Or, at least, the Bush administration is according to both himself and Andrew Sullivan.
"BUSH lies" doesn't cut it anymore. It's time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves.
Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: "This government does not torture people." Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of "torture" is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.
By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America's "enhanced interrogation" techniques have a grotesque provenance: "Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the 'third degree.' It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation."
Still, the drill remains the same. The administration gives its alibi (Abu Ghraib was just a few bad apples). A few members of Congress squawk. The debate is labeled "politics." We turn the page.
There are a couple of problems with this analysis.
First, a comparison to the Nazis is so needlessly incendiary and over-the-top as to be ridiculous. If the New York Times had any reputation as an objective source of news and analysis left I’d say the editors of that publication should be embarrassed. I don’t think anyone needs a history lesson about the Nazis, but it’s worth noting that Hitler and his goons rounded up members of certain racial and cultural demographics completely arbitrarily and herded them into concentration camps where they were beaten to death, starved to death or executed in one of the Reich’s cruelly efficient murder factories. The Bush administration, on the other hand, has detained known terrorist criminals in prison camps where they receive constant medical attention, a menu of good food, and living environs that are respectful of their culture and religion. And yes, these detainees do undergo periods of intense interrogation that includes thermostat manipulation (hot room/cold room), light slapping, fear, intimidation and waterboarding. Or, at least, tactics that make the detainees feel as though they’re going to drown.
To be perfectly honest, the Roosevelt administration (Franklin, not Teddy) and its treatment of Asian American citizens during WWII bears more resemblance to the Nazis than anything the Bush administration has done.
Second, Rich’s invocation of the Abu Ghraib scandal is blatantly unfair. The antics of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib were not sanctioned by the military or the Bush administration. If any criticism for that incident is to be laid at the feet of the military or President Bush it should have to do with a failure of oversight and a breakdown of the chain of command, not state-sanctioned torture.
Third, like most liberals, Mr. Rich is advancing his argument through the use of emotion and not logic. He invokes the grim specter of the Nazis (the title of this column is “The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us") and makes disingenuous comments about Abu Ghraib, and those are easy arguments to make. If you make people remember those pictures of naked prisoners stacked on top of one another, and if you talk about locking people in rooms and depriving them of sleep, making them terribly hot or cold and/or making them feel as though they’re going to drown, you will tap into people’s emotions.
But is emotion what we need when deciding national security policy? I don’t think it is. Logic tells us that our soldiers and intelligence officers need to have at their disposal interrogation techniques that will work. That will bring to light actionable intelligence that will make us safe. If we can get that sort of data through techniques that make detainees amazingly uncomfortable but leave no lasting damage, why shouldn’t we?
Of course, there’s always the question about whether or not these techniques actually will bring out intelligence, but I tend to leave that to the experts. And that, in fact, is an important point to remember in this debate with emotional fools armed with mountains of hyperbole and very little logic like Frank Rich and Andrew Sullivan (and the partisan opportunists who jump on their bandwagon): Do these tactics work to garner intelligence on terrorist activities and keep us safe?
I believe they do, because to believe otherwise is to believe that our soldiers, our intelligence officers and the Bush administration are putting detainees through this stuff for fun. And why in the world would they do that when it would be easier and much more politically expedient to just cave to the Frank Rich’s and Andrew Sullivan’s of the world?
At the end of the day, I think the real debate should be about whether or not these tactics work. Because if they do work to keep us safe, why shouldn’t we be water-boarding the hell out of these terror detainees?
Original article
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 74
Where is the reason in suggesting "Better that a thousand innocents suffer rather than an innocent suffering."
The unthinking idiots have taken over the public discourse because they are so emotionally convinced that exactly like the title of your article, we are the bad guys. I don't know how this country survives with significant numbers of people who are so deluded and unthinking as to go around and think this all day? When I hear people talk about politics there is a certain kind of person who will go off on this, and they usually are not people who have a stake in the society.
This grudge against the country and how it is expressed comes from inside people who have grudges in other areas and are transferring their feelings and grabbing hold of something and trying to hurt the country who they think hurt them in some way. When you look at what the average working or middle class family has had to put up with in terms of expectations, it is not wonder people have a bias to express anger at America. Nevermind that they do not know what to do or how to organize to change it, the core of this country is being treated like it was irrelevant.
This is why the dual goals of fighting this war, and fixing the problems at home need to be addressed. Health care, economic democracy, justice, tax fairness, social security, illegal immigration, and many others need to be fixed if this country wants to have the support of its people and a real country again.
I think this anti-war anger at America is really a psychological manifestation of anger and frustration at this country and the problem class of people who are perceived as pushing a war agenda at the expense of the people. The facts do not justify any other way to look at it, and this is a really critical time for action.
He said that only after the tories were run out of Philidelphia and their houses were torched.
What racist bullshit allows you to so casually dismiss the lessons of Hitler's detestable manipulation of the German people into a dark and sinister mockery of civilization? What the hell are you thinking? That the great American air will inoculate us against sadistic sociopaths gravitating to this realm? That WE have vastly evolved in a mere sixty years? What foolishness.
Are we seriously suggesting that this nation cannot deal with these "problems"?
One wonders what those poor souls do in nations who have real problems but none of our social or economic capital?
For someone so adamantly opposed to what happened in Germany, you sound chillingly similar to those who turned the German people away from the stability of reason and toward the passion of hatred.
a lot of variables. Unrealistic expectations, poor understanding
of the international realities, poor understanding of the realities
of war. There is the trauma of 911 obviously still active.
