Bush vetoes bill banning waterboarding

Spencer Collins · #1 (**permalink**) 03-08-2008, 03:04 PM

Bush vetoes bill banning waterboarding

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said. The bill he rejected provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and has the interrogation requirement as one provision. It cleared the House in December and the Senate last month.

"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," the president said.
Supporters of the legislation say it would preserve the United States' ability to collect critical intelligence while also providing a much-needed boost to country's moral standing abroad.

"Torture is a black mark against the United States," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. "We will not stop until [the ban] becomes law."

Bush vetoes bill banning waterboarding - CNN.com

I applaud this veto,I support any practice that prevents terorists attacks on "innocent" lives.

cnredd · #2 (**permalink**) 03-08-2008, 03:24 PM

Smart move...

The last thing we need is a CIA agent going to jail for attempting to save lives...

saltwn · #3 (**permalink**) 03-08-2008, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cnredd

Smart move...

The last thing we need is a CIA agent going to jail for attempting to save lives...

I think he vetoed it so it wouldn't look like any of his policies were wrong during the war.
I don't know how it could be right. I know we need to interrogate people, but on the other hand don't they hold someone under water till they are near faint?
If that wouldn't be torture, then what is?
And, yes, What about the Geneva Convention?

cnredd · #4 (**permalink**) 03-09-2008, 03:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

I think he vetoed it so it wouldn't look like any of his policies were wrong during the war.

Nah...

It's obvious Bush has never given in to popularity or appearance...I don't see why he would start now...

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

I don't know how it could be right. I know we need to interrogate people, but on the other hand don't they hold someone under water till they are near faint?

A couple of facts before going the emotional route...

They've done it to THREE people...that's it...The people against Bush are making it to appear as if this is done willy-nilly to every terrorist that comes down the pike...Not even close to the truth...

Also, this technique is NOT done unless they are part of the "planning" group of Al Qaeda...The actual people who've designed mass death...

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

If that wouldn't be torture, then what is?

Something that causes longterm pain or permenant injury...

Waterboarding does neither...

Quote:

Originally Posted by saltwn

And, yes, What about the Geneva Convention?

Are you for losing wars but patting yourself on the back because we at least "played fair"?...

Spencer Collins · #5 (**permalink**) 03-09-2008, 04:28 AM

If waterboarding will help us preempt a terrorist attack and the loss of thousands of innocent lives,I'm all for it. This method is far from common and it is used only under certain circumstances.

forester814 · #6 (**permalink**) 03-09-2008, 04:58 PM

Sad, but predictable.

Bush said "America does not torture."

Therefore, anything we do to get prisoners to talk is automatically NOT torture, by Bush's definition.

Therefore, there would be no reason to ban anything we do as torture, because, as Bush has made clear, "America does not torture."

It's all quite logical. The circular kind.

As for how many people this "enhanced interrogation technique" has been used upon...

When you defend/minimize in this way, you admit that it is wrong, but it isn't "so bad" because it's "far from common," "used only under certain circumstances," or used on "only 3 people."

If the practice is wrong, it's wrong whether it's used on one person or a million people.

If the practice is not wrong, there is no need to defend/minimize it by mentioning that it hasn't been used on many people.

cnredd · #7 (**permalink**) 03-09-2008, 05:27 PM

Excellent commentary on it...

The End of the Waterboarding Controversy?

Quote:

The waterboarding controversy should end with a whimper. It probably won’t, but it should.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has studied U.S. interrogation methods, as he committed to do in his confirmation hearings. On Tuesday, he submitted a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that should comfort critics and satisfy the rest of us.

Bottom line: The United States does not currently use waterboarding as a tactic to derive intelligence. There is, moreover, no expectation that waterboarding will be added to the menu of interrogation methods, a process that would involve several unlikely steps.

Of course, war critics and anti-torture activists will never be satisfied. Too many of them are more invested in further inflating yesterday’s legal quarrels than preparing for tomorrow’s national security needs. But for people of good will — those who concede that there have always been strong arguments on both sides of this debate — it’s time to let go.

Let’s take a step back. Credible reporting — which is not addressed in the attorney general’s letter — indicates that waterboarding has been used on no more than three of the thousands of detainees the United States has held, long and short term, since military operations against radical Islam began over six years ago. Assuming (as I do), that it was used on those three (all top-tier al-Qaeda operatives), the same credible reporting also tells us the tactic has not been used in over four years.

So we did it an infinitesimal number of times, we haven’t done it in years, we don’t currently do it, the regulations in place don’t permit it, and it seems inconceivable that future regulations will alter that.

Is this issue really worth scandalizing ourselves over?

Is it really worth intimidating our intelligence officers with the fear of prosecution and consuming days upon days of the legislative calendar (including confirmation hearings) over waterboarding?

How can it be that people who claim to worry so much about America’s reputation in the world think they somehow advance that reputation by obsessing over something that virtually never happens, and in the process libeling our government as a programmatic torturer?

I’m not a fan of the Bush administration’s democracy project, but isn’t there something ironic in the fact that the United States since 2001 has freed 50 million people from tyrannical regimes, yet all the “America’s reputation” crowd seems to want to talk about is waterboarding — three instances, or, if you like, one waterboarding of a complicit terrorist for every thousand innocent people killed on 9/11?

Spencer Collins · #8 (**permalink**) 03-09-2008, 05:37 PM

Andrew C. McCarthy is spot on with his commentary...

chuck7251 · #9 (**permalink**) 03-09-2008, 09:34 PM

personally I don't care if it is "wrong" or "right"... as long as it is "effective"

if it saves one American life, it is well worth it

As far as what other nations think of us... I don't care... if they don't like us then they can stay out and leave our country alone, without the skidmark of their existence

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