McCarthy is the guy who prosecuted Khalid Sheikh Muhammed....this is his letter to that swine Eric Holder declining to participate in a Potemkin conference to give the Obamas cover as they cave to the PC wing of their party on national security. It is devastating, and will never see the light of day in the MSM, although it's all over the blogosphere:




Andrew McCarthy�s Epistle

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001


Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President�s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.

The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants-or what the Department now calls �individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.� I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear-most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany-that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president�s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you�
- - - - - - - - -
�and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers-like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy-may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities. This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case. Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America�s �commitment to the rule of law.� Indeed, you elaborated, �Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration�s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay�. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]� (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.

For what it may be worth, I will say this much. For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated. Essentially, there have been two camps. One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s. The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission. Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism-a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people.

There are differences in these various proposals. But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing: Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted. We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.

The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that�s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities-like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of �Dirty Bomber� Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance. I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs� impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration�s propensity to deride its predecessor�s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.

Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties. It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General�s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States. I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno-as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the �blind sheikh� would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment. In any event, I�ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology. Thus, my conservative political views aside, I�ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who�ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial. It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.

Very truly yours,

/S/

Andrew C. McCarthy

Terrific letter..........thanks for posting here.

MM

There you have it. Thanks for putting it up.

That's, of course, outrageous. Insane might be a better word. The president is the one who made the decision, not the attorneys who advised him. The attorneys were merely giving their opinions as to the law. Prosecuting those attorneys for giving erroneous opinions reminds one of something a Jame's Bond arch-villain might do.

Yep, my guess is Mr. McCarthy is in for a series of painful tax audits.

says a mouth full.

Personally, I have no doubt that the real intent, and the endgame for hussein, is to harm America.

Thanks , Steve,

.....duly fowarded.

GTC

and it would be just as absurd to prosecute executive branch elected officials or intel agents who relied on those legal opinions.

Wow!

Why couldn't we have this guy for AG?

Holder basically wants to fight terrorists with courts and policemen on American soil. Bush correctly saw that it was more effective to fight them with the military on their own soil.

One of the first rules of military strategy is to take the fight to the enemy. Disregarding that is disastrously wrong-headed.

Reading an eloquently written scathing is one of life's joys.

Holder and Bam-Bam are probably sitting down and saying something brilliant like "Oh Yeah"!

That is a beauty of a letter! Thanks for posting it.

I'm afraid we part company on that one. No one is above the law in the United States. Every American is presumed to know that torturing prisoners is a serious crime, subjecting one to almost certain jail time if caught.

Wasn't it you, during the Bush presidency, who said that if he commits crimes while in office we can prosecute him just like any other citizen, but we just have to wait till he's out of office? So now he's out of office. Time to prosecute him for his crimes.

Also, all Americans are presumed to know that no order to torture a prisoner could possibly be legitimate, and each has a duty to ignore such an order. So anyone who obeyed that order is subject also to prosecution, and all up and down the command chain.

I would not be just a nothin' my head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain.
I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry,
If I only had a brain.

I sincerely wish that for you, as well, Isaac. Good luck in pursuing that very worthy goal.

Thanks Scarecrow!

you seem to miss the logical connection Hawk.....the administration did comply with "the law"....a very murky and poorly defined body of law....by requesting opinions from the people the law says you request opinions from.

they were inventing procedures on the fly, because in the past nobody would have given a rat's ass about procedure in these circumstances, so there weren't any sitting around to use.

all approved by Congress, tinkered with to meet court rulings as needed.

Congress was fully briefed on all interrogation techniques, and your pals at the NYT breathlessly reported every aspect of the US effort.

To now declare that scrupulously legalistic approach to be criminal is just absurd.....a banana republic punishing the former junta.

You seem to be suggesting that if a mob is large enough, whatever it chooses to do is to be deemed fully above board, so long as the members of that mob happen to hold political office in the United States.

no, I'm pointing out that if you do exactly what "the law" prescribes, you're not breaking "the law"

pretty simple concept

pretty simple concept

+++++++++++++++++++++

Even for the simple!

http://www.breitbart.com/article.ph...eddb.1d1&show_article=1&catnum=0

Gotta wonder if Holder will understand the letter. A very elegant burn!

Thanks Steve for posting this.

It needs to be read.

He would need to read it multiple times, then request assistance from an underling in the interpretation thereof.