I think this nation as you frame your question is letting
itself fragement and thinking that is something that can
be ignored or might in some way be good for business.
That somehow we will continue as we were while the
lower classes split off into a peasant-like rabble or
something. There is little concern for the realities
of working citizens, or that is the perception.
Those poor souls in other countries do not have the
rights or power that Americans have, and unless we
plan on reducing those rights, we had better stop
disenfranchising people ... by whatever process or
by any means.
"those who give a crap about suffering innocents" and "those who do
not give a crap about suffering innocents"?
To frame the debate like that and then stick to it, claiming the moral
high ground, and then getting mad when I or someone else refuses
to agree that you have the moral high ground is such a waste of
time and energy.
Basically there is no common perceptions of facts between you and
me, so claim the superior moral ground on the assumption that there
can be no moral ground for war. It is an age old question, and history
does not answer it conclusively.
Why does this same argument have to take place so many times a
day in so many places in so many ways when it is so obviously
purposeless.
I am rather curious who is being disenfranchised in the United States?
What I see is a country that has absorbed 19 million immigrants in the last 15 years. On the other hand, I see the majority of African-Americans have achieved Middle-Class status, quite a feat, don't you think?
A dispassionate look at the demographics of the middle-class revels the greatest downward pressure on middle-clsss status comes from single parent families in the form of divorce and out-of-wedlock births. Divorce alone, far outstripped other factors such as downsizing, outsourcing, or off-shoring of work.
I could hardly see the justification for anger from the same American people who lept into the affluence of two-earner families, now complaining that they cannot "make it" as single parents.
What did they think would happen?
I think America is a great place, and when problems become evident, they get fixed here pretty quick.
We do have a good record with immigration. I don't think illegal immigration counts in that personally.
>> A dispassionate look at the demographics of the
>> middle-class revels the single factor of single parent
>> families from divorce and out-of-wedlock births as
>> exerting the greatest downward pressure on
>> family income and middle-class status.
Am I not reading this right or is it just not phrased
well? I'd like to see what demographics you are
talking about, but I would agree that in the last
30 years the family and social structure on the US
is failing.
What are you asking/saying Greg?
I really don't know what you are asking, I see all sorts of common perceptions of facts between us. I framed nothing, I responded to a person justifying torture in the name of security. Not only do I feel this is not justifyable, but that it is inneffective as well. Note the recent "comming out" of dozens of "interogators" assigned to question Gertman prosoners of war, which I found in a link within the article Mr Robb chose to lambaste:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html
"For six decades, they held their silence.
The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.
When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.
Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.
"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.
Blunt criticism of modern enemy interrogations was a common refrain at the ceremonies held beside the Potomac River near Alexandria. Across the river, President Bush defended his administration's methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects during an Oval Office appearance.
Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army's Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
"I feel like the military is using us to say, 'We did spooky stuff then, so it's okay to do it now,' " said Arno Mayer, 81, a professor of European history at Princeton University.
When Peter Weiss, 82, went up to receive his award, he commandeered the microphone and gave his piece.
"I am deeply honored to be here, but I want to make it clear that my presence here is not in support of the current war," said Weiss, chairman of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and a human rights and trademark lawyer in New York City . . . "
jim Vee, Oct 15, 2007, 1:14pm EDT
That's not Franklin's quote, jim.
This is the accurate quote:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin (emphasis is mine)
You see Jim, That says something entirely different, doesn't it? What "essential" liberties are you and I being asked to give up? Is it a violation of an "essential" liberty
to have your phone number, not conversation, grouped into an extremely large group of other phone numbers -- some of known terror suspects -- to see whose being contacted by and contacting those known terrorists? I would say it not an "essential" liberty keeping what phone numbers I call, or what phone numbers call me, a secret. Now, you want to listen in on the conversation, that is an "essential" liberty and you better get a warrant. Which I believe to be the case with the current monitoring program.
So, let's look at the other side of the question. - "temporary" vs. "permanent" security. Getting killed by a terrorist act seems to me to be relatively permanent. So, preventing that from happeneing doesn't seem to qualify as "temporary". Does it to you?
Ponder those questions and get back to me.
about tactical secrets but technical secrets:
> During the war, nearby residents watched buses with
> darkened windows roar toward the fort day and night.
> They couldn't have imagined that groundbreaking
> secrets in rocketry, microwave technology and
> submarine tactics were being peeled apart right
> on the grounds that are now a popular picnic area
> where moonbounces mushroom every weekend.
I do not think many lives are depending on urgently
getting secrets of rocketry or radar. It was the
British use of radar that saved probably more lives
than anything in WWII. I'm understanding that some
of the men in this article do not support the war, and
wanted to refute any implication that what they did
was torture or bears on the discussion of torture
today ... that is all.
Bret W., I hope you're right.
John K., why should I be impressed that these elderly gentlemen are opposed to the war in Iraq or their *perceptions* of current interrogation methods? After all, none of them have a personal experience in the current war, I don't imagine...
You caught me between edits. The corrected paragraph reads.
See The Marriage Gap
While that argument may indeed seem logical, it has numerous holes. For example: How do you assess whether the "interrogation technique" has left, or will leave, no lasting damage? (And damage to what? The physical person, their emotional wellbeing, their psyche? Gets harder to assess, doesn't it?) And, most intelligence agents (and most cops, for that matter) have said, and will repeat, that those techniques don't produce "actionable intelligence". One can never trust what was said under torture (excuse me, "modern interrogation techniques"). The victim will say anything to get it to stop. Plus, there is mounting evidence that at least some of the Guantanamo detainees are not guilty of anything. And, none of them has ever been charged, much less found guilty. So, we are inflicting these "techniques" upon the innocent.
