Democrats & Liberals: Archives

The President of the US has held the power of veto for as long as I can remember. The very fact that it is there suggests that it can and will be used. When it is, it will obviously be to favor the President’s position on an issue.

What is the real issue, Should the President have the power of veto or, Should he have it but only use it when it aids the opposing position.

By my own admission according to the standards suggested by the author I am not a decent citizen because I do not agree that all of the points suggested above should be included.

Paul

The problem is the vagueness of the terms used to describe torture. If they were spelled out than it would not be a problem. But using terms like “Bar cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees in American custody.” So you want to ban any punishment of anyone held in American custody? And what is cruel inhuman or degrading to one person is not to others. I know men who pay women to put panties on their head. When you eat a cheese burger you are committing cruel punishment in some people’s eyes. Where do you draw the line? Don’t say common sense because politicians do not use common sense to make decisions as this forum does not use common sense when you attack EVERY thing BUSH says or does.

Come on…
Is anyone condoning torture?

Ted and steve:

Does that mean that you guys support torture?

Ted:

It is not vague; it is clear that Paul is talking about torture, not something else.

Ted, The phrase was defined in the international anti-torture convention act, which we refused to sign. McCain is basically asking us to abide by the international standard. “Cruel and inhuman” of course, is already defined by our constitution, it’s “Degrading” that is new, and I remember reading a pretty detailed explanation of what that meant.

I’m impressed McCain put that forward. The guy has integrity, that’s for sure.

Steve Smith-
Yes he has the power of the veto, but now he’s using it to prevent well-founded investigations into reports of child molestation, rape, and murder at Abu Ghraib that are making the the lot of us look like heathens. This guy who has never used a veto in his entire time as president. I say call his bluff and let him defend documentary evidence of these kinds of evil crimes if he wants to.

Ted-
Although I would not begrudge torturing a terrorist in a national emergency, when people’s lives are on the line, I think making it policy is a collosally stupid idea. The fruits that our policies abroad bear are the means by which we as a nation are judged. Do we want to give all those police states out there real, undeniable evidence to show to their citizens that we’re little better than they are?

As for cruel and unusual punishment, while the constitution leaves that vague, it most likely means that you don’t send one guy to prison for twenty years for stealing a loaf of bread, and send all the other bread-thiefs up for two. It means we don’t torture people to death for a crime and then draw and quarter them for display at the corners of the country.

It means that we don’t sic dogs on our prisoners, nor sexually abuse them. We do not become hypocrites whose behavior can only be justified by our positions of authority, or some holy cause.

The difference between us, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden cannot only be the flag that flies above our prison. Their rape rooms cannot become ours.

Anyone who thinks torture can be a legitimate policy is basically evil at the core.

Jason and Tony,

Please provide an example of what you consider torture as used in conjunction with interrogating a prisoner.

Stephen Daugherty,
The very fact that the power of veto resides with the President invites the opportunity NOT ONLY NOW but HAS FOREVER for him to use it. I am not aware of any exclusions from the power. Surely the fact that it was given to the president invites the conclusion that it was considered possible that it could be mis-used.

General,
This business about if we condone torture (as yet to be described) subjects our military to the same conditions is of course true. In the current “war” our guys are not taken prisoner by an opposing army, they are taken prisoner by terrorists who have agreed to zero conditions of war and are not bound by anything.

steve -

I don’t want to get into symantics of abusing people for questionable gain.

Simply because people are from a different part of the world does not excuse inhumane treatment of them. Do you feel proud of our excuse in Iraqi prisons? Gitmo? Even though most prisoners there are innocent bystanders?

Do you feel that somehow our priniciples that make us Americans hold only to Americans?

Tony

Your lack of intellect is only lacking your core need to label anyone who does not think like you as “evil at the core”. There is a time and place for torture of people. If shocking some nut case in Iraq will lead to one less American soldier being hurt or killed than I say hook the car battery up to the sucker and fry him.

In fact while we are at it let’s send the seals in after Kim Jung whatever and then bring him to the girls at Helga’s House of Pain and let them take him into the CBT room for a work over and he will sign anything we want within 20 minutes. It’s a silly statement before you all call the ACLU on me. There is a time and a place for everything and I think total banning of it is not needed and a very wrong decision.

Nothing new here. When Bush and Rumsfeld announced they would not be bound by the Geneva Conventions in their treatment of suspected terrorists, Bush played his cards for all the world to see. He has nothing to lose now by sticking to that position. His polls are already tanked.

In a way, this could be good news, as it reflects the fact that the Republican Party has no integrity. Many of its members do, but the Party also includes folks like Bush and Rumsfeld who talk human rights and about valuing life, but, can’t possibly live up to such words when push comes to shove because of their lack of integrity.

We constantly get the bait and switch when it comes to torture.

We all agree that torture such as beatings, mutilations etc are always bad. When American personnel have done such things, they have been tried and punished. That is the bait. Yes – we oppose those things.

But then we hear that torture is when people are made uncomfortable. In Guantanamo we hear that the guys there were tortured by having women address them in provocative ways. You can imagine the nitpicking and novel definitions that would result. If the prisoners at Guantanamo had to eat the same food their guards get, that would be called torture.

Anyone who has traveled tourist class on a trans-oceanic flight has suffered much of what some people call torture, especially if you had to watch a movie with Merle Streep.

So give me a decent definition of torture – including specifically things you would leave out, such as provocative talk, uncomfortable chairs, rap music etc – and we can talk.

Jack, et al.
I’ve heard a lot about how having seductive talk, putting women’s underwear on their heads, etc, is not torture. You imply that this is no big deal and that they should actually enjoy it. If that is the case, then WHY ARE WE DOING IT? It is obvious that the female guards are most likely not overwhelmed with lust for their charges. The truth is that we are trying to degrade them and destroy their faith. These are specific attacks designed to be the most spiritually damaging things we can think of.

Also, if all we are doing is causing mild discomfort, why the problem with stopping? Is it really essential to keep putting panties on their heads, considering that they really don’t mind? You can defend it as necessary torture, or you can defend it as not torture, but you can’t defend it as necessary non-torture.

How would we react to the story of a born-again Christian prisoner being given this treatment, being sexually humiliated? How would we react if prisoners here were force to make a naked human pyramid? The problem with institutionalizing torture is that once you start with the small cruelties, the big ones are just a moral lapse away. That’s why we outlaw it outright here.

It’s not about being soft or hard on terrorists, but about having standards of behavior. The terrorists may be able to take advantage of our mercy, but so shall we. Our mercy is what earned us the respect of the Germans and Japanese after WWII. Why do we fail to show that mercy elsewhere? That mercy earns us the respect of the world, because it shows that we are capable of winning without excessive cruelty or unbridled hatred. We are not as driven by our darker impulses. Now, the real hardcore terrorists might not agree with that, but we’re not asking them. We’re asking the Arab Street. It’s no use winning this war if we fail to lay the groundwork for solving future problems. Our torture policies are a future problem in the making. After all, Egyptian Islamic Jihad got its start in the prisons and torture chambers of Egypt’s totalitarian government.

Well and eloquently stated, Stephen. I was going to reply to Jack, but, I could not add better than what you just postulated.

Stephen:

I agree with everything you posted except for one word:

Yes he has the power of the veto, but now he’s using it to prevent well-founded investigations into reports of child molestation, rape, and murder at Abu Ghraib that are making the the lot of us look like heathens

I realize you probably meant heathen in the informal sense, “an unenlightened person; a person regarded as lacking culture or moral principles.” However, the primary meanings of this word are religous: a person who does not belong to a widely held religion (esp. one who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim) as regarded by those who do; a follower of a polytheistic religion; a pagan. The informal usage has grown out of that primary meaning, being a description of how more widely held religions view pagans. As such, it has somewhat offensive connotations when used in this manner. May I suggest “barbarians” as a perhaps more apt and less divisive description?

How to define torture seems to be the main stumbling block here. It seems to me that we could define torture as our enemys do. If we are fighting If we are fighting Islamic terrorists who think it’s torture to place panties on their head, we won’t do that. If they think Rap music is torture, we won’t play it. However, they seem to have no trouble cutting off fingers, hands and heads so these must NOT be torture to them. Would you rather we resort to that? If we let our enemys define torture it will come to a point that locking them in a cell is torture. Our enemy knows how he will be treated if he is caught by us and if he is willing to take that chance, let him continue fighting us. If he isn’t, he can always lay down his gun and we will let him live his life in peace and he won’t ever have to look at women’s panties.

Nice post, Paul.