It is fundamental to our system of laws in the United States that torturing prisoners is criminal. No one was blind-sided by the unexpected discovery of this fact. Just as Americans are presumed to know that murder is illegal, they are presumed to know that torturing prisoners is illegal. This is not some obscure regulatory law we're talking about here.

Well Hawk I gotta agree with the lawyers on this one.

I don't think anything we have done is torture. Heck, a medical physical to people who have never had one can be torture to them. Something in this country we take for granted everyday.

Limbaugh read the letter on his show yesterday but reading it is even better. Thanks.

Law is very simple in the absence of any context isn't it?

I, on the other hand, do not feel that foreign people trying to kill us by the thousands with a nuclear, biological, chemical, or spam meat-product based weapon deserves the same protections as a US American yankee based typical mugger. I'm just funny that way.

If an American group were to go to Canada and try and wipe the tallest building in Montreal off the face of the earth I would hope the Canadians, upon capturing half of them, would use whatever means required to get him to give up the rest. I'd be fine with them no longer being considered US Citizens.

We are not dealing with criminals or regular soldiers. We are dealing with terrorists who would be very happy if everyone different than them were dead. This is a fight to the death. I would prefer it be them that does the dying.

We voluntarily participate in all sorts of activities that we find aversive, none of which are torture because of, for starters, their voluntary nature.

We will just have to agree to disagree on this Hawk.

There is nothing you can say to me that will change my mind.

And that is where you part company with any right thinking individual. Since the President sought and recieved qualified legal advise concerning these procedures which ruled them legal, he is no more at fault than the giver of the opinion. In fact he is not at fault at all but a brave hero for putting himself before the rabid dogs that now seek to injure him for preserving our safety. I'm sure he knew this day would come based on all the hate that heas been directed his way. Hatred is both blind and stupid.

I understand ultimately it's a sign of a healthy society to debate.

but I'd be less than honest to not admit it GALLS me that we waste time here debating the merits of how we treat the Gitmo group, let alone that our elected leaders and Justice dept. are wasting their time doing so.



I guess in the endgame those 3000 in NYC really didn't amount to chit, nor the folks we've sent to combat this problem overseas instead of here.

I am sorry no dis intended to anyone on either side of this debate.

but i know what team I'm for, my fellow citizens and the men and women charged with being on the tip of the spear to defend them.

I live in what seems to be an upside down world to me at times.

how bout we just meet in the middle?

NO MORE torture we just waterboard them in pigs blood till death and televise it for the ME.

one good turn deserves another, and so do the other kind imo.

Good post! This grabbed me more than the rest



The pigs blood was a nice touch as well.

George

Great letter, very well written! Thank you for posting it Steve.

1ak

I'm with you. Are we talking about a band of pick pocket thieves here or trained killers - that have succeeded on a massive scale? I struggle to understand how anyone can look at the entire situation and come to the conclusion that these jihadist have any rights. THEY ARE BENT ON KILLING AMERICANS. Period - end of the discussion. There is no if's, and's or but's to it. Once you cross the line from common criminal to killing, your rights end. Once the sanctity and respect for human life goes out the window, so does your right to human civility. It becomes a matter of preventing further atrocity. We aren't talking about accidental killing, heat of the moment murder, or any such thing. We're talking about planned genocide - the scale and magnitude are a product of circumstance.

I guarantee if some of the torture sympathizers had some of their family butchered it's be a completely different story..............

BTW: Thanks for posting Steve.

TRH made my blood boil for a minute.

You got that right!

Sir Winston Churchill did not suffer fools lightly, and reading over almost any one of his surviving scathing epistles on a wide variety of topics is indeed a great experience (best savoured with a glass of single malt Scotch of course!)

John

John....Churchill was the master!

Ah Isaac, I thought you were a man of letters and fine taste -- now I know it!

Sir Winston is my hero. Not a perfect man, but the perfect man to lead Britain in WW2.

He is right at the top of my list of historical figures that I would really have liked to meet.

John

Thanks, that was a good read.

Not exactly. The president and his key advisers were intent on torturing prisoners and assigned numerous of their legal experts the job of conjuring up the most plausible sounding legal cover for their intended actions possible. None of them were going to come back and say, "Sorry boss, but there's no way to legally justify what you intend to do." That wasn't what they were being paid for.

