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Chops, I agree with your sentiments, but, your aim misses the mark. The responsibility goes all the way to the top, to President Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, etc. Let us not forget the President and Rumsfeld both publicly announced they would not abide Geneva Conventions with regard to terrorist suspects. Without the GC, there are no limits to what our CIA and military will do to accomplish their mission. Let’s face it, we pride our troops on their ability and willingness to accomplish their mission. Without the GC, there is no practical limit on them doing so with regard to prisoner interrogation.

I find it abhorrent, having been in the military, that this administration and the Joint Chiefs of Staff would permit our soldiers to be prosecuted in an enviroment from the President on down which has clearly stated, the mission comes first, and all other considerations are only excuses for failure.

A week or so ago, a story broke about how our military has turned torture and even murder over to the Iraqi’s and are condoning it by turning a blind eye while Iraqi’s do our bidding. This comes from the top, Chops, and while the soldiers who perpetrate these inhumnities are guilty, they at least have mitigating circumstances called the chain of command. Something the President and his cabinet do not, BUT, the admin. does have scapegoats, our military forces trying to do what they are told, accomplish the mission. And that is both tragic and horrific that American people will not hold the Bush adminstration to a higher standard to protect our troops from our own example of torture and inhumanity.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 12:38 PM

David said:

Let us not forget the President and Rumsfeld both publicly announced they would not abide Geneva Conventions with regard to terrorist suspects.

Quite the contrary. While their counsel opined that the Conventions did not directly apply, they said they would abide by Geneva’s standards of torture. The administration has held itself to that standard, and should. Regardless, a full-scale, independent investigation is warranted, and should find out the facts. Right now we’re going off one person’s word. If true, it’s horrific. If not, then we need to know the truth.

As far as outsourcing suspects for torture, that’s nothing new. We’ve been doing that for many administrations. The Syrians did it for the Clinton administration, and the Egyptians and various others around the world have tortured our mutual suspects for decades. It’s damnable, but it’s difficult to stop from the grassroots because they keep a veneer of plausible deniability. When they make an arrest of a terror suspect in Jordan, for instance, they bring along Jordanian secret service. It’s the latter who actually slap the cuffs on the suspect, so technically he’s never been in American custody.

This is one of the many reasons I think we need firmly religious presidents. There are things a president can do or not do that the American people are not in a position to hold him accountable for. A president who truly believes that he will be called to account before God has a higher standard in the “invisible” decisions. (Incidentally, I consider Bush on the margins of Christianity; he plays to the Christian right much more than he practices faith).

Posted by: Chops at January 31, 2005 12:47 PM

What are WE supposed to do when the Iraqi forces, police, etc., find and arrest suspects on their own and do what they deem appropriate to gather info from a terrorist who is killing their people?
We can tell them it is not nice to chop off fingers and they shouldn’t do it, but, can we order them not to? I don’t think so.
I would hope they choose not to do such things if they are really going to try to be a better nation than what they had under Saddam.

Same goes for the other nations who use torture. We can tell them it isn’t nice and to stop - but at the same time we cannot turn people over to them because we know they will torture them for info.

Posted by: dawn at January 31, 2005 01:02 PM

Interrogation is difficult. You’re trying to garner information from someone who doesn’t want to tell you. It’s important information, information that may save the lives of people you care about. If you ask them, politely, to tell you, and they say “No”, do you just move on?

It’s not a hearing, they have no defense attorney. You need to try to get them to talk. Make them uncomfortable, so they can’t concentrate on not talking. If you can get them to say anything, even if it’s “Get away from me, you whore”, the silence is broken and they are more likely to say something else.

Should we be interrogating? Should there be formal trials instead? Would the latter get us anywhere? We’re at war. People are dying. The information these prisoners have may stop that. If you make them sweat because they are psychologically distressed, if you make them worry you’ll cut off their fingers, if you tell them they’ll never leave no matter what they say…as long as you get the information, do the means matter when so much is at stake? You do what’s effective, hopefully within some kind of ethical boundary (see Geneva Convention for details), not what’s “publicly appropriate” because the public doesn’t have a grasp of the situation.

If you don’t like it, and I know I don’t, perhaps the Supreme Court should have selected another president in 2000. As they didn’t, ask yourself what you’d do to save your daughter’s life, now that her life is at risk.

Posted by: Lincoln H at January 31, 2005 01:18 PM

I want blood. Heads must roll. As a Republican, as an American, as a human, I will accept no excuse for this.

Chops, I’m with you 100%. Absolutely. This is just plain stomache-turning disgusting.

But, I’m not real hopeful about getting an appropriate response from the top. W is just not a “heads will roll” sort of guy.

Posted by: William Cohen at January 31, 2005 01:19 PM

Sorry Chops, you have your information crossed.

Ari Fleisher, May 2003 - “In addition, President Bush today has decided that the Geneva Convention will apply to the Taliban detainees, but not to the al Qaeda international terrorists.”

Google it for sources. What this says, is that anyone the Military or the Administration earmarks as an international terrorist with possible ties to al-Queda will not be treated by the US in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

This was to justify in part, the abuses in Abu-Ghraib and dozens of other facilities in Iraq, as well as Guantanamo Bay and fend of critics.

And then there is Rumsfeld’s highly hypocritical testimony before Congress in May 2004 as reported by USA Today:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended military interrogation techniques in Iraq on Wednesday, rejecting complaints that they violate international rules and may endanger Americans taken prisoner.

Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stress positions.

And in Jan, 2002, when Mr. Rumsfeld publicly declared that hundreds of people detained by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan “do not have any rights” under the Geneva Conventions.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 01:29 PM

I don’t know if its just my lack of faith or what, but none of the interogation procedures used in that story seem abusive to me.

Posted by: kctim at January 31, 2005 01:31 PM

Anytime I hear of stories such as this and my stomach begins to turn I rewatch the video of the beheading of an american citizen with a dull knife or look at the phot of the american contractor burnt beyond recognition and hung in the street. At that point I realize that they willfully chose not to follow our laws and therefore freely forfit thier rights under those laws.

Posted by: Allium at January 31, 2005 01:40 PM

Chose not to follow our laws? What kind of crack are you smoking? I guess then, by your rationale that since the Nazis tortured and gassed the Jews then it is OK that we torture and gas the Nazis? Or that since America dropped nukes on public Japan that it must be a-okay for them to drop nukes on us?

Posted by: phanofbush at January 31, 2005 02:01 PM

Your Kidding right?
By not actually hitting ,slicing, beating they got information and still your not happy. These animals are in prison because they tried (and some actually did) Kill American soldiers and civilians and we are worried that they were shamed into giving information?????
Even as this is printed over 60% percent of all eligible voters in Iraq have voted with 9 more days to vote!
We are seeing with our own eyes something wonderful that our country got to do over two hundred years ago.
The blood that we spilled is so precious but could not go for a better cause!
America once again has taken the hit for this God forsaken world and you whiny self-centered liberal thinkers are screaming about about tricking this scum?!
These purpled thumbed hero’s put you to shame.
How pathetic can Dowd get. I don’t like what was done but what was the alternative? This is the real world people.Wake up and smell the freedom!
Today I am putting some ink on my finger in solidarity with the Iraqie people!
We are so quick to put on these ribbons for everything else , let’s show some brass cajone’s
and back them up.

Freedom

Posted by: oldwolf at January 31, 2005 02:12 PM

David -
Perhaps you misunderstood me. Your information says exactly what I said: the administration does not believe the Geneva Conventions cover these ‘enemy combatants’. However, regarding torture, they made it administration policy to follow the Geneva guidelines. This is from a press briefing on June 22:

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, the policy of this administration is to adhere to our laws and our treaty obligations. And when it comes to Guantanamo Bay, the President made it very clear early on to our military that those detainees should be treated humanely and consistent with Geneva Conventions, even though — because al Qaeda is not a party to the Geneva Conventions, the Geneva Convention didn’t apply, because that’s consistent with the values that we believe in here in America.

Anyway, that’s trivia. However, I think it will be impossible for any justice to be achieved if people on the left insist that the President and Secretary have to go. It just won’t happen, unless they were actually involved - which they, you and I know would be politically absurd. We need to push for realistic punishment of those involved, which was probably someone who was told by his superior that he needed “better results”, and went overboard trying to get them.

