At least we have moral clarity.

[Lanya]

[....]
The bad news is that Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday, intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep deprivation.

Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101647.html

[Michael Tee]

Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?

[Lanya]

Michael, that's what I would like to know.
I can think of various ways they're thinking about this:
1. American exceptionalism=no one would do that.
2. That's pre-9/11 thinking. We have eeevil enemies.
3. We are using aggressive interrogation, see? Not torture.  So no one better torture our guys.
4. Who cares? It's not my kids.
5. It's a volunteer force.....
etc....

This is unamerican and unacceptable.   I hope it doesn't happen, but I imagine there will come a day when our troops there will be tortured.  How will we react?  Bomb the city to glass?  Or will we just receive their bodies back here and mourn?  I just don't understand what has happened to my country.  I'm writing all the congressmen and senators, calling, writing media outlets. 

[BT]

Since when have editorial comments expressing  a point of view become fact as to the way things actually are?

I guess when it is convenient to think so.

[Michael Tee]

<<Since when have editorial comments expressing  a point of view become fact as to the way things actually are?

<<I guess when it is convenient to think so. >>

That's hilarious.  The editorial comments were directed at certain FACTS which I presume the newspaper or some other organ of the MSM had duly reported.  Editorials usually try to confine their comments to the real world.  I can't think of too many editorials that would comment favourably or unfavourably on Frodo's conduct of the war in Middle Earth or whether Zeus really respected woman goddesses.

I tried to picture BT reading some pre-Civil War abolitionist editorial bemoaning the fact that millions of Americans were kept in chains, and wondering how could the editorial possibly represent the actual state of things.  It HAPPENS, BT.  Sometimes the editorials actually get things right.

[BT]

Glad I was able to provide amusement.

Fact remains the editorial was based on supposition of future events, and unless the WaPo editorial board is clairvoyant, that hardly counts as more than conjecture.

[Michael Tee]

<<Fact remains the editorial was based on supposition of future events, and unless the WaPo editorial board is clairvoyant, that hardly counts as more than conjecture. >>

BT, the editorial was based on the "President's" reservation of powers to do certain things which the paper objected to.  They don't object to the reservation of the powers because they know that they won't be used.  They assume that the "President" reserved the powers because he intends to use them.  It seems common sense that if he has no intention of using the powers, he would not be wasting political capital in retaining them.

If a bill were passed giving arbitrary power to the Chief of the General Staff to arbitrarily suspend any newspaper in the country in any national emergency, would you object to an editorial opposing the law on the grounds tht it was mere conjecture?

It seems to me that there are many editorials based on supposition of future events like Iraq misusing WMD or Iran developing nuclear weapons, and I don't recall you ever using terms like "clairvoyant" or "conjecture" with regard to them.

[BT]

<<Fact remains the editorial was based on supposition of future events, and unless the WaPo editorial board is clairvoyant, that hardly counts as more than conjecture. >>

It seems common sense that if he has no intention of using the powers, he would not be wasting political capital in retaining them.

And that statement presumes that he is protecting executiv powers for his own use and not protecting them for future presidents use.

It seems to me that there are many editorials based on supposition of future events like Iraq misusing WMD or Iran developing nuclear weapons, and I don't recall you ever using terms like "clairvoyant" or "conjecture" with regard to them.

And an editorial is an editorial. I doubt you can point out an instance where i quoted an editorial in some snark laden post declaring opinion as fact.

Even if that opinion conveniently matches my own.

[Plane]

Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?

Yes , but can our opponents improve that much?

I do not think they can.

[Lanya]

Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?

Yes , but can our opponents improve that much?

I do not think they can.

You mean they can't do this to our troops?
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/

I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops.  It will be used if we use it.  That's why the Geneva Conventions came about. 
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk? 

[BT]

I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops.  It will be used if we use it.  That's why the Geneva Conventions came about. 
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk?   

You mean our troops were never tortured in prior conflicts? McCain might beg to differ.

[Plane]

Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?

Yes , but can our opponents improve that much?

I do not think they can.

You mean they can't do this to our troops?
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/

I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops.  It will be used if we use it.  That's why the Geneva Conventions came about. 
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk? 

I do not understand you , do you think that the enemy we have now has even slight respect for the Geneva Convention?
Many of those captured by Al Quieda or by the copycats that admire Al Quieda turn up in pieces, and there never was any respect for their humanity .

There is no hope that kind treatment for capturd terrorists will induce kind treatment for the hostages and prisoners that they capture , they started on the wrong side of this and havent trended to bget better .


If they could possibly treat their prisoners as well as the tipical inmate of Guantanimo I would call that a very great improvement , but who is even asking them to improve a little bit?

[Lanya]

I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops.  It will be used if we use it.  That's why the Geneva Conventions came about. 
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk?   

You mean our troops were never tortured in prior conflicts? McCain might beg to differ.

I was just looking up something....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March

Several of my close friends were the children of Bataan Death March survivors.  Their fathers were tortured, and did not live to very old ages. 
And this is what happened to one of the war criminals in that war:
"War crimes trial
News of this atrocity sparked outrage in the US, as shown by this propaganda poster. The newspaper clipping shown refers to the Bataan Death March.

After the surrender of Japan in 1945, Homma was convicted by an Allied commission of war crimes, including the atrocities of the death march out of Bataan, and the atrocities at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan that followed, and executed on April 3, 1946 outside Manila."

[Plane]

    The guys who have been convicted of the abuse evidenced in the pictures you brought here are going to be in Levanworth a long time , trials can take place of US personell who torture and it has never been otherwise.

     So you would like it to require less evidence or mete out harsher punishments?


      An Al Quieda member that slices up a prisoner is lible to get a commendation , you are trying to make an empty point , our troops will be treated badly when they are captured by Al Queda and this has always been so and there is no point in pretending that Al Quieda has any respect for the Geneva conventions.

[BT]

you are trying to make an empty point ....

more precisely she is arguing an empty talking point, and therein lies the rub.