Hey Steve, as an aside, I hope you caught Glen Beck this Friday. He had his studio audience filled to the brim with Tea Party participants. One of the questions he asked the audience was, "How many of you are more angry with the Republicans than the Democrats?" The whole audience raised their hands and cheered. When asked, they explained that they expect policies destructive to American liberty from the Democrats, which is why their anger isn't primarily directed at them. The Democrats are just doing what they have been openly wanting to do for decades.

Hey unfocused one....did you also hear Beck's radio broadcast where he was ridiculing those who thought waterboarding was torture.

Mikey likey!

Yes, I know where he stands on that issue. I still watch and listen to him because he's right on just about everything else. Same with Rush. I wish those two would listen to Judge Andrew Napolitano on that issue and get a clue. Then they'd be 100% conservative instead of only 98%.

That reads like you believe GWB, et al, were for torture for torture's sake ( assuming for the sake of argument only, that it was indeed torture) as opposed to merely acquiring information regarding terroristic plans against the U.S.

Nobody would have been waterboarded if information had been proffered when asked for it.

For myself, I'd have fit Mohammed Atta's nuts between my anvil and a 12 pound cross peen sledge to have averted the events of Sept 11.

Maybe that's just me.

It's you and all the rest of the normal thinking population.

Coming from you, that almost hurts!

naaahh it ain't jus you......but statements like that make it pretty easy for me to buy you a beer

Very interesting read.
McCarthy has a way with words, for certain.

We may be able to arrange that! The Midnight Sun Run is a different weekend than the Trail Ride Extraordinaire. We be thinking about it.

Also thinking it's my turn to buy the Rollers!

we can work out the minor details later, give me a shout when you hit town, it'll be good to see you.

10-4

As you probably know, that's a month and a half away!

Then you read it wrong.

Then I apologize for misconstruing your comments.



My take is that it was acquiring information that was the intent.

"A Gallup Poll released February 12 revealed that 62 percent of Americans want to investigate or criminally prosecute Bush administration officials who authorized torture in the so-called 'war on terror.'" http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/776

It wasn't "acquiring information" that they sought legal cover for when they asked for legal analysis. It was for the use of torture toward that end.

What's a fella to do when his lawyer tells him he is legally in the right?

So, following that logic, if I find a lawyer who's willing to write a legal opinion that says I can take a sledge hammer to your front porch I should be legally in the clear?

You and that lawyer will have bigger problems!

Damned if ya do, and damned if ya don't, I guess.

The obverse would be a legal opinion saying waterboarding is torture, disagreeing and proceeding anyway.

Which course of action is legally prudent?

Or did the .gov lawyers give the opinion that was requested? It seems that's the point your are beating about.

Precisely my point. You do not find that an acceptable standard for determining which actions are legitimate.

I don't agree that those two situations are equivalent nor analagous.

Let's be honest with one another for a moment. No human being who's reached the age of reason needs to consult an attorney to know that waterboarding is torture. Putting all the politics aside, you know this, right?

Still trying to work your way into a relevant analogy,I see!

Perhaps you might want to be a bit more current and use a recent poll like the CBS/NYT's poll of April 27th that had your Gallup numbers reversed supporting no investigation. Of course, Pelosi's lies added to that reversal as well as common sense. Also interesting is how the divisiveness was clearly along party lines. Not so alarming is that your arguments fell right in line with Pelosi's.

Try and make a distinction between "above the law" and "within the law". Your synapses are obviously skewed in that they just ain't connecting properly. For instance, you didn't look up the real Geneva Convention definition of torture after I accused you of misquoting the definition, did you? Or, perhaps you did and it made you a bit nervous thinking about coming back and admitting you had actually bastardized the definition with your own version to suit your flawed argument.

That seems to be the sticking point.

When it comes to saving American lives, scaring a terrorist into giving up needed information, water boarding is on a very different plane than other methods. Hell, I splash water on my face every morning.

Than let me put the question to you this way: If your folks caught you, when you were say twelve, waterboarding your little brother/sister (i.e., strapped him/her down with a sack over his/her head and pouring water over his/her mouth and nostrils repeatedly to the point of nearly drowning), would they have been more likely to a) send you to your room without dinner or b) immediately sequester you from your siblings and other children in the area until arrangements could be made for you to be evaluated at a nearby children's psychiatric facility?