I hate to appear to be defending the administration on this when in fact I was the first person on this board to condemn the abuses. However, if moderation is not followed, if we don’t correctly aim the outrage, we’ll just be a bunch more wingnuts who want to blame President Bush for everything from AIDS to oxygen radicals. Believe it or not, bad stuff happened before he was president - even before he was born.

What’s needed here is not another fruitless appeal for Bush to resign, but rather an appeal for him to clean up a nauseating mess a bunch of levels below him. He’s our chief executive, and we as his board of directors should demand timely action on this.

Posted by: Chops at January 31, 2005 02:13 PM

Oldwolf -
Maybe you missed the memo about Iraq and al-Qaeda not being related. Iraq has nothing to do with this question.
Remember the reason we have rule of law: because someday it could be you. There’s a humility in the constitution, saying, “we don’t think that we who are in power are necessarily better than others”. The old way, monarchy, gave one group the right to do whatever they wanted to another group. We rejected that.
Just imagine if Christian priests or pastors were being treated this way in other countries? It’s not unheard of, especially in communist regimes. I know, you’ll say, “Well, the priest didn’t do anything wrong.” But he did - he opposed the regime. If we Americans are willing to torture anyone who opposes our regime, than we are no better than Saddam or Mao. What’s more, some of us will assuredly be caught in the trap we build.

Posted by: Chops at January 31, 2005 02:19 PM

Chops said: “but rather an appeal for him to clean up a nauseating mess a bunch of levels below him. He’s our chief executive, and we as his board of directors should demand timely action on this.”

Thank you for making my argument. He is responsible for the actions of those below him. Your retorts in your comment are all quotes after the fact. After the fact that Bush and Rumsfeld opened the doors to torture by Americans. They then came back to clarify after American outrage at what was discovered as happening to human beings at the hands of American personnel. After all, the man had an election coming up.

But, he is still responsible for Americans turning a blind eye to human rights abuses perpetrated by Iraqi forces WE TRAINED!!!!! He is our commander in chief, and he is responsible, and he is still permitting torture and murder to occur with American troops now as willing bystanders. In the eyes of Iraqis and Muslims around the world who read of these incidents still occuring, Bush and America are still being held responsible. That fact alone continues to encourage and grow the ranks of our enemies.

But how does one contact the President if one has not contributed millions to his campaign. His website does not take emails from the general public, and all other communication save for polls from the public at large have been closed. One can only hope that with Congressional races less than two years away, pressure can be put on Congress and they in turn can pressure the Commander in Chief on this issue, as you say.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 02:44 PM

kctim, come on over to my house, with your permission I will demonstrate those procedures upon your person. Then we will see if you still don’t find them abusive. The detainees of course, don’t volunteer for such treatment.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 02:50 PM

This is one of the many reasons I think we need firmly religious presidents.

Firmly religious as in —

1. Spanish Inquisition firmly regligious?

2. Auschwitz firmly religious?

3. Turning a blind eye on pedophile priests firmly religious?

A religious leader isn’t going to solve a corruption problem, and history shows it has a good chance of only adding to the problem.

Personally, I’d rather see an honest black woman from a poor family as president over any of the money-grubbing son of a white american dynasty family types. The problem isn’t religion or lack there of, it’s purely lack of integrity.

Posted by: Taylor at January 31, 2005 03:22 PM

Not all approaches that start quick and easy end that way. That is the reality of the Bush foreign policy.

The Bush administration is a Clancy novel administration stuck in a John Le Carre world. It is steeped in patriotism, high technology, and go get ‘em spirit, but all this gets swallowed up in political, technological and bureaucratic inertia, as the administration expends it’s strength forcing its ideology down everybody’s throat. It likes the political simplicity and cache of the Cold War, and is hard at work setting up the conflict so it can get to work fighting the next great war, the next good one.

Truth is, no war is going to make what one does good by default. The quality and character of our foreign operations should not typically conflict with our values. Such moral compromises should be last resort not common practice.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at January 31, 2005 03:44 PM

I think you’re crazy. I’m an American who mainly agrees with the Republicans, but not on all social issues. This is a great idea and I think these women are true patriots. The hijackers were in strip clubs before 9-11. Anything to get them to break that is not physical torture is fine with me.

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Posted by: Toph at January 31, 2005 03:56 PM

Mr. Daugherty- Who had it right, Clinton? Carter? Policy based on appeasement/fear has not worked. Waiting to respond to an attack on us costs many lives. No Middle East policy has worked. When American blood was spilled on 9/11 by Middle Eastern supported terrorists, the policy had to changed. Stop the hate America policy or we will help you stop it, one way or another. It is up to them.

Simplistic view? Yes. Did more Iraqi’s vote (%)in their election then most US Presidential elections? Absolutely historic! Very impressive, most would say. Something is finally working.

Maybe it is time to begin another lesson with other “friends” in the region. Hey, it has worked in Afganistan, now Iraq. Who’s next?

Posted by: Tom Aldente at January 31, 2005 04:12 PM

Toph said:

I think you’re crazy.

Thanks, Toph, I appreciate that.

Posted by: Chops at January 31, 2005 04:35 PM

David
As a PRISONER I would rather be subjected to the methods used in that article than I would any physical method.
I realize that some detainees at Gitmo are there wrongly and they should be afforded proper representation and rights. As for those that are there legit, I believe we should get all info from them by any means necessary. Using methods described in Chop’s story tells me they got off easy during these specific interogations.

Posted by: kctim at January 31, 2005 05:40 PM

kctim, I agree with you. I am reminded however of the social contract between police and citizenry. It stipulates that police must deter crime before it happens if possible, or arrest the criminals after the fact. But at no time is the police permitted to become criminal in the performance of their duties.

That is the issue for mankind. The Geneva Conventions were established for law abiding nations and people to abide by. Those who don’t are criminals and should be arrested from further crime. But, at no time should law abiding nations and people violate the Geneva Conventions in their pursuit or deterrence or apprehension of those who do violate the Conventions. Otherwise, there are no good guys and bad guys, just bad guys when temperament overrules reason.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 06:48 PM

Come on, Tim. What they did/are doing crosses a line - maybe not to you, but in the Muslim world, it does.
And as an American woman I find it outrageously demeaning that the army would be instucting women interrogators to dress up and act like prostitutes! Not exactly a demonstration of “moral values” is it now?
Sounds like the dragonslayer is becoming the dragon, wouldn’t you say?

David, well said, both posts.
Taylor, I agree 100%.
Stephen - Clancy novel administration stuck in a John Le Carre world - hilariously brilliant!

Posted by: Adrienne at January 31, 2005 07:01 PM

“The use of sexual temptation to break inmates’ faith in God is simply disgusting.”

Are these the same men who want to go to Allah to receive their 74 virgins to deflower?

Posted by: bugcrazy at January 31, 2005 07:24 PM

I’m sorry, but if you folks think this is torture, you have got to be kidding!!! My son in high school endures worse than this. You say she showed him her t-shirt, rubbed her boobs against his back, and smeared fake blood on him and this is torture? Are you crazy??? No slapping, kicking, maiming, threatening, or permanent physical damage. No limbs missing, no hot lead, no cutting off beards and making them ingest their own hair, no drill bits through the shins, or other stuff that the muslims do to their prisoners and you call that torture? He was able to spit in the interagators face with no repercussions? Perhaps we should just serve them tea and desert and ask them politely what their opinion is on American-Al Quaeda relations? Man, people are dying over there, and over here! This is no game! I’ve got friends whose sons and daughters are serving. Friends who ARE Iraquis, who are dying. Get over it.

Besides if this guy thinks this will separate him from God, he needs to rethink his relationship with God.

Posted by: Christian at January 31, 2005 07:28 PM

Tom-
I never said anybody had it right, nor that any general theory could get the Middle East right. We can’t stop hate or resentment through military means. We can, though, contain it and punish it when it strikes at us, and reward those who give up their hatred and take up more progressive attitudes.

You’re right when you say it is up to them. But by acknowledging that, you must acknowledge as a logical consequence that we will not be able to attain these victories by direct means. We must push with the hands of our military on one side, and the hands of our diplomats and politicians on the other side.

It is unquestioned now that the election went well, but the election is one part of a greater decision that can still be lost. We must acknowledge defeat is possible to prepare ourselves to prevent it.

