Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use of Torture (WSJ Exclusive)

[Merlin]

Once again a very important, outrageous news story about this admin is released by the Pentagon in great detail exclusively to the Wall Street Journal, a paper with readership restricted to the elites, the online version of which requires a subscription. (This piece has been mirrored however. See below.)

Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use of Torture

Security or Legal Factors
Could Trump Restrictions,
Memo to Rumsfeld Argued

By JESS BRAVIN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

June 7, 2004; Page A1

Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

The advice was part of a classified report on interrogation methods prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after commanders at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained in late 2002 that with conventional methods they weren't getting enough information from prisoners.
...
emphasis added -- this part is incredible!

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere. It concluded that neither the president nor anyone following his instructions was bound by the federal Torture Statute, which makes it a crime for Americans working for the government overseas to commit or attempt torture, defined as any act intended to "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Punishment is up to 20 years imprisonment, or a death sentence or life imprisonment if the victim dies.

<More...>
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108655737612529969,00.html
(subscription required)


Mirrored at http://www.go-titlepro.com/temp/WSJ-Pentagon-Torture.htm

[GoBlue]

1. Thanks Ronnie, this is your true legacy!

I never cease to be appalled at the incredible sickness of this presidency.

[whosinpower]

2. Above the law

So, Bush can do whatever he wants, to whoever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants...and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can stop his proclamations.

What we have here Ladies and Gentlemen, is a dictatorship in training....The President of the United States holds too much power IMO. And what praytell stops Americans from unwittingly electing criminals? NOTHING! And what options do Americans have in holding the President's rule to the current standard of law? NOTHING!

[0007]

3. Hmmmm this all goes hand in hand with St. Ronnie and Abu Ghraib, 'eh?

The Schools of America. ....and this was Reagan's idea of a joke?

Negroponte was deputy to Reagan's national security adviser Colin Powell from 1987-89 and got to attend those half-hour briefings every working day.

Guess who's runninng Iraq these days?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=UN%20Reagan%20Negroponte

[seemslikeadream]

6. 0007 have you seen this?

The CIA and Its Secret Experiments

with MKULTRA & Germ Warfare.

America’s Great State Secret

by

Gordon Thomas

MINDFIELD

· Sensational never-seen-before documents from inside the White House, CIA and other agencies.

· Reveals the documentary evidence that links US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to the cover-up of the death of top CIA scientist, Frank Olson.



· Explains how the CIA financed a ruthless and systematic assault of the human psyche – using a British-born psychiatrist to spearhead the assault.

· Names other world renowned physicians who were involved in the most sinister research programme ever created by any United States government – and its secret partner – the British government.

· Reveals how a woman was programmed to become a CIA assassin.

· Describes how a CIA chemist was murdered by his own colleagues after he had turned to the one man he thought he could trust – a London psychiatrist engaged in similar work.

· Reveals how “expendables” – the CIA generic name for those selected for killing – were secretly murdered after they had been experimented on in Europe.


“Meticulously researched, Mindfield is a deeply disturbing story of hideous government experiments using drugs and behavioural modification. Teaching hospitals on both sides of the Atlantic were used. Many of the doctors who performed those experiments remain in high office today and still conduct those experiments with impunity. Mindfield is a terrifying warning how easy it is for elected governments to sanction secret experiments to control human behaviour. Gordon Thomas has meticulously taken us from incredulity to awareness of the Machiavellian lengths our governments go to in our unsuspecting name. This remarkable book is essential reading for all those in a trusted role to care for people. In every sense it is an outstanding text that reveals the darker side of medicine.”

Professor Anne White
M.C.S.P. Bsc M.D. F.R.C.P.A.
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine
Department of Psychiatry
McMaster University, Canada


http://www.gordonthomas.ie/mindfield.htm


PRESIDENT BUSH’S FAMILY LINKS WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION




