Like I said in the late update, Marty Lederman seems to think the White House walked away with everything on this one. From my very non-legal understanding of things, from what I can tell, we agreed not to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, only to violate them.

according to the NYT habeas corpus is being done away with, all CIA will be forgiven as it will be done retroactive, Waterboarding will no longer be allowed, but the secret prisons have not been discussed yet. They are against International Law no matter what we say, as well as what torture we have already done. Spector said on the floor of the Senate yesterday that any attempt to do away with Habeas would have to be Unconstitutional, but Spector is about as reliable as the town drunk left to guard the still. I did a diary earlier at dkos, but the above info is newer. here is the link to my diary.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/21/18559/3374

This is hardly an articulate comment. Let me simply say:

I am sickened and repulsed by what America has come to.

We have a Congress, including the Senate, that acts as a rubber stamp for Bush, that has never seen a Bush proposal that they can't accept, that will, in the end, quietly replace everything they publicly insist be removed from a Bush proposal.  So, I just can't get my mind to go thru the motions of analyzing this particular fluff event.  One thing we can be sure of:  the Bush administration will continue to do whatever they wish, and if that includes torture, transporting US citizens abroad for others to torture, and totally ignoring habeus corpus, then those things will continue to happen.  With our brief attention spans few of us will even remember that we had an agreement not to do those things. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

the White House walked away with everything on this one.

That seems to be right, as far as I can tell. I don't understand everything yet, but this much seems to be clear:

1. The ostensible compromise on the McCain-Graham-Warner side is that they withdrew their objections to the use of secret evidence in detainee trials.

2. Rather than redefine our interpretation of the Geneva Conventions supposedly too vague definitions of cruel, inhumane and degrading, a specific list of prohibited tactics will be laid out in the War Crimes Act (leaving it to the torturer to be more creative). These will constitute 'grave breaches' punishable under the WCA; lesser offenses will be handled within the Executive Branch (but is any offense not in the list lesser? What if it's, um, greater?)

3. No detainees will have habeas corpus rights to challenge their detentions in federal court. Those who have been found to be unlawful combatants will be allowed to appeal this determination in federal courts, but the courts will only have the ability to rule on whether the Combatant Status Review Panel in the case properly followed its own procedures.

This last bit strikes me as pretty radical: all they have to do is effectively stop the review process and everybody left inside will have no recourse to challenge their imprisonment. That pretty well defines a legal black hole.

To be fair the Dems on the committee did offer an amendment to restore habeus corpus rights; it was voted down on party lines.

Digby had this one nailed from the get-go(link):

However, I must say that I'm so jaded about those so-called independent Republicans, particularly Huckelberry and McCain, that I have a strong feeling that this is some sort of Kabuki. Huck, especially, has never once failed to validate my belief that he is a phony little prick, pretending to be a moderating influence when he's really just an egomaniac. (Besides, if there's one member of congress who is subject to Rovemail, it's him. I just don't see him bucking the president on something that's important to him.)

I admit to similar feelings about Lindsay Graham. To paraphrase Shakespeare, it's like a tale told by a closet @$$kisser, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing in the end.

I agree with Devon's analysis here (to the limited extent that I am familiar with the compromise). It looks like Graham-McCain-Warner put more emphasis on maintaining the Geneva Conventions standards, grave offenses of which are now codified into federal criminal law under the War Crimes Act, but compromised on the nature of the tribunals (according to AP, hearsay evidence will be allowed, evidence coerced via torture before the late 2005 rule change banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" is admissible, and detainees cannot bring federal habeas corpus suits - but they do get access to evidence in trials).

Back to the Geneva Conventions, under the bill, the "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions (which will now be listed under the War Crimes Act) are "acts such as torture, rape, biological experiments and cruel and inhuman treatment." But what to make of the "the President has the authority to interpret 'the meaning and application' of the Geneva Conventions" part?

I think the primary purposes of this clause are: 1) to ensure that the bill does not subject US troops/agents to International Criminal Court proceedings, and 2) to appease conservatives who are strongly opposed to the US losing any sovereignty to international law or int'l institutions. Keep in mind that Bush has always seized on this sentiment, using language like his 2004 debate line that the US shouldn't have to take "an international test" before making military decisions.

Overall, I think this compromise has some great elements, including the codification of torture and other grave offenses of the GC into the War Crimes Act. The habeas corpus issue is troubling, and I wonder if that will really meet court standards. And by the way, I do not believe that Lindsey Graham et. al. ever were pushing for federal habeas corpus rights for detainees (no cite here - please correct me if wrong - but I remember him saying he did not think they deserved them), so I don't think that was much of a compromise for them.

Let's just hope the House throws a monkey wrench into this legislation. If not, perhaps some activist judges will. It ain't over yet.

