Ashcroft: Contempt Of Congress?
 

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news..._cQik&refer=us

U.S.'s Ashcroft Won't Release or Discuss Torture Memo (Update1)
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, warned that he might be risking a contempt citation from Congress, told lawmakers he won't release or discuss memoranda that news reports say offered justification for torturing suspected terrorists.

Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Ashcroft about reports in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times that the Justice Department advised the White House in 2002 and 2003 that it might not be bound by U.S. and international laws prohibiting torture. Ashcroft said he wouldn't reveal confidential advice he gave to President George W. Bush or discuss it with Congress.

He is in contempt because he proffered no legal reason to justify why he would not produce teh obviously damning document. Having said that and although it is awful and he is jerk and a criminal for not complying, the R's control Congress. Thus, no contempt citation will be issued :mad:

Asscroft is a racist piece of trash, but nothing will happen to him. Just another day in the 43rd Reich. Ho hum.

Lampshades are being made as we speak :rolleyes: - alarmist :laugh:

I do, however, share your dislike of Ashcroft!!!!!! :cool: The sad thing is what he and the R's are doing appears to be perfectly under the way the system is designed. So, we gotta vote these people out so the D's can do the same thing :laugh:

Not yet, but we are defecating on prisoners, raping them, molesting them, and killing them. And some are innocent.

We're censoring freedom of speech and punishing those who are anti-Bush. If those aren't Nazi-esque tactics, I don't know what are.

The US govt. is doing all of that in an official capacity just like Hitler did :laugh: Come On :rolleyes: I guess like the Nazi's they are lining the civilians up in the streets and just shooting them for fun? :rolleyes: Again, comparison to the Nazi's and the terror they caused is assinine and wrong. You are saying it for its extreme effect and you know it. When they start making lampshades out o Iraqi's call me.

Also, I would like to see someone sensor R, Rhodes (her reaction that is) :laugh:

Finally, Ashcrost is a creep. No doubt about it.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...top_world_news

Ashcroft challenged the lawmakers on whether their questions were appropriate. ``We are at war,'' Ashcroft said. ``And for us to begin to discuss all the legal ramifications of the war is not in our best interest, and it has never been in times of war.''

Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, told Ashcroft that ``you are wise'' not to offer an opinion ``on the absolute, ultimate power of a president of the United States to protect the people of this country.''

Did you see the exchanges on the news tonight? It got ugly - real ugly. Ashcroft almost came undone from what I saw, esp. when some Congressman said he had a son (?) over there and how dare Ashcroft advocate torture when that could effect his son if he was captured. REAL UGLY!!!!

It is unfair of you to post that picture of the guy's head. That was uncalled for and I am reporting you to a monitor. I mean there are underage chilfren that lurk and post here. How dare you.

Quite frankly I am appalled and furious with you for having such little care for the people on this site.

Gldtwmn, I beg of you to delete this thread if possible if that pic is not removed immediately.

I have to admit that I'm at a bit of a loss in regards to how I should respond to that, Lisa.
I'm not the moderator of this forum, but I do want to remind you... as strandinthewind said... we have posters of ALL ages on these boards, as well as people from around the world.

There are thousands of ways of getting a point across, without having to post gruesome, violent photos. Most especially when they might be seen by young people.

On a personal note, I want to add that... as the saying goes... two wrongs don't make a right. What "the enemy" has done, does not make it all right for our country... a country that claims to be peacekeepers & peacemakers... to act in the same manner.

And one shouldn't stereotype an entire religion, based on the actions of extremists.
In case I need to remind anyone, Christians murdered over 30,000 people during the Crusades (some estimates place the number at 75,000), and there was a time when the Roman Catholic church taught its followers that going to war against "infidels" was an act of Christian penance.

To this day, various atrocities are carried out in the name of Christianity.

Every religion has its dark side, and every religion thinks they're the only ones who are on the side of right, and doing "God's will."

Something to keep in mind.

That post is hateful and offensive. If people want to view those images, they can do so on their own; it should not be forced on them and this isn't the place to view them. We can talk politics and how we hate certain policies and presidents and the like, but couth and discretion is needed when doing so. To post those pictures is not to have either.

As for the comments that accompany those pictures, they can't be more hateful or further from the truth. I am appalled that someone can be so cold and have such a spiteful line of thinking. Turn off the Rush Limbaugh and pick up a damn newspaper. These are human beings that this is happening to. What happened to Nick Berg is no more sickening and disgusting than what happened to the prisoners who raped, beaten, urinated on, and murdered; don't compare the two because they're equally heinous. A frat party my ass. How offensive and cold.

I don't know if you are or not, you said you got all that in an email, so I assumed the majority of those comments were already there when you got it. But one does wonder when someone actually posts those right-wing talking points.