We must reinforce certain policies, and end others. Regardless we must be careful that we don’t confuse small victories with crucial decisions. It may benefit some politicians to see things that way, but it may also end up blinding us to the really decisive aspects of the wars we fight.

I do not wish to glass half-empty this country into a premature and counterproductive withdrawal. I believe that victory requires a certain amount of pragmatism, and pragmatism requires the ability to anticipate the unthinkable before it becomes the irreversible.

Practice, not patriotic dogma should be the guiding light of our policies. We must recognize that prescriptions of how things must turn out always yield to the realities of how they really do. Neither wing of the American system should overintellectualize the wars we find ourselves in these days.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at January 31, 2005 07:59 PM

Okay, so it is better to prolong the war, or lose to the terrorists, than stoop to some less than exemplary behavior to extract information from people who want to kill us. Do you really believe that they would be forthcoming if you were polite and solicitous?

Please no silly answers. What are we supposed to do. What would you do if you were supposed to get information from these guys, and you knew that they knew things that could save lives, and that they wouldn’t tell.

Suggestions?

Posted by: Christian at January 31, 2005 08:07 PM

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Posted by: bugcrazy at January 31, 2005 08:10 PM

I realize that some detainees at Gitmo are there wrongly and they should be afforded proper representation and rights. As for those that are there legit, I believe we should get all info from them by any means necessary.

Never before have I read anything on WatchBlog that blew my mind more than this comment!

None of these people have been given representation or trial, kctim. Without that, how in the world do you expect to tell the difference between the wrongly imprisoned and the legitimately imprisoned?!?!

That’s the biggest problem I have with all these “get what you can by any means necessary” comments. We’re interrogating SUSPECTS, not CONVICTS. The fact that they are SUSPECTS means that we don’t know for certain that they’re guilty of anything. Some of them may very well be terrorists, but others of them were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, or were “fingered” by rivals in their communities.

I don’t have too many moral quandries about putting the thumbscrews on someone who blows up innocent people. But I have serious problems with doing this to everyone you think MIGHT have blown someone up.

When you get a proven terrorist on your hands, you can run him through a meat-grinder for all I care. But, so far, we don’t have any of those. All we have are suspected terrorists.

Posted by: Rob Cottrell at January 31, 2005 08:23 PM

Well said, Rob Cottrell!!! Well Said!

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 08:34 PM

Christian said: “What are we supposed to do. What would you do if you were supposed to get information from these guys, and you knew that they knew things that could save lives, and that they wouldn’t tell.”

What you are not supposed to do is give up your own humanity in the pursuit of your goals whatever, they may be. If you do, you just become another bad guy like the ones you started out wanting to stop.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 08:41 PM

Christian-
The problem with torture is that does permanent damage to the credibility and reliability of any evidence produced. Keep in mind, false or misleading intelligence is as much of an intelligence failure, if not more of one, than basic ignorance.

Torture, except in the most dire of circumstances, is a quick, brainless way of getting information. That’s the whole problem. Instead of approaching things in a disciplined, careful manner, it encourages sloppiness. After all, if you torture the wrong person, you don’t exactly find out until you’ve done them real damage. Ultimately, extreme methods like torture are no replacement for intelligent methods applied with an open mind.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at January 31, 2005 09:24 PM

Christian, Lincoln, Kctim, Toph: The violation that has taken place in the interrogation is, as Chops phrased it, “The use of sexual temptation to break inmates’ faith in God”. It’s an attack not only on the body, but on the conscience, and thus fits in an entirely different category from physical torture. Muslim society has not degraded itself with sexuality in the way that our society has, so such phychological abuse is, in their eyes, probably far worse than the actual physical abuse than other detainees have received. From our distorted position, it is not fair to insist that the form of torture they received is less insignificant.

Oh, and Bugcrazy - it’s 72 virgins, not 74.

Posted by: Gandhi at January 31, 2005 09:35 PM

I contend that this is not really torture, if you read my comments above. Extremely unpleasant, yes, Sexual harrassment,yes conduct unbecoming a lady, yes, torture, no. Again, I will say that if this conduct may possibly save people’s lives, much as I do not care for it, go ahead. Also, you say that it is ineffective, but again you do not give an alternative. What IS a good way to get information in as short an amount of time as possible? Additionally, I believe that ANY information gotten from these individuals, no matter how obtained, either freely or through what you call “torture” is suspect. They are our enemies. Wish it weren’t so, and I wish we were all living in the world you wish we all were where we could just be nice to everyone and good would happen everywhere.

By the way, my signature doesn’t indicate, but I am female, and a mother.

Posted by: Christian at January 31, 2005 09:41 PM

“Muslim society has not degraded itself with sexuality in the way that our society has, so such phychological abuse is, in their eyes, probably far worse than the actual physical abuse than other detainees have received. “

And how have they achieved this??

The ones who are the terrorists ARE using sex - sex with virgins - as the ultimate goal they want to reach.
Maybe they will decide sex with a prostitute is better than sex with dead virgins. 72 of them.

signed,
Another mother

Posted by: bugcrazy at January 31, 2005 09:50 PM

Anybody can define torture any way they wish according to whatever circumstances suits them. That is precisely why the Geneva Conventions were written and agreed to by all civilized nations.

The United States circumvents those rules for expedience at the cost of being able to call herself civilized.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 09:53 PM

If it could save my sons life I advocate any method. Read the book-flyboys- or when hell was in session…get a little background before making a judgement. My idol is the Lone Ranger and I try to live my life according to his standards. But under extraorinary circumstances there are no rules and thank God there are people that can do what needs to be done no matter how odious…blessed be

Posted by: joe at January 31, 2005 09:54 PM

At least Moslems aren’t raping their 72 virgins in real life, the way American frat boys are.

As Rob Cottrell has already said, it’s important to recognize that the people being abused are “SUSPECTS, not CONVICTS”. Please read his comments before writing long emotional essays!

We’re in a Moslem country, folks. And yes, it is torture. I’m pretty sure that any devout Moslem would agree with me. If “what needs to be done no matter how odious” includes sexual abuse of detainees, we are certainly not bringing freedom to Iraqis, and have no just cause in their country.

(My signature doesn’t indicate it, but I’m not a Moslem. I run a Christian student residence and we don’t allow women into our bedrooms. I’m male, and I have a mother.)

Posted by: Gandhi at January 31, 2005 10:09 PM

joe, I am sure the German SS used very similar arguments to justify the holocaust.

Posted by: David R. Remer at January 31, 2005 10:09 PM

When our troops do get home, i wish they could round up these Democrates here in the USA and charge them with treason for the abuse they have givem America during this war.
The only difference between a Democrat and a Communist is the spelling.

Posted by: Norman L Evans at January 31, 2005 11:34 PM

War is hell. If any torture physical, mental or emotional can save american lives then I’m all for it. When you take up arms against any nation that nation should have the right to capture enemy combatants and try to gleen infomation to save the lives of its soldiers or citizens. Why else would we as a nation train our soldiers how to deal with torture? My stepson joined the Air Force in June 2004 and went through pow training camp, during which he was treated as an enemy combatant. He has told me he cannot tell me what he went through. The fact that our armed forces feel it is necessary to put our young men and women through such training tells me that the terrorists wouldn’t hesitate to resort to such means to get information.
War with rules is insane especially when dealing with known enemy combatants. The only war America ever lost was because of beurocrats sitting around making rules. Had our troops not had their hands tied Viet Nam would have had a very different outcome, probably that of a democratic society engaging in free trade and a American ally.

I do believe in torture of known enemy combatants and not those that are merely suspected.

Posted by: John at February 1, 2005 01:16 AM

Well, so much for Christ’s teachings in the Red column. It is as if Christ had never been born, with all this “eye for an eye” making the whole world blind rhetoric. Mahatma Ghandi was right, the terrorists will make terrorists of us all for our lack of wisdom and inability to adhere to our principles when we are afraid and hurt. And George Bush and followers are living proof it can happen even in the once greatest democracy on earth.

It is obvious from John’s and Norman’s comments above that for many Bush supporters, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is meaningless except between 8AM and 10AM on Sunday.

Posted by: David R. Remer at February 1, 2005 02:19 AM

“At least Moslems aren’t raping their 72 virgins in real life, the way American frat boys are.”

