Originally posted by MisterOpus1
That's not merely a lawyer, that's the AG, the head of the DoJ. And his opinion certainly has merit as to the stance of the DoJ.
Forgive me if I misspeak here Opus, but did you hold the same high opinion of Ashcroft when he was AG?
MisterOpus1
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Originally posted by Shakka
Forgive me if I misspeak here Opus, but did you hold the same high opinion of Ashcroft when he was AG?
You're not misspeaking, but I don't want you to misunderstand me. In context, if someone asked me if Ashcroft's opinion is a direct reflection of the DoJ's stance on a particular matter, I would completely agree. As the head of that dept., I really can't see it any other way.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean I would agree with that opinion, or even the DoJ's stance on certain matters, nor would I necessarily have to. It just means I don't agree with him, but I respect what he opines is highly likely the opinion of that dept., given the fact that he was the dept. head.
Q5echo
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Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Well now I'm really in suspense. My thoughts are that given the current stance of this Administration, i.e. signing an Executive Order that bans all military and CIA personnel from using waterboarding for interrogation:
It becomes a moot point for Congress to come in and make it official, so to speak.
....not even in the same ballpark as so to speak
ok first, and its puzzling me having to explain this to you, an executive order does not carry the full force of law and can only simulate the full force of law when pursuant to an act of Congress. which brings us back to my question again - WHY WON'T CONGRESS SPECIFICALLY MAKE ILLEGAL THE ACT OF WATERBOARDING IN ACCORDANCE WITH COMMON ART. 3 OF GENEVA? simple question.
second, executive orders are usually only relevant to whoever the executive is that made the order. in the same vain, the order can easily be reversed by the same executive or subsequent executives at stroke of a pen.
iow, if you're so amped about frog-marching your mortal neocon enemies all the way straight to Leavenworth you're gonna need more than one man's politically motivated ideological opposition to whatever it is youre so amped about. because essentially thats all an executive order is.
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That's not merely a lawyer, that's the AG, the head of the DoJ. And his opinion certainly has merit as to the stance of the DoJ.
Who's playing dumb here?
he's not a judge. you're dumb if you think he can adjudicate law.
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Right, that must be why the soldier in Vietnam was court marshaled and dishonorably discharged then:
im not in favor of soldiers out in the field waterboarding people. neither was the OLC, CIA and the Whitehouse in their efforts to define legal limits to do so in 2002.
and like i said, soldiers are held to a completely different code of conduct. if it's not in their requisite literature legally defining their code of conduct, such as the Army field manual or UCMJ, a completely different legal standard is applied.
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It must also be why Reagan's DoJ convicted a Texas Sheriff of waterboarding someone too back in 1983:
Originally posted by Q5echo
he's not a judge. you're dumb if you think he can adjudicate law.
If this is your opinion, how can you even think of defending the idea legal opinions written by White House lawyers are supposed to protect everyone from prosecution? Opus isn't saying that he's going to adjudicate, either. He's saying that his opinion matters more than "some lawyer" because he gets to decide how the laws are enforced during his tenure.
Q5echo
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Originally posted by Groundhog Boy
If this is your opinion, how can you even think of defending the idea legal opinions written by White House lawyers are supposed to protect everyone from prosecution?
:rolleyes: because under the current legal standard it's obvious what they did was un-prosecutable.
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Opus isn't saying that he's going to adjudicate, either. He's saying that his opinion matters more than "some lawyer" because he gets to decide how the laws are enforced during his tenure.
im just not in the mood right now to argue about what it is other people are arguing.
and are we going to argue about what "enforcing" the law is from the prospective of a prosecutor, or are we going to make succinct distinctions between what the role of a judge is in enforcement of the law and the role of a prosecutor?
as far as i can tell Opus has confused these distinctions and others so far.
Shakka
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Originally posted by Q5echo
there is no such thing as gentle raping. a rape connotates the violent need to fulfill one's selfish desires from a position of power.
Actually, I think I get gently raped (though sometimes violently) by the stock market pretty regularly. It's not very pleasant, but it is what it is. It doesn't leave a painful, burning ring of fire, but does leave you with the same feelings of emptiness and frustration.;)
Krypton
I don't get what's so hard about our obligation to follow the Geneva Conventions. The signing of it by our country is good enough to practically be a law banning torture. Congress doesn't need to make violating Article 3 of the GC a law, because we signed the ing document!
MisterOpus1
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Originally posted by Q5echo
....not even in the same ballpark as so to speak
ok first, and its puzzling me having to explain this to you, an executive order does not carry the full force of law and can only simulate the full force of law when pursuant to an act of Congress.
True, and I suppose it's noteworthy to see that Congress initially tried to pass such a law to enact the Army Field manual to all agencies including the CIA last year, only to have it vetoed by Bush.
But if you're acting if such an Executive order is pursuant to what Congress has passed, I'll get to that more below.
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which brings us back to my question again - WHY WON'T CONGRESS SPECIFICALLY MAKE ILLEGAL THE ACT OF WATERBOARDING IN ACCORDANCE WITH COMMON ART. 3 OF GENEVA? simple question.
More below.
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second, executive orders are usually only relevant to whoever the executive is that made the order. in the same vain, the order can easily be reversed by the same executive or subsequent executives at stroke of a pen.
iow, if you're so amped about frog-marching your mortal neocon enemies all the way straight to Leavenworth you're gonna need more than one man's politically motivated ideological opposition to whatever it is youre so amped about. because essentially thats all an executive order is.
