http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D89UBD6G0.html


Many of the accounts detailing abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay by American military and civilian personnel don't meet the definition of torture, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.

Gonzales, who grew up in Houston, said Congress requires proving that intentional infliction of severe physical and mental pain or suffering occurred to have a prosecutable case of torture.

"Congress intended a very high bar here in order to be prosecuted for engaging in torture," he said Friday during a visit to Houston. "There may be conduct that you may find offensive that falls far short of torture."

Still, Gonzales said his office would prosecute anyone suspected of engaging in torture. "This president has said consistently that the United States does not condone torture and does not as a matter of policy engage in torture, and if anyone is in violation of the president's directive or the law, they will be held accountable," he said.

spend a week or two in Abu Ghraib and then we'll see how he defines torture.

you have not officially been tortured?

Well then does this qualify?


No? How about this?


I'm not feeling real proud to be an American at the moment.

NOT IN MY NAME!

Of course, the ICC should not become involved unless the justice system of the suspect's home country is unable or unwilling to prosecute the matter. That is clearly the problem here. Mr. Gonzales refuses to call torture torture unless its the rack or the iron maiden.

I do not believe international courts should concern themselves with private soldiers except in extreme circumstances. I am not convinced that this qualifies.

Instead, international law should concern itself only with those who abuse position of power and trust to establish policy that lead to the kind of thing that takes place in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere in Mr. Bush's global network of gulags.

Therefore, those who should be investigated for violations of the Rome Statute and the Convention against Torture are Bush, Rumsfeld and Gonzales, among others. Lynndie England is merely a material witness.

I'd like to give you a little tip about your president. Alberto says of HIS president...

"This president has said consistently that the United States does not condone torture and does not as a matter of policy engage in torture, and if anyone is in violation of the president's directive or the law, they will be held accountable," he said.

Alberto, you and your president both lie a lot. If Chimp doesn't condone torture, why are we sending people to countries which are notorious for using it as a technique to extract information? The methods you and your president say don't meet the level of torture have damn sure led to some deaths, haven't they?

We've seen some, but by no means all, of the pictures from Abu Ghraib. I've heard the others are much, much worse. You and your president are both lying, arrogant, corrupt sadists who revel in inflicting pain on others just because you can get away with it.

You both sicken me. You sicken anybody with a conscience and the remotest spark of human decency. You have ruined our country's reputation, and caused us to be seen as a barbaric, cruel nation, which uses it's wealth to bully the rest of the world.

It will take many years to repair the damage caused by you and your president and the rest of the whole rotten administration. I know neither you nor your president have the slightest interest in my opinions or feelings, but I felt the need to express them anyway. Are you familiar with the concept of Karma? You might want to find out a bit about it, since your actions are causing you a really, really bad one.

given the same treatment to get the truth out of them on any given issue - Iraq, Delay etc. Then we would see if they think those methods are "torture."

And both less than 48 hours after the rejection of Lynndie England's plea deal.

The Bush White House's problem is that it CODIFIED what did and didn't fit the definition of torture, and now they're asking everyone to believe that Abu Ghraib was just a grunt-level frat house prank gone bad. (I suppose he thinks that Hitler "overdid it," too.) So much for the rejection of the plea deal not being a BIG deal--the upper links of the chain of command are obviously "rattled."

:headbang:
rocknation

... the Attorney General can't get it clear with regards to the "quaint" Geneva Conventions?

IMHO, it our duty to insure these acts are never forgotten and the perpretators (all of them) are identified and punished. Sadly, we have a long way to go.

Pictures from:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/

Mr. Gonzales may have a different opinion.

Flag the poo & before you know it, the poo & the flags are gone. It gives the thugs something useful to do.
:rofl:

was going to be the AG for the people upholding the law not *


Just as predicted.... his interpretation of the law

so why was he confirmed again?

Torture is torture, Alberto, and it's up to the courts (remember them?) not the Attorney General to interpret the law. Once again, the corrupt Bush administration fuzzes up the relations between the three branches of government to make it look like the Attorney General is responsible for ruling on what the intent of Congress is.

Your job, Alberto, is to bring charges and prosecute based on the evidence and testimony. Where is your official report? What investigations is your office conducting? What have you done to find out just what went on and what's still going on, not only at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, but at every military and privately run lock up that our country is running?