In your example, is my sibling a terrorist? Does my sibling want to hurt/kill my countrymen?

Your example is silly at best.

George

THR, IMO "extraordinary" circumstances required us do some things we normally would not do and we are not proud of. With that said I am quite comfortable believing the Bush administration used water boarding in a very conservative manor and only used this technique on a small handful of individuals, basically known members of Al qaeda. I would be highly concerned if water boarding were widespread and was a standard practice by the military & CIA on everyone that we apprehended, but it is NOT, nor has it been as far as we know.

It goes not to the question of when, if ever, torture is justified. We haven't even arrived there yet since most of you folks won't even admit that water torture is torture. It is towards this latter issue that my question was directed.

Give it time. We'll get there soon enough at this rate.

It truly is !

Oh they were? Because Bush and company are evil?

Looks like you got a koolaide waterboarding.

Hawk, you really should just read the freaking memos, man. If it was as simple as you wish it were, there would have been no need to get opinions.

what on earth does malicious behavior by children have to do with government agents operating under explicit legal authority attempting to obtain information about ongoing terrorist plots from boss jihadis?

your argument is like arguing its wrong to execute child murderers because what if they executed your mom. nonsense.

How you figure that? What "rate" are you talking about? We've gone from three five years ago to zero now. And yet you fantasize they're snatching US citizens off the street because.....well, because that's what they do.

My question was a response to the claim that waterboarding was the equivilent of washing one's face in the morning.In the post in question I had made no argument at all. I had merely asked a question. So far I have not received an answer.

I refer to the rate at which our culture is transforming into one which finds government torture of prisoners acceptable so long as some public safety related rationale can be articulated.

how can you say that when merely waterboarding three major criminal mass murdering terrorists has created a firestorm of outrage, such that now all terrorists can rest snug in their beds knowing then need fear no discomfort at the hands of US agents?

It's two steps forward, one step back.

you're dead wrong about that, buddy. the zeitgeist now is no "torture", no way. the world will love us because Obama leads us, no need to be harsh old meanies like [bleep] and all those bad bad people.

It's like national security, as done by Barney the dinosaur. Good luck with that, America.

Left in the hands of folks like you, we would have suffered some real nasty attacks. Lotsa folks killed. Personally I'm real glad folks like you didn't run this war in the early days at least. I don't care if they were subjected to strappado. Attacks were prevented.

Just look at how many members here think that government torture is just fine. You would normally expect that gun owners and hunters would be highly attuned to the risks associated with increasing the level of arbitrary power the central government usurps. As I recall it, that's the way it was ten years ago and earlier.

Actually, the problem before 9/11 wasn't a lack of intel or adequate investigation. The FBI was right on top of these investigations. The problem was that their upper ranks were telling agents to back off their investigations of suspicious Muslim activity. That was the only thing that needed changing. Well that, and getting a handle on the border and our immigration policy, combined with keeping an extra careful watch on Muslims in the United States, particularly at airports. There was no need to institute a Department of Homeland Security. Nor was there a need for a so called Patriot Act. These were merely two examples of central government taking advantage of an opportunity to increase its power and thereby contract the liberty of every American.

"As government expands, liberty contracts." - President Ronald Reagan

You have have framed the conceptual error in this matter clearly. Although we all know murder is illegal, we also all know that not all killing is murder and illegal. So, presuming that all killing is murder leads you to a mistaken conclusion.

The analogy in the case of the harsh interrogation of terrorists (by definition illegal non-combatants) captured on the field of battle is assuming that they have any rights - they don't and are not protected by any international conventions and certainly not by the US Constitution. It is also erroneous to assume that they have been tortured - no evidence of lasting physical or psychological harm - to wit, many of those released returned to their abominable profession, namely terrorism vs. Americans.

As Steve already pointed out, when the National Defense Authority determines that a specific process is legal to eradicate terrorism, there are no countervening international norms that would supercede it. We seem to forget that the overarching responsibility of a national government is to protect the rights of the nation and that no international or supernational (e.g., UN) authority supercedes this obligation.

We wouldn't be having this hypothetical, self-righteous discussion if our fathers and grandfathers hadn't acted in the best interest of our Nation in WWI & II. We'd all be good little Nazis really torturing away without a care. Have we lost our national identity so easily and so quickly?

TRH

Would you waterboard if it would save the life of someone you love?