I have no sources so I'm just guessing here -- but the usual m.o. of Bush in a negotiation is to a) stake out a ridiculously radical position, so that the merely extremely radical position will appear moderate b) agree to the extremely radical position as a compromise, but declare victory and leak that eh got everything he wanted, then c) puruse the ridiculously radicaly policy anyway.

I would suspect therefore that the GOP Senators may have been told they'd get the WH to support their goals (really the military brass's goals) on Geneva, that the WH is leaking it got everything except a superficial agreement on Geneva, and unless the Dems win the Senate, we'll have a policy that disregards Geneva anyway.

If the Dems win the Senate, the Republicans will demonstrate an atavistic affinity for the filibuster. Frist's recent threat v/v this issue was a merely a preview.

What deal?

~OGD~

Chris Mackey (a pseudonym) a senior Army interrogator at Kandahar and later, Bagram, details the effectiveness and limitations of legal interrogation in his book, THE INTERROGATORS: INSIDE THE SECRET WAR AGAINST AL QAEDA. Mackey and his colleagues were horrified at the revelations of Abu Ghraib.

Mackey: "The abuses at Abu Ghraib are unforgiveable not just because they were cruel but because they set us back. The more a prisoner hates America, the harder he will be to break. The more a population hates America, the less likely its citizens will be to lead us to a suspect." (p. xxiii)

Mackey: "One of our biggest successes in Afghanistan came when a valuable prisoner decided to cooperate not because he had been abused (he had not been), but precisely because he realized he would not be tortured. He had heard so many horror stories that when he was treated decently, his prior worldview snapped, and suddenly we had an ally." (p. xxiii) [This case is extensively addressed in a chapter of its own.]

Yet another voice from the frontlines that BushCo refuses to hear.

Just as a point of information, the Magna Carta didn't introduce the concept into English law; it merely specified it as one of a series of complaints against King John.

In point of fact, the Magna Carta is really over-rated when cited as the source of this and many other concepts; it had been ignored by the king within months of being forced to sign it.

Also, the Magna Carta in no way did away with judicial torture, much of which was carried out in other venues than royal courts.

He tortured the knaves so judiciously that soon he was the ruler of the Queen's judiciary.

Do you understand the deal

Simple enough:

- Alternative interrogation up to death is allowed along as it is denied.

- Trials will dispense with the usual farce of considering the possibility of innocence.

What's the problem?

Best, Terry

This entire "fight" over the Geneva Convention is a setup for both sides of the issue, all done for the participants to look good to the voters come November. Bush gets to look like the tough big boy he loves so much and this group of three Senators appear as if they are truly looking out after our rights and National image. Both sides win this "bogus battle of the bullies" and nothing really changes. This whole thing is looking as if the President will still get to do what he wants despite the fracas created about our military men and women's safety.

I am very curious to see what this "deal" specifically says and even more curious to see if the Democrats have the collective balls to try to take corrective measures once said details are revealed.

Well I for one would be DELIGHTED if we applied the same standards to "enemy combatants" as we would POWs -- but that's precisely the issue. They are NOT treated as POWs. Bushies spun out of whole cloth some new "classification" of prisoners then made up the means of imprisoning them and trying them under rules laid out by that legal genius, Rumsfeld, leaving out most due process protections recognized under U.S. and customary international law.
Forget U.S. Code of Military Justice and forget the Geneva Conventions (which determine a) how to treat POWs AND if a combatant is NOT a POW, how to determine what they are (see Article V).

This whole think sickens me too.

POWs?

"Ilegal Combatants", isn't that the term * and the neocons came up with to keep from allowing these "terrorist" suspects to have any rights whatsoever and to disallow them the rights POWs have under the Geneva Conventions?

Hard to see how this deal will in any way change business as usual in Bushco's gulags. I'd like to know what Powell and the other military members who objected to the original bill will have to say.

Question for all Americans: Are you a member of the Pro-Torture Party? Congratulations on your nice campaign.

Bush and Company NEED terrorists to attack us before the election. Clearly he's signaling to the world that it's OK to torture any captured American soldier or citizen. (Incidently, America's own illegal and immoral treatment of prisoners is acceptable, too.)

Bush, Cheney and Rove need fresh video of Amercans being tortured and killed, just prior to the election, so they can say, "See it's a dangerous world full of evil terrorists, and only the Pro-Torture Party can fight these Islamofascists in the only manner they understand. We're tough on terrorism -- Democrats are weak."

This all fits together, but it's an absolute shame that it does.

Polly Tics, shall I assume, then, you believe McCain should still be labelled a maverick?

Do you disagree, as Josh Marshall has posed, that this "compromise" amounts to McCain and company essentially allowing torture to continue? 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

 ...it creates an opportunity to challenge the McCain mythos by going out hard and saying he's caved on his principles, and they're shocked that such a maverick turns out to be in it for nothing more than an election-grubbing shill.