Agreed.
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he's not a judge. you're dumb if you think he can adjudicate law.
Of course he's not a judge, nor was I claiming he had anything to do with the Judiciary. He is, however, the head of the Dept. which gets to interpret what is and what isn't lawful, the same dept. that Bush used in order to supposedly interpret if torture is/isn't legal. And so what he says certainly has merit as to what and how the DoJ will interpret the law and enforce those laws.
Are you now arguing that a judicial decision is a necessity? Fine, then I take you back to Reagan's successful prosecution and conviction of the Texas sheriff for waterboarding. I will also note that we successfully tried and convicted someone in WWII for the same practices. If such practices were legal by any working definition, Geneva, Tokyo War Crimes Trials, or otherwise, why have we not granted that man a full pardon and apology? And more importantly, why would it be relevant as to whether or not Congress explicitly addresses waterboarding as torture when we have both national and international case law outlining as exactly that?
I'll address more on Geneva below as well.
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im not in favor of soldiers out in the field waterboarding people. neither was the OLC, CIA and the Whitehouse in their efforts to define legal limits to do so in 2002.
Sure, but that doesn't negate the fact that the CIA hired private contractors to do it some 183 times to one man. To say that the Administration and crew weren't in favor of it, but seemingly hired contractors and did it anyway is somehow okay is beyond asinine.
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and like i said, soldiers are held to a completely different code of conduct. if it's not in their requisite literature legally defining their code of conduct, such as the Army field manual or UCMJ, a completely different legal standard is applied.
That may be true, but that doesn't entail an entirely different definition of what torture is and whether or not waterboarding is defined as such under the other different agencies. Geneva and the UN Convention of Torture are pretty explicitly clear as to what torture entails, and there's no dancing around how waterboarding clearly fits those definitions (despite the efforts of Yoo and Bybee).
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again, these are isolated instances of the practice outside of what could be considered legal
How is the successful prosecution and conviction of our government to an American citizen who waterboarded an "isolated instance"?
That is legal precedent, Q. There's no way around it, sorry.
And back to Geneva and Common Law article 3, as you know Hamdan upheld that Common Law Article 3 applies to the detainees, which means we had to abide by that law since all international treaties that we sign are ratified in our own Constitution. And if you recall, we CONVICTED someone and sent them up to 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding our soldiers in WWII for breaking the Geneva Conventions.
So we know that you can't waterboard someone under Geneva. We also know that Common Law applies to detainees, which means we should not have waterboarded them either (and the legalese bull that Yoo and Bybee did was not just a joke, but an outright embarrassment to our law and country). So it certainly goes to follow that a law is already in our books, both as precedent (see 1983 case) and as Constitutional law (as outlined in Geneva, Common Law 3, and the Hamdan case).
Combine this with the fact that Obama's Executive Order telling the CIA must abide by the Army Field manual, again I see it as a moot point that Congress has to come in AGAIN and specifically try and make waterboarding a statutory law in accordance to Common Law 3.
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there is no such thing as gentle raping. a rape connotates the violent need to fulfill one's selfish desires from a position of power.
Right, but by definition there would also not be any permanent physical harm. Seems to fit the same definition as waterboarding that Yoo and Bybee tried to use. Just a sidenote, however.
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i have no idea what that is.
They were tapes the CIA destroyed that highlighted them torturing the detainees. My point is that much of the evidence that occurred was destroyed. Do you see any reason why they felt compelled to destroy them?
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by Shakka
Actually, I think I get gently raped (though sometimes violently) by the stock market pretty regularly. It's not very pleasant, but it is what it is. It doesn't leave a painful, burning ring of fire, but does leave you with the same feelings of emptiness and frustration.;)
Man, that sux. and you're married? good God man how do you live:p
Shakka
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Originally posted by Q5echo
Man, that sux. and you're married? good God man how do you live:p
I lock myself up in my office at night and escape to my hobbies of playing musical instruments with headphones while drinking alcohol to drown my sorrows!
Shakka
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Originally posted by Q5echo
IMO it's these incompetent, complicit, lying liars you should waste your political animus on.
Instant classic on Pelosi yesterday at the press conference. Check out the courteous butt-in at 2:00. ing hilarious. I hope BO dressed her down afterwards.
Sometimes I think she just can't help herself.
Q5echo
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Originally posted by MisterOpus1
True, and I suppose it's noteworthy to see that Congress initially tried to pass such a law to enact the Army Field manual to all agencies including the CIA last year, only to have it vetoed by Bush.
irrelevant. however im not sure which exact legislation you are talking about.
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Of course he's not a judge, nor was I claiming he had anything to do with the Judiciary. He is, however, the head of the Dept. which gets to interpret what is and what isn't lawful, the same dept. that Bush used in order to supposedly interpret if torture is/isn't legal. And so what he says certainly has merit as to what and how the DoJ will interpret the law and enforce those laws.
but again, as far as your wishes of putting Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/et al in prison, youre going to need more than a zealot at the DoJ. (not sayning Holder is btw)
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Are you now arguing that a judicial decision is a necessity?
yes, and possibly more. youre going to need a clear definition of the law in question as it relates to waterboarding detainees by the Federal Executive in a time of war. clearly, CA (3) of Geneva is ambiguous at best.
