What do you know? American "torture" worked...

[Velociryx]

See...my problem with this whole line of discussion is that all this stuff...the sudden rush to interpret this or that line of a treaty we signed in good faith decades ago (and which has served us very well in all those years with no need of further refinement)....this mad rush to open secret prisions in other countries because we KNOW that our own laws (both in spirit and in letter) would absolutely prevent the types of abuses those in positions of power in our government are suddenly hot and bothered to perpetrate....ALL of this stems from an overblown fantasy of fear that we're being spoonfed by a powerhungry administration with a particularly nasty vision of the future.

It's a vision I don't want any part of, and IMO, the folks who support even the mildest abuses sugessted by this President, simply haven't thought through the full range of consequences, or how they could (and very likely will) be abused, especially by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney.

Selling us a load of fear is the only trick they have left....the only card they can play.

It took a lot to make me move from a largely apathetic non participant in the system, but they finally did it. The whole NeoCon fantasy has finally proved to be a sufficient motivating force to get me involved in the process, and I have to say that I completely reject the fantasy.

Given the failures of liberalism and the complete hypocracy of the NeoCon agenda, I'm not sure where that leaves us, but I know this...my vote will be cast to get them OUT of power, and I ain't alone.

-=Vel=-

[DRoseDARs]

What is conveniently NOT being said here is that the President gets to decide what does and does not constitute a violation of said treaty.

From a MSNBC.com article:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14950788/

The accord, however, explicitly states that the president has the authority to enforce Geneva Convention standards and enumerates acts that constitute a war crime, including torture, rape, biological experiments, and cruel and inhuman treatment.

He's given the "authority." While the chief executive of our government is always responcible for the enforcement of the laws of our country as stitulated in the USC, does no one find at least a little bit of a conflict-of-interest here? Here we have an administration accused of encouraging and signing-off on torture being told it has the "authority" to enforce standards and policies against torture. Here are the keys to the henhouse, Mr. Fox, so you now have the "authority" to protect the hens. Anyone else see a problem here yet?

[Velociryx]

From the start....and for the record, I agree with you.

Here's hoping he, Cheney, and Rumsfeld (at a minimum) spend a looooooong time in a Federal Prison.

-=Vel=-

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
What is conveniently NOT being said here is that the President gets to decide what does and does not constitute a violation of said treaty.

From a MSNBC.com article:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14950788/

The accord, however, explicitly states that the president has the authority to enforce Geneva Convention standards and enumerates acts that constitute a war crime, including torture, rape, biological experiments, and cruel and inhuman treatment.

He's given the "authority." While the chief executive of our government is always responcible for the enforcement of the laws of our country as stitulated in the USC, does no one find at least a little bit of a conflict-of-interest here? Here we have an administration accused of encouraging and signing-off on torture being told it has the "authority" to enforce standards and policies against torture. Here are the keys to the henhouse, Mr. Fox, so you now have the "authority" to protect the hens. Anyone else see a problem here yet?

How else would it work? Every party who enforces/executes the law is responsible for interpretting the law, from the cop who judges that someone ran a traffic signal all the way up the chain. The check to these situations (as what you are really asking is if there is a check and balance) is then if people can appeal to the final arbitrator of the law namely the courts for final arbitration on any dispute of the laws interpretation.

As for the quote, I believe you are reading incorrectly, he doesn't get to decide what constitutes torture the accord dictates (not the president) what amounts to and does not amount to torture (as agreed to by the senate).

And for the record up until this latest piece of legislation the Senate told the executive, torture was more closely defined by the directions and guidance as described in my post above. (the latest word on torture from the UN convention in 1987)Namely:

II. The Senate's advice and consent is subject to the following understandings, which shall apply to the obligations of the United States under this Convention:

(1) (a) That with reference to article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.

(b) That the United States understands that the definition of torture in article 1 is intended to apply only to acts directed against persons in the offender's custody or physical control.

Now again, I don't know if any of these prohibitions described by the senate would mean the techniques sought by the president would be in violation. Personally I think there are some very dubious ones in there. (specifically waterboarding, the rest are much less so to my mind)

But if you want to tie the hands of the executive then the senate needs to be even more specific in its guidelines with respect to its interpretations of the accords and subsequent UN conventions. I thought that was what this was about. Again that seems a good thing.

[Drake Tungsten]

Waterboarding is out, Ogie. The rest seem to be ok. And the Washington Post has a good piece on some of the details.

The compromise language gives the president a dominant -- but not exclusive -- role in deciding which interrogation methods are permitted by that provision of the treaty. It also prohibits detainees from using the Geneva Conventions to challenge their imprisonment or seek civil damages for mistreatment, as the administration sought...

The biggest hurdle, Senate sources said, was convincing administration officials that lawmakers would never accept language that allowed Bush to appear to be reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. Once that was settled, they said, the White House poured most of its energy into defining "cruel or inhuman treatment" that would constitute a crime under the War Crimes Act. The administration wanted the term to describe techniques resulting in "severe" physical or mental pain, but the senators insisted on the word "serious."

Negotiations then turned to the amount of time that a detainee's suffering must last before the treatment amounts to a war crime. Administration officials preferred designating "prolonged" mental or physical symptoms, while the senators wanted something milder. They settled on "serious and non-transitory mental harm, which need not be prolonged."

These definitions appear in a section of the legislation that specifically lists "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions that might bring criminal penalties.

For lesser offenses barred by the Geneva Conventions -- those lying between cruelty and minor abuse, putting them at the heart of the intraparty dispute -- the draft legislation would give the president explicit authority to interpret "the meaning and application" of the relevant provisions in Common Article 3. It also requires that such interpretations be considered as "authoritative" as other U.S. regulations.

But the language also requires that such interpretations be published, rather than described in secret to a restricted number of lawmakers. That provision was demanded by the dissident lawmakers, who resented the administration's past efforts to curtail the number of members who were told of its policies. The provision also affirms that Congress and the judiciary can play their customary roles in reviewing the interpretations, a statement that Senate sources say the White House vigorously resisted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092100298.html