McCain has created dozens of similar opportunities that Democrats could have used in the past 6 years!  Have they done so?  Only on blogs, griping away, but not being heard by any but the choir itself.

This morning the daily newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia has as its banner headline--1 inch bold lettering:

Weed ad mislabels man as felon

It seems that ONE of the TWO MZM defense contracters (remember Randy Cunningham?) who got great deals from Weed's opponent (Virgil Goode) got a plea agreement.  One plead guilty to felony charges and the other plead guilty to a misdemeanor.  Weed's ad refers to them both as felons.

Thus the headline.  I never saw a banner headline when the felony was plead, nor when the misdemeanor was plead.  I never saw a headline about Goode's acceptance of "straw" campaign donations.

We have a long way to go.

Jan Knaus

On the habeas-stripping provisions, this occurs to me:

This move is obviously important to Bush, because it undoes the challenge to the unitary executive theory caused by the Supreme Court ruling in Rasul v. Bush in 2004.  But the provision probably won't survive judicial review.  It will set back the progress of detainees who might have some hope of getting sprung - figure that if this goes through, it'll take two to three years before the challenge reaches the SCOTUS.  

Meanwhile, on the left, many have wondered why the Administration would push so hard to concentrate so much power in the hands of the executive branch, when they know full well that this power will someday be in the hands of a President not to their liking.  

Here's a theory: what they're after is a temporary unitary executive doctrine.  Which is to say, they're grabbing as much power as recklessly as they can while they can, knowing that they can make the most of it before it is constricted, around the time the next president gets to town. 

I would rate this comment a 5. Not only am I too sickened and repulsed but I am all but overcome with grief, especially when I remember the days of promise so many years ago.

This "compromise" shows two things. The real danger of having one party in control of all branches of government. One can only image the political pressure on the Republican Senators to playball with the Republican President.

It also demonstrates the need of the Democrats to show some spine and explain the issue to the American people. Obviously Republicans still believe they have the Democrats boxed in. Either they will rollover or be seen as soft on terrorism. Unless Democrats are willing to debate this issue they will lose on this issue, and so will the Country, everytime.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

A Lesson In Republican Doublespeak:

On Tuesday, the Grantville Republican told a Douglas County Chamber of Commerce luncheon that he "voted for torture" and that "we need to get information out of these people the best way we can," the Douglas County Sentinel reported.

He said Wednesday that he should have "put that another way."

"Maybe I shouldn't have said I voted for torture," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I should have said I voted against the anti-torture bill."

I'm going to get accused to flying the "Rove planned the whole thing" flag, but...

One of the issues in the midterm is making the election a referrendum on the president. That will be especially easy to do if Republican congressmen are seen as the president's lapdogs and rubber-stampers.

Here we have a case where a bunch of senators very publically stand up to the president (including a couple who we wouldn't expect this sort of thing from, like Graham), with the Democrats conveniently silent because they interpret the whole thing as a republican meltdown.

The president gets to go on torturing people, and can point to "the agreement" as tacit justification. Republican candidates got a news cycle or two full of "republicans stand up to the president(?)" headlines. Sounds like a good deal.

Granted, it would take a talented puppeteer to pull the whole thing off, and the outcome isn't entirely republican-friendly with the NYT/WaPo reponse... but they certainly didn't have any booming condemnations on CNN this morning. *Shrug*

Thoughts?

Clearly, that is satire. No?

There is something so stupid, so shortsighted, so wrongheaded about this "deal" that you have to wonder why our fellow Americans are willing to endanger our soldiers, our ideals, our constitution, our future and for what? So they can torture people?

Why are these people who are forever pounding the drum of patriotism and love of country so contemptous of the constitution, so cynical and disdainful towards the American people? The very reason men like Madison and Jefferson were so intent upon enumerating our rights was because they knew governments cannot be trusted to respect human bounderies, and that they will continue to encroach and encroach until those rights are gone. How long will it be before they start torturing us because they don't like our beliefs or our politics?

This is the way it starts...

I've got to hand it to the Democrats. The strategy of allowing the Republicans to "thrash out" their differences on the treatment and prosecution of detainees has played out exactly as planned...for the Republicans. Don't let anyone convince you that you can go to the well too often...that is if you are a Republican and your opponent is a fully inept Democratic Party.

Amidst a trend of favorable polling data and a firestorm of speeches by the President to refocus the voting public on their fear of terrorism, the Democrats stood in the background for the past two weeks and watched what the GOP will call the difficult work of creating legislation that preserves our commitment to civil liberties while at the same time providing our determined President with the essential tools needed to pursue those who seek to kill us all.

OK, perhaps I'm being too harsh. There is a possibility that in the past two weeks the Democrats were able to devise their sixth iteration of a campaign slogan and strategy to roll out with less than 50 days to the election. Perhaps they could call it "Fifty States, Fifty Days...But Never Fifty Percent"! It's catchy, it's succinct, and it may well be accurate come November 8th. Arrgghh!