If we are a nation that believes that all men are innocent until their guilt is proven, how do we justify any of the above-listed "techniques". Renaming them does not change their true identity -- it's torture, plain and simple.
"that is all" . . . ?
""We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.
The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.
"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."
I really don't give a hoot about the cordoning off of all of history to make the present a "special time" when anything goes. There is really no point at all to listening to the echos from the past, or the teachings of the great spiritual leaders, or much of anything else, if one is wowed by the simple fact that today is not exactly like yesterday. Every moment is new and can be seen as unique, if one is so inclined. It's just called foolishness.
Well, who ought we listen too? Those conducting these not-quite-really-torture sessions certainly were not involved in the events these old vets were. They saw the effects of humane treatment and intelligent inquiry, and they were no fools or failures.
It's always easy to say things are different this time, but that doesn't mean human nature has changed much, or that we are really in all that much peril so as to justify throwing in the towel on our own visions of justice and compassion. There are racist overtones to most of what is said to justify treating the current prisoners as less than fully human, and that is not at all new or different.
captured prisoners about technical information ... not time
sensitive strategic life or death information. I think you are
just mischaracterizing what they said and how it applies.
captured prisoners about technical information ... not time
sensitive strategic life or death information. I think you are
just mischaracterizing what they said and how it applies.
By the way the seriousness that Abu Graib was treated with
when it was discovered is proof that we take respect for
prisoners pretty seriously. Yes, it's too bad we make
mistakes and have abuses. It does us no good to haul
someone in for interogation and then make a lifelong
enemy of them. They will just be out there making
IEDs if we do.
I just do not see any point in discussing US mistakes
or abuses in the context of the Nazis unless you are
blatantly propagandizing for the terrorist POV, or just
incredibly ignorant or hateful of this country.
First, how do we know that all the detainee's are terrorists? We do not. There is no visible "due process" in place to make that determination. And no, secret courts using secret evidence does not convince me.
Do these tactics work? How the hell can we know that? We continue to take the word of a pathological liar (s)?
And what happens to the truly innocent person caught up in this web? Do you imagine that we would actually ever turn him loose to tell the world the truth about his detention and treatment?
"By the way the seriousness that Abu Graib was treated with
when it was discovered is proof that we take respect for
prisoners pretty seriously."
What non-sense. Do you have any idea of the amount of stonewalling and phony investigations that went on before one determined officer was able to get partially into what really happened? And just which leaders were punished for this atrocity? Just how did the orders to make things intolerable for those prisoners come about, and who in the government knew before it was made public? Research these things and you will find a big stinking pile of manure, not a system thirsting for justice and transparency.
"I just do not see any point in discussing US mistakes
or abuses in the context of the Nazis"
Well, perhaps all the bad stories of history ought to be ignored, and then none of these terrible things will befall us . . . but I don't think so.
i think we would way better with demanding facts on
everything when the alternative is forcing bad historic
comparisons that have everyone arguing pointlessly
with each other.
we need a pentagon papers, or more seymore hirsch's,
or freedom of information acts, a better news system,
etc ... all things people could demand if they could
grasp what is important ... but seems we all like arguing
and getting all upset better.
The fact is that Bush's invasion of iraq has some of the same characteristics as Hitler's invasion of Poland....Both were based on lies and each caused a major humanitarian crisis. The most thorough estimate of Iraqi deaths, made by an English company, is 1,200,000. The subject is of such insignificance to our government that we don't bother to keep records. In addition, of course, millions have been displaced and are living as refugees.
That makes Iraq a much worse tragedy than Darfur, and it can probably be said that our preemptive invasion, based on lies and misinformation, has been the worst such war crime since Adolph Hitler. I don't believe it's possible to refute that last statement with intelligent arguments, although some might howl at the use of the term "war crime."...
The fact that it was also an inept move that only served to increase the influence of Iran and Al Qaeda, is beside the point of this discussion, but it should be noted.
Also, the use of torture, which we don't do either because we redefine the term, or because we have a third party country do it, is patently wrong since the victims have not been convicted of anything, and in some cases that we know about, they have been innocent. To erode freedoms in the name of freedom is not what this country should stand for.
However, your point that Bush's actions are not equal to the evil of Hitler, is - of course - correct...
Torture or "enhanced interrogation techniques" are morally indefensible. That is an unquestionable to any thinking human being. You wouldn't want to be tortured. You wouldn't want to torture someone yourself, unless you have some kind of serious personality defect. You wouldn't want to live next door to someone who tortured people for a living. Anyone who is in favor of what has happened at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the CIA secret sites either has no idea of what is involved in this issue, or has something wrong with them.
Another thing: torture doesn't work as an interrogation technique. It's only purpose as an instrument of the state is terror.
You are quite correct, the opponents to this war have engaged in lies and misinformation on a scale not seen since WWII, or at least not seen since the origin of the "Peace Movement" in the aftermath of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact (The Stalin/ Hitler agreement to divide Poland).
What I find indefensible is the implications that the coalition is somehow responsible for this dubious statistic of "1.2 million" deaths, an assertion that is about as absurd as deeming Roosevelt responsible for 10 million deaths because he opposed Hitler.
First of all, no one is "convicted" of anything in a war zone. The nature of war and especially the grusome nature of this enemy makes such notions rather absurd. It is analogous to applying suburban housing codes to hell and then screaming about the lack of compliance.
