I consider myself a true conservative, and don't understand why people
so vehemently support this president's policies. We need to rigorously
defend our civil liberties, and take the moral high ground, as we have
in other wars, with regards to treating prisoners.
Bush and Co don't want to play by these American principles.
Mark Hickey wrote:
> Not one law has been demonstrably broken, yet that doesn't matter -
> does it?
The 1978 FISA federal oversight of covert wiretaps was set up by Gerald
Ford (pre-Carter) specifically to avoid the abuses we've seen. Bush's
Dad, CIA director at the time, was against FISA. The legality of
current warrantless NSA wiretapping is demonstrably questionable in
light of that law. Since the administration or Republican congress
would have to investigate itself, this is unlikely. To read what legal
scholars have to say about why this is illegal, read
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650
Oh, and Scooter Libby is indicted for lying about the Valerie Plame affair.
The US has stayed well within the bounds of the Geneva
> Convention, yet the shrill cry of "torture" rings out from the left
> daily.
You should read the Geneva Convention. Bush denied Red Cross access to
prisoners. That is against the Geneva Convention. Also, see
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/11/09/judge_halts_legal_proceeding_at_guantanamo/
to understand how Bush's treatment of prisoners was ruled a violation of
the Geneva convention.
All the Abu Ghraib humiliation treatments are also against the Geneva
convention. Also against the Geneva convention was letting a
psychopath like David Passaro become a CIA interrogator in Afghanistan,
where he beat to death a detainee, Abdul Wali, who willingly submitted
to interrogation. Passaro has been convicted. See wikipedia or any
other source. Or, you can listen to the account from a 18-year old kid
, Hyder Akba, who grew up in the USA, but went back to Afghanistan with
his Dad after the fall of the Taliban. His Dad was governor of the
province, and this kid personally escorted Abdul Wali to interrogation.
The administration also contracted out torture to 3rd world allies, so
that we wouldn't have blood on our hands. Extrajudicial rendition to
places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt is morally equivalent of performing
the torture ourselves.
Why do we need to act like this? We didn't tolerate torture of
prisoners in WWII, Korea, or Viet Nam. This moral high ground is what
makes me proud to be an American. We don't stoop to that level.
The ones decrying torture are those who actually served and fought, like
McCain, as opposed to the draft-dodging Cheney or likely AWOL
my-Daddy-got-me-into-the-guard-despite-low-scores-and-100-people-ahead-of
-me Bush.
How will you feel when Al Qaeda releases a video where they are
water-boarding a US soldier, and laughing because it is fair play? "No,
no, infidel, this is not torture- you use it yourself."
> Perhaps you can cite a credible source (and no, Cindy Sheehan doesn't
> count) who can point to the specific laws that have been broken.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650
I refuse to believe that we are an incompetent nation that cannot
managerially or technically protect our civil liberties while at the
same time defeating terrorists.
> Or perhaps you think that the Democrats would sit by idly during a
> contentious election and NOT cite the chapter and verse of the law if
> it had indeed been broken? LOL (literally)
The issues of NSA legality has been raised. It has no traction with
the majority of the population, since understanding it means reading
FISA. Much better and easier to claim that John Kerry hates the troops.
