Friday, December 14, 2007

The Party of Torture Strikes Again



By PAMELA HESS – 3 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans blocked a bill Friday that would restrict the interrogation methods the CIA can use against terrorism suspects.

The legislation, part of a measure authorizing the government's intelligence activities for 2008, had been approved a day earlier by the House and sent to the Senate for what was supposed to be final action. The bill would require the CIA to adhere to the Army's field manual on interrogation, which bans waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods.

Senate opponents of that provision, however, discovered a potentially fatal parliamentary flaw: The ban on harsh questioning tactics had not been in the original versions of the intelligence bill passed by the House and Senate. Instead, it was a last-minute addition during negotiations between the two sides to write a compromise bill, a move that could violate Senate rules. The rule is intended to protect legislation from last-minute amendments that neither house of Congress has had time to fully consider Although it's not unheard of for new language to be added in House-Senate negotiation

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Our Republicans, the often described party of faith and Christianity believes it's Ok! to torture people they think might be enemies scheming to attack the United States. And If they don't feel like torturing a particular possible bad guy, they just abduct him and render him off to a thug country that is all to happy to oblige a little testicle shock or waterboarding. It's all to protect the American People from attacks so it Ok!. Right. If questions arise the Bush administration assures us that Syria or Egypt promised not to torture our rendered suspects. So America don't worry the government is protecting you and no maybe enemy will be mistreated.

But wait, Republicans do have a conscience after all. Take the words of My Huckleberry Senator Lindsey Graham of the godly state of South Carolina.
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"I think quite frankly applying the Army field manual to the CIA would be ill-advised and would destroy a program that I think is lawful and helps the country," Graham said in an interview.

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Got that America. Waterboarding is a hideous act of torture and our soldiers in uniform are forbidden to practice it. But when the CIA does it it's hunky-dorry and we must not tie their hands in any way lest America might get attacked. I say this to the party of faith and God, and now torture. Some day you will meet your maker or so your wingnut preachers tell us. What will you say to the Lord about your behaviour here on earth. Maybe you'll just tell Him you were scared and couldn't help yourself. Or that democrats didn't do enough to stop you. It could get you thru the Pearly Gates--on the other hand.

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More Surge Success

New York Times
December 14, 2007
Violent Day in Iraq Begins With Liquor Store Bombings
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER


BAGHDAD — Homemade bombs hit two Baghdad liquor stores early Thursday, and attacks in several other parts of the city killed two people and wounded at least seven others. Eleven more deaths were reported from attacks outside Baghdad, and 19 bodies were found in Baghdad and elsewhere.

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Two improvised roadside bombs hit other Baghdad neighborhoods on Thursday but caused no deaths or injuries, the Interior Ministry official said.

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The president of a technical college in Baghdad, Dr. Sabah Ahmed al-Hasani, and his daughter suffered serious injuries after gunmen attacked their vehicle at a busy thoroughfare here.

The police in Baghdad also discovered the remains of three men who had gunshot wounds in the head, the ministry official said.

In Diyala Province, a violent region northeast of Baghdad where Sunni Arab militants have tried to gain a foothold, the police in the town of Muqdadiya discovered the bodies of 16 men, several of which had been decapitated.

Also, a roadside bomb near a gas station in the town of Khanaqin killed four people and wounded 10 others late Wednesday evening, and in Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, gunmen killed a member of a neighborhood committee, a police official the

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On Thursday morning, many of the families of the 27 people killed in a triple car bombing Wednesday in the southern city of Amara transported the remains to a well-known burial ground in Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.

Most of the 20 vehicles that arrived with coffins lashed to their roofs were draped with Iraqi flags, said Hussein Abu Seiba, a gravedigger in Wadi al-Salam cemetery in Najaf, one of the largest Shiite burial grounds in Iraq.



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