But isn't that what the left has always been about?
If the opponents of this administration had their way, Saddam would still be in power in Iraq. I guess they would be calling that freedom.
By that logic, prisons should be morally indefensible, since prisons a place where neither I nor anyone I know want to be. Not only that but prisons are also a place where prisoners routinely torture and rape each other.
At least to me, this demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the left. It is common knowledge what goes on in prisons. Yet have we heard 1/1,000,000th the howling about the conditions of American prisons as we have those in Iraq and Guantanamo?
It is clear what the agenda is. After all, what profit (literally) is there for the left to complain about U.S. prisons?
Now, I know this will put a lot of you in a tither but that's your problem. I would rather you be upset than a soldier or innocent civilian dead.
The presence of a malicious leader somewhere does NOT make us the good guys regardless of what we do, simply because they get removed. It is poor reasoning and egocentric to excuse what this Administration has done based on how bad some other person was. We screwed this place up so bad that Sadam is actually becoming a fond memory for many Iraqis . . . which of course is silly, but it does speak to the folly we have been led into by our war-mongering leadership.
It just doesn't make sense that if one can find fault with a leader somewhere, one is off the hook for the suffering and deaths of millions. Do you not realize that it was the demonization of Polish leadership which permitted the German and Russian regimes to excuse what they were doing to their own populations? Could this be seen as legitimate, if evidence existed that Polish rulers were cruel or corrupt?
Let's place blame where it squarily belongs. The carnage in Iraq is the fault of Sunni fascists, Shiite thugs and Al Qaeda fanatics and NO ONE ELSE.
A coalition of 49 countries deposed Saddam, and offered free and fair elections to put in place a government that would represent all the Iraqi people.
The fascists opposed freedom and the left in the United States and Europe rushed to help them oppose freedom, but then, that is what the left has always been about.
No one had to demonize Saddam. It is clear who and what he was for decades. No one disputes Saddam's brutality but the Socialists like George Galloway and folks behind A.N.S.W.E.R who Saddam paid to propagandize.
I find it odd that the left has the balls to castigate the administration and yet still march like rats behind the Socialist A.N.S.W.E.R., all with full knowledge that these clowns not only supported Saddam but Serbian ethnic cleansing as well.
Don't you think it kind of weird that the left is told to oppose torture in Iraq by the same people who supported Serbian snipers picking off kids in Serajevo?
John Knight, Oct 15, 2007, 6:21pm EDT
You're right John. We're the good guys by the Grace of God.
We screwed this place up so bad that Sadam is actually becoming a fond memory for many Iraqis
And this is based on what evidence?
I'm neither the "left", nor a socialist advisor to anyone. I'm a Christian, and we kinda got a thing about snatching up people and torturing them. Our Boss kinda made it a point to tell us to knock off the gestapo tactics when dealing with "rebels" and such. Seems one cannot really be all that sure one's "legions" will not get carried away, despite what we would like to believe of their integrity and valor.
If Satan himself told me I ought to brush my teeth now and then, I still would.
"You're right John. We're the good guys by the Grace of God."
Not if we don't do as his Son asked, and he sure as hell didn't ask us to torment our enemies, did he?
However, He did command us to lift up the oppressed and fight for the dispossessed, which we are doing in fighting the terrorists and trying to bring freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq.
You know what he said about how we are to treat our enemies. He didn't say that cause he was ignorant of the cruelty of men, or unaware of oppression. I trust God to handle the likes of Al Qaeda . . . IF we do as he asked.
God is not befuddled or stymied by some band of hooligans. He is not in awe of their nasty reputation. He can handle this, but can we?
Shall I quote what the Book says, or will you think about it on your own?
And then, you or all people, throwing in at the end of your statement that it has nothing to do with George Bush's "innocence" compounds this absurdity and is a lame attempt to give it weight or breath life into an absurdity. After such a great article that generated some good comments just what do you mean innocence or guilt?
" Personally, I have no problem with with interrogating these detainees. I have enough confidence in the Intelligence Corp to trust the techniques they use. I agree that if it does not cause physical harm and gets positive results then it is an effective means. As for the emotional stress a detainee may experience, if you compare it to the emotional stress our soldiers in the field experience, it is a minor consequence.
Now, I know this will put a lot of you in a tither but that's your problem. I would rather you be upset than a soldier or innocent civilian dead."
this is a "culture" we are dealing with that stones women to DEATH in the streets for imagined infractions... harsh methods are suggested.
Yeah, let's avenge all those that were treated badly by this "culture" by toturing people. That'll get 'em to respect folks . . . Good logic.
bruce k., Oct 15, 2007, 7:45pm EDT
I'm not sure what you're talking about. I never made any such comment.
John Knight, Oct 15, 2007, 8:54pm EDT
But, we're not torturing anyone!
Take a look here
"ROB: At the end of the day,I think the real debate should be about whether or not these tactics work. Because if they do work to keep us safe, why shouldn't we be water-boarding the hell out of these terror detainees?"
But this conclusion is prefaced by an earlier announcement--
ROB: Of course, there's always the question about whether or not these techniques actually will bring out intelligence, but I tend to leave that to the experts. . .
