Gonzales: "Not So Clear" That Waterboarding Violates Geneva Common Article 3

[babylonsister]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003761.php

Gonzales: "Not So Clear" That Waterboarding Violates Geneva Common Article 3
By Spencer Ackerman - July 24, 2007, 1:04 PM

New vistas in humanitarian law from Alberto Gonzales: Waterboarding, the process in which a detainee is forced to believe he is drowning, may not be "beyond the bounds of human decency."

Senators Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy pointed out that the executive order President Bush issued on Friday on CIA interrogations interpreting Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions specifies certain activities for outright banning due to their contravention of "human decency": sexual humiliation or the threat thereof, or religious denigration, for instance. Why, then, the senators asked, doesn't the order specify prohibitions on suspected interrogation techniques that military judge-advocates general have testified are also contraventions of the convention -- namely, threatening detainees with dogs, prolonged stress positions, forced nudity, mock executions and waterboarding?

Gonzales, going way further than intelligence chief Mike McConnell has, said that some of those measures are "possible techniques used by the CIA," even after the executive order. It wasn't confirmation, by any stretch, that waterboarding will still occur. But in response to the specific question, Gonzales told Kennedy that "some acts are clearly beyond the pale, and that everyone would agree should be prohibited. ... There are certain other activities where it is not so clear, Senator, and again, it is for those reasons that I can't discuss them in a public session." The order, naturally, received DoJ review before it was finalized.

There you have it, from the nation's "top cop": waterboarding and mock executions don't "clearly" shock the conscience.

Watch it at link~

[IChing]

1. He said so much shit during the hearing

that it should take up the first three pages of the NY times alone.
I was blown away by many of the statements.

[lovuian]

2. All I can say is he is a lying SOB Cruel and Inhumane

and he is crazy and has no idea of the law which he is suppose to deffend

[Solly Mack]

3. Yeah well, if a country doesn't arrest a war criminal said country must be OK with it

[Supersedeas]

8. there is a worrisome level of indifference

[Solly Mack]

10. Scary level of indifference

[BOSSHOG]

4. So gonzo wouldn't mind having it done to him

I believe Leahy might want to try it out to see if it works, since gonzo has chosen to be a hostile witness if you will. Fuck your habeas corpus you bush slut.

[malaise]

6. It might turn out to be the only way to get that

fucker to tell the truth.

[in_cog_ni_to]

5. My favorite was when he refused to say whether using torture techniques on U.S. CITIZENS should be

illegal!

[wiggs]

7. Well, Gonzales is author of the torture memo which redefines torture as

something intentionally causing permanent organ failure. So anything less isn't torture, right?

[Disturbed]

11. It is obvious that this Sociopath Gonzo has never even read

The Geneva Conventions. If the Congress can't even Impeach this Asshole, the Congress is useless, exactly what the Busholini Regime is trying hard to render that body as.

[yardwork]

9. In that case, let's waterboard him.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. It was used to get witches to confess a few centuries back.

Gonzales' statements on torture shock the conscience.

[mod mom]

13. Try it out on him and then re-ask the same question.

[The Stranger]

14. Why in the fuck haven't the Democrats impeached yet?

[Disturbed]

15. It seems that the Dems are scared of the Busholini Regime.

Maybe it's the NSA or Anthrax?

[Poiuyt]

16. The United States prosecuted a Japanese officer for waterboarding in 1947

In an older case, the United States prosecuted a Japanese military officer, Yukio Asano, in 1947 for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II. Yukio Asano received a sentence of 15 years of hard labor.<22>

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

[donkeyotay]

17. No, Fredo. The reason you can't tell the truth in public is that you are a disgrace

to everything this nation aspired to.

Gonzales told Kennedy that "some acts are clearly beyond the pale, and that everyone would agree should be prohibited. ... There are certain other activities where it is not so clear, Senator, and again, it is for those reasons that I can't discuss them in a public session."

This cockroach administration can't stand the light of day.