Read more here:

www.thoughttheater.com

This from the BBC ...

Senator McCain said: "There is no doubt that the integrity and the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved."

However, the American Civil Liberties Union saw the agreement quite differently. Caroline Fredrickson, Director of its Washington Legislative Office, commented: "This is a compromise of America's commitment to the rule of law. The proposal would make the core protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions irrelevant and unenforceable.

"In a telling move, during a call with reporters today, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley would not even answer a question about whether waterboarding would be permitted under the agreement."

All one can say is that if they set out intentionally to convince the world that US citizens deserve whatever they get, they could hardly do a better job. I tend to side with the intentional & craven interpretation of their behavior, but, it hardly matters. The effect is still devastating. What is sad is that it is so unlikely the karma will come home to roost on those who have most earned and deserve it.

I think those of us who stand for the UDHR and Geneva need to fly our UN flags. Mine goes out today.

So you failed to pick up my sarcasm. I am saying the same exact thing you are.

The problem I have, aside from the whole, you know, "we're still torturing people" thing, is that DEMS (and so called "Ind.'s," which, as Karl Rove knows, there's really no such thing) will probably come out in droves and support McCain in 08, and there's a good chance he's the next Prez.   

We agree he's not a maverick -- how to convince the voters? That's a particular problem for the Dems in 08. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I attended a talk by Barack Obama this morning in Bolingbrook IL. I stopped him on his way to his car afterwards and asked if he would filibuster these bills. His response was that they didn't have the votes for a filibuster, and they were going to have to try to add amendments to make it more palatable. His parting words were "that's why they throw all things out just before the election." Unfortunately I only had about 60 seconds for this exchange.

As I was driving home, I became more and more discouraged at the idea that there weren't 41 Democrats with enough principles to stand up to this obscene set of bills. I know they are concerned with negative ads, but I think they are misjudging the landscape on this one. I think this is an issue that needs to be fought on strong principles and that the American people would see through the repubs attempt to smear the Dems on this one. Hell, they're going to get smeared anyhow, why not stand up for something? It reminded me of Clinton's showdown with Gingrich over the budget--Clinton forced the showdown, stood on principle, and turned his presidency around. I think this is an issue we should push right back in their faces.

The trick will be opposing this while not allowing the conservative narrative -- Dems weak on terror -- win out.

We need to shift the public's focus to the question of what kind of country we want to be and on this instance as another example of Republicans failing to live up to their own standards.

Whether the issue is spending or cronyism or the constitution or the principles this country has always stood for in the world, Republicans have proven that they cannot be trusted to uphold the standards they profess to believe in. They will always instead choose the path that is more expedient.

We should then reiterate again why torture is wrong, ineffective in its immediate purpose and detrimental to the overall goals of the war on terror.

You cannot defeat terror by terrorizing.

You cannot defend international law by violating it.

etc.

Someone religious such as Barack Obama should add this point: What profit a nation to live if it should lose its soul? (I may be getting the quote partially wrong)

The main thing is to shift the discussion to what this WOT is now really about: what kind of country we are going to be.

Are there any Democratic leaders who will take up this challenge?

I’m afraid I share your fear about steams of INDependents coming out for McCain in 2008 and that is JUST what he’s going for with this torture pitch. Our only hope is that the Dem’s begin to START fighting the Republicans and STOP being afraid to fight the “real” terror threat. Unless and until the party defines itself out of whole cloth, we will not be able to stop the Republicans who actually DO delineate their ideas, albeit a horrific representation it may be.

So we need to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard and hands to phones and call our representatives to tell THEM that it’s time to stand up and fight!

Heck, if the Democrats don’t get their act together and get a real candidate this time around (and I do NOT mean Hillary) we will be stuck with one more Republican President…and worse yet, a Republican Congress.

So sorry, I wasn’t sure if you were trolling for bites or being sarcastic with your first comment.

Why oh why don't Dems use what Bush wants to allow against him!!!

It's simply the art of guerilla war, and that was the Dems are in, a political guerilla war.

Here's my advice.

Get a list of all those the security services have mistakenly arrested and 'questioned' on suspected terrorism.

In this list I would have old people (like the guy arrested in South Africa on the whim of the FBI); a granny who, if who gave money innocently to a charity that was linked to 'terrorism', could be arrested and questioned regarding her 'terrorist' links; etc etc.

Then get actors to play these people, and film those techniques Bush wants to be able to use on these actors.

I'm quite sure that the shock value will move a few people into voting against Bush

Regs, Shaggy

Sorry about the spelling mistakes in my earlier post.

Josh, why don't TMP do it; virally?

Make up an advert from clips you can find on the internet and set it up on YouTube, etc?