I guess you would have to label the [bleep] to be released on US soil as "Replacement Citizens" for the ones Massacred on 9/11.

What has happened to my country.

...........or............You know he's right......but our plan will lead for the need....the need for a "Bigger fatter,rights grabbing, gun removing Government ! ..."Oh Yeah"!

Interesting Hawkeye. The FBI has never been on top of ANYTHING I have ever seen and I had plenty of interaction with them on the job. Consider how incompetent they are when they have someone wired,shadowed ,surveilled and damn near tucked in at night. The multiple attempts to successfully prosecute the Gottis comes to mind. They can hardly hit a stationary target.Hell, they couldn't even figure out what the "Beltway Sniper(s) was until the dumbasses literally caught themselves. They don't make a move until they "see" enough to make a prosecution. Anti-terror is pro-active,not reactive and the Freddies miss the boat pretty badly on that count.

This question has been asked and answered by me something like a dozen times already. Do you ever read any of my posts?

Of course I would!

If my dog were missing and someone I trusted told me that you took him so your champion pit fighter could have a sparring partner in preparation for an upcoming match I'd probably break each of your bones in turn, asking each time where my dog was. But in a nation of laws, you have the right to be protected from me in my fit of rage, because you are presumed innocent before the law until after you've been tried and convicted.

Reading them is one thing. Sorting through the nonsensical blather, is another.

Steve,
Thanks for posting the letter. He's dead on. Anyone from the previous administration who cooperates with this one is asking to be scapegoated.

Hawk,
Man, waterboarding ain't torture. We agree on a lot of things, but take it from someone who's experienced it-it ain't torture, especially when applied to non uniformed terrorists who are not protected under any rule of law, since they operate outside of it. The "rights of man" argument won't hold water (no pun) as these people are not innocents snatched from their beds and interrogated for no reason. Each of them has given just cause for their detention and interrogation.

If the Raisuli and his minions want to let all of the tango's go and release them into the states, that's their prerogative, but going back and trying people for things done which were clearly within the law, and every effort was made to ensure such activities were so, is wrong. As Steve has pointed out, that's banana republic behavior-more evidence that we're moving in that direction under the new administration BTW.

You've never been subjected to waterboarding as torture. That was at best a simulation of torture, since it was voluntary and carried out by your own compatriots.Our government is not capable legally of acting outside the rule of law. Whenever it does so, it acts tyrannically and criminally. And, before you say it, warfare is not outside the law any more than I am outside the law when I shoot it out with home invasion robbers. There is no just cause for torture under our system. Can you think of a scenario where I may lawfully water torture you for information? Government only has authority to do things that you and I have loaned them the authority to do from the storage house of our personal sovereign powers. If that sovereign power doesn't exist in us as individuals, we cannot lend it to our government.

We have a basic disagreement about what constitutes torture. What I experienced, whether you choose to recognize it as such or not, is virtually the same techniques used on 3 detainees. You deem it torture, I do not, nor do respected legal minds in and out of the previous administration. We will just have to agree to disagree on this one, as you will never convince me otherwise, and I will never convince you.

If it is not torture, then the English language has faltered and been replaced by something altogether new.

If you have trouble understanding the meaning of severe physical pain or suffering, that's your dilemma,sport. Changing definitions to suit a miserably failing argument is your problem.

Lawyers and judges deal with the interpretation of words and their meanings everyday. Someday, maybe, you'll grasp that simple fact.

Mr. McCarthy has the heading ALL WRONG. There is nothing honorable about Eric Holder. He is another pawn of the liberal left just like his buddy Barak. kwg

Okay. Second question. In that situation would you not waterboard because it is (according to you) illegal?

I already said I would torture someone, given adequate motive.

If the government won't protect the citizens of the United States because of the necessity of using "illegal operations", we better have some new laws defining "illegal" to suit the citizens instead of the terrorists.

Wayne

Well then, assuming you are a moral person, you should recognize that there is a higher law that requires you to act to save someone.

There is a difference between "torturing" for a confession and "torturing" to save thousands pf people, especially when it's arguably not torture. If you don't see that, you are lost in your own argument.

Hardly. I've been 100% consistent.

While it's true that, given the right circumstances, I'd torture someone, I also say that the someone whom I'd torture has a right to a government that protects him from my intended action. I would also rob and steal, given the right circumstances. This, however, is a confession of human frailty (we all have it), not a recommendation as a model for government. It is precisely because of human frailty that we establish governments which operate by the rule of law rather than by the rule of a man, or of several men, or even of the majority of men.

