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CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

amanpour.blogs.cnn.com

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Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#131

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jmccree wrote: post #124
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, so instead of tyranny of the majority, we have tyranny of the minority.

Checks and balances. Wyoming has 1 representative in the house, California has 53. When you combine the house and the senate, it should (in theory) be much harder for a bill to pass without approval of both the majority of the states and the majority of the population.

Theory is nothing without evidence, and in lived experience, not only do bills completely fail to pass due to overuse of the Senate filibuster, but the House itself is now so thoroughly gerrymandered as to not even represent the majority of the population -- since most House elections are not, statistically speaking, contested at all.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#132

Post by techdragon »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #112
thawkins wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would wonder what would happen if they where "rendered" to a prison in italy.

Well, if they end up at the Hague, there's always The Hague Invasion Act - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pro...

Thanks for the link. Cant believe I never found this before during my regular sojourns through wikipedia.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#133

Post by tripzilch »

trhway wrote: post #38
wavefunction wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama probably would not be part of the group but Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein would. Jay Rockefeller as well. These three very senior leaders in the Democratic party have sat on the Foreign Intelligence Committee during this period of torture and while supposedly not completely in-the-loop approved of what they did know of.

>Obama probably would not be part of the group Obama is the president of the country blatantly, in the open, violating Geneva Conventions - Gitmo, drone strikes. Not that anybody, who matters, cares though.

Yeah but Obama was just following orders, y'know.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#134

Post by tripzilch »

revscat wrote: post #100
beloch wrote: post #6

It would actually be in the U.S.'s own interests to prosecute these CIA agents and their superiors. First, this would show support for international laws against torture and help put the lid back on Pandora's box. This would directly reduce the probability of captured U.S. citizens being tortured. No, that probably does not include those captured by ISIL, but are rogue terrorist organizations all U.S. citizens will n…

The downside with prosecuting the agents is that it would be an admission that the United States government can do wrong. The primary factor in the US government's decision matrix is "admit no wrongdoing ever, to anyone, under any circumstances, for any reason." Don't apologize, don't prosecute criminal wrongdoing by agents doing the state's business, and do not change. This has further implications: if the governmen…

Actually there are enough governments that "attack themselves", it's called a multi-party system. For instance, in the Netherlands it happens quite often that the cabinet "falls" before the voting term is up. Make no mistake, the Dutch government are no saints either (sucking up to and practically being a US vassal state to name just one thing :) ).

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#135

Post by tripzilch »

orbifold wrote: post #107
jberryman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're commenting in a thread about an article on cnn.com

The trick is not to suppress a story, like you would with less sophisticated propaganda, but to frame it in a particular way. You can spin negative stories in a way that they either become tedious to the public quickly or by focussing on more or less irrelevant details and statements of officials about the story. There are probably a multitude of other tricks and techniques that are well known in the public relations…

See the great BBC series "Babylon" for a taste of that ... Hell, the spindoctor is even the good guy (woman) (at least for now).

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#136

Post by tripzilch »

waps wrote: post #36
mercurial wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are quite right in saying that the UN Human Rights committee is a farce. However, find me a nation-state with no double standards. The behaviour of the US, as self-proclaimed champion of freedom and democracy, is especially egregious. It imposes an embargo on Cuba while shaking hands with the Saudis and thinks Israel can do no wrong. Not to mention its longstanding record of supporting human rights in some parts…

I will go so far as to say that the US is better than the UN Human Rights Committee. Why ? I have walked around in the US, in Europe, in Israel (and the West Bank, not Gaza though), and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India. The US, on the street and for it's residents, is 99.99% a free country that respects human rights (presumably at least in part because it's population constantly throws up stinks like this one). Walki…

I live in the Netherlands, so I'm just going to assume your generalisations about other countries are of similar accuracy.

BTW got a page nr. for that Amnesty report? Either it's not text-searchable or the text "Netherlands" doesn't even occur in that PDF (and yes I did look at the section about Europe).

I'm not saying the Dutch government is innocent, not at all. I do say, however, your generalisations are suspect. Especially for the part of the US respecting the human rights of their "residents on the streets" (I know that's not what you meant, but it was pretty disgusting to see the streets and subways of NYC "littered" with the mentally handicapped--hint: people don't start mumbling to themselves or screaming for no reason just because they're homeless).

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#137

Post by tripzilch »

briandear wrote: post #74
rakoo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's clean, everybody got that. Can we move on, and aim for the best solution ?

Well, citing an Italian court as some sort of example is hilarious in my view.

Then pray tell, who is innocent enough to bring to justice and take care of the USA? Since they're obviously not able to do it themselves.

Re: CIA agents who tortured are vulnerable to prosecution in any country

#138

Post by waps »

tripzilch wrote: post #136
waps wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will go so far as to say that the US is better than the UN Human Rights Committee. Why ? I have walked around in the US, in Europe, in Israel (and the West Bank, not Gaza though), and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India. The US, on the street and for it's residents, is 99.99% a free country that respects human rights (presumably at least in part because it's population constantly throws up stinks like this one). Walki…

I live in the Netherlands, so I'm just going to assume your generalisations about other countries are of similar accuracy. BTW got a page nr. for that Amnesty report? Either it's not text-searchable or the text "Netherlands" doesn't even occur in that PDF (and yes I did look at the section about Europe). I'm not saying the Dutch government is innocent, not at all. I do say, however, your generalisations are suspect.…

Heh. I've lived in the Netherlands for 2 years. Firstly, you cannot discuss politics in the Netherlands on the street. You just can't.

Furthermore, if you're looking for specifics, you can start here :

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/europe/netherla...

Works for other countries too. Essentially, the Dutch government had Pakistan torture a terror suspect on it's behalf last year.

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