Come on, pull you finger out (not out of it's socket, that would be torture ;-) )

Regs, Shaggy

I just hope I don't have to see anymore headlines labelling McCain and Warner as "rebels." How were they rebels? Because they weren't in total lockstop with the White House. It's really sad, and a bit scary, when the smallest amount of political opposition deserves the rebel label.

And the whole McCain is a maverick shtick should stop too. McCain is no maverick and he never was. Paul Wellstone was a maverick. Patrick Moynihan was a maverick. McCain is a right-winger who happens to have a little common sense and some self-respect (although there are photos of him being kissed by Bush).

I hesitate to ask but has there been any polling about the use of torture?

One of the dilemmas in this whole discussion is the perception of the enemy and what that means. Bush, many letter writers to the NY Daily News are willing to let Bin Laden and other users of barbarism as the standard of our behavior. They do it so we should do it too. This is an example of letting the terrorists win. Talk about a debasement of our values. I presumed that peope like Bush did not believe in moral relativism.

I presume most people who participate at the Cafe would oppose torture on any condition. For this we should all be greatful. However, as a political matter the large gap is the way people on the left perceive the Islamic extermists and the danger they pose and the way most Americans do. This puts Democrats in an enormous trap.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

You're certainly not alone in being wrong about purported Dem strategy, LaFollette! Let's just say we need to take away from this two lessons -- lessons we should have taken away years ago, but...

1. The Democrats are now distinguished by being, at best, the least horrible political alternative, and,

2. No one in their right mind should have or ever should again trust John McCain or think, "He's basically a good guy." It's perfectly possible for someone to with a noble past to be a complete self-serving s.o.b. Which I believe McCain to be. The sometime enemy of our enemy is not our friend.

Note to self and others: vote for the future, not for the past.

A "dozen times". Again and again, I'm not disappointed by the WH - they've made their intentions absolutely clear from the get-go. The Onion editorial page nailed it in January, 2001.

The reason that most of my remaining hair ended up on my keyboard and in the sink this morning is McCain's actions. I really thought he took torture seriously.

Going forward - I truly hope some intrepid reporter has the gumption to pin him down with a carefully crafted question: "Thanks to your compromise, can you now categorically state that the United States, or anyone acting on its behalf, at home or abroad, will not torture, abuse, or de-humanize any detainees, POW's, or captees in any way, shape, or form?"

I ain't no lawyer with that thar sophisticated wordplay stuff, but there's got to be a way to make McCain admit that we are now, officially, in the torture business, and that he helped get us there.

Perhaps the few remaining members of Congress who actually oppose torture could convene on the steps of congress. There might be enough of them to play hacky-sack with the one or two reporters that show up.

Now, on to more pressing matters. Is there anything left in the house that I haven't beaten my head against today?

Which is precisely why we have a Constitution. It's supposed to help us through these troubled times.

The Democrats fall so easily into this trap because they don't have the fear factor that the right has. It's much more compelling to say, "We need to torture to stop another 9/11 from happening." That's damn compelling, even I stop and think, well maybe they are right. But then I remember that torturing people is barbaric.

The Democrats' argument is more like, "Well we shouldn't torture because it's wrong. We are selling ourselves down the river and putting our moral basis for fighting terrorism in jeopardy. And we should respect the laws and treaties we have signed into law."

There's no fear. There's no pop. Unfortunately for those of us on the left we bogged down with critical thought and see the world in shades of gray.

I used to think America was a country with principles, but I don't know if that was ever true. Look at what we did to the Native Americans, blacks, and women. Stopping Hitler was a big move that certainly gained us some moral high ground, but that was 60 years ago.

Since WWII we did have a nice victory with our civil rights movement in the 1960s, but I haven't seen much of anything in the last 20 or 30 years that would lead me to believe we are a principled nation.

What did we do for Rwanda or currently in Darfur? What have we done to solve our own problems, such as poverty - which continues to engulf more Americans every year.

Sadly I think America lost its moral compass a long time ago, if it ever had one.

Let's look at the polygraph from a different perspective. Now, as far as "lie detection", there's little question in my mind that it's pseudoscience. There is so little agreement on its use that NSA and CIA use it quite differently in their routine security clearances: NSA near the beginning of the investigation with fairly standard questions, while CIA uses it in the final phase in the hope of clarifying ambiguities.

The DoD polygraph examiners' guide has become public, and there's very much an aspect of it being treated not as a direct source of information, but as another aspect of applying pressure in interrogations. The examiner may lie about results if something remains suspect, and try to get admissions that really aren't dependent on anything done by the polygraph.