How do you know this? If the women were to say they were raped they would have their heads chopped off for disgracing their family and their Moslim traditions.
It’s hard enough to say you’ve been raped in our country.
I don’t think too many females would say a word in the Moslim world when they know they will be kicked out or killed.

By the way…
“At least Moslems aren’t raping their 72 virgins in real life, the way American frat boys are.”,

sounds like an excuse. The Americans are worse because they rape the living? - Moslims just blow themselves up to go rape dead virgins. It’s different. Not as bad.

Posted by: bugcrazy at February 1, 2005 07:45 AM

Rob
The story Chop’s linked to talks about the interogation methods used, I was trying to stay on topic and was giving my views about these types of methods, not whether the prisoners were there legally or not.

You said:
“When you get a PROVEN terrorist on your hands, you can run him through a meat-grinder for all I care.”

My statement:
As for those that are there LEGIT, I believe we should get all info from them by any means necessary.

For the most part, it sounds as if we are in agreement.

Posted by: kctim at February 1, 2005 09:54 AM

Norman L Evans wrote:

When our troops do get home, i wish they could round up these Democrates here in the USA and charge them with treason for the abuse they have givem America during this war. The only difference between a Democrat and a Communist is the spelling.

Someone already tried this, Norman. His name was George, and he was king of England in 1776. Fortunately the liberals won that war.

It saddens me that you find freedom of speech, public discourse, due process, and trial by jury to be so thoroughly un-American.

David R. Remer wrote:

Well, so much for Christ’s teachings in the Red column.

Amen, Brother Remer! As a follower of Christ, I am horrified by some of the things the “religous right” does in His name. I guess too many of them stop reading after the Book of Malachi.

Posted by: Rob Cottrell at February 1, 2005 10:07 AM

bugcrazy-
If confronting the terrorist threat means we let down our guard on our own morality, then all we do is manifest their vision of who we are in a factual manner that is hard for the international community to deny. We vindicate their propaganda.

We must outsmart al-Qaeda, not join it in it’s moral relativism. If we get a little dirty on occasion doing this, well one has to get one’s hands dirty in a war. But if we make these morally compromised means regular practice, we only end up losing the war to remain the land of the brave and the home of the free.

In battle, we should not hold back, we should not give them a chance to catch their breath. We should kill ten of them for every one of us that dies. We should so thoroughly burn them out that al-Qaeda becomes a byword for any group that so poorly picks an enemy. But having scorched them from the face of the earth, we should not take their darkness to heart. We are a nation that glorifies warriors, not murderers and sadists. We must not become the monster to kill the monster. In the end more tragedy will come of this kind of reckless moral expedience than will come of any terrorist attack it could concieveably could prevent.

Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are not extraordinary instances of isolated torture meant to stave off disaster. They are an institutionalizing of torture, abuse and humiliation that has few safeguards in place to ensure that the guilty are the only ones who are punished. They are blights upon the face of America, allowing many of our enemies to claim that such sadism represents our true face, the ugly reality of who we are. We must not allow that to become the case. Every country, from time to time, must act violently in its own defense, or the defense of others and their rights. But we should not allow that dark capacity to become our driving force, because we will cease to be Americans worth the name at that point.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 1, 2005 10:13 AM

kctim,

Unfortunately, we cannot divorce the concept of what methods are used to interrogate from that of whether these people have been convicted of anything. Without due process, you are torturing/interrogating potentially innocent people who may have no information to give! How far should you push someone to talk when they may not have anything to say worth hearing?

Posted by: Rob Cottrell at February 1, 2005 10:29 AM

These people that were torture intended to kill Americans. We as americans follow more rules than any other country on the face of the earth. Besides, what is the reason we are over ther? To liberate Iraq? Oh I remember about 3 years ago it was to get weapons of mass destruction. Huh. Now it’s about freeing and enslaved nation. You mean to tell me that we were lied to by our own government, no way. Lets not get off the subject though. these military people treated these prisoners like enemies heaven forbid that we treat them like they deserve to be treated. These people would sacrifice everything they have to kill all of us. They have no right they are not Americans. Is this really an issue we americans should bother ourselves with. A mistreated few of Iraqis who were fighting against us. Wow, I remember when we killed the enemy but, this mistreatment is so much worse. Gee I think we should just put them out of their misery and free from their pain and just kill them. For only death can set them free.

Posted by: chad at February 1, 2005 10:37 AM

Norman-
Jack Chick tract or John Birch? Half of this country can’t be against their own homeland. Half of this country most decidedly isn’t.

The question is, are you loyal to this country? This question will get you mad as hell, as well it should. It’s a question that irks me as well. But maybe you deserve it more than many liberals and I deserve it, because your languages speaks of rounding up a rival political party and criminalizing it. That’s what happens in some banana republic, not the home of the free and the brave.

Support for Bush or this war is subordinate to the support of our country’s best interests. Bush does not deserve to be glorified to a near God simply for showing up. Nor do Americans need to feel obligated to support an Iraq policy that has gone so seriously awry, and which functioned on seriously wrong information. America is great because it doesn’t let political dogma or orthodoxy get in the way of uncovering error and redressing it.

Every government makes mistakes. But Democracies, when they function, resolve their mistakes rather than allowing them to fester into even worse problems on account of ideology.

Democrats are not communists. The communists are fools who believed they could control everything. Democrats never believed any such thing. Instead of nationalizing industries and creating a command economy, the Democrats, at the height of their power set in place laws to restrain the worse excesses of business, but at the same time left them the freedom to compete and set their own prices. Our prosperity as a nation came about under the auspices of the New Deal Reforms. The last great economic expansion occurred on the watch of another Democrat.

We’re not communists. We’re far from it, and it’s time you fellows recognized it. There is nothing so elitist as somebody who thinks that half the country can think rightly for itself. That goes for everybody. What we need is a balance of our respective inclinations, forged in the mutually observed best interests of this country. We must be the check and the balance against our rival’s mistakes and misconceptions. The Legalism of liberalism must keep in check the laissez faire attitude of the conservatives, and vice versa.

In short, we must work together as Americans, rather than fantasize about some fascist world where the other guy conveniently disappears.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 1, 2005 10:54 AM

correction: “Can think rightly” should be “can’t think rightly”

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 1, 2005 10:56 AM

At risk of going off-topic, I think it’s instructive to look at a lot of the far-right invective that’s been leveled at terrorists, Democrats and everyone in between in this thread. The right wingnuts insist on doing anything and everything to captured terrorists.

The problem is we’re really not sure who these people are. If they were POW’s, then there would be clear guidelines about how to deal with run-of-the-mill soldiers versus spies/saboteurs. We would be able to punish the latter, but we would be obliged to treat more rigidly with the former.

On the other hand, if they were considered citizens and residents of the US accused with breaking the law, they would be tried and punished accordingly, including with death for treason.

Leaving aside the legality of the “enemy combatants” classification, it is proving in many ways unhelpful. We don’t understand who or what they are, and our lack of normative treatment leads to wildly varying modii operandi.

Posted by: Chops at February 1, 2005 11:29 AM

This “torture” degrades women. Really, I thought degradation of women to be a little more extreme. Like making women walk behind the rest of the family draped in cloth forced to walk with their head down and not to speak. These interogators infringed upon their faith. So, when America came in and liberated the women in the country and made it so they don’t have to walk around with a blanket wraped around their face anymore; that wasn’t an infringement. Women in these countries (some not all) have been abused and mutilated. Some women have had their clitoris removed forcefully. Do you as an American think that through allowing another regime to come in that all will be forgiven and the whole area will love America. We will still be hated we will still be unwelcome. We are not going to turn Iraq into another America where freedom reigns supreme. These women will be thrown back down into the gutter. All of you would probably never convert from your religion which i’m guessing is christianity and your values are derived from the teachings of it’s scrolls. This is no different from their religion that controls far more aspects of life than does yours. Well, I don’t know about more but, definatley just as many. The average Iraqi is probably like the average American in the respect that they are conservative religious people. We all know what that means, they can be easily scared and easily led. Does anyone honestly think that Iraq will change once we leave? Has any country we’ve ever “liberated” changed and become prosperous like America. Name one! Let’s not forget how america got rich, free labor via slavery hundreds of years ago. Believe it or not that is how we became so rich. Freeing an enslaved nation that is our goal. We first need to implement a way of life then they can be free. Next we will move over there give the cable, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Starbucks. A great consumer culture in the middle east waiting to be liberated and shown the way to freedom. Now we won’t be the only people on the earth that are controlled by our corporate masters. I pray that one day Iraqis will care more about their status than anything else I have a dream.