So what is the result? You have effectively steered the "debate" into a region that can only be validated by experts. How can we have a debate about something you "tend to leave to the experts?" Unfortunately we cannot have a "debate" if you have already yielded the outcome to the "experts" who agree with your assessment. So if you wish to pursue a real debate on this issue, don't defer it to the experts and then announce that the deferred topic is the only important topic. I agree with you that we should be having a debate on efficacy of torture. I believe that a threshold exists where anyone will say anything in order to avoid additional physical and mental trauma--which effectively destroys the credibility of the statements made by those who are traumatized.
ROB: Logic tells us that our soldiers and intelligence officers need to have at their disposal interrogation techniques that will work. That will bring to light actionable intelligence that will make us safe. If we can get that sort of data through techniques that make detainees amazingly uncomfortable but leave no lasting damage, why shouldn't we?. . .
If the Iraq War (WMDs, Al-Qaida and 9-11 ties to Saddam) was the result of "actionable intelligence" from tortured detainees, I believe we have enough proof concerning the value (nil) of these methods--prima facie. There is no logic to this statement, Rob--just wishful thinking. This idea that "torture makes American's safer from terrorism" really panders to the emotions--a cathartic release of rage by a nation that can dish out hundreds of 9-11s in one bombing campaign.
It is rather amazing that you, Mr. Port, rattle on about torture when you exhibit so little knowledge about it. "light slapping?" Have you got your head stuck in a prairie dog hole out there in Minot, or what? Are you ignorant of Maher Arar, a Canadian falsely identified, flown to Syria, put in a concrete hole for ten months? Did that innocent man's story go in one ear, through a vacuous space, and out the other with no notice?
You supporters of torture ought to be ashamed, calling yourselves patriots. You are none of that.
Ever hear of the Fog and Night decree? Field Marshall Kietel was hanged because of it. It was formulated for Kietel by German lawyers following some legal precedents that applied to the German homeland, but were then applied to occuppied terroritories. It rounded up some 7000 partisans and "disappeared" them, many never being heard from again. As I said, Nuremburg gave Keitel a noose for his part. They read into the sentence the fact that he had scribbled in the margins of a memo calling the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and unsuited to the warfare they were engaged in. Much like our own disgrace Gonzales' comments about Geneva, "quaint" and "obsolete", not suit to our troubles. Keitel was hanged, his lawyers went to prison for ten years for their role formulating such despicable doctrines of law. Our own lawyers who define torture as pain up until organ failure or death, are given immunity from prosecution through the Military Commissions Act. They are getting better than the Nazis. Our own fog and night decree has rounded up an unknown number of suspected "terrorists," carted them off to who knows where, black sites, and who knows how many have come out. Do you, Rob? We do know at least 90 people have died under US custody. All evil terrorists, who got what they deserve, no doubt.
Arar came out and told his story. It was not "light slapping." Fool.
"But, we're not torturing anyone!"
So, I guess those 90 (plus God knows how many unknown) were just killed outright to spare them from suffering? You're condoning torture and murder sir, I suggest you reassess your obligations in this matter.
Eternity is such a long time.
statement:
> If the Iraq War (WMDs, Al-Qaida and 9-11 ties to
> Saddam) was the result of "actionable intelligence"
> from tortured detainees, I believe we have enough
> proof concerning the value (nil) of these methods
for which you have no proof and which is basically
a null syllogism.
if the iraq was was justified by intelligence gathered by torture
then those methods do not work.
You are just taking your unspoken and unproven
premises and then wrapping them up in a false
conclusion.
Leave out the emotions justifications or
condemnations of torture and anyone can
point out situation where torture is if not the
only course of action then a reasonable and
just one ... such as the ticking time bomb
scenario.
If you want to invoke logic, then you have to
go all the way.
Maher Arar's story is tragic. However there are not 8000 of
them and this was not in the service of the Nazis, and it is
not American policy to torture people. There are horrible
tragic stories that turn everyone's stomachs all the time
... far too many in this world for my stomach anyway.
The Germans never apologized to their victims. The Germans
had no civil remedy or way to inform the country of these
actions. The Germans never awarded their victims $10
million dollars recompense either. Also, German victims
are mostly dead.
What gives you the right to take one horrible story and
brand a whole country with it? Have you ever done
anything that was a mistake, or a crime, or that you
regret or are not proud of? Would you say your entire
life is equal only to that moment. Not that you would
be honest about anything based on what you have
written here.
People and the groups they are in and the countries
they belong to have to make real decisions. The
reason you are so quick to rule out torture is that you
think it is inconceivable that your life or anyone's life
you know about might one day depend on someone
forcing information from another person. For all of our
sakes, I hope you are right. I hope that no one ever
has to use torture to save either of us, but I need to be
saved at the expense of torturing a terrorist I hope
it is not you making the decision.
You torture advocates have no justification. Senior intelligence officials have openly said our current policy does more harm than good. They have approached the producers of shows like "24," which popularizes violence and torture, revealing the myth of the ticking time bomb rationalization for the lickspittle it is, and told them it is not helpful. That "ticking time bomb" scenerio is the stuff of fiction. It is documented better intelligence is gained by clever, careful interrogation than by inflicting pain. To use a "ticking time bomb" justification to legitimize an entire program based on policy directives from the highest levels is foolish, fit for classroom arguments, but unworthy of serious debate, inspite of the efforts of torture advocates to trot out that canard.
I am utterly stunned at the hypocrisy of these people. These are people who were above being bothered by the brutality of Saddam's torture chambers. These are people who never complained about Abu Gharib when the Baathist ran the place. On the contrary, they demanded that the torturers be left in power.
These are people who go ballistic at interogation techniques but yawn when Baathist, Shiite or Al Qaeda extremists blow up a bus-load of shoppers. The first they tell us is far more serious than the later.
