The torturers among us

[muriel_volestrangler]

Boston Globe, Robert Kuttner:

For nearly three years, the Bush administration has resorted to the most preposterous fictions to define either locales or categories of people to whom the law does not apply. If you connect the dots, the torture at Abu Ghraib is part of a larger slide toward tyranny as the Bush administration tries to exempt itself from the rule of law.
...
It is appalling that a few grunts are taking the fall for torture that was official government policy. Donald Rumsfeld should not just be impeached. He should be tried as a war criminal. As for Bush, he can be dispatched by the electorate while we are still a democracy.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/06/09/the_torturers_among_us/

Pretty unequivocal.

[murielm99]

1. Wow!

"The Third Geneva Convention is airtight."

Great editorial.:thumbsup:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Even if there wasn't a Geneva Convention

Bush touts himself as a Christian. Sorry, but torture is not following the teachings of Jesus-or the teachings of any religion. The torture memo is yet another indication of the moral bankruptcy of this administration.

[izzie]

3. Right on and I have met no one who thinks it was 8 in the lower rates.

Right wing nuts will go anyplace Bush goes.

[ixion]

4. spot on editorial

People finally calling the neocon replugs what they are: totalitarian wanna-be's.

Here's another good paragraph:


Moreover, the legal protections of the US Constitution do not speak of citizens; they speak of "persons." And even if there were some special justification for torturing alleged terrorists -- and there is none -- most prisoners in Iraq are not "illegal combatants" but POWs from a defeated army, exactly those whom the Geneva Convention was intended to protect. Indeed, the United States demands that any American captive abroad be treated with scrupulous respect. (This is the whole point of a universal agreement to ban torture -- it covers everyone.)

[jbfam4]

5. thanks for posting

Great article........another good op ed is in today's NY TIMES

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/opinion/09WED1.html?pagewanted=print&position=

The Roots of Abu Ghraib