Posted by: chad at February 1, 2005 12:07 PM

Chad -
Iraqi women had as many rights as Iraqi men under Saddam. They could go around in pants and shirts if they wanted, etc. Maybe you were thinking of Afghanistan.
Likewise, this post had NOTHING to do with Iraqis. The prisoners in question came from the Afghan conflict.
There was no relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Posted by: Chops at February 1, 2005 01:19 PM

First of all boys and girls, the “detainees” at Gitmo have been there, what, 3 years? How much of the info they had is even revelent?
Second, and I hate to have to bring it up,
WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GUYS

Posted by: Rocky at February 1, 2005 04:36 PM

Query for Ghandi,
Concerning your frat boy statement,…According to Muslem law I read that a women who is raped must provide “3” Three witnesses or she will be accused of adultery and punished as such. Is that why there are so many unreported rapes in Moslem countries.Perhaps a women in a Moslem country needs to send out invitations beforehand so she could have some legal standing?
Please, before you make ridiculous statements like this, think about it and don’t.
And again ,please ,everyone else I’ll say this just one more time. Stop the hypocrisy about the WMD issue.We went in thinking he had them because the following org. and people also thought he had them.
1 The U.N.
2 The CIA
3 Bill Clinton
4 John Kerry
5 Israeli Intell
6 French Intell
7 German Intell
8 Russian Intell ect..ect…ect.
Plus the fact that he used Chem. WMD before on the Kurds might be a clue.
Plus the fact that he said he would use them on us if we invaded might be a clue.
He had only how many years to hide or dismantle or to ship to other countries these weapons?
Come on please. Your pathetic blaming of Bush bores me to no end.
If “Everyone” tells you something you have a tendency to believe them.
Just like the punk who tells everyone he knows Karate , Kung Fu and Judu,then gets his butt kicked by someone willing to take him on. He got what he deserved.
The guy who took him on should be praised. NOT blamed.
But then there will always those who hide in the shadows when theres work to be done ,isn’t there?

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood…
Who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
So that their place shall be with those timid faithless souls who know neither victory or defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt

So to all you that hate, blame and fault our president and country, I say crawl back under the dark rock you came from and let freedom shine for a change of pace. Put some purple ink on your thumb and stop your bellyaching .

PS If Daugherty Chad and Cottrell feel slighted by this….Good. Find a rock.

Posted by: oldwolves at February 1, 2005 06:22 PM

I’m sorry,
the quote goes “so that their place shall “NEVER”be with those faithless timid souls who know neither victory or defeat”
Oldwolf

Posted by: oldwolf at February 1, 2005 07:56 PM

OldWolf said: “So to all you that hate, blame and fault our president and country, I say crawl back under the dark rock you came from and let freedom shine for a change of pace.”

You see, if you had your way you would remove all those who dissent. That is not freedom, that is dictatorship and fascism, by your own words. Freedom means those who wish to dissent can and do. Yet, you would have those who dissent go away. Ergo, you do not really believe in freedom.

Posted by: David R. Remer at February 1, 2005 07:59 PM

Just to let you guys know, the Vietnamese had 80% participation in their 1967 Election. Just because you have a high Election turnout does not mean Democracy. The Speeches they gave today were EXACTLY similar to the ones give in Vietnam.

As for WMD, all those Organizations relied on the US for their Info.

For Your Information.

Posted by: Aldous at February 1, 2005 08:50 PM

And Oh By the Way, Hans Blix couldn’t find them either.

Posted by: Rocky at February 1, 2005 10:06 PM

Oldwolves-
Regarding Rape Laws: Which particular country? urban or rural? Which sect? Which culture? It’s easy to claim they’re all heathens, especially when you don’t get into the messy details. That’s how they claim we’re all a bunch of depraved barbarians. Of course, it helps if we officially sanction such behavior.

What the public believes about WMDs is irrelevant. We were only in a position to speculate. The public has been wrong before, and will be wrong again. Additionally, there are some problems with those entities on your list.

1)The UN was a) never given the chance to complete its inspections, and b)had thrown doubt on the WMDs even before we went in.

2)The CIA had many people disputing the WMD case. Much of the information taken from the CIA was also asked for and compiled directly by nonintelligence personnel. The administration circumvented those who disagreed with them. They so overloaded the case for war with unreliable reports that Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had to rip out huge sections of it. Worse than that, the stuff he did leave in by and large did not stand up to scrutiny afterwards. They had to either know better and not care, or care and not know better.

3)Clinton did not invade Iraq over the spotty intelligence picture we had. He hit hard at anything that might be used to produce Chemical weapons. But he didn’t invade the country, especially not without a real gun to this country’s head on this matter.

4)Kerry knew what the Bush administration gave him in the form of intelligence. If they did not inform him well, he cannot be blamed for believing there is a danger. After all the Executive branch is supposed to tell us the truth and give us good quality intelligence to boot.

5)Israeli Intelligence- They have their own problem with cherrypickers and new intelligence outfits created to tell governments what they want to hear. Problem with folks with agendas like these, is that they have a bad tendency to ignore the real threats because they already think they know what they are.

6,7,8, etc.
From what I’ve heard their people had great reservations about things in Iraq. As for Russia… Well, you’re trusting a former KGB agent who might have been sucking up to Bush to get brownie points.

Chemical Weapons usage before the Gulf War does not mean anything if he has none after it. We never had on site human intelligence with people going into these facilities and determining whether Saddam had these stockpiles. As for their hiding these weapons, we have no better reason to believe this story than we had to believe the last.

What you don’t get is there are bad ways to engage the bad guys, ways that will involve more pain, more suffering, and more compromising of your values than is really necessary. If you want to make us out to be cowards, fine, you go ahead. But I for one do not criticize my president out of some weakness of my character, but because I believe he’s wrong, regardless of what mythology get’s piled around him.

The president gives his orders from Washington D.C., half a world away, and uses the lives and fortunes of our troops as a barrier for criticism. But really, they operate in two separate worlds.

The soldiers deal with the reality of the situation, whether that means the WMDs they were first to know weren’t getting found, the inadequate armor they were getting killed behind, or the heightened insurgency they witnessed the birth of. We protect them from nothing of the bad news. They’re right in the damn middle of it! Of course they are also right in the middle of the good stuff as well.

However, The Bush Administration has continually pumped sunshine up our asses about this war, so if we’re going to get a good, reliable account of it, unlike the soldiers, we’re going to have to get it from our reporters.

You’re going to have get use to the idea that when you use the world freedom, it extends to more than agreement with yourself, and that because you and I are fallible human beings, such freedom is a good thing because that means that we’re generally not shutting up somebody who’s got the right idea, regardless of who it is. Maybe America works because it evolves with the marketplace of ideas, rather than trying to manage the impossible chaos with just the notions of a few dogmas.

You can sling all the platitudes you want, and paint me as some belly-aching, belly-crawling critter, But I come by my beliefs honestly. If my beliefs bother you, Well, that’s your problem. Hell, you can take it. You’re American. You should be use to this range of disagreement from your fellow countrymen by now.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 1, 2005 10:36 PM

Well, the “interrogation method” certainly doesn’t constitute torture, per se, but that doesn’t make the tactics any less reprehensible. Obviously, this moral values thing on the right is nothing more than humbug. The advocates of such methodology on this thread reveal an implacable denial of the very issues they claim to be so crucial to their cause. Freedom? So important we should kill tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis to force the issue in Iraq (under a moveable feast of pretexts, proven neither before nor after prosecution). Yet somehow so unimportant that rule of law and simple human decency are easily dismissed when convenient to some cowardly paranoia. Responsibility? Important enough to bandy hubris as courage. But not so important when overwhelmed by fear. Morals? Important enough to scream bloody cultural doom when a breast is exposed or a bare white back jumps into big black arms. But not so important when pussy is used as a weapon on suspected terrorists.

Funny. But not ha ha funny.

