[excon]

It is such typical "liberal" thinking that wants to attach more importance to UN rules than to our US Constitution.

Hello gal:

The United Nations Convention Against Torture is a treaty that your man Ronald Reagan signed in 1984. It wasn't just a nice liberal idea. It's a TREATY!

I don't know. ME? I guess you can call me a liberal because I want to stick to our treaties...

You conservatives don't want to?? That's trouble.

excon

[galveston]

Hello gal:

The United Nations Convention Against Torture is a treaty that your man Ronald Reagan signed in 1984. It wasn't just a nice liberal idea. It's a TREATY!

I dunno. ME?? I guess you can call me a liberal because I wanna stick to our treaties....

You conservatives don't wanna??? That's trouble.

excon

I am adamantly opposed to ANY treaty taking precedence over the Constituton, no matter WHO signed it. Any treaty our pres signs should NOT destroy what he swore to uphold.

If not, then the Constitution can be made worthless by treaty.

Do you think that is a good thing to do?

Here you have been ranting about how you uphold the Constitution.

So NOW treaty is more important than Constitution?

I am not offering a legal opinion, just mine.

[NeedKarma]

So NOW treaty is more important than Constitution?

Well a treaty is an understanding that involves several nations, the Constitution concerns only the US. They serve separate purposes.

[excon]

They serve separate purposes.

Hello again, gal:

And, they don't conflict.

excon

[galveston]

Hello again, gal:

And, they don't conflict.

excon

Should you have added "yet"?

As long as they don't conflict, that's fine.

But what about if our pres signs a treaty promising some kind of welfare for foreign nations to be paid by the US taxpayer? Wouldn't that be a conflict?

Seems I remember Obama talking about something like that during the campaign.

Or some treaty allowing the UN to monitor our elections? Far fetched? Hopefully!

[NeedKarma]

But what about if our pres signs a treaty promising some kind of welfare for foreign nations to be paid by the US taxpayer?

Actually that happens all the time, has been for decades, regardless of who is president.

[galveston]

Actually that happens all the time, has been for decades, regardless of who is president.

If you refer to foreign aid, that is something done by the US, not mandated by the UN or treaty.

If you are not talking about foreign aid, then you will have to explain what.

[Skell]

Again, OHCHR (then toture convention) which you refer to just says you can't torture but doesn't define when something is torture and when it is not. We used waterboarding to train our military to resist harsh interrogation tactics but it is not torture during the training period. The question became what exactly is torture and where to stop during questioning. This is the reason behind the memos so that they would comply with OHCHR Section 1. In addition to this, it clearly states that it doesn't apply to " pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions."

By applying your interpretation, serving a search warrant against somebody would violate this convention. It comes back to YOU being the one who gets to define what torture is because you don't like what was done.

No, that's right. How could we forget... Its only torture when you do it for 40 seconds but not 39?

How silly. And Elliot we don't need your argument about how drinking is OK for 19 year olds but not 17 year olds. That's silly as well.