Is the president willing to use the veto to assure the use of torture?

If he does veto it, it’ll be the first time he’s vetoed anything. What does that say?

The problem is the vagueness of the terms used to describe torture.

Nope. McCain is pretty clear about it: Set standards for interrogating military detainees and limit them to techniques outlined in a new Army field manual.

Although I would not begrudge torturing a terrorist in a national emergency, when people’s lives are on the line, I think making it policy is a collosally stupid idea.

Spot on, Stephen.

So give me a decent definition of torture – including specifically things you would leave out, such as provocative talk, uncomfortable chairs, rap music etc – and we can talk.

This is really a poor argument. McCain wants to set the standard as per the US Army training manual, Julia mentioned the definition in the international anti-torture convention act. To say that no one is offering specific definitions is just dumb.

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Your lack of intellect is only lacking your core need to label anyone who does not think like you as “evil at the core”. There is a time and place for torture of people. If shocking some nut case in Iraq will lead to one less American soldier being hurt or killed than I say hook the car battery up to the sucker and fry him.
—-
Wow - you prove my point so well.

First - the Hollywood mentality of torturing a suspect and getting info on a bomb just in the nick of time to save the world is fantasy. I could be wrong - but I’ve never heard of such an event. Generally, as far as I know, the type of torture that yields reliable results is mental torture over a long period of time. Physical torture usually creates mental instability in the victims - resulting in the victims guessing at what the torturer wants to hear more than reliable facts.

Second - this is about being more evolved than our enemies. We either become better people or become our enemies. Changing the management of torture/rape rooms only changes the demographics of the victims.

Third - I guess if we’re all hyped up about torture - then maybe we can refer to the North Korean’s handbook. They seemed to use torture quite a bit back in the 60s & early 70s. Learn from the best…

Although I would not begrudge torturing a terrorist in a national emergency, when people’s lives are on the line, I think making it policy is a collosally stupid idea.

Anyone who thinks torture can be a legitimate policy is basically evil at the core.

Posted by: tony at July 27, 2005 08:26 PM

Apparently Stephen is evil at the core, according to Tony. I did not know that about Stephen, and I’m sure it will surprise many others as well. While not agreeing to torture as a general policy, Stephen is agreeing to a policy that torture CAN be accepted under certain approved circumstances.

Many people would condone torture depending on the circumstances. Consider the following scenarios:

A man kidnaps your child and buries your child alive, with 10 hours of oxygen left. Police catch the guy, but he wont tell them where the grave is. Do you torture him, or allow the child to die?

Police catch one bomber, but the bad guy with the nuke is still out there, planning to detonate in 3 hours. Do you torture the guy for information to prevent a disastrous bombing?

Military intelligence gets wind of an upcoming surprise attack, and has someone with knowledge in custody. Thousands will die if the attack is not stopped. If someone had information to prevent Pearl Harbor, would it have been worth torturing one person to prevent thousands of deaths?

The problem with this is defining clearly under which circumstances torture would be acceptable. Different people would have differing viewpoints on this. While I agree with Stephen on the concept, I’m not sure how to enact such a standard.

I also want the definition of torture to be well defined. By the definitions thrown out in this chat, I was horribly tortured during my fraternity “hell week”, being forced to do any number of degrading things. By minimizing what torture really is, we miss the opportunity to discuss properly how to decide policy.

Aggressive interrogation is necessary to prevent lives from being lost. There is a line that should not be crossed except in the most extreme circumstances, as Stephen stated. But we must not emasculate our policies to the extent that even aggressive interrogation is considered torture.

—-A man kidnaps your child and buries your child alive, with 10 hours of oxygen left. Police catch the guy, but he wont tell them where the grave is. Do you torture him, or allow the child to die?

Police catch one bomber, but the bad guy with the nuke is still out there, planning to detonate in 3 hours. Do you torture the guy for information to prevent a disastrous bombing?

Military intelligence gets wind of an upcoming surprise attack, and has someone with knowledge in custody. Thousands will die if the attack is not stopped. If someone had information to prevent Pearl Harbor, would it have been worth torturing one person to prevent thousands of deaths?
—-

A very good Hollywood script… but is it reality?

Jarin-
Don’t be offended by my word choice.

I use words in my own context, as you do yours. Now, I know by that context that you do not mean yourself to be a savage, that you consider being a pagan to be a positive thing. Really, both heathen and pagan are basically old ways of saying redneck (“You know you’re a pagan when…”) which got repurposed for dealing with those folks regarded as savages. In fact, in the old days, the distinction may not have been that great.

In the end, though, words evolved not only different meanings, but different shades of meaning. I call you a pagan, it means one thing, because you know that I am tolerant of non-Christians. But if a fundamentalist calls you a dirty pagan, you know they don’t mean well. That is, unless they are your friend, and you haven’t had a bath in a while, when it will become a joke between friends. Your own people have taken a term that indicated outcast religious beliefs, and turned it into a recognized label for an almost mainstream religious movement.

My point, made in the most friendly way possible, is “consider the source” and “consider the purpose”. I am a product of a secular upbringing, where the word heathen was meant to mean wild and unruly, I also used the word to describe what a Muslim would think of what we were doing. They would describe such behavior in those terms, perhaps in strong ones.

I’m not on principle opposed to a degree of political correctness. But I think there are limits to it, because our use of language contains a natural degree of uncertainty and plasticity that can defeat a system of ettiquette or interpretation too rigidly defined.

All ye torture defenders,

We have all heard some variation on the hypothetical example of someone being tortured to learn the location of a bomb in the middle of a city. But does anyone have an actual, non-hypothetical example of torture successfully being employed to save hundreds or thousands of lives?

Another question I pose to you: You are an Iraqi “freedom fighter” (in your own eyes) and you have taken custody of someone in the US Air Force. Through your intelligence sources, you believe that this person has knowledge of a massive air attack. Although the attack will be directed at your fellow insurgents, it will also certainly kill innocent civilians. Are you morally justified in torturing the American so you can warn the civilians and fellow insurgents of the attack?

Several of you have pointed out that terms like “torture” can be ambiguous. By this standard, we can hardly outlaw anything. We can outlaw cocaine, say, because you can do use a lab test. But how about fraud or rape? These things are often matters of interpretation, so why bother?

Trying to define torture is like trying to define porn or sexual harassment, you know it when you see it.

I don’t think I want the “PC” crowd trying to define any of those.

Anything proposed by John McCain belongs in a circus, he has become little more than a clown in my opinion.

Torture has not yet been define nor relevant examples given.

I repeat, terrorists are not a country that signed or agreed to the humane treatment of prisoners. Hence they can do whatever they want (and they are) with the prisoners they have taken.

I have seen testimony in front of various committees by the leading ranking US military people in charge of the prison “camps” where they stated that everything described to them as interrogation methods was within the laws of the Geneva Convention.

You can go to any porn site or, for that matter turn on the TV to see men with panties on their heads (some seem to like it) and dog leashes around their necks (they also are having a good time).

I know, lets send a message to the terrorists worldwide and explain that we have this agreement regarding humane treatment of prisoners and we would appreciate them cooperating.

This business about if we condone torture (as yet to be described) subjects our military to the same conditions is of course true. In the current “war” our guys are not taken prisoner by an opposing army, they are taken prisoner by terrorists who have agreed to zero conditions of war and are not bound by anything.

That’s the old “Our head-to-body ratio is 100%” argument, and it’s pretty short-sighted. The decisions we make right now regarding the relevence of the Geneva Convention will still be in play the next time we’re in a real war. The world watches what we do.

Anything proposed by John McCain belongs in a circus, he has become little more than a clown in my opinion.

Yeah, who cares what that clown has to say about torture. It’s not like he’s experienced it or anything…

Steve Smith,

Yeah, they aren’t a uniformed army, blah blah blah… But does that mean we don’t owe them any consideration as human beings? Could we grind them up and serve them for dinner? There must be SOME limits. And isn’t this supposed to the administration that listens to JC? Does Christian morality only applies to uniformed armies?

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You can go to any porn site or, for that matter turn on the TV to see men with panties on their heads (some seem to like it) and dog leashes around their necks (they also are having a good time).
—-

Wow - so the sick bastards on the web should set our standards for treatment of people? mmmmmm - Maybe we can get Dirty Sanchez elected as our UN Ambassador…???

It’s a very basic concept. The standards (or lask there of) the we set will be used on us at some point in the future.

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Anything proposed by John McCain belongs in a circus, he has become little more than a clown in my opinion.
—-

We all know that McCain knows nothinng of torture.