Just do your job, Alberto, and let the courts do theirs. Mealy mouthed sycophant. What do you see when you look in the mirror every morning?

if your definition of torture is treatment which "Results in injuries likely to cause death or permanent injury" which is how the US defines torture.

The rest of the world however in the Geneva convention define it as something wholly different which the abuse at abu graib and elswhere comes under that definition.

"Torture lite" i believe the military called then "stress and duress".

What lovely words.

"Political language is designed to make lies truthful and murder resrespectable, and give an appearence of solidity to pure wind"

George Orwell.

My apologies to the retarded

So all the * lovers are cool with US troops being treated the same way? Of course they would be ...........

I think shrub has some sort of male cheerleader complex/ball player wanna be thing going on...hence "the big ball-little ball" (see below). Chimp is not meant to run with the big dogs!!


http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D89UGSIG0.html

He also repeatedly praised Bush as another example of dedicated public servant.

"He loves what he does, to fight for the American people, and I love what I do, defending the Constitution," Gonzalez said.

He used an analogy about his boss to urge graduates to strive to make a difference to others rather than settle into routines. "The President told the Cabinet that even though we're in his second term, we are not here to play little ball. We're here to play big ball."

Gonzalez made no mention of controversy that accompanied his appointment as attorney general related to his January 2002 memo in which he argued that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

torture
noun

1 {U} the act of causing great physical or mental pain in order to persuade someone to do something or to give information, or as an act of cruelty to a person or animal:

- Half of the prisoners died after torture and starvation.

- He revealed the secret under torture.

Gonzalez' definition is not correct. No intention is necessary!

It's amazing how this administration can redefine things to their benefit without redefining them. We're talking about a Social Security "plan" when there's nothing close to a plan even written out; these assholes want blank-check permission to proceed on a broad conceptual basis alone.

Someone has to ask this little Himmler some specifics about "pain". At what voltage to the testicles do you consider it torture, Mr. Gonzales? How high above the head do your handcuffed arms need to be stretched before it REALLY hurts? Six inches? Eight feet? How long does one have to be submerged while strapped to a board before it's really an issue? A minute? A couple of weeks?

They continually slather around vague horse shit, and we should fight back with SPECIFICS, because they are incredibly vulnerable to Mr. Reality.

is jammed through the shackled arms of the prisoners we're holding and being raised one slow inch at a time... This Gonzales is a man with no heart or conscience. Which is precisely why he was chosen for this position in Bush's America. Every single person the president places in power has a nefarious function to perform - all of them uniformly illegal and unconstitutional. Baker, Negroponte, Bolton, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Kissinger in the shadows - A rogue's gallery of evil and oppressive non-human beings. If they came upon a person on his back in the gutter, they'd stomp on him just to hear him scream. It validates their self-perceived superiority and exalted position as being "chosen" by God. We are all witness to evil incarnate now, a dark train gathering steam and momentum. It will continue to be "legal" and "polite" until it no longer has to pretend to be. When they "win" again in 2006, in violation of every poll and mathematical certainty, we will all have to admit that the foreboding and creeping fear we've been feeling was much more than reasonable paranoia. And that it is now our greatest nightmare come to life...

and then ask him if it qualifies as torture.

if the interrogators stick to his rules

would be you Gonzales and the Monkey who appointed your torture condoning ass.

Thanks Al.

You have just opened the gates of hell for any of our soldiers who might be captured.

The one thing that would go a long way toward repairing the US image, at home and abroad, and you won't see to it that Justice is done. That leads me to believe that Justice would reach to your door were it to be done.

Say, just where did your boy visit when he went over to Iraq that time? Did he visit Abu Gharib?

Most detainee abuse reports don't qualify as torture

05/07/2005

Associated Press

Many of the accounts detailing abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay by American military and civilian personnel don't meet the definition of torture, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.

Gonzales, who grew up in Houston, said Congress requires proving that intentional infliction of severe physical and mental pain or suffering occurred to have a prosecutable case of torture.

"Congress intended a very high bar here in order to be prosecuted for engaging in torture," he said Friday during a visit to Houston. "There may be conduct that you may find offensive that falls far short of torture."

More: http://babyurl.com/t2smY6

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This cretin really takes the cake. I am almost speachless....smothered by the hypocrisy.- Kevin

scream in pain. This guy is just one step removed from Ashcraft (but I'm still glad loonie-boy Ashy is gone).

bother you, either, eh?

Funny since you grew up on the Gulf Coast....