It's a shame, but right now the sentiment among Liberals is such that only the US is guilty of torturing people. A very cursory glance at the newsfeeds confirms my suspicions that "enlightened" places like France, Germany, England, Japan, Italy torture, even at the police level. I'm sure the list could go on and on - mind you this is current news not something dredged out of the annals of WWII. If it were, Germany, Italy, and Japan would top the charts of evil regimes. Just ask a citizen of China about Japan's pacifist and restrained Kempeitai

Torture should NEVER be legal - I believe that unequivacably. "What constitutes torture?" is a snowjob question to cover up activities that the participants know are illegal. Mr. Mukasey is attempting to dodge the question so as to keep it legal.

The President of the US should NEVER publicly condone torture - to do so would set a precedent that would corrupt our civil liberties for good. But... that doesn't mean the President won't have someone tortured. Every country in the world tortures at some point in time - despite claims to the contrary it is the only effective way to get information from someone who isn't cooperative. But it shouldn't come into the public light - and as soon as it does the President needs to condemn it publicly and silently put those activities on hold.

It needs to be treated like war - an act that isn't undertaken except in very exceptional and unavoidable circumstances. The current administration's primary fault is that they are sloppy and amateurish. They allowed it to splash all over the fucking headlines by hiring moron contractors to do prison detail in Iraq. They made backroom deals with the Canadians to kidnap their citizens and ship them all over the world. They built a prison in Cuba to house prisoners that should have been shot on sight back in Afghanistan - just so they could get questionable information. The US's mistake was to overrely on it and in doing so implement it sloppily and without clear plans. If they napalmed the entire Guantanamo camp and ashed them all into oblivion I wouldn't shed a single tear. But every day that camp exists it accelerates the tarnishing of our image. It screams to the world that the US openly condones this stuff.

Bush, I presume, has a reason for keeping that place around. But he isn't communicating that reason to the world and forcing us to guess about his intentions. So he has two options - release them (either by opening up the cells or killing them) or start explaining why that place needs to exist beyond "these people are dangerous criminals". His sloppy implementation of interrogation and torture has produced this mess, his ham-handed handling of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq have produced this mess.

Drop the strawman arguement. The USA morally claims to stand for something. And legally it derives all of its legal structure from the US Constitution.

BOTH were not just violated, but essentially brutally discarded in the mendacious, fearful and ultimately useless act of torturing the so called "war on terror" detainees (waterboarding is just the most egregious form that has been admitted to).

What constitutes torture is very simple - it has everything to do with the INTENT of the actor. If the intent is to use pain to coerce behaviour other than that which is required for the immediate safety of the guards (ie a pressure hold for a violent inmate), it is torture. Simple definition, easy to apply, doesn't preclude coercive interrogation techniques, lying to the detainee, desecrating their beliefs etc.

Simple. Everyone who has been involved knows this. Everything else is just rationalization.

Its interesting that you would have these folks, folks guilty only of pissing off their neighbors or of having greedy neighbors, "shot on sight". Truly in keeping with American Values.

And the idea that it isn't evil if it isn't visible to the public is just noxious. My grandfather was totured to death outside the view of the public. That the Soviets denied this and covered up the documents didn't make it any less of an evil.

How individual citizens got their vote back

In 2008 a massive movement will be started by individuals
who are fed up with the election process that exists in
the United States.

This is what will happen:

The citizens in this group will start mailing out envelopes
filled with small amounts of various powdered substances
normally found around the house.

These envelopes will be sent to the addresses available on
the Internet for all the candidates that the persons
are NOT in favor of.

This is why:

In 1991 an engineer, working in Boca Raton, Florida
wrote an e-book about this different form of terrorist
warfare (available Free on web site www.farviewu.biz).

Ten years later, just after the 9-11 event another event
occurred (see <link>).

Based on this post 9-11 their envelopes will close up the
candidates offices and possibly even the post office.
It may even shut down the 2008 election.

The individuals involved in the act will spend about
50 cents for each envelope mailed out. As long as they are
carefull to not leave finger prints on/in the envelopes or
stamps and use bogus return addresses they will not be traceable.

No strawman to drop, except maybe the Liberal jab.

I sure wish I lived in your world, a world where everyone played nicely and by the rules. A place where simply asking another person for information produced that information.

That is not my world. People are not harmonious creatures sharing the world like some gooey John Lennon song, a song even he couldn't aspire too given how much money he died with.

Torturing people is a universally applied action among government types. The difference and what I recognize and you do not, is that so long as it is viewed by the government as a morally repugnant activity the balance of power is kept in check. When they begin to justify it OPENLY, as the Soviets did, then people lose their power.

The government will do it, you cannot prevent this, what we as citizen can do is make then suffer for it - so that they will only use it as a last resort. That is why I take offense at the President's abuse - its an open abuse. He's actually supporting it! I sure as hell don't want him torturing people, because guess which one he'll pick next - me (or you, or him, or them, or ....).

The Soviets lost power because they stopped delivering on the promise of social improvement for the average person, while their elites were living progressively more luxourious life styles. Russia - and it always has been Russia - has always tolerated a crueler treatment of its peasant society.

The idea that hidden abuse is somehow kept in check is just nonsense. That's the whole point of the "desaparecidos" it was to keep these hidden, and they pretty much were. Yet that was still the cause of the collapse of those governments.