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Could we grind them up and serve them for dinner? There must be SOME limits. And isn’t this supposed to the administration that listens to JC? Does Christian morality only applies to uniformed armies?
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You don’t think… the last supper… they serverd…???? eeeww.

Woodie,Tony,

It may be that REAL torture caused McCain to evolve into a clown( It took quite some time), but politically he has become one.

I wonder if Kunish was ever tortured?

Not sure I would ever support McCain… but within the same vein as Bush… he seems like an extremely rational person.

Kusinish ? ie..Dennis

Tony,

I respect McCain’s service, I wish him well, but politically he has always been a lightweight and now I’m not sure he’s hitting on all 4 cylinders.

Thats just my opinion politically, I respect your’s also.

To those who defend torture,

When a terrorist blows himself up, taking the lives of infidels, he is martyred and praised by other terrorists. He is seen in the worlds eyes as a suicidal fanatic.
When we accuse that same fanatic of terrorism, torture him,(Beating him with objects and fists)humiliate him(Stacking naked on top of one another)Abuse him(Hanging by ropes in positions causing damage to joints and ligaments)He is still awaiting martyrdom. He is still seen in the eyes of the terrorists as a hero. The world sees him as a victim of U.S. tyranny, not the suicidal fanatic that he is. We are helping their cause when we stoop to their level.
I grew up knowing that we (The U.S.) were the “Good Guys.”
I never thought I would hear Americans debating for the use of torture.
It’s sad.
I hope my definitions of torture were clear enough.

A very good Hollywood script… but is it reality?

Tony and Woody:

I used the popularly known “ticking bomb” scenario, which has been presented by people like Alan Dershowitz of Harvard in the discussion on torture, and I did so to show that if presented with a certain set of circumstances, some people will condone torture. That was the essence of Stephen’s statement—-that given the right circumstances, he would condone torture.

The question involved is what conditions meet the level of “right circumstances”. Some would say never, while others would argue that the future good outweighs the torture. Dershowitz’s opinion is below:

Criminal defence lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, argues that a ‘ticking bomb’ situation would justify some form of torture to extract information. “Suppose you know that there is a bomb about to go off which could claim thousands of lives and you have good reason to believe the prisoner knows where it is. Would it be justified to use torture?â€

Dershowitz suggests that instead of trying to maintain an unrealistic ban on torture, the US should regulate it. Police authorities needing to torture a suspect would apply to a judge for a “torture warrant” that would set limits to the type and duration of pain. Limitations on the admissibility of evidence extracted under duress would continue to apply, but the information could be used to prevent impending attacks. Anyone found torturing outside the terms of the warrant would be guilty of a criminal

Additional info on Dershowitz can be found in an article he wrote: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/22/ED5329.DTL


To your point that these scenarios are unrealistic or have never occurred, allow me to present Dershowitz’s comments: “No such case has arisen since this court decision, despite numerous instances of terrorism in that troubled part of the world. Nor has there ever been a ticking bomb case in this country.

But inevitably one will arise, and we should be prepared to confront it. It is important that a decision be made in advance of an actual ticking bomb case about how we should deal with this inevitable situation.”

Think of this situation: would it have been worth saving Danny Pearl’s life by torturing a detainee with knowledge of his whereabouts?

These are legitimate questions to consider, not simply silly discussions to discard.

Andre -
I agree - absolutely. The cycle of violence either has to be broken or increased. We can up the stakes by being more ruthless and pushing the limits of human cruelty… or we can try to put an end to the violence.

Is there any victory with a race to the bottom with religious radicals?

I think the key to cutting terrorism down drastically is to have the people with terrorists in their midst to shun them even more than we do. The Muslim world is starting to see the shame that terrorist bring to them all by hijacking Islam to violent ends. If we present ourselves as humane, then we can help foster a sense of common good between our two societies.

Timothy McVey (sp?) was an American terrorist. Our society does not allow for that kind of evil actions, so the impact people like him have on the world has been drastically minimized. The Muslim community can have a similar impact, I think that’s the direction we should head.

As long as we present ourselves as the evil some believe us to be, then we will at best stay even with them on the number of lives we each destroy.

What aggravates me even more about this is Bush has never used the power of the veto during his entire presidency from what I remember. And now he chooses to finally draw the line in the sand on of all things, torure. Where is the Christian morality that he professes he has?

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Think of this situation: would it have been worth saving Danny Pearl’s life by torturing a detainee with knowledge of his whereabouts?
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If we make torture illegal… would it be worth possible jail time to save lives? It’s kind of the same argument “If someone close to Hitler 70 years or so ago knew what we know now, would it be wise to allow for the murder of individuals?”

I don’t think society benefits from make making murder legal or for making torture legal. Pretty much every case that provides for justification of either is hypothetical… so my point is to make both illegal. If a specific case arises that merits exception, then it can be discussed at that time. Legalization of either just encourages it’s use.

We are still arguing the wrong point. Torture is bad, but we have to define it.

But there are a couple of other points. Most of the people we detain would not be POWs by the definition the world uses. They are out of uniform, targeting civilians and behind enemy lines. What they are asking is NOT to be defined by the rules, but the set the rules of definition. If they were treated as POWs, they could be shot as spies or saboteurs. Or they could be detained until the end of the war, which may not be for a long time to come.

When trying to get information, we are trying to make the person uncomfortable, afraid, and uncertain. We are trying to break down his will to resist. If you want to ban everything that will accomplish this you may as well learn to live under the Caliphate as a second-class citizen. There is a line when discomfort becomes torture.

We talk a lot about how we should not humiliate the prisoners or attack their belief. It depends. If a person truly believes that he will have the opportunity to rape 72 virgins in the afterlife in return for killing himself and a lot of other people, yes – I want to humiliate him and break down this pernicious belief. Since he is obviously lust driven, why not use that – just like whoever sent him on the mission used it to motivate him. In fact, we might save him from hell. You know the devil can deceive and pose as something he is not. If you think God is telling you to kill in return for carnal pleasure … well that sounds less like God than like the competition.

I have just been to a number of research sites and can find no specific/meaningful description of “tortuous” acts. Most references to “torture” are extremely vague and in some interpretations amount to nothing more than making someone feel uncomfortable in body or mind.

I am curious to ask those who believe that all POW’s/detainees or whatever you choose to call them should be treated “humanely” during interrogation, you would never get a response other than name, rank and serial number. In short, you would never get an answer that would provide information regarding how to gain an advantage on the enemy, prevent an attack, find enemy encampments, learn the enemy’s strength, plans, extent of firepower and so on.

This begs the question, Why take prisoners to begin with. They are costing you unnecessary time, space, money, staff resources to guard them, etc.

This of course leads us to the possibility of even more severe treatment of a potential prisoner which is to execute him in the field.

I think too many people have the mistaken impression that POW camps are or should be conducted as they were in “Hogans Heroes”.

Ok, if we must deal with this ticking time bomb scenario. If the torturer was an American, he would be entitled to a jury trial as a civilian or court martial as a soldier. In either case, it seems highly unlikely that the person would receive more than a token punishment. Even if they did go to prison, it would be a modest sacrifice in the scheme of things. So I don’t see this really being a problem.

This assumes that the act really saved lives, or appeared reasonably likely to. If the person just grabbed a random Middle Easterner and tortured them, he would have a problem…

Tony,

Can you or I imagine posessing the single-mindedness and fanaticism it takes to knowingly fly a jumbo jet full of people into a building full of people?
No!
We Americans would all crack if tortured, if we were hiding a bomb. Hell, if you told me I’d miss Monday Night Football, I’d take you to the bomb immediately,name everyone involved and tell you my mom whacked Jimmy Hoffa.
These are not people who care how they die. They are brainwashed into a perverted,twisted view of Islamic fundamentalism.
If they can strap 30 Lbs. of explosives to themselves, climb aboard a bus full of children and detonate themselves,killing all on board, torture isn’t going to phase them.
Just make us look like terrorists.
I just don’t get those who support this.

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the opportunity to rape 72 virgins …
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I don’t think that’s exactly how it goes. The idea of eternity with 72 virgins seems to be equal to eternity with 72 Mary K saleswomen… It’d get old real quick. It’s kind of a bizarre concept - but I think religions all play at that game. (Maybe the separation of heaven and hell: do they have to remain virgins? Or do you have to do work around the house first?)

steve-

We define ourselves by the way we define torture.