I do, however, confess to some question about the use of psychological pressure in interrogations, which certainly can be part of law enforcement interrogations, even with a lawyer present. Connecting with a subject, trying to get them to feel guilty about something they've actually done, and feeling better by confession is not that unreasonable for me. I'm not convinced that humiliation is always wrong, as in challenging someone's courage -- an extreme act in some cultures -- and having them describe what they consider a courageous response, which just happens to be a description of the focus of the interrogation.
There are other psychological plays where I am concerned we may be going too far in the wrong direction. Among the best descriptions I've heard of a police interrogator's job was from one of the DC suburban departments, which had a bad reputation for brutality and had gone to videotaping and reviewing all interrogations. A detective described his role as that of a salesman: selling jail as a better alternative to the present situation.

Sedgwick Tourison's book, Conversations with Victor Charlie: an Interrogator's Story is probably the best text I have seen, and that inclues some military ones not authorized for public release. Tourison also gives an excellent idea how to correlate information from different prisoners, and give the impression of knowing more than he actually does. Is the latter unacceptable pressure? I don't think so.

Tourison also believes in, whenever possible, building rapport with a prisoner. Sometimes, giving them an opportunity to tell their story is very important. I can think of some other interrogators, as well as officers that simply had time with a prisoner, to discuss philosophy, culture, and motivation, and wind up getting things of true strategic value.

Coming back to the original point, the polygraph is almost always used as an intimidating psychological tool. I would happily see it go, but I am concerned that some legitimate psychological techniques may go. No, I don't think those idiots at Abu Ghraib did anything in the way of constructive psychological pressure. Pressure of the right sort may very well involve a certain amount of mutual empathy.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Maybe we never held that high moral ground, which one needs to hold to abdicate it. 

Sure there has been examples of us doing some very bad things as a country.  But we fought a war amongst ourselves to end slavery.  We were at the forefront on the Universal Suffrage movement.  We fought hot and cold wars to stop the likes of Hitler and Stalin and their ideologies.  As grave as those threats were we NEVER "officially" used their tactics to stop them or waged wars of aggression like them or "officially" tortured like them...

I have the pdf file of the NYTimes/CBS poll released yesterday on my desktop today. It's a long one -- 33 pages of questions. One of the questions and responses was as follows:

Do you think it is sometimes justified to use torture to get information from a suspected terrorist, or is torture never justified?

Sometimes 35 Never 56 Depends 5 DK/NA 4

The survey was done between 9/15 and 9/19.

That would say to me that if opponents were to emphasize the cruel truths of the compromise, Republicans would be the losers.

Agree. Hope you will post links?

Joe Conason is saying just now 1) that McCain got the Dems in a box on this, they trusted him, and he has betrayed them, and 2) as more comes out about the content of the bill, McCain will, himself, suffer real damage.

That's true. We did end up fighting a bloody war that ended slaverly. Many Americans fought for the rights of blacks and women. America has many great triumphs over tyranny, at home and abroad.

However, this fascination with torturing people seems new to me. Why are we so fixated on the idea of torturing people? Why is it so important? Would torture have prevented 9/11? Some good police work might have prevented it. Perhaps a president interested in terrorism might have prevented it. But would torture have done anything to prevent 9/11?

Is this torture fetish just a Bush thing? Or is this something that symbolizes America's future?

I don't know what the fascination with torture is.  I agree with the points you make about police work and paying attention to terrorists...

But for me it just isn't about the torture per se...it is about what the torture represents.  It goes hand in hand with the administration's disregard for Habeus Corpus, domestic surveillance, denegration of the international rule of law, lack of governmental accountability in the GWOT and in Iraq, trying to forcably spread democracy through wars of aggression, etc.  It is another radical depature from everything we have tried to stand for as a country. 

I don't know if this represents America's future or is just a temporary psychotic detour we have taken.  I am worried because of the effort to permanantly codify so many of these things as governmental SOP...

Now, as far as "lie detection", there's little question in my mind that it's pseudoscience.

Not a scientist are you?

A scientist, if he is acting as one, is always willing to question anything.

What polygraphs do is measure pretty much those things that we have always used to judge whether someone is telling the truth or not but do it far more precisely. No one would want their daughter to marry a polygrapher but they are quite good at telling whether someone is telling the truth or not. Beat the hell out of cross-examination and the judgment of juries which is little better than witchcraft.

If there was no threat from polygraphs, there would be no reason for civil libertarians to be upset by them and wish to control their use.

But as long as your mind is made up, I suppose it is pointless to try discussion.

Best, Terry

They are Not POWs, they are persons, the government holds as criminal actors, without first securing just convictions against them.

Bush, using illegitimate power, stripped these individuals of their Geneva protections, and in doing so, defined them as criminal combatants. At that point, the due process provisions of the US Constitution lawfully controlls. These persons, who are no longer POWs because of the president's tyrannical act, remain in possession of their natural rights. A lawful state will not abridge these rights without first securing a righteous conviction against them.

This exists beyond the reach of the government, all three branches. It is within the realm of the rights of the people, and they are not negotiable. Cite all the precedent that you want, point out any case of previous government tyranny you are able to find, it changes nothing.

