64 Senators Support Torture

[Ted Striker]

[Lawrence of Arabia]

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
Ramo, bully for you if you also criticized Clinton, as a lot of the hysteria from the left seems to be pure politics.

Which would make a change from right wing hysteria, which is just usually hysteria, flatulence, or hot air.

Touch of the alimentary vapours there, Ned?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ramo
Ned even if you were interpreting that decision correctly, which you're not, that decision has long since been superseded (again, see Youngstown v. Sawyer) by decisions that clearly state that the President is not above the law, and cannot defy Congress' even in prosecuting a war. Period.

And passing a law that outlaws torture is obviously not the same thing as appointing a new CinC (which is clearly a Constitutional power of the President).

Ramo, Youngstown did place some limits on the president's authority. He is not a dictator in the sense of a Roman dictator. But in matters of the prosecution of the war as Commander in Chief, he is it. As I said, if Congress could regulate the president's perogatives here, they could order him to appoing a CinC according to their liking. This they cannot do.

[Ned]

Ted, about the forest and the trees, the problem here is that you guys continue to insist that what we are doing is torture, when case authority from Europe and elsewhere says what we are doing is not torture. Get over it, please. Coercion is not torture even though torture is coercion.

[Ramo]

Ramo, Youngstown did place some limits on the president's authority. He is not a dictator in the sense of a Roman dictator. But in matters of the prosecution of the war as Commander in Chief, he is it. As I said, if Congress could regulate the president's perogatives here, they could order him to appoing a CinC according to their liking. This they cannot do.

Youngtown was in a war, Ned. Remember a little thing called the Korean War (which was certainly more of a war than our "war against terror")? This was the situation in which SCOTUS created explicit limitations on the CinC's war powers.

Without any limitations on the President's war powers, he is indeed a dictator in the Roman sense. For, what is then stopping him from rounding up the political opposition under the guise of the war in terror, and then denying them due process? Gonzales supports dictatorship and torture, and so do you for supporting him.

As I said, the CinC is the explicit power of the President, and so cannot be replaced by legislation.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ramo


As I said, the CinC is the explicit power of the President, and so cannot be replaced by legislation.

Now we are making progress.

Since we can agree that Congress cannot tell the president to appoint a different CinC, can it tell him how to conduct the war as if he were reporting to them, as if Congress was CinC?

[Ramo]

Congress determines the rules under which our armed forces operate. Such as, torture is illegal. The CinC executes those rules. Congress cannot appoint a new executor of those rules, but it can determine what the rules are. That's its explicit constitutional duty:

See my earlier post on the Constitution.

Congress shall have the power [...] to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

and

The President [...] shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed

SCOTUS agrees with me too, in Youngstown.

Face it, Gonzales is either so complety ignorant about our laws that someone without any formal legal education like myself can easily refute his fantasies, or he is a dictatorial torturer. So again, is he a ****wit or evil?

[Odin]

Originally posted by Ramo
So again, is he a ****wit or evil?

Both.

[Ned]

But I would contend that the CinC conducts the war, not Congress. The war is fought with troops, weapons and intelligence. Congress provides the means. The CinC gives the orders. The troops obey the CinC, not Congress.

If the CinC says you will use coercion to extract info from captured combatants, the Congress cannot arrest the CinC under some criminal statute. Nor can Congress arrest the soldiers. The president commands are followed unless Congress impeaches the president.

The Courts cannot arrest the president. The courts can order the arrest of the soldiers, but are the soldiers going to cooperate with the marshalls? The Supremes ran right into this problem when the Chief Justice ordered Lincoln to release a Southern spy near the start of the war. Lincoln ignored the Justice, the author of the Dred Scott decision, and almost arrested him as a traitor. Why he didn't is a mystery of history.

Any law attempting to interfere with the CinC's orders in the area of conduct of a war is clearly and unambiguously unconstitutional. Nothing could be plainer.

[Ramo]

Yes, the troops obey the CinC, but the CinC obeys Congress.

One more time:

Congress shall have the power [...] to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

And clearly Congress can interfere with the CinC's orders in a war, again, given Youngstown.

Your ideas have no basis in reality. None at all.

[Berzerker]

The only problem I have with torture is the immorality of torturing the innocent. But if you know a guy is guilty and he wont talk and there are lives on the line, tighten them thumb screws until he screams.

YAAAOOOOUUU!!!

Unfortunately we aren't all that selective when rounding up "enemy combatants" in a culture where old grudges can be settled by hearsay evidence or less.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How is torture a part of carrying out a war? Especially when it's been explicitly forbidden. The argument that the President can do whatever he wants during wartime is a recipe for dicatatorship and has been said as much by the SCOTUS.

Your ideas have no basis in reality. None at all.

What did you expect? There is a reason we refer to it as the "Nedaverse"

[Berzerker]

62 for Phil at Spyglass, somebody better put the screws on his

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Ned
Ted, about the forest and the trees, the problem here is that you guys continue to insist that what we are doing is torture, when case authority from Europe and elsewhere says what we are doing is not torture. Get over it, please. Coercion is not torture even though torture is coercion.

No, and there is the flaw of your entire argument, and you just demonstrated exactly what I was talking about.

You are trying to convolute the issue down with so much legal gobblety gook and paperwork trying to find some little loophole to feel good morally about mistreating prisioners.

The bottom line:

It's torture, and it's wrong, plain and simple.