Top State Dept lawyer seeks US clarity on torture

Source: Reuters

GENEVA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - The United States, accused of using torture on terrorism suspects, should make clearer what it permits during interrogation and what it does not, the State Department's top lawyer said on Tuesday.

John Bellinger, legal adviser at the U.S. State Department, said he was making confidential recommendations to Attorney-General Michael Mukasey and putting forth what he called his own "strong views on a number of these practices".

"As legal adviser for the State Department, I think it is a concern that the United States cannot be clearer on issues like these that are raised.

"It makes it more difficult for the United States to reaffirm our commitment to international law in the world," Bellinger told a news conference on the sidelines of the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

This was because the United States, like other countries including Britain, does not comment on intelligence matters, according to the senior U.S. official.

"I think there is a growing recognition ... about the need for greater clarity about what is permitted and what is prohibited," he said.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L27409629.htm

under the Geneva Convention. As far as I know it doesn't specifically say it isn't.

By putting the Administration at legal risk.

And aren't we already clear enough about our commitment to international oil ... I mean, international law?

;-)

That the USA is the torture capital of the earth under the guise of Democracy=mob rule. LOL
everyone knows the USA is full of war criminals and a German/American people who are implicit in their government crimes.

Do not blame this American!!! I left so I can fight this venom from afar. I tell people daily that all Americans are not like Bushita and his goons. Da Mob squad gang runs America and claims leadership of the earth. Never!!!!Send these criminals to the Hague along with the corrupt senate and congress. RECALL THE CRIMINAL SENATE AND HOUSE TO IMPEACH THIS ROBBER BARON CRIMINAL GANG. OR "Hang em high" in the Washington Mall. Bring out the cranes and let us hang these fascist bastards like we did to Musssolini

Wake up my fellow Americans. Smoke da herb and get a humble thought.
Even the criminal British Pope is pointing fingers at his daughter, America. Elizabeth of England did it for her ancestry my fellow Americans. They have the wayward colony America by the balls. Yes she sets the order and calls the shots. America has been had and bamboozled. I lived under the rule of Elizabeth II of England in British Guiana/Guyana. It was not pretty but it was yesterday. The continents should have all been developed and people allowed to travel freely to meet and greet their brothers and sisters. This would prevent torture you speck of sand in this iniverse.

Welcome Charles and Camilla soon because they will soon run things from behind the curtain. Enjoy the illusion because it cannot be sustained.

WAKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!

Love and Light

:puke:

to define torture again?
A growing recognition? The entire WORLD knows that Bushco tortures anybody they can get their hands on. They "disappear" people and "rendition" them off to foreign countrys What could be more clear?

STOP THE FUCKING TORTURE YOU FASCIST ASS-HOLES!!!

Smells like one of those "Congress should legislate torture" traps.

Early in the Iraq war, before mission accomplished, a few American soldiers were taken prisoner and shown on tv. The House immediately passed a resolution by a vote of 419 to 0 condemning the Iraqis for violating the Geneva Convention:



Note that they were not threatened with dogs, exposed to cold, exposed to loud music, dressed in women's underwear, smeared with shit, placed in stress positions or waterboarded... Talk about what the definition of is is.

The Sec. of the Army issued an order that waterboarding is torture and banned in the Army.

The State Dept. should do the same, but it won't with incompetent coward Condi Rice in charge.

After kicking some folks in the crotch, claim that they "fell down the steps."

After beating some folks with your flashlight, protest that they "walked into a door."

After strangling some folk, sigh that they "died of natural causes"

it ain't torture. Pulling out fingernails with a pair of pliers is just fine. Holding a person's head in a pile of horse shit is just dandy. They aren't dead and their liver is still functioning. The US doesn't torture we just use college hazing tactics, like branding people with hot irons etc...