I will yield none of my natural rights to the government. I am not alone, and more will join each day. We will prevail, because to fail in this, is to lose America.

Habeas Corpus can only be done away with if the people acquiesce. This fight is not over, by a very long distance.There will be protestations originating from the right-side. It is a very good time to ignore ideological diffferences. This is beyond the pale.

It is a time of resistance. The government has now stepped well beyond their constitutionally defined barricades.

The lunatic is on the grass.
The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.

The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more.

And if the dam breaks open
many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Brain Damage"
Pink Floyd
Dark Side of the Moon

No problem. It's easy to mistake sarcasm, esp. when you're new and don't know us yet.

And since you have been here for a whole 9 hours so far, let me be the first to welcome you to the Cafe!

(Unless someone else welcomed you already, then, let me be the second.) :-) 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Hoppy, i think you've been around long enough to understand The government has now stepped over the line, into our turf. This cannot be allowed to remain here.

That is so very nice of you to welcome me like that…you actually made me blush. Yes, new around here I be and still do not have the lay of the land as yet, so please do pardon any missteps taken.

I am most impressed by the tenor and depth of conversation around this blog, it truly is a step above most, so I do think you will be “seeing” more of me around here. Thanks for the gracious welcome!

It is NOT acceptable to many JAGs, but remember they have been waging this battle for several years already, and have become greatly fatigued.

Turn up the volume, and let them know we are behind them and supporting them.

They compromised on rights which the people possess, and is not lawfully within their sphere of control.

Compare the tyrannies of two Georges:

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

How many ducks have to be lined up before Americans begin to comprehend?

Darn, a new generation may start to read the Declaration of Independence, again...and learn something from it! Now, if we can just get people to start reading the actual Constitution...

Thank you for the links, they were all very helpful, but especially the one entitled “DISCUSSION: Café Management” TPMCafe CHARTER? By Viviane. I can see now that this one is going to be bookmarked!

I know I will no doubt catch heck for this one, but I only wish other blogs were as civil and thoughtful as you folks are here.

OK, I think I have some reading to do…see you all later!

Thinking back to the beginning of this awful debate, five years ago, I think that you have cut to the core issue here.  The reason habeas is important in this case is the fact that the Bush Administration determined that all Gitmo detainees fail to qualify for POW status, either because they are Al Qaeda, and hence not a soldier, or because they are soldiers of a spurious government, the Taliban, and hence do not have the legal status genuine soldiers do.

The problem is that this leaves them nowhere: they are detained neither under the laws of war nor under civilian criminal law, and so the enjoy, if the government has its way, none of the protections that law affords.  The first habeas cases - which went on to be the plaintiffs in the Rasul ruling - were filed to try to force the Administration back into some legal framework.  Without it, people can just disappear, falling outside the reach of legal protections for basic rights, as if Pinochet were suddenly running the United States.

The protections afforded civil prisoners may not be the best framework for dealing with individuals who are alleged to be combatants.  But there has to be some legal framework - civilian or military.  Regardless of which you think it should be, we ought to be able to come together around this idea, that there are no legal black holes.

So we have our country openly advocating and endorsing coercive interrogation as normal procedure, against the universal repugnance and known ineffectiveness of this practice.

Not the country, just the government.

I can't say I'm at all surprised that BushCo want torture legalised. It's all of a piece with everything else they do. Coercion, violence, theft, intimidation, lies, and smears are just the way these guys do things. It's the only way they know.

They don't do diplomacy. They don't do reason. They don't do morality. They don't do democracy. They don't do religion. They just do extreme and bloody violence.

There's only one tool in their toolbox, and it's a very large hammer. And they use it all the time.

What have these guys ever done that was constructive? They went and hammered Afghanistan, and now it's a bloody corpse. They went and hammered Iraq, and now that's another corpse. They encouraged Israel to hammer Lebanon, and now that place is in ruins as well. What have they achieved? Nothing - except to line the pockets of themselves and their rich friends. They pervert and degrade and destroy everything they touch.

Their values - if 'values' is the appropriate word - are the values of common criminals, or of mafia godfathers. And they use the methods of such men. And they're at present beyond the law, because they are the law. Sooner or later it was bound to happen, despite the best efforts of the founding fathers: that a bunch of criminals would take over the government, loot the world, and loot America. It must be kinda handy to have the 82nd Airborne do your robberies.

But human society can't tolerate such people for long. Real, working human societies need honesty, openness, tolerance, consideration, integrity, reason, and all those kinds of values. If any country or society adopted the values of criminals, it would descend into chaos within days. Which is why criminals get locked up, or executed.

And that's what's going to happen to this bunch of crooks, one way or other. Indeed, it has to happen, because the alternative is the total chaos that they're are relentlessly bringing to pretty much everyone everywhere.