No grudge on my part, just make sure you use a bit more discretion next time. :) Apology accepted, don't worry about it.

Lisa, apology accepted.

As to the point you make in you original post. I agree, there are some people in the Islamic religion that want to see us dead - but there are some people in the Christian faith right here in America that want all black, gay, and Jewish people killed so America can be white and Christian and the people have acted on those desires in ways similar to what OBL did. I mean if you support Pres. Bush, which I assume you do, then follow his teaching, which is the Islamic faith is not the bad party here and hurting Islamic people is a crime that will be punished, and in fact has been. Moreover, W has denounced and condemned the torturing that you called a frat party. Like Bush says, it is the extremist within the Islamic faith that are the bad people who want to hurt us. Bush has also specifically stated America has millions of people of Islamic faith and they have just as much right to be here in a peaceful manner as people of any other religion just like America has people of all or no faiths that lead peaceful lives. Moreover, W has specifically indicated we are in Iraq and have lost hundreds of Americans to help the Iraqi people, almost all of which are Muslim. W has specifically said the Iraqi people are our friends not our enemies. SH was our enemy, not the Iraqi people. So, clearly America does not hate all Muslims.

In the end, I think America should be the good guy. America should always have the upper hand and take the higher road. To paraphrase Stevie, when we do not - we become them. So, when I see the torture pictures, I think we failed. Moreover, there is fairly clear evidence that these pictures put our soldiers in harm's way and for that the responsible parties should be prosecuted. I mean if we torture people, then what about when one of our soldiers gets captured. How can we scream torturing our soldiers in unjust when we are doing the same thing.

Finally, SH had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 - so the linking of the people jumping from the WTC Center to the torturing in Iraqi war is illogical and incorrect. I mean we should torture Iraqi's for something they did not do? That makes no sense to me.

Tone - tone is very hard to discern in the written word. I wrote all of the above in a nice tone and not in a finger snapping, in your face way. :cool:

True, but...
 

It's people like you who will perpetuate this war. People who think like you do will destroy us.

Edit: OK, I saw this later:

That's swell, but the thinking remains, doesn't it? Why would you post it in the first place if you didn't agree with it?

No, no, no, Johnny. It's about love. ;) :wavey:

Look peeps...
 

I don't believe in censorship but let me tell you something lady. It's a damn good thing I didn't wake up here this morning a find a photograph of Nicholas Berg's severed head in my thread. In case you didn't read it, the title of this thread is whether or not General Ashcroft was in Contempt Of Congress. The Padilla case is directly related to this discussion. There are those of us who have chosen for our own personal reasons not to watch the videos or see the pictures. There are also children who surf these pages. It is extremely unfair of you to hijack my thread with your sensationalistic photographs, which are in this instance only meant to evoke a passionate response from anyone who sees them.
You might be well served to do some reading on the circumstances of Mr. Berg's death, they are highly suspicious.
If you want to debate who is running for office in this country or who wants to run it, great. Do so with your own words.
As for the 9/11 phtographs in your post, they do no justice to the victims or the survivors. TAKE THEM DOWN NOW. The American people don't even know the tip of the iceberg of the events of 9/11. Why, you ask? Because our government won't tell us. The "Christian " Bush administration has stonewalled every step of the way.
As far as your sweeping generalization of Islam, it's bigoted. Cat Stevens and Muhammad Ali are Islamic converts among many others. Want to tell them their religion is bull****?

ITA - if my post came of fthat way, I apologize.

I must say, however, during the crusades and such, the official policy of the RCC, which was the extent of Christiandom, was such. However, that was a LONG time ago and the RCC was a ruling power. It has changed - and thnk goodness.

Strand...
 

Blah...Blah...Blah...

You've just repeated everything that has already been said. I apologized for the lack of respect I showed. I wholeheartedly meant it. Seems some just cannot accept a persons apology without first taking a dig....hmmm.

Sorry for hijacking YOUR thread. What was I thinking?? These threads never veer off in a different direction, do they??

I will delete my post entirely so no one else will be offended.

I didn't ask for an apology, nor do I want one that is insincere. You apoligize out of duty, not remorse.
You're right, this is MY thread. If you want to start your own thread and spread the hate, who's stopping you? The Arabs? :shrug:
I do extend a sincere thank you for deleting your post. :)

My apology was sincere. What duty are you talking about? I apologized because I was wrong. It's not a hard thing for me to admit. Sorry it's so hard for you to accept an apology. The only hate I see is spewing from YOUR keyboard!