Posted by: Joseph Briggs at February 1, 2005 11:00 PM

Joseph Briggs -
This thread is actually showing the difference between the Christian Right and the Nationalist Right. Gandhi, myself, and others here are Christians, and have been the most adamently to this form of “religious torture”, because we place a high value on the religious freedom and dignity this country allows us. The Nationalists, such as Oldwolf, don’t apparently consider American values to be part of American interests. As long as we are more powerful, goes the reasoning, then damn the details.
I firmly disagree with that, and I don’t think power (military, economic, or other) is an end in itself, or even a virtue as such.

Posted by: Chops at February 2, 2005 09:41 AM

“At least Moslems aren’t raping their 72 virgins in real life, the way American frat boys are.”

You mus’nt read the news. Rape is certainly not unknown in their culture. You should have gone to college with Muslim guys. I did. This Muslim holier than thou stuff, is a lot of hooey for the most part.

Last I have to say on the subject…I sure am glad we don’t decide military methods to use by blog committee. We would never get anything done.

Posted by: Christian at February 2, 2005 10:39 AM

Chops,
You are correct. I should have seperated thoughts and been less specific. There is a connection between Al-Queda and Iraq and our leaders created it. But, does an actual connection exist? No.

Oldwolves,
I do not put fault on our country. The motive behind our invasion is a bit fishy. We have done the Kerry thing and “Flip Flopped”. We were there to get WMDs. Now we are there to liberate and free a nation. The American people have to follow their leader even if they don’t agree with him. That doesn’t mean we can’t speak against him. I’m pretty sure that is another one of those freedoms we have, the Freedom of speech. Bush was given bad intel it wasn’t him. He’s the President of the United States, what is he in charge of and who does he control/watch over? Is he the boss or is he just a figurehead, a pretty face? Who does have the blood, sweat, and dust on their face? It isn’t our President. It’s our troops our enlisted and officer corps, the people that volunteered to serve and protect this country and uphold all that it stands for. The President just has the power to use them for settling whatever grudge he chooses to address. The leaders of this country promise a lot and deliver on some of the promises; and when they don’t they point fingures at everyone else. Our government has lied to us since it’s conception and screwed us the whole time. But, now they have changed because we have a Texan in the White House named dub-ya. I think we may have the second coming of the Teflon President.
We are giving up rights to give others an illusion of freedom. This whole liberation thing makes for a great sound bite. When are these oppressed people going to fight for their own freedom. If the majority of the people don’t likie the way it is rebel in a unified manner. The majority of people didn’t like the way it was but, they also couldn’t come together and unify. If there are several differnt motives and goals the most powerful group/the majority will institue whatever they see fit. Then bam we are right back where we started. Settling another on-going conflict.

Posted by: chad at February 2, 2005 11:25 AM

Well, Chops. I just had to express my contempt for the advocacy of such “religious torture” on this thread and how I see such advocates and their ilk in the context of the media focus on the alleged “moral divide” in the country.

I agree, though, that there is clearly a difference between true Christian morality and the lack of morals as expressed in assent to these interrogation tactics. And I certainly appreciate the real Christians on the right trying to address the gamut of these moral issues in a consistent manner like yourself and the others you mentioned.

Posted by: Joseph Briggs at February 2, 2005 12:10 PM

Just found this article regarding some forms of torture, which are torture, and are the reason why I state above that what we do in Guantanamo cannot be called by that name. I know you may consider off topic, but please read, it really is germaine. I am not posting it because of Ms. Fonda, but for reference regarding things that are torture.

Subject: Jane Fonda gets an award

A TRAITOR IS ABOUT TO BE HONORED
KEEP THIS MOVING ACROSS AMERICA

This is for all the kids born in the 70’s who do not remember, and didn’t have to bear the burden that our fathers, mothers and older brothers and sisters had to bear.

Jane Fonda is being honored as one of the “100 Women of the Century.”

Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country, but specific men who served and sacrificed during Vietnam.

The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot.

The pilot’s name is Jerry Driscoll, a River Rat. In 1968, the former Commandant of the USAF
Survival School was a POW in Ho Lo Prison the “Hanoi Hilton.”

Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJ’s, he was
ordered to describe for a visiting American “Peace Activist” the “lenient and humane treatment” he’d received.

He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed, and was dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward on to the camp Commandant’s feet, which sent that officer berserk.

In 1978, the Air Force Colonel still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his
flying career) from the Commandant’s frenzied application of a wooden baton.

From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4E’s). He spent 6 years in the “Hanoi Hilton”,,, the first three of which his family only knew he was “missing in action”. His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned-up, fed and clothed routine in preparation for a “peace delegation” visit. They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they were alive and still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his Social Security Number on it, in the palm of his hand.

When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man’s hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: “Aren’t you sorry you bombed babies?” and “Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?” Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper. She took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him all the little pieces of paper.

Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Colonel Carrigan was almost number four
but he survived, which is the only reason we know of her actions that day.

I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam, and was captured by the North
Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held prisoner for over 5 years.

I spent 27 months in solitary confinement; one year in a cage in Cambodia; and one year
in a “black box” in Hanoi. My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Ban me Thuot, South Vietnam, whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border. At one time, I weighed only about 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs.)

We were Jane Fonda’s “war criminals.”

When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would
be willing to meet with her. I said yes, for I wanted to tell her about the real treatment we POWs received… and how different it was from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by her as “humane and lenient.”

Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees, with my arms outstretched
with a large steel weights placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane.

I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda soon after I was released. I asked her
if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She never did answer me.

These first-hand experiences do not exemplify someone who should be honored as part
of “100 Years of Great Women.” Lest we forget..” 100 Years of Great Women” should never include a traitor whose hands are covered with the blood of so many patriots.

There are few things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane’s participation in
blatant treason, is one of them. Please take the time to forward to as many people as you possibly can. It will eventually end up on her computer and she needs to know that we will never forget.

RONALD D. SAMPSON, CMSgt, USAF
716 Maintenance Squadron, Chief of
Maintenance
DSN: 875-6431
COMM: 883-6343

Posted by: Christian at February 2, 2005 01:05 PM

Christian, what has this to do with the fact that we have an officially adopted international definition of what constitutes torture and inhumane treatment? Are you suggesting Bush and every other nation simply adopt their own definition, according to whatever circumstances befits their ends? Without definitions, agreements are impossible.

We have the GC, which we signed onto, if we want to be regarded in the world as civilized and respectful of human dignity, we should abide by the treaty we agreed to, both in word and spirit.

Posted by: David R. Remer at February 2, 2005 01:40 PM

David and Stephen,
Your replies to OldWolf - well done, gentlemen.

Posted by: Adrienne at February 2, 2005 01:48 PM

Almost missed this:
Chad:
“This “torture” degrades women.

Yes, it degrades OUR women.

“Really, I thought degradation of women to be a little more extreme.”

Oh Really? Then let me suggest another option. How about making those men who are currently instructing these American women interrogators to dress up like prostitutes and sexually use their bodies to humiliate and demoralize prisoners (because they may or may not have information), to take on the task of dressing up in heels, thongs, and mini-skirts and act like male prostitutes themselves?
Might be an even more effective means of humiliation, wouldn’t you say?

“Like making women walk behind the rest of the family draped in cloth forced to walk with their head down and not to speak.”

Like making women expose their bodies and perform shameless acts, because its okay to use someones religious beliefs against them.

“These interogators infringed upon their faith.”

Not only the prisoners faith, but perhaps their own?

“So, when America came in and liberated the women in the country and made it so they don’t have to walk around with a blanket wraped around their face anymore”

They simultaneously lost their own moral compass by instructing American women to expose themselves to prisoners and act like torture whores.

“Women in these countries (some not all) have been abused and mutilated.”

So, that makes it all right to degrade our own women. And to use a prisoners faith against them like a club because that is exactly what a good, upstanding, freedom-loving democracy must do in order to defend America.

Posted by: Adrienne at February 2, 2005 07:35 PM

There are only two issues:

1. We’re the good guys; we need to act like it.

2. Torture (no matter what you call it) isn’t effective unless you know for sure that someone has a particular piece of information to extract. They can tell you a lot of stuff under duress, but who knows if it is worth anything (unlike Ahmed Chalabi’s wonderful intel). And you almost always (like 99.999% of the time) are in the situation of not knowing even if you have the right guy.

Anyone who believes any different has read too many spy novels and seen too many movies.