I would like someone to show real-world benefits of having legal standards for torture? What if we opted for the highest standards of humane treatment and kept torture off limits. If anyone commits acts of torture, then they had better have proof of a dire situation… and we can address exceptions on a case by case basis. Otherwise -you leave the use of torture open to the discretion of individuals, and we’ve seen the results of that.

Andre:

There are many good reasons to NOT use torture. In many cases, it is ineffective and serves only to put the “world” against those who use it.

But as I’ve tried to show, there are times when torture can be used for a greater good. It should never be used as a punishment, but only only only if it serves to save lives. This has to be closely monitored.

What galls me is the way people immediately condemn the US for torture, while ignoring the abuses of others. Where is the fervent condemnation of the terrorists who beheaded innocent captives? Check through the Watchblog archives for articles condemning these acts by foreigners and guess what…..YOU WON’T FIND ANY.

That people would equate the pissing on a Koran (while wrong) with real torture is simply ignorant.

The following is torture:

em>”Admiral James Stockdale wound up in Hoa Lo Prison - the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” — where he spent the next seven years under unimaginably brutal conditions. He was physically tortured no fewer than 15 times. Techniques included beatings, whippings, and near-asphyxiation with ropes. Mental torture was incessant. He was kept in solitary confinement, in total darkness, for 4 years, chained in heavy, abrasive leg irons for 2 years, malnourished due to starvation diet and denied medical care, and deprived of letters from home in violation of the Geneva Convention….Told that he was to be taken “downtown” and paraded in front of foreign journalists, Stockdale slashed his scalp with a razor and beat himself in the face with a wooden stool. He reasoned that his captors would not dare display a prisoner who appeared to have been beaten.”

Equating Koran abuse, or putting womens underwear on someone’s head with what happened to Stockdale is not only ignorant, it is repulsive.

Stephen, David and Pundit
The three of you are obviously intelligent and love to show it on here. There are a number of places your intellect can be put to work for some good other than this waste of time and effort.

Andre
You are on the edge of sanity brother. Pull the rip cord and bailout before you enter the dark place.

Tony
You have crossed the line into the dark place. I wish you luck with your counseling.

To all the democrats out there. I took your advise, as a registered republican I forced my 18 year old daughter to drop out of school and dragged her down to the army recruiter and made her sign up for the army as a explosive ordnance destruction specialist as I figure this would be the best chance for her to die in Iraq so I can prove to you that I understand the pain of the poor in the way you obviously do. I hope the death of my only child will get me one of those nifty buttons to enter the “we understand the pain of the republican forced poor of America “club.

The issue with an official acceptance of torture was seen at Abu Gharib. The abuse became an exercise in demented fun… there was no goal of obtaining information with the abuses we saw. It may have started as that, but with individual discretion setting the limits of torture, it’s easy to see things getting out of control quickly.

It’s been studied 1000s of times… when individuals believe that horrible treatment of others is condoned, they act without concern for others. It happened in Germany… it’s happened in labs (with subjects administering lethal doses of electrical shock to others simply because they were told to.) If we don’t keep this beast completely caged, it will bite us in the ass.

What I find repulsive is that we would even consider any inhumane treatment of anyone. Whether it is torture however you define it, or Koran abuse or women’s underwear on their head. I find it all offensive.

It leaves us open to same or worse treatment of our soldiers and civilians as being justified.

Do unto others…..

Bush

Thank you for your astounding, pointless insight and depth in your post…. I have absolutely no idea what to do with your comments. Do you really think I need counseling? I feel … totally sane…. Are you sure?

tony said in response to my question as to please define torture. I might as well have asked the Maharishi Fooba or Dali Lama

“We define ourselves by the way we define torture”

tony,
Did you know that when we execute someone by lethal injection, we swab the needloe insertion point with alchohol.

steve -

brace yourself….

…. I’m opposed to the death penalty as well.

In regard to the ticking time bomb scenario:

While we’re wasting time beating a confession out of someone who may be guilty or may be innocent (we’re not talking a convicted felon here, only a suspect), rather than actually *investigating*, what’s to prevent a false confession that sends us on a wild goose chase while the real bomb goes off? IF the person really is the bomber, they’ll sure be laughing at us then.

Same thing with the buried child scenario… what’s to prevent the killer from sending you out digging up a thousand sites where the grave supposedly is?

Physical torture usually takes a long time to really break someone and get useful information from them. McCain is an excellent example of that. These last minute nightmare scenarios that are supposedly the justification for all torture simply have no credibility.

I believe there should be a national law clearly stating which methods of interrogation are allowed and which are not. The members of our military and law enforcement should be trained in accordance with it. Of course, the methods that are allowed probably won’t be as effective. So be it.

However, as some have argued above, a situation may arise where harsher methods of interrogation might be necessary (to prevent an imminent attack, etc). If a member of the military/law enforcement feels such treatment is needed in a certain situation, he’ll just have to be aware that he’s breaking the law to do it. And when he’s punished for it, even if what he did saved lives, he’ll just have to live with the fact that we have these laws for a reason. You see, real heroes do what they do regardless of the consequences.

Jarin,

Physical torture usually takes a long time to really break someone and get useful information from them.

I would think that depends on the psychological makeup of the person being interrogated. Some people crack under the mere threat of torture.

Woody said,

“Yeah, they aren’t a uniformed army, blah blah blah… But does that mean we don’t owe them any consideration as human beings? Could we grind them up and serve them for dinner? There must be SOME limits. And isn’t this supposed to the administration that listens to JC? Does Christian morality only applies to uniformed armies?”

Woody, these guys are terrorists, blowing up people (women and children included) and they are chopping off peoples heads. You have to be joking.

Andre,
With all due respect for your opinion and, in all good conscience I cannot accept the examples you gave as being torture. Also, even after the next example of the American readilly giving up the information he would be shot anyway because those people see that as treachery and weakness and cannot tolerate it.

Tony Yes i truly believe you need mental help, your views on the world a so far twisted.

tony,

Even though you and I disagree on many/most issues I am not among those who believe you need mental help. If that were the case I would need a lobotomy.

Needless to say I am FOR the death penalty but I am sure you knew that.

I am for the right to bear arms.

Bush,

Was there some point to your response?

I’ll keep it simple. If we torture prisoners of war or detainees at Abu Graib or Guantanamo Bay we are no better than the terrorists.
I refuse to adress the “They do it too.” justification.I’m a 4th grade teacher so I hear it all the time.
If we condemn torture, we can hold our heads up, as Americans. This administration has given us little to hold our heads up about.
I thought you folks were for spreading Democracy. Torture is not a part of the Democratic process.

Those who condone torture within the Bush administration are insane. Anyone who supports the idea of Americans using torture on captive prisoners, is bloody insane.

The ticking time bomb scenario doesn’t work if the bomber desires the bomb to go off more than they care about feeling pain or protecting their own life. Logical, yes?

We need to fully understand who we are dealing with here — and acknowledge the fact that torture only makes us look bad (insane) to the civilized world — in other words, among our allies. It will do nothing to change the hearts, or the plans of fundamentalist terrorists.

Obviously, I too must be standing on the dark side with Andre, Tony and Woody — funny how it seems so much more like the the bright side of Reason, eh fellas?

PS. Good article and a hearty cheer for the Four Sane Republicans!

Three cheers for the “Dark Side!”

Adrienne, please cease calling others who visit here with differing opinions on this issue ‘insane’. If you wish to refer to the notion or the idea that American sponsored torture is insane, fine. But referring to “Anyone who supports the idea of Americans using torture on captive prisoners, is bloody insane.” covers some of WatchBlog’s visitors and they have the right be respected for having opinions just as you do. Critique the Message, NOT the messengers.

No additional warning will be forthcoming. Your cooperation will be appreciated.

Bush, same warning to you as to Adrienne above. Critique the Message, Not the Messengers.

No further warnings will be forthcoming. Your cooperation will be appreciated.

There’s no doubt that some of us would like to punish (maybe even torture) some scum (like Saddam).

It’s too difficult to morally justify, no matter how hard one tries to rationalize it.

And there are other pragmatic reasons to not do it:

It hurts our own causes.
It may endanger our troops.
It may endanger our allies’ troops.
It further alienates our allies.
It’s in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
It may create more hatred and terrorism.
It’s probably not that effective or reliable.
It may cause shame, for those that perpetrate torture, that’s very difficult to live.
It’s not necessary.
It can spread, like a disease, get out of control, and lead to more atrocities.
It’s immoral.

I took your advise… I hope the death of my only child will get me one of those nifty buttons to enter the “we understand the pain of the republican forced poor of America” club.