These are people who are utterly silent about torture on the other side of the fence at Guantanamo Bay and mute concerning how Mr. Chavez questions the people he disagrees with.
When you ask them why they focus their anger on the US, they get indignant. They say "this is MY government, why should I invest time criticizing others?"
Fair enough.
But then we ask "what are you doing about the torture and rape found in YOUR state prisons?" or "What about YOUR county jail?", that is when we get to watch them flip their arguments on their head and speak of bigger things, more global and more serious than an innocent arrestee being raped in the jail cell down the block.
That is when we realize that these people care nothing for people, that their opposition to torture is just a foil to advance a murky political agenda far more dangerous than anything a lame duck administration could propose.
Stephen D., Oct 16, 2007, 8:48am EDT
Forgive me for butting in, but I would point out that you don't know the answer to that question any more than bruce does.
"Senior intelligence officials have openly said our current policy does more harm than good.
Name one. Name an active senior intelligence official. I've been able to find a CIA Legal counsel who resigned. One doesn't sound like a mass exodus and I'd want to investigate a little more before I buy the "in protest of torture" claim.
In any event, as I've stated above, the US policy is that torture is not permitted and is not being conducted. What seems to be the problem here is what is defined as torture; the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty,
I would agree that the defined activity is not the best way to obtain reliable information. To date, I haven't heard anyone, that could remotely have any knowledge into the subject, claim that we are indeed treating the detainees in such a fashion as defined.
If the US wants to torture then go right ahead just don't bullshit the rest of the world.
"This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind "24." Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and F.B.I. interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming."
"Before the meeting, Stuart Herrington, one of the three veteran interrogators, had prepared a list of seventeen effective techniques, none of which were abusive."
"Gary Solis, a retired law professor who designed and taught the Law of War for Commanders curriculum at West Point, told me that he had similar arguments with his students. He said that, under both U.S. and international law, "Jack Bauer is a criminal. In real life, he would be prosecuted.""
"At the meeting, Cochran demanded to know what the interrogators would do if they faced the imminent threat of a nuclear blast in New York City, and had custody of a suspect who knew how to stop it... But Navarro, who estimates that he has conducted some twelve thousand interrogations, replied that torture was not an effective response. "These are very determined people, and they won't turn just because you pull a fingernail out," he told me. And Finnegan argued that torturing fanatical Islamist terrorists is particularly pointless. "They almost welcome torture," he said. "They expect it. They want to be martyred." A ticking time bomb, he pointed out, would make a suspect only more unwilling to talk. "They know if they can simply hold out several hours, all the more glory—the ticking time bomb will go off!"
"The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq.... "In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence," Lagouranis told me. "I worked with someone who used waterboarding"—an interrogation method involving the repeated near-drowning of a suspect. "I used severe hypothermia, dogs, and sleep deprivation. I saw suspects after soldiers had gone into their homes and broken their bones, or made them sit on a Humvee's hot exhaust pipes until they got third-degree burns. Nothing happened." Some people, he said, "gave confessions. But they just told us what we already knew. It never opened up a stream of new information." If anything, he said, "physical pain can strengthen the resolve to clam up.""
The rendition program has been operating for years now. It has been estimated that a few thousand questionable people were rounded up since 9/11 and rendered to third country sites, such as Maher Arar, and the german fellow el Masri. Both were tortured, held in cognito for months, released when determined they were not of any value. A twenty year old who committed suicide in Guantanamo last year was picked up in Afghanistan about 5 or 6 years ago. He was a boy when captured.
Mr. Schiller, you presume to know what I think, but you know absolutely nothing.
I am only addressing the possibility of U.S. sponsored torture techniques as the source of much of the information that was marketed to promote the war in Iraq--if this statement is correct, then it is no small wonder that we have diverted our attention from Al-Qaida/Osama to Iraq. One might argue that the information provided by the tortured "informants" was intentional--a tactic employed by the Al-Qaida leadership to keep the American military machine tied up. Hardly a "null syllogism" as you say, but overwhelming evidence of incompetence. The Iraq War, to be sure, represents a monumental failure on so many levels: i.e. a failure to
(1) Gather vital information
(2) Protect vital and/or strategic actionable information and information sources
(3) Putting the "actionable" information to proper use.
This government (i.e. the Administration) has failed on all these points, giving out secrets, abandoning all recognizable logic, and in the end making the wrong choices even if the information was assumed to be spot on. Assuming that (a) Saddam had nuclear WMDs and could launch them at any time (b) Saddam would/could/etc give weapons to Osama (or already had, it was unclear where the WH stood on this issue--quite vague really) (c) Saddam played a role in the operations of 9-11-- even if all of these statements are true, I doubt our actions in Iraq have eliminated the threat of global terrorism from jihadists willing to use WMDs--in fact I believe the threat has worsened. Only time will tell. "Experts "are now cautiously claiming that Al-Qaida has weakened--I can only hope that they are right for the wrong reason.
Where to start ... the problem with any of these discussions is that everything gets wrapped right up together to the point of uselessness.
The Iraq war or the use of torture and how that compares to the Nazis, I believe is the subject, not that it has to be limited there.
The Iraq war has had a lot of mistakes. I think had we known the history of any war it would have a similar magnitude of mistakes. When things get to war it is a total mistake anyway.
As far as torture, the position put forth by well-intentioned people who think they are doing right is that it should be in some way outlawed. First, even if we say we outlaw torture, I do not believe it would happen and I do not believe most people or most of our enemies would. What would banning torture accomplish but to make some people like they had done something when nothing had been done.