Posted by: Mental Wimp at February 2, 2005 08:09 PM

Christian-
Jane Fonda this, Jane Fonda that. I don’t blame POWs for hating her, conservatives for resenting her, but you folks have got to let go at some point. At the same time you guys have to get real about what your own people are doing.

I mean hell, two of the most popular pundits you got out there are convicted criminals. Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy. I mean, you’re in trouble when day in and day out your conservative point of view is sold by somebody who sold arms to Iran (then and now our enemy) and another fellow who participated in the world’s most famous third-rate burglary.

Your candidate for Attorney General wrote opinions that supported torture. Your Secretary of State, presumably in charge of advising the president on national security, presided over two massive intelligence failures, one of which may have been intentionally engineered to deceive an otherwise unwilling nation into war.

The character of leftists long pass their prime and influence is one thing. What about the Character of Republican officials and policies now? That has been one of the fundamental questions on this war.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 2, 2005 09:00 PM

Stephen,

“I mean hell, two of the most popular pundits you got out there are convicted criminals. Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy.”

These are the only two from the red side with any brains.

Posted by: Rocky at February 2, 2005 09:52 PM

Silly blogger ate my comments. I had written a follow-up to my comments on the 72 virgins, since they seemed to generate so much interest. Anyway, the point was that someone’s experiences with horny moderate American Muslims in college don’t necessarily speak much about what the religion is like in the Middle East. Here are two mainstream media articles that showcase some of the reasoning behind Muslim modesty, which permeates every facet of their society. Is wearing burquas oppression? Decide for yourself. (And it probably depends on the country - Afghanistan and Iraq are quite different.)

An alternative to Barbie

A Moslem girl in Pakistan, post 9-11

Posted by: Gandhi at February 2, 2005 11:30 PM

Gandhi. Our prisons have quite a few folks with brains. So? Your point is? Criminals can be smart? Smart people can deliberately violate the nation’s laws? Is that a badge of honor for you? I will take average intelligence with integrity over brains without it, for a friend anyday. Adolph Hitler had brains. Mao Tse Tung had a lot of brains. Jeffrey Dahmer was pretty smart. Want them to advise our government too!

Posted by: David R. Remer at February 3, 2005 03:26 AM

I thought it was 72 white raisins.

Luxenberg ‘s new analysis, leaning on the Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian, yields “white raisins” of “crystal clarity” rather than doe-eyed, and ever willing virgins - the houris. Luxenberg claims that the context makes it clear that it is food and drink that is being offerred, and not unsullied maidens or houris.

In Syriac, the word hur is a feminine plural adjective meaning white, with the word “raisin” understood implicitly. Similarly, the immortal, pearl-like ephebes or youths of suras such as LXXVI.19 are really a misreading of a Syriac expression meaning chilled raisins (or drinks) that the just will have the pleasure of tasting in contrast to the boiling drinks promised the unfaithful and damned.

Posted by: Joseph Briggs at February 3, 2005 06:42 AM

Arienne,
These interrogators chose to be interrogators whereas, the women in these countries just had the misfortune of being born there. Believe it or not they have been brainwashed to think that they are worth less than men; well the men have been made to think they are better than the women at least. The interrogators had the choice to do the things they did. If their morals came into question they would have vehemently resisted their orders. As did the troops who felt they were not adequatly protected in their Hummer. Are you holding Americans to your standards and morals? Yes, there religion was spit upon, but what rights do they have; our people’s heads are getting chopped off, our troops are dying, brothers, sons, daughters, moms, and dads. We are worried about some foreign prisoners feelings and thoughts of injustice. Priorities are a bit skewed when this is the issue in the news. Moral compass? Who cares? We have men and women dying for another countries freedom, another country that has people in it that hate us so much they are willing to die to end our way of life. But, their faith is more important than American lives.

Posted by: chad at February 3, 2005 09:40 AM

Hilarious, and very interesting, if you’re right Joseph!

David - I thought we were in general agreement on this subject, and I have no idea what you’re talking about either. Please reword your question. Thanks.

Posted by: Gandhi at February 3, 2005 10:17 AM

The constant hazard of fundamentalism is the indeterminacy of language. Meanings of words shift. Monks and others mistranslate, and insert things wholesale sometimes. Anybody who treats the words of the bible as unconditional truth deals with evidence that has a chain of custody a mile long, the links of which consist of many who tampered with the evidence intentionally or unintentionally.

I believe religious texts must be interpreted with two countervailing forces in place: skepticism of and distance from the literal word, and respect for the original authorship. If we of the modern times are to glean what is truly worthwhile in values and traditions in the bible, we must understand the limitations of our knowledge, and seek out the various kinds of scholarship that illuminate the contexts and meanings of the rightings.

I say forget about proving the literal truth of the Bible. Start getting at the real truths it represents about the people who wrote it, the God (or picture of God) that inspired it, the world God created (or that the text claims He did), and we who read it now.

Sounds complicated? Well, that’s the point. Our relationship with the world within our religion and outside of it is complex too, and to do justice to God and ourselves we must examine the bible and the societies of past and present in this way.

As for the morality of these episodes of sexual humiliation and humiliation, I would point out that any such thing in a prison or corporation here at home would be considered a scandal. The impression I get is that only the imminence of the threats posed by the terrorists justifies this behavior in the eyes of those who support it. But that’s just the thing. The people in Guantanamo have been out of the loop for years. For the most part, the imminence is gone, and we are just as well being patient and humane.

Also, we must take into account some terrorist’s ability to compartmentalize. The reports of some terrorists showing up in strip clubs was taken as evidence of hypocrisy, but that interpretation does not take into account the idea that the terrorist is doing this intentionally to blend in. It is a measure of his faith that he’s willing to subject himself to such impurity. The real scary SOBs might just let the women seduce him, or the unclean menstrual blood be smeared on him.

In the end, though, it’s techniques better suited to worse countries, countries with more degraded senses of morality. It is one thing for one of our spies to seduce or honeypot a source, it’s another thing entirely for that to become an instituted methodology for interrogators. This is a corruption of the American character waiting to happen. There are going to be people who come back from this with the notion that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose, and those folks will rollback the proud American tradition of reasoned, psychologically rooted interrogation, in favor of the more direct, but more compromised tactics of less democratic countries.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 3, 2005 11:35 AM

Stephen, that was very well said.
I feel exactly the same way about the idea that America is putting itself in grave danger of losing its sense of decency and honor by institutionalizing such treatment and methods of interrogation.
Its strange, too, because there seems to be is a serious double standard at work here - where people can applaud jailing someone like Lynndie England for enjoying herself while sexually humiliating captured prisoners at Abu Graib, then turn around and deem it okay because its being done cold bloodedly and without enjoyment by a civilian contractor for interrogation purposes somewhere else.
Its completely crazy and sick to think of American’s condoning and engaging in this kind of behavior - and anyone who doesn’t get that is beyond hopeless.

Posted by: Adrienne at February 3, 2005 01:03 PM

Well said Adrienne. But I don’t feel we are just in danger, I worry we have already lost our sense of decency as a people. Some days I wonder how many of us had it to begin with.

9/11 was an event that stimulated dormant prejudice in the American culture. I sat and listened at work to African American, hispanic and caucasian coworkers, together, have conversations that included statements like “F$%^in towel heads”, etc. Now that our “enemy” finally had our attention, people who profess to be tolerant could effortlessly polarize to the exact opposite.

The point of the matter, as I see it, is, we are losing this “war”. Many of our leaders, the wealthy, and corporations have planted the seeds to get us where we are. 9/11 was no random act, and while I don’t agree with their methods, cause, etc, and still deeply mourn the loss of life, I firmly believe our nation has given our enemy a reason to feel they had to do something drastic. Our re-actions to the event have truly only intensified their cause, not our own. And we have, if anything, been led astray by the ultra-religious right in this country to NOT follow the teachings of Christ.

I don’t subcribe to the culture of the terrorists, and I certainly don’t feel what they have done/are doing/intend to do is right. But the concept we are innocent as a nation is equally not correct. We are reaping what we have sown. And rather than pursue solutions in the spirit of the teachings of Christ, we make more war, kill more people, fuel more anti-american sentiment, and re-elect the most stupid and arrogant bastard we can find to be our poster child for the event.

I consider myself agnostic, and I’m unsure that there’s any kind of afterlife. If there is, this much is evident to me— Bush is going to hell. His heart is impure, corrupt, and any God that takes 2 seconds to glance will see right through it. The man is worse than, and more dangerous than, the people we are trying to defeat.