You're Welcome, on deleting the post. :)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo...234629,00.html

Bush ignored Pentagon lawyers over tactics in war on terror

No consultation on detention without charge

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday June 9, 2004
The Guardian

The Bush administration routinely bypassed or overruled Pentagon experts on international law and the Geneva convention to construct a sweeping legal justification for harsh tactics in the war on terror, the Guardian has learnt.
In one instance, President George Bush's military order of November 13 2001, which denies prisoner-of-war status to captives from Afghanistan and allows their detention without charge or access to a lawyer at Guantánamo, was issued without any consultations with Pentagon lawyers, a former Pentagon official said.

The revelation follows reports in the US press this week of a Pentagon memo that argued that Mr Bush was not bound by laws against torture, and that interrogators who torture detainees at Guantánamo cannot be prosecuted.

The military order issued by Mr Bush in November 2001 was the first such directive since the second world war, and the administration's failure to seek the Pentagon's advice on what would emerge as the entire system of detention at Guantánamo surprised Pentagon officials.

"That came like a bolt from the blue," the official said. "Neither I nor anyone I knew had any insight, any advance knowledge, or any opportunity to comment on the president's military order."

The Pentagon general counsel, William James Haynes, was also left out of the loop, another official said.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration fought off allegations that it had manipulated the law to justify torture of detainees at Guantánamo, with the attorney general, John Ashcroft, pressed repeatedly at Senate committee hearings yesterday to say whether Mr Bush had ever intervened on the treatment of detainees.

Mr Ashcroft would not answer, saying only: "This administration rejects torture."

However, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers this week obtained copies of a Pentagon report which concluded that some methods of torture were legal, including sleep deprivation and so-called stress positions. The April 2003 report said Mr Bush had the constitutional power to authorise torture - which is against US law - if American lives were in danger.

Mr Ashcroft denied the president had issued an order giving interrogators immunity from prosecution. "The president has issued no such order," he said, but he was adamant that he would not release documents on the issue.

The debate on the Pentagon memo is unwelcome for the Bush administration, which had hoped it had put the scandal about prisoner abuse to rest.

However, Senator Edward Kennedy said yesterday that the Pentagon memo and other such rulings laid the legal foundations for the abuse. "We know when we have these kinds of orders what happens: we get the stress test, we get the use of dogs, we get the forced nakedness that we've all seen and we get the hooding," Mr Kennedy said, holding up pictures from Abu Ghraib prison.

Mr Ashcroft replied: "Let me completely reject the notion that anything that this president has done or the justice department has done has directly resulted in the kind of atrocity which were cited. That is false."

The Pentagon memo was familiar to the former official who said military and civilian lawyers tried to "push back" some of the more extreme interrogation methods.

He and another senior Pentagon official described frequent clashes of opinion since the 9/11 terror attacks, with career military lawyers disturbed by the efforts of political appointees to grant sweeping powers to the administration.

http://www.kathymcmahon.utvinternet....el-Edmonds.htm
Please click the link for the full article.

State Dept. Quashed 9/11
Links To Global Drug Trade
-FBI Whistleblower

BreakForNews.com, 7th June, 2004 Update 9amET
by Fintan Dunne, Editor

LATEST: Sibel Deniz Edmonds was awaiting a June 14 court hearing to
determine if she can publicly tell the full story of intelligence failures
over the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. government wants her knowledge to
remain a state secret. Judge Reggie Walton has now called off the
hearing --no reason cited, and no future date scheduled. The fourth
time he's done this in past two years. Sibel Edmonds will hold a
press conference with Daniel Ellsberg at 3rd & Const. Ave. on
Monday, June 14, at 9:30 AM in front of the Court.



Even as a judge prepares to permanently silence her, a former FBI translator of intelligence has implicated the US State Department in quashing investigations which had linked the 9/11 terrorist network to a global drug trafficking ring.

Sibel Edmonds, whose closed-door revelations to Congressional inquiries have been declared state secrets, says that as a result, FBI investigations were ordered terminated.

Here's the jist of the message you posted, complete with photographs to illustrate: It's okay for the US to torture THEM because they did THIS to US.
If that is in fact not the jist then please, help me understand what you were trying to say with that message. :confused:
And as Carne said, it's swell to apologize however the underlying message remains unchanged. That's what I'm taking issue with. Do you not see how it's hateful to bash an entire religious sect based on what happened on 9/11? Need I remind you that NO ONE has ever been charged in that crime?

I watched the hearing on CSPAN and Biden was literally baring his teeth. That's the Congressman you're talking about.

For just a second, I thought it was going to come fist to cuffs. I mean it scared me a little.

:laugh: Wise-acre! :p :laugh:

Followers of Christianity, love Jesus Christ... and the acts I was talking about, however heinous they may have been, were carried out because of a love for Christ.