This comment would actually be better directed at Aldous than at Stephen, David and AP. But “Bush” does have a point. How many of us on this blog can emotionally relate to what we’re talking about with war in Iraq?

McCain is right on torture. One of the smartest things President Bush could do would be to appoint McCain (and other war vets) to a panel to review interrogation techniques for appropriateness.

Jack also has a point. The un-uniformed prisoners we have do indeed fit a profile for spies and traitors. Perhaps the more practical and humane treatment for them would be a swift trial, followed by release or immediate execution by firing squad. These sort of public humiliation techniques (currently being aired on Iraqi TV) would help; see here for a sample transcript.

I’m honestly surprised that there are people trying to explain why torture is a good thing. I dind’t realize that this is the level of debate that we were on.

It all boils down to what kind of treatment do we say is okay for Timothy McVeigh, the Atlanta Bomber, and Charles Manson.

Should we beat them up for information? Should we wipe menstrual blood across their face, or put panties on their head? Should we force them to masturbate? should we strip them naked and put them in solitary confinement for 30 days?

I would say no to all of these things.

These three men are evil and awful. But we treat them humanely, because we aren’t them.

In addition, that’s why we don’t require hard labor in our POW camps. Steve Smith, the army has always said it’s illegal to try to get information out of soldiers. POWs have always been expensive, and of non-benefit (except for the fact that they aren’t fighting). That’s how we’ve done it for a 100 years. You’re arguing against what our typical practice is, not against the imposition of radical new anti-torture ideas.

Julia

—-
Tony Yes i truly believe you need mental help, your views on the world a so far twisted
—-

I am truly glad you think so. Confirmation comes in such strange varieties.

And if you are wondering if I have a “Have you hugged your terrorist today” bumper sticker… no I don’t, but I am strangely attracted to that idea. :)

steve - as to the swabbing the needle before lethal injection… there’s sort of a very dark humor involved with that side of reality. It’s bizarrely absurd - but I could never see anything sane involved with killing people. (And I’m glad to don’t think I’m nuts…).

Julia…

RIGHT ON!

REPORTER VOWS TO ‘KILL SELF’ IF CHENEY RUNS FOR PRESIDENT
Thu Jul 28 2005 15:32:13 ET

Veteran wire reporter Helen Thomas is vowing to ‘kill herself’ if Dick Cheney announces he is running for president.

The newspaper HILL first reported the startling claim on Thursday.
—————————————————-
This isn’t extreme? I for one will give her the gun and any advise to make sure she does it right. the video on orgish.com will be awsome!!
Since she said this she should be forced to do it!! Only by killing herself can she prove how against Chaney using his rights she is! She can do it during halftime at the superbowl.

the reson for my response is to show the same outragious reply to a crazy statement, meant only to gain press.

This post is meant to no-one in particular

“torture” is a totally acceptable method to remove information. Does it have to be humiliation? Not really. How else should be gain Intel from them? Take away their day spa access? Make them sleep on 100 count sheets instead of 300 count? Maybe only let them bathe once a week? Opps, that would be a privilege to them. OK lets say we get Bin laden this week and through the use of electro shock treatment he gives up a plot to bomb the world series game. We save 50 thousand lives. Is that still wrong?

The point is there is a time and place for EVERYTHING! These countries you say will think bad of us, well NEWS FLASH they hate us already! And will forever. This is all being done in the name of “GOD” from both sides. The believe we are all going to “HELL” because of our “infidel” ways of life and beliefs and we think they are going to “hell” for their beliefs. So I guess we are all off to “hell”. Enjoy the ride!

In response to most of your comments, allow me to quote again what McCain wants:

“Set standards for interrogating military detainees and limit them to techniques outlined in a new Army field manual.”

Let’s forget about all the hypotheticals. Real life never follows these hypotheticals. The reason we raise these hypotheticals is that we are filled with fear: “Maybe terrorists will do this.” “Maybe terrorists will do that.”

Instead of focusing on the nasty stuff we may expect from terrorists, we should be thinking of ways to stop them from becoming terrorists in the first place. This requires a switch from fear to hope.

Torture ruins the good name that America has had for a long time. Torture gives the lie to our expressions of freedom and democracy. Torture makes us little different from the jihadists, from whom people expect such brutal actions.

Instead of talking about it, let’s demonstrate to the world what America stands for: We are against torture and for humaneness. We are against autocracy and for democracy. We are against violence and for freedom.

BUSH: on the subject of effectiveness of torture, here is the link to an excellent article by the New Yorker (originally linked to by Sebastian Holsclaw, Feb 9 2005). Most conservatives on this blog are dead-set against torture for both religious and utilitarian purposes.

Thus far joebagodonuts is the only one in the entire thread who has described conditions that I would consider “torture”.

Admiral Stockdale also acted in a way that typifies the courage and resolve of a United States military officer when he inflicted additional damage to himself to reduce the enemies ability to use his condition and appearance to further advantage.

tony,

Your reference to atrocities in German prison camps for the most part were not interrogations as much as scientific (horrible as they may be) experiments conducted by madmen. The indescriminate eradication of Jews in disgusting and reprehensible ways were the acts of a madman.
Anyone who reads or otherwise knows about that story and continues to use the word “torture” in describing the panties on head, dog leash, nakedness, urinating on the Koran, etc. as reported from Abu Ghraib and to a lesser extent from GITMO in my opinion need to redefine their impressions of what constitutes “torture”.

Geneva Convention…

I am not a student of the Geneva Convention so I have to speak in generalities but, I believe that the original rules governing prisoners of war and, other things provided in the GC had their beginnings in something called the Hague Convention dating back to about 1900. In the very early 1000’s the Geneva Convention was developed and used to describe the conditions governing POW’s. Several amendments were made since then but, I believe that our enemies from WW2 forward should have been following them. There is documented evidence that American POW’s were “tortured” in every military conflict we have been engaged in since WW2. A more educated mind can correct this if I have misinterpreted.

Paul

you said “Let’s forget about all the hypotheticals. Real life never follows these hypotheticals. The reason we raise these hypotheticals is that we are filled with fear: “Maybe terrorists will do this.” “Maybe terrorists will do that.”

Instead of focusing on the nasty stuff we may expect from terrorists, we should be thinking of ways to stop them from becoming terrorists in the first place. This requires a switch from fear to hope.”

so your plan is to open up the borders to anyone who wants to come in and kill us and spend time making them feel warm and fuzzy about life! the trouble is if you take the time to read the press they read daily and what they are taught in school and curch then you would see i “hope” talk by jessie jackson wont make them see the light to our way of life. they want to kill EVERYONE who doesnot share there beliefs, not convert to those beliefs that will dam them to hell. it is there whole goal to destroy non musliums by any means posible. that is why they give their lives to kill women and children. take a guess how that is reported in their home country! its reported that they killed military members and police and then their women and children were targeted willfully in retaliation. look up aljazeira SP and the other arab press and look at the way these things are reported.

—-Instead of focusing on the nasty stuff we may expect from terrorists, we should be thinking of ways to stop them from becoming terrorists in the first place. This requires a switch from fear to hope.

Torture ruins the good name that America has had for a long time. Torture gives the lie to our expressions of freedom and democracy. Torture makes us little different from the jihadists, from whom people expect such brutal actions.

Instead of talking about it, let’s demonstrate to the world what America stands for: We are against torture and for humaneness. We are against autocracy and for democracy. We are against violence and for freedom.
—-

Just thought this deserved to be posted again.

Well said…

Paul, #3 refers to the policy of rendition and has been a very effective tool in this current campaign. I will remind you also of the fact that rendition was a Clinton administration brainchild and policy, his administration was the first to employ that tactic. For that, I applaud Mr. Clinton. Torture is such a broad generalizing term that it is ridiculous to state that our military should not employ “torture”. There are many people across our great land that pay good money to be treated worse than the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, so I really am tired of the screaming-meemies on the left about “torture”. If you think, Stephen, that our country would ever resort to employing rape rooms like that of Saddam, then I do feel sorry for you and your brainwashed view of our country. I trust our military leaders to employ tactics that will retrieve needed information wihthout causing undo physical or mental violence and I would hope that other Americans would feel the same way. After all, those people are putting their lives on the line for us and they know a hell of alot more then anyone (Stephen, Tony, etc.) on this blog on how to best gather that information.

Sorry all,

My post of 4:23 has a paragraph that begins, Anyone who reads…..located in the second paragraph to Tony.

That belongs right after the Admiral Stockdale comments.

I don’t know what happened.