A lot of people profess it doesn’t matter how we treat suspected terrorists so long as we get the information. I will contend that if the means continue to be divorced from the ends, it will lead to the end of us. The terrorists fight against us because of what our nation has done, and what we continue to do. We are not inpenetrable, they certainly can achieve thier goals if they keep at it. In the mean time, we are decaying from the inside. If we want to “win”, we need new perspective, we need to put down our arrogance, we have to be a world leader, not a world bully.

Posted by: Taylor at February 3, 2005 07:31 PM

Taylor-
People are perfectly capable of convincing themselves they are incapable of prejudice, when all you need is imagination, ignorance, and something to be angry about. Like just about every evil it is merely our own natural feelings and inclinations taken in a pathological direction.

We need to understand that evil can have both petty and profound motives behind it. This is what many of Religious Right have forgotten. Terrible things can and have been done in the name of God, with legitimate impulses in mind.

From my point of view, one may opine that somebody is committing a sin, but two things cannot be ours: the will to repent of one’s sins, which must belong to the person themself, and judgment, which can only belong to God, To Jesus.

God will forgive somebody regardless of the depth of their sins, so long as they recognize their sins. What are Bush’s sins? We may guess, but only God can know, in his omniscience. How much does Bush resist the grace he senses through his conscience and the soul the conscience proceeds from, as we all do in the course of our imperfect lives? Until the moment of his death, he has every chance to follow that grace, to repent of the wrong he has done. We must respect that. If we fail to, we take a course that will trade our grace for our own self-righteousness.

If we compare ourselves favorably to those we consider sinners, we end up giving ourselves a kind of cheap grace- instead of enacting the deads and pursuing the faith that leads to salvation, we seek out the poor substitute of self-congratulation, and all the illusions that accompany it.

In the end, we must stand up to the terrorists, letting them know that we are their equals, not their slaves. But we must also reach out in God’s love to those not so corrupted by evils surrounding the terrorists, not, in our self-righteousness, needlessly alienate and sin against them.

Life forces compromises on people, but if we’re not careful, we can end up all compromsises.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 3, 2005 11:17 PM

“Well said Adrienne.”

Thanks, Taylor.

“But I don’t feel we are just in danger, I worry we have already lost our sense of decency as a people. Some days I wonder how many of us had it to begin with.”

I know what you mean. I just read this story. It’s damn depressing.

Stephen:
“Until the moment of his death, he has every chance to follow that grace, to repent of the wrong he has done. We must respect that. If we fail to, we take a course that will trade our grace for our own self-righteousness.”

Like Taylor, I’m agnostic, and frankly, I can’t buy into this unconditional forgiveness, last minute salvation and you’re on your way to heaven idea. If anything, I think the concept of karma makes much better sense - that an accounting of your deeds will determine your level of grace and manner of existence when (or if) you cross over to another plane.

“If we compare ourselves favorably to those we consider sinners, we end up giving ourselves a kind of cheap grace- instead of enacting the deads and pursuing the faith that leads to salvation, we seek out the poor substitute of self-congratulation, and all the illusions that accompany it.”

Bush lied us into the war in Iraq, and has condoned torture. His lies have lead to people’s (American and Iraqi) mutilation, dismemberment, and death. There is no self-congratulation in knowing that his power and lack of morality gave him the means to cause their destruction.
And there is no vanity in understanding what morality is, or in knowing that in his place, one could not, and would not, have done the same thing.

If knowing that with certainty is somehow self congratulatory or nothing but a misguided illusion, well, then give me the cheap knockoff version of Grace. I guess I’ve got it coming. ;^)

“In the end, we must stand up to the terrorists, letting them know that we are their equals, not their slaves.”

I don’t agree. I think we must strive to be better than the terrorists in every way, and demonstrate that we are smarter and stronger than they could ever be. Mentally, Physically, Morally. That we will ruthlessly fight to them to the death in war, but then be equally capable of displaying true mercy and decency (Jesus: love our enemies) in our treatment of prisoners and the wounded.
And we do so not because of our many and various faiths, or the naive belief that God brings victory to the pious, but because of our founding ideals and philosophy of life.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
IMO, that has always been the true wellspring of American Vitality, Success and yes, Victory.

Posted by: Adrienne at February 4, 2005 02:56 AM

Adrienne-
There are conditions on the forgiveness of sins:

One, you must mean it. No saying sorry, and thinking you’ve gotten away with it.

Two, you must be willing to extend such forgiveness to other people. We all share the imperfections of being human.

Three, you must endeavor to avoid repeating your sin.

In the bible, the language used is of transformation. You aren’t simply trying to change your life, you are ending that life and embarking on another. A person who comes to repent of their deeds must denounce the life they once had, and if that is one’s life’s work, then one must count it all as counting for nothing.

This is what I mean in opposition to cheap grace. Cheap grace is being able to chuckle to yourself that the fellow across from you is not as righteous as you are. The more difficult kind is realizing that in God’s eyes, the opposite may be true, so you better watch your judgments, and you better take care of your own behavior even as you criticize others.

I believe that in standing up to the terrorist, we must not degenerate our behavior on their account, that we must do what we can, militarily and otherwise, to defend ourselves, and that we must become more sympathetic as a people to the folks of the Middle East. If a better Iraq comes of our efforts there, it may do us some good.

It’s not about viral democracy. Rather, it’s about our interactions with people around the world having happy endings for them, rather than tragic ones. If dealing with the U.S. means you’re losing all the time, being humiliated, then you have no cause to look out for U.S. interests. But if your life is better because the U.S. stepped in, you are at least inclined not to join others in opposing Americans.

I do not like the notion of stories with no happy or cathartic ending possible. Something better should come of the mess we made of Iraq, and I hope it does. I do not criticize to get my condemnation of Bush on the record, but to encourage my government to turn the tide and learn something from the events that have come to pass. As much as I dislike what Bush has done, I would rather see the Adminstration redeem its work and fulfill the promises it made than to see its failure. Of course, that is up to them, and until they do things better, I will make my negative remarks towards them.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at February 4, 2005 05:30 PM

Stephen,

The point I was trying to make (which perhaps I didn’t make very well) in my last post was this:
While none of us may have the right to be God, Judge or Executioner, we do have the collective right to be the Jury of our President and his actions - most especially when we speak of decisions regarding war and the death of Americans, as well as anything that diminishes our name or reputation in the eyes of the world (torture, for instance). Also, as citizens of the last remaining superpower, we addtionally have a duty and obligation to the rest of the World to hold him accountable for his actions.
On these points, we seem to agree, because you wrote:

“It’s not about viral democracy. Rather, it’s about our interactions with people around the world having happy endings for them, rather than tragic ones”
And:
“I do not criticize to get my condemnation of Bush on the record, but to encourage my government to turn the tide and learn something from the events that have come to pass.”

Absolutely.

“As much as I dislike what Bush has done, I would rather see the Adminstration redeem its work and fulfill the promises it made than to see its failure. Of course, that is up to them, and until they do things better, I will make my negative remarks towards them.”

Same here.
And on a hopeful note, I thought it was very good news to hear today about Condi’s meeting with Chancellor Schröder - a sign that we may yet see some improvement.

We’ve veered a bit off topic here, so I thought I’d put this at the end:
“In the bible, the language used is of transformation. You aren’t simply trying to change your life, you are ending that life and embarking on another. A person who comes to repent of their deeds must denounce the life they once had”

The idea of being the Prodigal Son.
I suppose it just seems more valid to me if that transformation doesn’t come at the very end of someones time on Earth, y’know?

In the political sphere, I’d automatically think to mention one of the most intelligent and fearless of all Democratic Senators - Robert C. Byrd.
Byrd is good example of someone who made an extremely bad decision in his youth by belonging to the Klan, but who saw the light, admitted he was wrong, never avoids discussing it, and has taken a great many steps to atone for such a terrible lapse of judgement.
I have an enormous amount of respect for that.
I think Byrd takes his position very seriously, and because he is a truly eloquent speaker for the people and an excellent defender of our Constitution, it would be nice indeed to think that despite his earlier mistake, he’ll still manage to get box seating beyond the pearly gates!

Posted by: Adrienne at February 4, 2005 08:40 PM