ABUSE CRISIS: US Senate moves to ban prisoner torture

The US Senate has barred soldiers from maltreating or torturing prisoners. These moves come as an amendment to the 'defence spending bill' - which is being debated in Congress this week. The amendment seeks to stop 'cruel, inhumane, treatment of prisoners in custody or under control of the United States Government.'



At least the bill was passed even if it was facing "White House opposition".

After all the scandal that the Abu Ghraib incident has caused, why did the White House oppose the passing of this amendment?

Related News Links:
www.boston.com

EDIT: Fixed Source Link (better material)

[edit on 6-10-2005 by AussieNutter]

Uh, because they are evil? What the hell? Watching Bill O'Reilly his republican guest is saying that it is wrong that christians can't kill jews anymore, and that all liberals need to be "stopped". Hmmm, goes from kill jews to stopping liberals, wonder what she meant by stopping liberals.

Also what else will the troops do for fun? A football costs money, letting the troops torture innocent people is free.(They are innocent till poven guilty, so far what? 3 guilty, 300 innocent?)

In a related topic on ATS Political Conspiraceis, Bush hasn't Vetoed anything, But he will Veto this???
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It's a nobel gesture, but who is going to enforce it? Terrible brutality already exists in US prisons, if that can't be stopped, how will prisoners of war be protected? The only reason the public is aware of Abu Graib is because of cell phone camera technology. That's been banned by the military now, good luck getting anyone to notice future atrocities.

They need to ban all camera's (including Press) from Military installations where P.O.W's are kept. One big mistake was allowing embedded reporters. I could go on & on about that one & i'm a little off topic.

Originally posted by call1
They need to ban all camera's (including Press) from Military installations where P.O.W's are kept. One big mistake was allowing embedded reporters. I could go on & on about that one & i'm a little off topic.

While we're at it why not put the pesky news media under the control of the government? I mean if the government could have complete control over the information that the masses recieve then not only would the public be more supporting of the war but we would also have fewer terrorists because no one would know anything about any of the atrocities (like abu ghraib) that might motivate people to become terrorists...

OR we could live by the principles that we claim represent our society, you know, the ones we're currently trying to bring to Iraq through this occupation...

Originally posted by ShakyaHeir
While we're at it why not put the pesky news media under the control of the government? I mean if the government could have complete control over the information that the masses recieve....

Umm, it was done in WWI and WWII, and in the occupation of Germany after WWII [look under the topic heading of ICD Overt Operations].

Furthermore, other like democratic-styled governments have done likewise. China and Russia, among other nations, still utilize such technics and methods today. Your problem with this is what: the freedom of press issue? Better check how freedom of press can be restricted by the government for a variety of reasons and during wartime.





seekerof

[edit on 4-12-2005 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by Seekerof
Umm, it was done in WWI and WWII, and in the occupation of Germany after WWII [look under the topic heading of ICD Overt Operations].

Furthermore, other like democratic-styled governments have done likewise. China and Russia, among other nations, still utilize such technics and methods today. Your problem with this is what: the freedom of press issue? Better check how freedom of press can be restricted by the government for a variety of reasons and during wartime.

Since when did Russia and China become the shining examples of free societies which America should model itself after? And I've said this before time and time again; "but they did it too" is a very weak argument.

If the freedom of press can be restricted any time we're at war then that's just another disturbing implication of waging a never ending "war on terror", the government can restrict the press anytime they want now... More and more it seems like our government is operating under the principles of INGSOC and not of a free democracy.

Some questions I have for you Seekerof: do you think that a historical precident necessarily makes something right or justified? Or were you simply trying to say that we've done it before in the past? What's your opinion of state involvement in the media? What's your opinion of a state run media?

I'm very curious as to what you actually think, rather than your knowledge of the history behind this subject.