Maybe it'll happen when their world finally simply collapses around them, because they've simply hammered the whole thing to pieces. And then it'll be time for regular, decent, honest people to pick up the pieces, and start putting it all back together. And that won't be easy.

And I'd like to know, when the show's finally over for this bunch of criminals: Where they gonna run to?

This is an urgent question. I'm afraid we know where one group of believers stands.

Seriously, if the Republican campaign plan includes mobilizing right-wing Christian supporters in favor of torture, then at least two things are immediately necessary.

People involved in politics who are opposed to torture must appeal, loudly and clearly, for the active support of conscientious citizens of all faiths.

And Americans of faith must recognize what's being done here, and speak out about whether it is consistent with their morals and ethics.  Since Christian values are being invoked to promote torture, I believe Christian individuals and church leaders bear a special burden here.

Where is Cardinal Egan?   Where are the presiding bishops and leading ministers of other congregations?  At this late date it may be impossible to prepare a coordinated campaign, as the White House and its allies have done.  But it should not be necessary to orchestrate anything.  Americans of conscience must recognize that the time to speak out is now.

P.S. I vaguely recall reading about cases that happened with German Americans during WWI, too, though I don't know much about it. Here's an example of the type of thing which I found with a quick google; I can't vouch for the accuracy of this single story:

The simple, often overlooked fact, that suspected enemy aliens could be denied their right of habeas corpus and arrested by presidential warrant, and not by warrant from a judge or justice of the peace allowed the Justice Department, which is a cabinet level office, to conduct searches and investigations of anyone whom they suspected of being disloyal, even with no real evidence of such activities. One such case involved a German-born conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Karl Muck. Considered German by audiences and the Justice Department, Muck began to be harassed by onlookers to his concerts. Having been cleared of any doing wrong or 'suspicious activity in two Federal investigations, Muck was suddenly arrested on March 25, 1918, and placed in an internment camp and labeled as a "dangerous enemy alien."[15]

BTW, from reading lots of issues of the 1911-1917 magazine The Masses (long ago,) I see a lot of interesting parallels with the pre-U.S. entry-into-WWI period in the big cities in the U.S. vis-a-vis "anarchists" (often of German or Italian heritage) then and "terrorists" now....many stories about dubious arrests and entrapment by law enforcement infiltrating into groups on bombing plots (they called them "agent-provocateurs.") One of the latter I remember in particular was a planned bombing of St. Patrick's Cathedral. An infiltrating agent (from the NYC police force) actually got the targets to be inside the cathedral ready to bomb so that a big showy raid could take place. Of course, The Masses was "the" far left voice, entertaining anarchist, socialist and Marxist thought and commentary, proudly slanted.

I'm sorry. I can't find it in my heart to have compassion for torturers, or to equate what they go through with what their victims suffer. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but there you go. To be honest, even this line of reasoning seems vile and repulsive, too much in the line of apologizing for monsters.

Allow me two observations. First, there have been very few torturers who were not willing and eager in modern times. The reality is that in most cases, soldiers or police officers who had trouble with it, were allowed to simply step away.

Even the Nazi's made it a point that they did not have unwilling mass murderers or butchers. The concentration camp guards their torturers were there because they wanted to be. And if they didn't want to be there, the Nazi's transferred them out, no questions asked and no penalties imposed.

The truth is that those who are torturers are torturers because they want to be. No one is holding a gun to their head, no one is forcing them. They do it because they are allowed to. They do it because they like it. They do it because its their job. They do it because they get gratification out of it, sexual or otherwise.

Indeed, after a while, they tend to glory in it. You think all those photographs taken at Abu Ghraib were taken in shame? Look again at the pictures, the grins, the thumbs up signs. They were having fun. They were having a great time.

One of the remarkable things about Nazi concentration camp guards was how they got into it. There are endless stories, even from guards and other soldiers themselves, of how these men came to glory in their inhumanity, how they bragged and boasted of it, how their cruelty became every more gratuitious and how they competed with each other to be more monstrous.

This also showed up at Abu Ghraib, with the torturers competing with each other, bragging at their ability to terrorize a grown man to the point of involuntary urination.

I'm sorry. These are not ordinary people. Nor is this capacity induced by the act of torturing. Instead, the capacity, the sadism, the evil lay inherent within them awaiting the opportunity to come out.

The particular combination of intellectual and emotional sadism that makes a man a torturer is no different than the sort of sexual kinks that makes a man a pedophile. It is not natural to most people, it is a defect of the personality that exists long before it ever finds a victim.

So you'll excuse me if I find your plea for sympathy for the dehumanizing effects of torture on the torturers themselves to be badly, badly mistaken and offensive.

The Democratic Party no longer knows any position but rolling over.

There is no opposition party, folks, no matter if they win one or both houses of Congress. They might as well call themselves Vichycrats. How many will vote against this legislation?