To all

It is obvious that none of you have held a high-level security clearance in the US military. I hold a TOP_SECRET SIOP ESI Clearance and part of the paper work to start the process is a form allowing the CIA FBI NSA etc to use chemical interrogation and or what you disrobe as torture to find out if you have leaked any TOP-SECRET info. This is a necessary part of the huge burden you undertake to receive such levels of Clearance, a few others include COMPLETE background check and PSYCOLOGIAL TESTING plus FBI field officers interviewing Family friends neighbors and school teachers. It takes over 1 year to receive this level of clearance. It is a natural part of the world on this level. I’m sure most of you democrats can not understand this or accept it but it is a necessary fact of life. I can’t understand how you can put the feelings of a terrorist above the lives of American soldiers. These forms of interrogation have been used forever and will continue forever. It is only the Nintendo age of media that has brought this to light it will not stop it. There are things that happen on a daily basis in the military that you do not want to know about. Your Liberal minds can not handle these things. Part of signing up for the military is a forfeiture of some of your basic constitutional rights. Again this is necessary for the military to perform our job in a efficient manner to give you the safety and rights you use to betray us. Life is not all peaches and cream and you need to get out from behind your books and learn to live life in the real world. I cant understand you lust to protect people that will do anything to kill you and your family.

A sad vet.

U.S. Detention Policies and Procedures explains the policies toward suspects.

JBOD,

So, what do you think of how Stockdale was treated? Was that a legitimate means to get information from him?

Jack,

If prisoners are handed over to foreigners they probably aren’t going to follow the manual.

Bush,

Do you believe that how the world perceives us is important to the war on terror?

Is America’s stance on terror based on the notion that we as civilized people condemn terrorism as an evil in the world and will fight against it because we are just and good?

Do you believe that Americans, for the most part, believe that we should care about our fellow man and protect those who are vulnerable?

Could you personally torture another human being, listen to their screams of agony and walk away without remorce?

Torture is not the way to fight terror.
Torture is terror.

I was raised to be “good”, as were all of us, I hope. My parents (one of whom was a Goldwater Republican) taught me that being good meant that you follow the rules. You share. You treat others with dignity and respect. You don’t cheat. You don’t lie. You help others. You don’t cut corners or cut in line. You aren’t a bully and don’t EVER start a fight. You don’t make excuses. You treat others the way you want to be treated. You are identified as a good person based SOLELY on your behavior.

The same rules apply to nations, too. We in the US have been taught all our lives that WE’RE the good guys. And that means the same thing for our country as it does for us as individuals. The minnute we stop behaving like the good guya, we stop BEING the good guya.

Good guys don’t use torture. Shame on anyone who thinks we can - or should - lower our standards by using or condoning torture, or anything that can be misconstrued as torture.

Watchblog Manager:

“referring to “Anyone who supports the idea of Americans using torture on captive prisoners, is bloody insane.” covers some of WatchBlog’s visitors and they have the right be respected for having opinions just as you do.”

Respected for advocating torture? That’s a tough one. But I’ll certainly try harder not to wound anyones delicate sensibilities.

“Critique the Message, NOT the messengers.”

Yes, sir.

Bush,
I’m very much a liberal, generally left of the Democrats.

I’ve held equivalent TS clearances, I’ve been through the USAF Survival School, and yes, I know what SIOP means.

It isn’t about the evil nature of terrorists, what they deserve, or who they are. It’s not about them.

The question of torture forces us to ask ourselves; Who are we? What do we fight for?

It’s about reputation, and honor, and decency.

This controversy will be temporarily put on the back burner, thanks to McCain’s leadership in the attempt to attach amendments to the defense bill which would have prevented torture. Bush threatened to veto. Frist withdrew the bill for now, in order to spare the administration the shame of publicly supporting torture.

I’d be curious to see reactions to the additional Abu Ghraib photos & videos. These were supposed to be released 6/30 after a suit was filed under the FIA. The Pentagon stalled, claiming Iraqi faces needed to be redacted. Having supposedly done that, the Pentagon now simply refuses to release them.

These pictures & videos far exceed the ones already released.

andre

you said”Do you believe that Americans, for the most part, believe that we should care about our fellow man and protect those who are vulnerable?

Could you personally torture another human being, listen to their screams of agony and walk away without remorce?

Torture is not the way to fight terror.
Torture is terror.”

1st terrorist are NOT vulnerable!!

2nd yes i could tourtue another human being and walk away with no troubles, as i could put a bullet in the head of a cop killer, child molester, or any other hate crime or murder with no problem

phx8
your having gone through USAF Survival School would lead me to believe you were a pilot, right?. knowing what SIOP is and getting it is night and day. once you get SIOP then you can try for ESI or i believe its called WHITE NIGHT atm. SIOP ESI are reserved for those having DIRECT acces to ICBM launch codes and/or target cords.

“These pictures & videos far exceed the ones already released.” by that statement you have seen them 1st hand or you are buying the democrate “lies” (you know tha same “lies” bush told when everyone looked at the same intel and only he was able to “lie” about it!! what a joke.

I’m not going to dump on anybody here as being stupid, insane or any of that shit. I’m just going to say this:

There are ways to get information out of people, to break their resistance that don’t involved the kinds of institutionalized sadistic behavior that the Bush administration is pushing on us. You think it will bring one terrorist victim back to torture one of them, or that it will discourage one person who thinks that dying in a holy war is glorious? Do you think these people never had to deal with torturers in all those beacons of democracy we have in the Middle East?

Torture isn’t necessarily effective, and it is no good test of innocence or guilt. Worse, it makes us just like them: fanatics who have lost their moral compass dealing with their enemies. When do we stop justifying sadistic and immoral behavior? When is the world finally saved enough for us to come back from the cold and start doing the right thing again?

The seductive promise of these means is the power over our enemies. To be able to inflict pain, and demand answers even to the death is a hell of a lot of power. Fact is, it doesn’t do a whole lot of good.

People can say, oh, it doesn’t leave a mark. Well, neither does somebody exposing themselves to your kid. You want them doing that. People say, oh, we experienced worse in college. Well, people have sex in college. Does that justify raping a woman? One could argue the forced, humiliating sexual contact and sexual assault is just another version of that same thing, but morally speaking, it’s not. Nor can somebody walk up and down the street in leather with a cat o’ nine tails and administer “punishment” on everybody around there.

There are some necessary things, like fighting a war, which will push people to the edge of some very tough choices. Is it more patriotic, more strong, more effective to choose the dark choices everytime, when the consequences of such actions are so shameful?

They will always have the advantage in their lack of regard for human life and human rights. For us, though, such a lack of regard is a weakness. We have got to find ways to fight with our honor intact, rather than wallow in and become blind to the shame of inhuman behavior.

In the United States we say there will be no “cruel and inhumane” punishment. Yet this law hasn’t meant we make sure that serial killers get 300 thread count sheets as compared to 100 thread count sheets.

Do we put panties on the head of the BTK serial murderer?

France stooped to torture in Algiers and they never recovered morally from it. They have interviewed the men who tortured prisoners there, and those men are ashamed, they are psychologically traumatized. They don’t think it was worth it. “France was supposed to be nobler” they say.

I don’t want my life protected through means like putting panties on a killer’s head.

Cruel and inhumane punishment, or torture, should only be used if it’s worth risking going to jail for. If a soldier feels like being incarcareted for the rest of his life is a fair trade off for using torture to get info, then that’s a fine litmus test.

If it’s not worth that level of sacrifice, then it shouldn’t be done. We aren’t animals.

“Do unto others” applies to everyone, not just to the people who deserve it.

Whenever I hear anyone defending torture, I hear fear. It’s the same kind of fear that shut down the airlines and crippled our economy after 9-11. It’s the kind of fear that was used to justify a tremendously costly, unnessary and illegal war. Now that the original fear has subsided a little, it’s fear of being wrong, of backing down or looking weak to your enemies, be they terrorists or democrats.

Defending and performing torture is a sign of fear. There is no justification for it other than fear. It’s often masked in bravado or as anger, just like a puffer fish will blow itself up when it’s afraid.

This kind of fear means that the terrorists won. Think about it. Since 9-11 we have let our fear cripple our economy, bog down our military, alienate our allies, diminish our freedoms, and now degrade us as a moral people. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. We will not stop being targets until we stop being afraid.

Why is it ok to kill an unborn child or a woman that can’t speak for herself? But a “born again cold blooded murderer’s life must be saved! Why is it ok to burn a flag and step on it because its “just cloth” but stepping on a “paper” copy of the quran is torture?