See, I didn't contradict myself at all. :p ;) :laugh:

I know. It got pretty heated there. Ashcroft was simultaneously shifting in his chair and sneering. I don't think this is going away anytime soon.

Not only that. I almost hate to admit it but you have forced me to think about this from an angle that I hadn't before. I've even started trying to write a song about it.

Darn it! I may have to give you a writing credit. ;)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...3/ixworld.html

Interrogation abuses were 'approved at highest levels'
By Julian Coman in Washington
(Filed: 13/06/2004)


New evidence that the physical abuse of detainees in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay was authorised at the top of the Bush administration will emerge in Washington this week, adding further to pressure on the White House.

According to lawyers familiar with the Red Cross reports, they will contradict previous testimony by senior Pentagon officials who have claimed that the abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison was an isolated incident.

"There are some extremely damaging documents around, which link senior figures to the abuses," said Scott Horton, the former chairman of the New York Bar Association, who has been advising Pentagon lawyers unhappy at the administration's approach. "The biggest bombs in this case have yet to be dropped."

(Excerpt)

Along the same lines:


_______________________________________________________
Travesty of Justice

June 15, 2004
By PAUL KRUGMAN

No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history.

For this column, let's just focus on Mr. Ashcroft's role in the fight against terror. Before 9/11 he was aggressively uninterested in the terrorist threat. He didn't even mention counterterrorism in a May 2001 memo outlining strategic priorities for the Justice Department. When the 9/11 commission asked him why, he responded by blaming the Clinton administration, with a personal attack on one of the commission members thrown in for good measure.

We can't tell directly whether Mr. Ashcroft's post-9/11 policies are protecting the United States from terrorist attacks. But a number of pieces of evidence suggest otherwise.

First, there's the absence of any major successful prosecutions. The one set of convictions that seemed fairly significant - that of the "Detroit 3" - appears to be collapsing over accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. (The lead prosecutor has filed a whistle-blower suit against Mr. Ashcroft, accusing him of botching the case. The Justice Department, in turn, has opened investigations against the prosecutor. Payback? I report; you decide.)

Then there is the lack of any major captures. Somewhere, the anthrax terrorist is laughing. But the Justice Department, you'll be happy to know, is trying to determine whether it can file bioterrorism charges against a Buffalo art professor whose work includes harmless bacteria in petri dishes.

Perhaps most telling is the way Mr. Ashcroft responds to criticism of his performance. His first move is always to withhold the evidence. Then he tries to change the subject by making a dramatic announcement of a terrorist threat.

For an example of how Mr. Ashcroft shuts down public examination, consider the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former F.B.I. translator who says that the agency's language division is riddled with incompetence and corruption, and that the bureau missed critical terrorist warnings. In 2002 she gave closed-door Congressional testimony; Senator Charles Grassley described her as "very credible . . . because people within the F.B.I. have corroborated a lot of her story."

But the Justice Department has invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege" to prevent Ms. Edmonds from providing evidence. And last month the department retroactively classified two-year-old testimony by F.B.I. officials, which was presumably what Mr. Grassley referred to.

For an example of changing the subject, consider the origins of the Jose Padilla case. There was no publicity when Mr. Padilla was arrested in May 2002. But on June 6, 2002, Coleen Rowley gave devastating Congressional
testimony about failures at the F.B.I. (which reports to Mr. Ashcroft) before 9/11. Four days later, Mr. Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference and announced that Mr. Padilla was involved in a terrifying plot. Instead of
featuring Ms. Rowley, news magazine covers ended up featuring the "dirty bomber" who Mr. Ashcroft said was plotting to kill thousands with deadly radiation.

Since then Mr. Padilla has been held as an "enemy combatant" with no legal rights. But Newsweek reports that "administration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention - that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific purpose of setting off a radiological `dirty bomb' - has turned out to be wrong and most likely can never be used in court."

But most important is the memo. Last week Mr. Ashcroft, apparently in contempt of Congress, refused to release a memo on torture his department prepared for the White House almost two years ago. Fortunately, his stonewalling didn't work: The Washington Post has acquired a copy of the memo and put it on its Web site.

Much of the memo is concerned with defining torture down: if the pain inflicted on a prisoner is less than the pain that accompanies "serious physical injury, such as organ failure," it's not torture. Anyway, the memo declares that the federal law against torture doesn't apply to interrogations of enemy combatants "pursuant to [the president's] commander-in-chief authority." In other words, the president is above the law.

The memo came out late Sunday. Mr. Ashcroft called a press conference yesterday - to announce an indictment against a man accused of plotting to blow up a shopping mall in Ohio. The timing was, I'm sure, purely coincidental.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/op...d461b87984d78f