PRESIDENT BUSH’S FAMILY LINKS
WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION
BY TOP U.S. SPY CATCHER

by
Gordon Thomas


Business links – involving “the mobilisation of trillions of dollars” – by President Bush’s father and his brother Neil, were under investigation by America’s top spy catcher, Paul Redmond, when he resigned.
A well-placed Washington intelligence source said that Redmond quit after a White House meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
They are known as “The Enforcers” – ensuring there is no taint on the reputation of the increasingly embattled President with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Already, said the Washington source, the two men have ensured Bush distances himself from Tony Blair’s claims that the weapons will be found.
But equally Downing Street will want to stay clear of the allegation that the President’s family were doing business with Saddam from 1989 up to months before the outbreak of the first Gulf War.
In a document obtained by the respected London-based International Currency Review, it was claimed that after a year long investigation, it had uncovered evidence “of the mobilisation of trillions of dollars in 1989-91”.
The document names a number of banks it alleges were “supervised by the Bush Sr White House” in the alleged transactions.
The banks identified in the document include the British Royal Family bankers, Coutts; Morgan Guaranty Trust and Chase Manhattan, New York; Banco Exterior de Espana, Spain; First International Bank of Denver in the United States.
Christopher Story, the publisher of the specialist Currency Review said the documents relating to the Bush family are “taken from a portfolio of papers” which was made available to the Review last July.

more
http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/pubarchive_show_message.php?glo ...

[0007]

7. No! But I'll cover it all. Right now I'm watching John Ashcroft

on c-span trying to zig zag the Senate Judiciary Committee - Anti Terrorism Efforts. Check it out it's interesting. Kennedy and Leahy are tearing Ashcroft a new ass hole. Ashcroft won't answer the questions.

[74dodgedart]

4. Is dubya "above" human decency? How about "Judeo-Christian" values ?

The National Security argument didn't work for Nixon, neither did the
president is above the law argument.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall recieve mercy"

[TahitiNut]

5. By even authorizing funds for such activities,

Congress would be morally and ethically complicit. If one penny of taxpayer money goes to pay for, subsidize, or facilitate torture, then those who authorize such funding are just as guilty. The Constitution gives Congress sole funding authority for the military (no matter where located) and even prohibits any such funding legislation to span more than two years.

These "lawyers" should be disbarred for ethics violations.

[maggrwaggr]

8. This is huge. Too bad Ronnie's still screwing us, even in death

Ronnie's making a major distraction. THERE IS NO OTHER NEWS BUT DEAD RONNIE.

[Fovea]

9. Wow. When the rubber meets the road

The entire constitution of the US is now replaced by
l'etat c'est moi!

This statement must be repudiated. And congress is duty bound to do so.
In fact, anyone who takes an oath to uphold the constitution must
repuditate this statement with all menas possible.

[Merlin]

10. It's the kind of position that--unopposed--leads to fascism.

Which--if we lose in Nov--is exactly where we're headed.

[Mechatanketra]

11. This must not pass in silence.

he {the President} shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed; -- U.S.A. Constitution, Article II, Section 3

this Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; -- U.S.A. Constitution, Article VI

the Congress shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution, not only its own powers but also all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. --- War Powers Act of 1973, Section 2(b)

In short: like hell the President can't be touched by Congress or international laws (which are the products of treaties, and therefore as binding as our Constitution). The President has a specific obligation not to be exempt from laws (since breaking the law personally is the exact opposite of "taking care that the laws are faithfully executed"), and international laws become our laws the moment the Senate approves the treaties that compose them. And if the President had 'unlimited power to wage war', there wouldn't be a War Powers act.

This is not something that can be handled with 'nuance' by any official who is not willing to admit complicity with it; this statement represents nothing less than a direct and blatant contradiction of basic Constitutional provisions and hence a siezure of dictatorial powers.

[bobbieinok]

12. memos claim president has total power

....

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere. It concluded that neither the president nor anyone following his instructions was bound by the federal Torture Statute, which makes it a crime for Americans working for the government overseas to commit or attempt torture, defined as any act intended to "inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Punishment is up to 20 years imprisonment, or a death sentence or life imprisonment if the victim dies.


"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority," the report asserted. (The parenthetical comment is in the original document.) The Justice Department "concluded that it could not bring a criminal prosecution against a defendant who had acted pursuant to an exercise of the president's constitutional power," the report said. Citing confidential Justice Department opinions drafted after Sept. 11, 2001, the report advised that the executive branch of the government had "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity in purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress."


THIS IS NOT NOT NOT AMERICAN

[UpInArms]

13. I wonder if Saddam had his lawyers write up

bullshit like this to back up this crimes?

Wonder how Hitler did it?

Probably some master playbook that resides in the bowels of hell where the * and his minions live.

:mad: