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Rice: When the president approves it, it is not illegal

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+5 more 
posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:20 PM
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Rice: When the president approves it, it is not illegal


rawstory.com

When Stanford University students recently asked former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about waterboarding and torture, her response was uncannily close to Richard Nixon’s infamous claim, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

Students toting a video camera approached Rice and asked her about a new Senate Intelligence Committee report which states that she gave the CIA its go-ahead for the use of waterboarding in July 2002.

Rice responded
(visit the link for the full news article)


+7 more 
posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:20 PM
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I think that's an admission of guilt. Can we just prosecute these war criminals already along with all the other people guilty of doing this in previous and the current Presidential administration? Is that how it is? So now the President can do anything?

What has happened to our elected officials? I guess that Condi Rice has gotten so used to being a member of the CFR that she feels as if she is no longer accountable to the American public here. What is wrong with these idiots?

rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:23 PM
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Watergate anyone. "I am not a crook"

Second line.


+6 more 
posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:23 PM
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Nixon famously tried that argument and famously failed to get anyone to buy it.

The president is not supposed to be a law unto himself but rather the upholder of the law.

There is a vast distinction between the two.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:25 PM
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reply to post by Frankidealist35
 



Rice responded by saying, “The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”

“I didn’t authorize anything,” Rice insisted. “I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency.”

“By definition,” she repeated, “if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”



And she is one of our sterling elite leaders...

But she doesn't even know the law.

How does that work? Aren't they supposed to know this? Didn't she attend any classes on law when she got her degree?


+5 more 
posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:29 PM
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When the president approves it, it is not illegal


What she is describing here is a dictator
plain and simple



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:37 PM
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Originally posted by Frankidealist35

Can we just prosecute these war criminals already along with all the other people guilty of doing this in previous and the current Presidential administration?


No, because now we have to contend with a fortuitously timed flu-pandemic.


+1 more 
posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:44 PM
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Lets not take Condi's quote out of context. She did not say
"When the president approves it, it is not illegal"
That was Nixon.

She did say
"The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture"

When I read this I gather that Condi was advised by the administration that their actions were within the legal realm of the Convention Against Torture. Now I understand that the legality is certianly up for debate, and I agree, but no where do I see Condi saying "When the president approves it, it is not illegal"

Interpret it how you will, but lets get the quote correct.

-E-



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:48 PM
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reply to post by MysterE
 


That is really splitting hairs there you know that don't you?

The difference between the two assertions is so minute as to be nil.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:48 PM
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reply to post by MysterE
 


You are exactly right. The buck has to stop somewhere or government cant function. If the President says its legal after getting legal advice then its legal. Now if the President is wrong then he could face prosecution, but not the people below him who were given orders by him.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 01:53 PM
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Originally posted by grover
reply to post by MysterE
 


That is really splitting hairs there you know that don't you?

The difference between the two assertions is so minute as to be nil.


Was waterboarding illegal at the time of use?




Hayden said current law and court decisions, including the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, cast doubt on whether waterboarding would be legal now. Hayden prohibited its use in CIA interrogations in 2006; it has not been used since 2003, he said


Justice Official: Waterboarding Is Now Illegal




Hayden said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - the purported mastermind of the 9/11 attacks - and Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were subject to the harsh interrogations in 2002 and 2003.


Senate Dems want criminal probe in waterboarding cases

-E-

[edit on 30-4-2009 by MysterE]



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 02:07 PM
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This smells like a witch hunt to me - as in Democrats only interested in going after Republicans. If anyone were truly interested in justice then EVERYONE who knew or was briefed about the interrogation techniques and did not stop them should be hauled into court. Would include members of the previous administration, a portion of the current administration who held office then, and half of congress now. Great let's do it.

By the way if anyone cares just 28% [of U.S. voters] think the Obama administration should do further investigating of how suspected terrorists were questioned during the Bush years (Rasmussen).

Oh that's right, opinion polls that don't agree with your opinion are either skewed or don't matter.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 02:48 PM
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There are STILL people out there who think this is about partisan membership. They are ALL the same party. They switch when it's convenient.

Also, "I was just following orders" was EXACTLY the excuse the US refused to accept at Nuremburg. But it's OK now, because they were "advised"? Puhlease!


The only one who even hinted that this was not appropriate in the Bush cabinet was Rumsfeld, who knew the "American people were not going to take kindly" to this practice. But he 'followed orders' anyway... and here we are....



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 02:49 PM
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reply to post by MysterE
 


No it was not. We never had a law passed or a supreme court ruling making it legal nor did we ever withdraw from the Geneva convention which declares it torture... therefore since we were signatures of that treaty then it was the law of the land and still is.

All we had were some hot shot legal stuffed shirts saying that it was OK but that does not change the law which was the Geneva convention treaty.

Once a treaty is ratified by congress and signed by the president it is defacto the law of the land regardless of what some lawyer says... and that doesn't change just because a different party is in power.

IF bush minor had formally withdrawn from the Geneva convention treaty then that would have been an entirely different beast but he did not.

[edit on 30-4-2009 by grover]



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 02:53 PM
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Originally posted by jjkenobi
This smells like a witch hunt to me - as in Democrats only interested in going after Republicans.


Uh huh. Business as usual. However we're talking about war crimes here, not a case of someone lying about a BJ.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 02:59 PM
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Originally posted by grover
reply to post by MysterE
 


No it was not. We never had a law passed or a supreme court ruling making it legal nor did we ever withdraw from the Geneva convention which declares it torture... therefore since we were signatures of that treaty then it was the law of the land and still is.

All we had were some hot shot legal stuffed shirts saying that it was OK but that does not change the law which was the Geneva convention treaty.

Once a treaty is ratified by congress and signed by the president it is defacto the law of the land regardless of what some lawyer says.
[edit on 30-4-2009 by grover]


WELL. That depends on what the treaty says. The treaty protects lawful combatants. Who we captured were not lawful combatants, by definition. This is most likely what they lawyers were going on when they said it was legal.

I'm kinda sick of the McCarthyist policies the left is taking up now. Aren't THEY supposed to be "above" that?



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 03:03 PM
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Originally posted by Highground

Originally posted by grover
reply to post by MysterE
 


No it was not. We never had a law passed or a supreme court ruling making it legal nor did we ever withdraw from the Geneva convention which declares it torture... therefore since we were signatures of that treaty then it was the law of the land and still is.

All we had were some hot shot legal stuffed shirts saying that it was OK but that does not change the law which was the Geneva convention treaty.

Once a treaty is ratified by congress and signed by the president it is defacto the law of the land regardless of what some lawyer says.
[edit on 30-4-2009 by grover]


WELL. That depends on what the treaty says. The treaty protects lawful combatants. Who we captured were not lawful combatants, by definition. This is most likely what they lawyers were going on when they said it was legal.

I'm kinda sick of the McCarthyist policies the left is taking up now. Aren't THEY supposed to be "above" that?


Pardon the intrusion but no it does not. If our nation's chief executive gets approval to become a signatory to an international treaty, that law supersedes our own.

Unless we are going to change the precepts of International Law, this is a constant.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 03:07 PM
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This argument didn't work for tricky Dick, and it won't work for Rice or Cheney. I love the rationale. Where did these idiots come from? It really takes a special kind of stupid to say this in public.

Such is the MO of the Bush Administration.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 03:10 PM
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reply to post by Maxmars
 



It does not supersede our own laws. It becomes part of the Constitution under Article 6. A violation of the Geneva Convention is a violation of the Constitution as it stands today. But it does not supersede our judicial review process and we can back out of the treaty, not that I think we should.



posted on Apr, 30 2009 @ 03:11 PM
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Originally posted by ModernAcademia

When the president approves it, it is not illegal


What she is describing here is a dictator
plain and simple


If not already, this will soon describe obama, as well. Forcing business executives to resign? Where is that listed as a presidential power?




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