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30 October, 2007
Rencana Pendidikan Bagi Kota/Propinsi
29 October, 2007
On Torture and American Values
The New York Times | Editorial
Sunday 07 October 2007
Once upon a time, it was the
The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper’s front page last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.
After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were captured and held in secret. Some of their methods — simulated drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress positions and isolation — had been classified as torture for decades by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.
The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers concocted documents that redefined “torture” to neatly exclude the things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bush’s loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those acts did not violate the lower standard of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to do it, from any kind of legal accountability.
Mr. Bush and his aides were still clinging to their rationalizations at the end of last week. The president declared that Americans do not torture prisoners and that Congress had been fully briefed on his detention policies.
Neither statement was true — at least in what the White House once scorned as the “reality-based community” — and Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was right to be furious. He demanded all of the “opinions of the Justice Department analyzing the legality” of detention and interrogation policies. Lawmakers, who for too long have been bullied and intimidated by the White House, should rewrite the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act to conform with actual American laws and values.
For the rest of the nation, there is an immediate question: Is this really who we are?
Is this the country whose president declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and then managed the collapse of Communism with minimum bloodshed and maximum dignity in the twilight of the 20th century? Or is this a nation that tortures human beings and then concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid accountability before American voters?
Truly banning the use of torture would not jeopardize American lives; experts in these matters generally agree that torture produces false confessions. Restoring the rule of law to Guantánamo Bay would not set terrorists free; the truly guilty could be tried for their crimes in a way that does not mock American values.
Clinging to the administration’s policies will only cause further harm to America’s global image and to our legal system. It also will add immeasurably to the risk facing any man or woman captured while wearing America’s uniform or serving in its intelligence forces.
This is an easy choice.
Book Cover Design
Re: Menjawab Dengan Jujur Atau "Benar" #3
Komentar dari beberapa pembaca:
Saya sendiri bukannya tidak setuju dengan pendapat bahwa anak2 dilarang untuk mempunyai pendapat atau pandangan yang berbeda tapi memberi jawaban yang tepat dan benar adalah wajib.
Tapi kalau soal2 yang untuk di ujikan di ujian akhir,misalnya.Saya yakin guru lebih tahu,tidak asal-asalan dan benar2 memikirkan dalam memberikan soal2 beserta pilihan jawaban yang tepat dan benar.
trus menurut pak gene..bagaimana cara penilaian yang benar? kalau ada pertanyaan model pilihan ganda atau model benar salah, berarti
kalau saya baca tulisan bapak, tidak ada jawaban yang salah menurut bapak dan semua bisa dibenarkan menurut logika berpikir masing2 anak,
kalau begitu tidak akan ada standarisasi dalam sistem pengajaran dan penilaian donk kalau semuanya didasarkan pada jawaban logika berpikir masing2 anak yang pastinya berbeda satu dengan yang lainnya.. jangan cuman kritik aja, kita tunggu solusinya pak...
standarisasi sistem pengajaran bukan berarti doktrinasi jawaban, standarisasi pengajaran itu misalnya untuk matematika, dia sudah paham pecahan, persentase, desimal, …untuk bahasa Indonesia, standarisasi bisa berarti bisa menyusun kalimat, terstruktur, bisa berargumentasi dengan baik,kreatif. Jadi kalau ditanya, ikan hidup dimana? ada yang jawab, kolam, akuarium, laut, dll dll, berarti semua dibenarkan,
Bagusnya sih, kl ujian itu bukan pilihan ganda, tapi essay, jd murid punya kesempatan memaparkan hasil pikirannya dan argumentasinya dalam sebuah tulisan.
Coba kalau seandainya essay di gunakan pada waktu ujian akhir...otomatis waktu yang digunakan untuk menjawab soal2 tersebut tidak cukup. Begitupun kalau pemeriksaan hasil2 ujian itu.Berapa banyak waktu yang di butuhkan seorang guru untuk membaca hasil jawaban soal2 essay yang mengakibatkan terhambatnya memberikan hasil penilaian ujian itu sendiri.
Berati semua Ibu hamil seharusnya wajib operasi sesar untuk menghemat waktu dokter! Setuju? Tidak setuju? Yang penting bisa menghemat waktu, betul?
Kesimpulan
24 October, 2007
Re: Menjawab Dengan Jujur Atau "Benar"? #2
HOAX: Apple Mecca
23 October, 2007
Lebih Baik Menjawab Dengan Jujur Atau "Benar"? #1
Assalamu’alaikum wr.wb.,
Silahkan baca juga:
Petisi-Peningkatan-Kualitas-Pendidikan-Nasional
21 October, 2007
Carter Says US Tortures Prisoners
CNN
Wednesday 10 October 2007
"I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and
Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.
Carter's comments come on the heels of an October 4 article in The New York Times disclosing the existence of secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of "harsh interrogation techniques." These include "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures," according to the Times.
The White House last week confirmed the existence of the documents but would not make them public.
Responding to the newspaper report Friday, Bush defended the techniques used, saying, "This government does not torture people."
Asked about Bush's comments, Carter said, "That's not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored -- certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated.
"But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don't violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don't violate them."
After reading a transcript of Carter's remarks, a senior White House official said, "Our position is clear. We don't torture."
The official said, "It's just sad to hear a former president speak like that."
Carter also criticized some of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates, calling former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani "foolish" for his contention the
"I hope that he doesn't become president and try to impose his conviction that we need to go to war with
The Giuliani campaign declined to comment on Carter's criticism.
The former president didn't spare the rest of the GOP field either.
"They all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with
"They're competing with each other to appeal to the ultra-right-wing, war-mongering element in our country, which I think is the minority of our total population."
Carter declined to say which Republican candidate he feared the most.
"If I condemn one of them, it might escalate him to the top position in the Republican ranks," he said.
Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton of
"I disagree with their basic premise that we'll still be there; I think the American people want out," Carter said. "If there is an unforeseen development where Iraqi people request American presence over a period of time I think that would possibly be acceptable, but that's not my personal preference."
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CNN's Alexander Mooney contributed to this report.
Source: Truthout