Stephen,
Good posts.

Bush,
“… your having gone through USAF Survival School would lead me to believe you were a pilot, right?”

B-52 Radar Navigator. With all respect, no comment on the rest.

As for Abu Ghraib photos which are being withheld, I’m willing to rely upon investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. He writes about Tagubas investigation of Abu Ghraib. According to General Taguba:
“… Detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.†Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.â€
These are the pictures and videos to which I’m referring.
Sy Hersh gives this description:
“Some of the worse that happened that you don’t know about, ok. Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib which is 30 miles from Baghdad […]
The women were passing messages saying “Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened”. Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking…”

Perhaps these are merely lies. Perhaps the additional pictures & videos are elaborate fictions. However, General Taguba alludes to these additional photos & videos in his testimony, and Hersh has a history of being reliable.

Bush, your comments regarding torture are very helpful.

Obviously cases can be made both ways. In all honesty a stronger case against torture would probably win out.

That said, torture has been a means of interrogation since the beginning of time and it will continue until the end of time. All the documents, conventions and agreements are not going to stop it.

What makes the entire discussion useless is the fact that people against “torture” will not commit to what is and what is not torture. I am so sick of hearing about the panties on the head, the dog collars, urinating on the Koran and so on as examples of torture.

The media doesn’t help matters. A prisoner gets the Flu and we see pictures of him vomiting with captions like PRISONER BEATEN WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE. A POW has a blister on his foot becomes GITMO DETAINEE HAS GANGRENE, REFUSED MEDICAL TREATMENT.

The entire matter has gotten ridiculous.

Steve, Bush won’t be able to respond. His ISP is the same as another individual named Bill whose ISP has been banned for flame baiting and not understanding our policy. If Bush and Bill are the same person, it is just as well. If not, it is unfortunate that Bush has to be excluded from participation because someone else with the same ISP doesn’t get it. But it is pointless to have a policy if it isn’t enforced.

So, what do you think of how Stockdale was treated? Was that a legitimate means to get information from him?

Posted by Woody Mena at July 28, 2005 05:34 PM

I think I was exceedingly clear on what I thought about Stockdale’s treatment. It was horrible and it was torture. I did NOT equate it with many of the things being branded as torture by those in this thread. Abu Ghraib conditions do not even remotely compare to what Stockdale was put through, and any attempt to treat the two vastly different levels of treatment as equivalent is not worthy of discussion.

Many in this thread keep talking about torture, but are unwilling to define it. Many think that any level of humiliation, or sleep deprivation, or uncomfortable positioning constitutes torture, and I disagree with such an assessment. What Stockdale endured was truly torture—-there is no disagreement possible, is there? But when mishandling a Koran is considered “torture”, then we have lost the meaning of the word. Im sure Admiral Stockdale would have given much thanks to have a beaten and battered copy of the Bible tossed into his cell—I doubt he would have complained.

I’ve not maintained that torture is effective. In some cases it might be, while in others it may be wholely ineffective. In Stockdale’s case, it was the latter. The effectiveness of torture (or the ineffectiveness) is not the issue I’m discussing. The discussion is about whether it is ever to be condoned under any conditions.

I’ve also not maintained that a policy of torture should exist, but rather that in limited instances, torture may be a necessary tactic. In doing so, I agreed with Stephen Daugherty and with Alan Dershowitz, two men I typically do not agree with. Stephen’s original post stated that torture can be condoned in certain circumstances; his latest post in the thread states his opposition to torture as being ineffective, so at this point, I’m not sure where Stephen stands anymore.

Steve Smith-
What is and is not torture? Better question: Why do you have to be so legalistic about it? Legalism is the last refuge of a lost argument.

You need to be legalistic because these are obvious offensive behaviors, and you’re working off a theory of expediency, of morality on credit. Your notion, it seems to me, is that you will do all the sins, and and give in to all the dark impulses now, to defend this country against the terrorists, and then, years later, when you believe the threat will be past, you can say you did the right thing, answer your critics with history, and beam with pride over all those you saved.

But it doesn’t work that way.

We should only contemplate dishonor and disgrace like this, when the alternative is much worse. You might make broad generalizations about how if we don’t make torture or prisoner maltreatment the rule and not the exception, the terrorists will get away with another attack.

But even if we torture every terror suspect, we won’t get them all, and they will recruit off of true, verifiable stories of our brutality, our barbarism. Now you might complain that the media broadcasting that stuff makes it a problem, but the reality is, they’d be printing retractions and making apologies if this stuff wasn’t true. The easiest way not to get caught committing a crime is not to commit the crime.

Stop rationalizing this- if the mistreatment is widespread, it will get out, like so many large scale operations of its kind. If torture is the exception rather than the rule, then we got less exposure on it.

David said: “In a way, this could be good news, as it reflects the fact that the Republican Party has no integrity.”

Yes, the whole Republican Party can be judged by your opinion of one policy of a handful of members. That’s logical.

Furthermore, I have no sympathy - NONE - for terrorist prisoners. When you’ve seen what they did to our Servicemen in Desert Storm, you lose all sympathy.

General - You think putting women’s panties on male prisoners’ heads is degrading? Try being electrocuted while drenched in water and hoisted by your elbows until your shoulders break. Try having urine and feces smeared in your face until you vomit and then being struck in the stomach and head until you pass out, whether from lack of oxygen or head trauma.

I approve of all methods necessary to safe guard the lives of Americans domestic and abroad including, but not limited to, the torture of known terrorist prisoners for vital information. To do otherwise would be foolishly wasting information that could save American lives for the sake of comfort for the scum of the Earth.

Brian, the Party is defined by its members, their beliefs and actions. This is true of both the Democratic and Republican Parties.

ElliotBay, I was raised with the same proscriptions for being a good person. Your comments above are the most cogent and elegant debate against American sponsored torture I have yet read. Excellent analogy.

Abu Ghraib conditions do not even remotely compare to what Stockdale was put through, and any attempt to treat the two vastly different levels of treatment as equivalent is not worthy of discussion.

You can refuse to discuss it, but prisoners were KILLED at Abu Ghraib. Here is link:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/16/national/w113007S95.DTL

If you look at the link, this is not at all a reach I am making. The military found people guilty of manslaughter

As sympathetic as I am for the late Mr. Stockdale, I don’t think he literally suffered a fate that worse than death (much less one that you can’t “remotely compare” to death).

Stephen:

You seem to have done a 180 degree turn in here within your posts. Your first post stated that under the right circumstances—namely impending loss of life—you would support torture, if there were a reasonable hope of stopping the loss of life.

In later posts, you’ve chastised people for supporting any level of torture.

Which argument do you want to hold fast to?

Do you agree with Alan Dershowitz’s stance on torture, which I linked to earlier and involves the concept of the “ticking bomb”?

Do you define torture widely enough to include mistreatment of the Koran, placing women’s panties on a captive’s head, temperature adjustment, or do you consider these things something other than torture?

I’d be interested to better understand exactly where you stand. At this point, my best understanding is that you are standing firmly on the rails of the fence.

Stephen Daugherty,

Your 12:16 am post is well presented and the rationale is rock solid. Please don’t misinterpret my analagy here :

Everything is a game (life, sports, war, politics, etc.). As such there have to be rules that both sides agree to. Then there is an official who interprets the rules as the game progresses and metes out the appropriate punishment.

Interrogation, as a byproduct of war is a game within a game. There must be clear and understandable rules as to what is permissible and what is not. A previously stated “you will know it when you see it” answer to the question of what is torture will not suffice.

What is cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment is not internationally interpreted in the same way. Likewise for “physically and/or mentally uncomfortable”.

I could continue but I am quite sure you get my point that arguing “torture” without knowing the rules is pointless.

OK -

I suggest that we make torture illegal, period.

If you think you might be getting into a grey area (away from standard practices) or you have an extreme circumstance to warrants torture - let the fear of legal persecution be the deciding factor.

If you feel that the situation is dire enough and overrides your fear of being jailed - or that you have sufficient evidence to back up your breach of the law, then proceed at your own risk.

If the case is valid, then we make an exception. If you find it just amusing to pile prisoners up naked on the floor, then you go to jail.

Tony

No offense, but I believe you to still be falling into the trap of not defining torture. You use the term, but as a reader of your post, I don’t know what you mean by it.

I asked Stephen these questions to try to better understand his position—perhaps you could answer them as well:
Do you agree with Alan Dershowitz’s stance on torture, which I linked to earlier and involves the concept of the “ticking bomb”?