What is bad about torture is that it can be use wrongly. Innocent people can be tortured which is a situation so horrible that everyone can relate to that and agree that it is horrible and should never happen.
If it becomes known it is a terrible propaganda defeat for the torturers, unless there is damn good reason it was done. For instance if by torture it was revealed that a nuclear bomb was found and disarmed in a major city to me anyone who complained has no credibility.
If soldiers or occupiers get the reputation for torturing their job increases in difficulty immensely.
The problem with the whole framing of the discussion and questions is that the use of torture needs to be well supervised or managed to avoid abuse for the many reasons described.
We let soldiers have guns and some of them go and shoot civilians because they are crazy, flipped out in rage. We do not say take the guns away from the soldiers ... it is absurd. Taking torture away is similarly absurd. It will be used, and it will be used many times and never found out, and it will be used rightly in hopefully most of those cases.
I think we need control of the use of torture before the fact, or answerability after the fact.
I am not going to bother to refute the whole assembly of reasons for the war. The government made a decision, that is what the government does. They were elected, or not, but whatever, they have the right to do that. If there is a problem it needs to be discussed and dealt with later after lessons are evaluated and learned. Americans always want the quick feel good fix ... and that is why we never solve our problems, because some problem demand lots of thought and an evolutionary approach.
The thing is that we are there now. Al-Qaeda are fighting there to establish their caliphate in Iraq. Iraq is the best strategic place in the Middle East to be if you are there militarily. We may have to take action in Iran or Syria, or deter action by them. Certainly Iraq is unstable. I disagree with you that the threat has worsened, I believed the threat has come out in the open. I think you should take a look at the threat.
"We may have to take action in Iran or Syria, or deter action by them." I fail to see how this is not naked aggression. Their is no conclusive evidence by ANY credible intelligence gathering agency that the threat from either Iran or Syria is substantial. The rhetoric certainly is, the hard evidence is wanting, even moreso than it was for Iraq. Cheney and Rumsfeld have for years, many years in fact, before 9/11 planned for the actions we have engaged in as a nation... the invasion of Iraq, spreading that invasion to other oil rich countries, to establish military outposts that police the area and make access to oil easy and profitable. The Project for a New American Century documents are eminently clear about this. The September 2000 PNAC report, Rebuilding America's Defense, as well as the 2002 National Security Strategy documents, lay out both the aggressive posture and pre-emptive war doctrine, and the reason for the aggression. The 2000 PNAC report stated unequivocally that implementing this plan in the absense of an event like a new Pearl Harbor would require slow transformation. One year later we witnessed the new Pearl Harbor and the RAPID implementation of every bullet point in the documents discussed above. The assault on civil liberties, the use of torture, circumventing the constitutional separation of powers, increased military spending, weaponization of space, privatization of defense responsibilities have all RAPIDLY followed from that Pearl Harbor-like event. Those in charge of this rapid transformation have gained in terms of power and in their financial portfolios. The events that have taken place since 9/11 have had more to do with this, than with the threat from extremists.
It is a self-sustaining consequence of these actions that the threat from extremists has increased, thereby putting us all in a state of dependency on the military state... without them the "terrorists" would kill us all! The fascist coup that has taken place in this country is not recognized for what it is. Those who point to it, such as Paul Craig Roberts, conservative researcher with the Hoover Institute, the Cato Institute, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, Reagan's Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, are ignored or reviled.
So if I find some of the comments posted by Rob Port or others resembling the ideology and methods used by the Nazi brownshirts, you might understand why. Mr. Port hopes to present himself as a patriot. He is doing a poor job of it.
Then it should be an easy matter to prove me wrong.
Please provide links to articles you have written on Gather and comments that you havve posted which demonstrate that your concern with "torture" is both global and local and not simple pathological partisanship.
Please instruct us how your concern for affairs in Iraq is a mere reflection of your activism involving other countries whose policies are far more brutal than the US, and whose practices are more widespread.
Please inform us of your local campaigns to protect prisoners closer to home than Iraq.
Prove me wrong, Steve.
Intelligence agencies do not say anything. What are you quoting and who exactly in 16 intelligence agencies "said" what you quoted? Basically when these agencies are used to rubber stamp the war you are opposed to "their" opinions, but now you agree with them and quote them?
Then you measure only by increased attacks. This sadly carried weight with people who do not care or think very much, but you have no assessment of what Islamic terrorism would have been if we had made different actions either. So your argument is that there is really no threat of Islamic terrorism, that we are making it. This is pure ignorance and denial. It is surrender. If we just sit back and year after year accept the expansion and consolidation of this threat we will be fine, that is until they have nukes and use them.
We do agree, you think it is naked aggression to attack Syria or Iran. I think there have been 30 years of terrorist intent clearly shown by Iran not to mention their president who makes comments not even Hitler would have made to the world media. You are a clever arguer but it is really too bad that you support Islamic terrorism.
I read the project for the New American Century before the 2000 election, before buffoon like you even knew about it. Have you really read it. Show me where it says we are going to invade oil rich countries? It doesn't. What it does do is to say that without American taking some action there are predictable bad things that are going to happen that can be averted to everyone's benefit by America taking a leadership role. It does not say an incompetent or corrupt leadership role, and we do seem to have some of that going on.
