"alternative set of procedures"
A scene from Eli Roth's classic "National Lampoon's Alternative European Vacation."
I can't wait for the ABC teevee movie!
And when he says the United States doesn't torture and I never authorize torture, that is a very interesting word play, because all of the government's documents, all of the White House documents, go to this issue of redefining torture in a way that we don't define it in the United States or in the world. And that definition says torture only occurs when someone’s at the risk of immediate full organ failure or death. So that's the word “torture” that the president is using. That's not our constitutional definition of torture. That's not the international definition of torture. And you know what? That's not the American people's definition of torture.
[snip]
...It is retroactive immunity for everyone that engaged in torture. And the fact is that torture policy really specifically came down from the highest on the high. And in fact, the President, in his speech yesterday, admitted that, that he authorized it, that Rumsfeld put it into effect. And so now we know everyone did it. They said it. And, you know, that idea of being authorized from the top, well, we now know that that happened. And soldiers who follow a policy that violates the law, you know what, we don't exonerate them, because that idea of “they told me to do it,” you know, that principle went out in Nuremburg in the Second World War when it was used by Nazi soldiers. We don't abide by that. No one in the world does. And that's what the President is asking for now: immunity for everyone who is going to say, “My superior told me so.”
[snip]
And this was something that really we have had a number of conversations about, you know, with people on the Hill, some people in the White House, about the fact that an administration bill that was leaked included the word “people” instead of the word “aliens,” because the President's November 13th military order in 2001 said “non-citizens.” Well, now, the language says an unlawful enemy combatant can be any individual. And it's very clear that that means Americans. It can mean anyone in the world. There is no exclusion, you know, for Americans. And the language of who can be an enemy combatant has been tremendously expanded. So it could be, you know, not only al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, but other associated forces and just others who are unnamed. And it's any hostile act, not necessarily a military act. Am I hostile by talking about what's wrong with this, by sitting here with you? How are we going to know that? And then I end up in Guantanamo in a military commission, where the death penalty can result? This is astounding stuff.
Was that - was that weird, for anyone else, when the President stood up yesterday and said he was down with torture? That he was so down, he need to keep it up - to keep torturing people? Was that weird for anyone else?
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