Do you define torture widely enough to include mistreatment of the Koran, placing women’s panties on a captive’s head, temperature adjustment, or do you consider these things something other than torture?

Talking about “torture” is really meaningless unless we know what the definition of torture is. I am not in favor of what I consider torture; yet I also am not in favor of calling any level of discomfort for a prisoner “torture”.

This seems to me one of the biggest areas of disconnect in this entire thread.

1 - I don’t buy into the ‘ticking bomb’ concept. I can’t only see that playing out in a Hollywood movie. However, should a person find him/herself in that position… break the law and proof your innocence later.

2 - I would define torture as the inhuman treatment of people. This would include religious desecration, public / societal humiliation, sexual/spiritual violation, sleep/food deprivation.

To go beyond humane treatment of prisoners you must prove the need. If you can, then you must have a supervisor present.

Interrogation is standard procedure… and the psychological work needed to gain information can be used. As far as I know about psychological manipulation of prisoners is the let them feel isolated and become their friend… let them feel a need to interact with you and you will eventually gain some insight/knowledge into the past.

However, I’m not sure there can be a lot of trust put into answers giver from suspected terrorists. I would assume that they have an agenda to maintain - if captured… and no amount or lack of torture will reveal the actual truth of their statements.

Prisoners of war - captives - however you want to define them should be treated like American prisoners, as a standard. It’s the American way to raise the standards, not to lower them to the meet our enemy’s.

—- correction
1 - I don’t buy into the ‘ticking bomb’ concept. I can’t only see that playing out in a Hollywood movie. However, should a person find him/herself in that position… break the law and proof your innocence later.
—-

1 - I don’t buy into the ‘ticking bomb’ concept. I CAN only see that playing out in a Hollywood movie. However, should a person find him/herself in that position… break the law and proof your innocence later.

Joe-
No U-Turn here, merely a threshold. Suffice it to say I don’t buy the perpetual emergency argument. I think we should be talking about a real emergency, where the ball is in motion, and we don’t have the time to break or bait them by talk or incentive alone

I don’t define torture to include these things, but as I said before, it’s a legalistic argument, one whose strength depends on being able to say something’s not wrong because folks haven’t explicitly sanctioned against it. This is not physical torture, but it is inhumane treatment, and a violation of human rights.

Would it be torture to force a Muslim to drink real or fake pig’s blood? Yes. Not physical, necessarily, but it would be the same as putting a cross or a representation of Jesus in a prisoner’s only toilet, a forced sacrilege.

Would you stand for that? I doubt it. You couldn’t explicitly call it torture, though. That’s why I don’t like this lawyerly parsing of the issue. What we are talking about here, at the very least, is the mistreatment of prisoners under our power.

Power is the key word here, and that’s what makes this such an entrenched debate. The Right sees power over terrorists as being the power to win the War on Terrorism (or whatever they call it now). It’s power, alright, but is it effective power, especially with prisoners who have been there so long, that they are out of touch with the current structure and targets of al-Qaeda, and its affiliated groups?

Torture is not very dependable as a means of gathering information. I have no objection to techniques that involve, say, driving a person crazy with repetitive or loud music, which involve lying or deception, which involve prompting a person to put themselves under psychological strain. I want methods we can defend our soldiers can use without feeling like scumbags or becoming them outright.

As for Dershowitz’s suggestion, it strikes me as naive. Once you start down the road of torture, it exerts a magnetic pull on other choices made, as people become informal with the formal regulations. People look the other way, trust results instead of regulation, and so on and so forth, until you’ve got full scale torture going on.

The thing about torture, as well, is that you can force a person to sign a confession for things they did not do. A person might then lie to you over time, doing cold reads of what your questions are leading to, so that they don’t get into trouble. This is the trouble with coercing people, instead of getting them to talk by their own will.

Now, if you’ve got a suspect you know is connected to a plot that is on the horizon, it might be the only way to get information out of them in time to help the potential victims. But there’s a difference between this and the institutional cruelty that’s been set up in these legal black holes. It’s one thing to choose the lesser of two evils when you know there’s a greater evil out there, but to do so on the off chance that it might help is to lose touch with one’s morality.

I take the side of keeping Americans admirable in the eyes of the world, and safe here and abroad from the terrorists. That might mean some tough choices, but no good life or good policy is without those.

Steve Smith-
I am not arguing about comfortability here, I’m talking pain, suffering and humiliation. As for the rules, we have the norms of our society at the very least, which clearly have been violated. We would not accept a female police officer doing a lap dance on a prisoner or putting panties over somebody’s head, especially in more conservative communities, or with prisoners who have religious beliefs that make such things distinctly out of bounds. It would be a major scandal in one of our prisons to see what happened in Abu Ghraib happen here. By our own rules, our own norms, Bush’s terrorist prisons are objectionable.

In the end, there is the game the rules describe, and the game that is played in real life. The prisoner maltreatment in these prisons is supposed to protect Americans, but in fact it makes it harder for us to get cooperation from other countries, harder to get sympathy from places were we badly need it, and harder to fight this war long term without either giving up because we lost the stomach for it, or becoming so corrupt we no longer care. In the end, this is a question of whether we stay the America we hope ourselves to be.

Thank you Stephen, very well said. IMO, what many people are doing is mistaking the treatment of some prisoners by some very sick people as torture when I believe they were merely humiliating the prisoners for their own sick entertainment. For this they should be punished, it’s not what most of us condone. I think there’s a huge difference between trying to elicit information and getting your jollies at someone else’s expense. At least that would be a start in defining terror.

Stephen:

Here is the problem, and why this isnt just a “legalistic argument”, as you suggest:

You say that you “have no objection to techniques that involve, say, driving a person crazy with repetitive or loud music, which involve lying or deception, which involve prompting a person to put themselves under psychological strain.”

By saying so, you are in conflict with the Geneva Convention which states that “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind. Geneva Convention Article 17

Im not trying to play legalistic arguments, but I AM saying that even by your own standards, you would be in violation of the Geneva Convention. Ergo, you could be vilified as being FOR torture, when its obvious that you are not. Neither am I, for that matter, though I hold out the idea that there are instances where torture is necessary.( And by your comments, so do you)

Furthermore, I think you would fall short of Tony’s definition of humane treatment, which would allow him to call you out as being in favor of torture, when again, I dont think you are.

This is why its important to understand the meanings of the words, lest we get bogged down in the semantics of the discussions.

I would allow the Geneva Convention to dictate the treatment of prisoners. They’ve been in place for years, and are widely accepted - and with good reason.

As far as exceptions go - only by written permission and supervision by superior officers, with documentation. Afterwards, there should be a review of all facts involved in every case. On the odd exception that time will not permit these protocols, then you must break the law and contest your innocence in a court of law.

This is Pandora’s box.

Someone alluded to the fact that we don’t treat our civilian prisoners inhumanely. Reference to the Timothy Mcveigh’s, Atlanta Bomber, etc. I believe have been used.

I beg to differ (he says, already anticipating the attacks and denials) but, what cellblocks and related environments do you think we assign these perpetrators of heinous crimes to? These guys are “accidently” placed in environments with your normal run of the mill lifetime sentence murderers, rapists, serial killers, etc.

Prisoners seem to have a way of meting out the justice the way they see fit. It happens so fast that unfortunately the guards and prison personnel are hard pressed to get to the scene in time.

Sometimes these social meetings are used to extract information about a yet to be apprehended accomplice, hiding place of stolen goods and, I wonder, if occasionally the whereabouts of a terrorist cell enters the discussion or, could be arranged to become a subject of the discussion.

joebagodonuts - (off topic)

Have you read my response to your post in the Terrorism is a Crime thread? Just curious…

Steve S,

Being raped or beaten in prison is illegal. It may happen. But it’s illegal. In addition, prison’s can be sued for not protecting inmates from one another.

Julia,

To what extent do you think the lifetime prisoners care about what’s legal or not. You cannot be that naieve.

Who would sue the prison, the parents of the child that is now dead or ruined for life or, some relative of the person who had been harshly dealt with while serving time for the molestation.

Joe-
I’d say respect the convention under most circumstances. Dealing with things under treaty law would smooth things greatly, and also make it easier to criminally prosecute terrorists. If that means giving up the more coercive of the means that I described, I would be prepared to go in that direction.

That said, you quote from the Geneva convention in the parts where it deals with prisoners of war. If we treated al-Qaeda members as criminals and such, those restrictions would not be the applicable ones.

Steve Smith-
I never said criminals were humane to other criminals, or that our guards here are perfect. I’m just say