think we are; we can all only see it in other people and we all think ourselves as rational and as calm as can be. The Framers had perspective to see past this.