Although I'm not an attorney, IMO this concept is incorrect. You are confusing US Constitutional constraints on the rights of the US government with respect to US citizens with its rights to wage war to defend the Nation.

The terrorists seized as illegal combatants on foreign battlefields have no rights under the US Constitution - despite the malevolent inventions of the Obama-Holder nomenklatura - and certainly none under international conventions. They are not combatants representing any signatory nation.

Summary execution under military law and ROEs would be legal. It is only our American sense of 'fair play - an oxymoron in any military context - that confers on these beings (can't quite see obsessed murderers of civilians as humans) any so-called rights.

If I follow the reasoning you propose correctly, we are in a better position in future, to avoid the need to interrogate illegal non-combatants, rendering military justice forthwith, where captured. Probably a good idea to redefine ROEs more realistically.

Maybe he has a right to have some government protect him, but it's not ours when he's trying to kill us.

More important than being a nation of laws is being a nation of justice based on laws.

BTW I can't believe you put Isaac on ignore. That says more about you than it does about him.

Seems like we've had a dance before on a different topic and you were just as hung up there as you are in this one.

Best wishes

I resisted placing Isaac on ignore for years, but when he proved beyond doubt that all he was capable of was mud slinging I turn him off. I gave him another chance recently, but he went right back to that pattern so off he went again. I don't mind arguing an issue till kingdom come, but I will not suffer the consistently uncouth. Life's too short to give folks like that the time of day.

That's not even close to analogous, and I suspect you already know that. It's an enormous stretch trying to make your point and, it does not work.


No such claim was made and the comment was TIC, and I suspect you already know that. It's an enormous stretch trying to make your point and, it does not work.

And with that, I'm likely done with this thread.

As usual on the mark, Bush and everyone in his cabinet associated with this should be charged first with violating the Constitution and leading America down into a black hole-torture as a policy of the government is clearly un-American, as were all the other lies and shenanigans associated with the last 8 years, it strikes me as cowardly to attempt to prosecute this from the bottom up

you strike me as an idiot....so that figures.


"as usual" on the mark? you mean as usual for the eleven days you've been reading Hawk's posts?

Up yours jackass, this is a forum and every user has a right to their opinion-even a dumbass like yourself

It takes you a while to respond to those calling you out, sport.

Are you having to wait until grandmom steps away from your homework study desk?

That goes for you too, scum-sucking lawyer

What's the difference between a Catfish and a lawyer?
One is a scum sucking bottom dweller, and the other is a fish.

ZeN has shown himself again and again, to be one of those folks that are not worthy of conducting discourse with.
Lefty weenies are beneath contempt, and are too stupid to hold a conversation.
on the one hand, ZeN says , but then he also feels that there SHOULD be controls on speech HE does not like.

Well first of all I am simply defending myself from rude small minded [bleep] (like yourself, you pathetic hypocrite) who do not know how to participate in a forum discussion with views other than their own, nowhere does it say in the membership rules that the only acceptable opinion is that of neocons, or supporters of the bush regieme, or for law enforcement, etc,
I stand by everything I have said, I am not a lefty, I am a Libertarian, I support Ron Paul and I challenge you to show a post where I have expressed leftists views, freakin' moron

aye, theres the rub Zen.

You are not mentally equipped to engage in forum discussions, no matter the views involved.

To me, 'lefty' is not only a term to describe a person that leans to the left politically, but also as a pejorative. Capiche?

I will say though, you are damn near as loony as most of the other Libertarians around these parts.

He can defend himself, but I'd only respond that what you dislike about zen is precisely that he is politically a good bit to the right of yourself, not the left. Just for one example, between the two of you, which one has the least trust in consolidated central government power?

I would also add that the bad mouthing wasn't started by him. He merely responded in kind.

zen/dpml doesn't have a philosophy...he parrots stuff.....and if you think there's anything right wing about him you're not paying attention. It's all straight out of DU, with a touch of prison planet. this is that punk dpml or whatever his name was that Rick bounced a while back.....new name, same stupid.

How could a stupid person be so consistently right? Seems unlikely.

you're not reading carefully.....unless you think the idea that police shouldn't violate citizen's rights is some brilliant insight on the punk's part.