There is also nothing about an assault on civil liberties. Of course there were and are questions raised, just like questions were raised by Pearl Harbor, what do we do with the Japanese that we do not understand. Mistakes, or assaults on civil liberties have to be resolved. I have been paying close attention to the news since before the 2000 election on all of this. I have or any other American I know of have never faced the slightest assault on my civil liberties. Sorry you are so concerned with enemy combatants that you have to lie and dissemble the truth to support them.
Have there been some abuses. Yes. We just reach different conclusions. I see no worldwide conspiracy, I see the same things that happen every time people try to do anything, incompetant and corruption. I don't see huge numbers of tortured innocents. I see one or two cases being used by people like you to attack anything the US does, and you never made a single comment about the other side.
I'll repeat that:
I see one or two cases being used by people like you to attack anything the US does, and you never made a single comment about the other side.
This says to me that you are only concerned about attacking the US, not supporting human rights as you seem to want to be interpretted. Why is this?
If you are concerned about those in charge gaining in power, expanded power of the presidency I assume, or wealth, why do you spread that concern to demonizing everyhing that is done in the war on terror and not talk specifically and with facts about things that might solve those problems?
Answer, because you do not care about the problems you are talking about you just seek to spead negativity and disorder in the US and about the war on terror, because you most likely support the terrorists. Do you think the terrorists will give Americans more civil liberties if the win and get their way? Is that what your twisted mind thinks?
I am not any more depenedent on the state now that i was in 2000 or 1970, you propose this major psychological construction of fear from my own state that has not a shred of evidence to it that is not based on overreactions of small actions projecting into the future with the utmost paranoia.
Stephen, people like you are dangerous. You think you know something, and you act on it like it is reality, but there is no reality about the ideas you put forth, it is someone else's construction with a little logic and lots of emotion, fed to you based on your fear that has been whipped up so you do not even question.
How can we not know your mind when you spend so much time speaking it?
As for proof, like everything else, you have it completely backward.
You said I am wrong, I said prove I am wrong.
bruce, I did not say the PNAC report talks about an assault on civil liberties. You misread what I wrote, and I admit I can see how you might read that statement as such. But you are incorrect about that, and in your presumptions about who and what I support.
It is not people like me who are dangerous, bruce. I do not propose or support policies that pursue military domination, nuclear supremacy, military empire, the exact intention of the PNAC agenda. I do not propose or support threatening sovereign nations with nuclear attack pre-emptively to remedy an unsubstantiated threat. I see an adherence to international conventions, to international cooperation as a better way to address extremist threats. It is not my ideology that is the dangerous.
- policies that pursue military domination
- nuclear supremacy
- military empire
Your arguments are just silly, and the state of mind you have to be in to see things that way is dangerouly unstable, one just has to see what you think would be productive to reverse these false arguments:
- military submission
- nuclear inferiority
- military downsizing
All of which any thinking person knows will 100% definitely lead to destabilization, weakness, and ultimately victimization or a worse war than what we face now if we ever got the urge to stand back up after you people bend us over.
You talk about international cooperation, and I would love to see an international body that would be worth cooperating with, I just do not think that body is the UN as things stand ... by the way ... which just put Libya on the Security Council.
I know your ideology is dangerous because historically it has missed, appeased and dealt wrongly with threats all through the last 100 years, and caused conflicts ultimately to be worldwide in scope instead of pre-emptive.
By the way, who is threatening sovereign nations with nuclear attack, last I heard the questions posed it was to Barak Obama, who did not rule it out.
I don't buy the argument that an American Empire is mankind's only and best hope. Perhaps you do. And especially when it entails wars based on lies, support by torture and war crimes, black-ops provocations, a military/industrial/congressional establishment, erosion of civil liberties, circumvention of the constitutional separation of powers, an unconstitutional expansion of executive power.
I have made no straw man arguments. I stand behind everything I have said. Discuss with me factual errors I have made, if you can.
> I don't buy the argument that an American Empire is
> mankind's only and best hope.
Plainly you do not ... I guess you are with China, Russia of the Muslims.
If torture goes on in the US, and I do not think it even does, it is almost laughable that you would make an issue of it when compared to Russia, China or the Islamic republics.
No wonder you think your civil liberties are eroding, you live in a fantasy world of paranoia against what I suppose are your own people. If you are not making straw man arguments, check inside your sleeves, shirt and pants for straw coming out, and for goodness sake don't stand too close to an open flame!
Until you show me how I am twisting what I have read firsthand in the PNAC documents and on their website, why do you spend your typing energy insulting me? Is that going to change my mind, sir?
And the fact that I oppose American Empire in favor of international cooperation does not mean I support, condone, applaud extremists who use terror tactics to publish their message. You presume too much, bruce.
Yours is not a thinking process David, I know you'll never be.
Bush may not have officially " sanctioned " torture BUT he then also didn't EXTUINGUISH it upon becoming aware.
The facts are that torturous treatments do NOT gain us credible factual intell, BUT instead get those tortured to say whatever they can think of to make it stop.
What if enemy soldiers are given MISSinformation, which is tortured out of them to draw us into a trap. ? ? ?
The only intell I can beleive is that of our OWN operatives and analysts, using their our free brains to decipher and witness things. NOT someone who BY DEFINITION has our own worst interests at heart .
ALSO Abu Gahrab was NOT an isolated incident as Gitmo prisoners also had their religions icons torn, and defaced etc etc etc . ( which I dont see as torture myself cuz like with the bible its just a book written by men )
Lastly, the armed forces use torture NOT for fun, but for the same reason many humans do things. - - Its always been that way - Their paradigm is STUCK .