Senator Chris Dodd open to torture hearings

During a meeting with bloggers from Connecticut, Senator Chris Dodd offers his thoughts on the Bush administration torture memos

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News & Politics

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• Senator
• Chris
• Dodd
• torture
• memos
• Bush
• Cheney

[TheProudPrimate]

Dodd didn't compare Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib with the Holocaust. How blind you are to say he did!

What he did was CONTRAST them with Nuremberg. He was actually comparing, for the sake of argument, al Qaeda and 9/11 to the Nazis' crimes, as the Right has done, and saying, "we gave the Nazis a fair trial — but we dare not give these guys a fair trial?"

We sacrificed the high ground, our most precious possession, for ideological extremes a la John Bolton. And we were the losers.

[nvtcouple]

Put Cheney and the rest of the torturers on trial. If we do nothing, we become the country that tortures and gives immunity to those that torture. Shame on Cheney, shame on us for allowing it, and even worse, shame on us for excusing it.

[peteykkk]

To see Barack at his best, go to: Her Name is Ms Ann, on YOUTUBE. It explains everything. A MUST READ!

[COLDB33R]

WK910, you are woefully misinformed on nearly every point, although I do agree with you that it should be the Justice Department, not Congress that pursues these charges.

-Waterboarding is torture, period. It has been regarded as torture for century, and the US has prosecuted and even executed people for torture because they waterboarded - Japanese in WW II and American GIs in Vietnam.

-Torture does not produce good intelligence, but is effective in forcing people into false confessions.

[whiteking910]

You can talk about the moral high ground all you like, but the fact is that we are at war with an ideology of hate. We have been ever since 9/11/2001. The families of those slaughtered could care less about moral high ground. They want action, not rationalizations or talk about how we brought on ourselves with our policies. We've gotten complacent. It is a sad day when we worry more about whether our enemies were hit a widdle too hard rather than national security.

[whiteking910]

We know most of them are guilty, because many of them admitted their guilt, were captured after attacking us, or have otherwise been proven to be known terrorists. While there have been cases of mistaken guilt, they have been the exception rather than the rule. Waterboarding is not torture, the Guantanamo inmates were well-fed and treated humanely, according to most accounts. Honestly, what good is the moral high ground if more of our citizens are killed in another act of terrorism?

[whiteking910]

However, drewish, the Justic Dept. also has declined to seek criminal prosecution because they know it force to courts in an awkward position. The courts would be forced to define whether waterboarding is torture. We also have to look at the political aspect. Though I depise the man, Obama is not stupid. He knows that criminal prosecution of men who honestly were trying to keep us safe might rachet support for the GOP. A majority of Americans don't want a criminal probe.

[drewish]

Aside from the seriously racist tone that accompanies the description "these animals", how do you know they're actually guilty? There's multiple cases where people were falsely accused of being terrorist and turned over to US forces to settle personal grudges. And the horrible thing about torturing people is that it puts our forces at greater risk. We loose the high moral ground.

[drewish]

The Justice Dept threw out the rationale that purported that water boarding was not torture. I think it'd be very easy in a court room to show that it was torture. So again, I welcome trials.

[whiteking910]

Torture is definded under federal law as actions which causes severe physical or mental anguish. I'm sorry, but I don't see waterboarding as falling under that designation. The detainees were not seriously injured, so it would be hard to prove "severe" anguish. That's part of the reason the Justice Department doesn't want to prosecute. Because they know it would be difficult to prove criminal liability in court due to this and the fact that the govt. enjoys a wide latitude in the eyes of law

[whiteking910]

The difference, drewish, is that Watergate involved the wrongdoing of a sitting President and several active officials. Geroge Bush is no longer a government official. The same goes for Dick Cheney and others. They are effectively private citizens. Congress' judicial powers should be relevant in cases involving active government officials only. Anything else should be handled by the judiciary, that's what it's for.

[drewish]

It's torture, and I it's pretty clear that the techniques used to torture filtered down and resulted in the murders that occurred at Abu Ghraib. Thankfully Bush/Cheney's crimes didn't rise to the level of Hitler's but their actions should be fully investigated and punished accordingly.