Third Party & Independents: Archives

Adam,
Good article and I am delighted that someone is taking a stand against the attacks from the self-righteous pigs in the White House. I find it disgusting and that is all there is to it.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7980.htm
That above is an excellent article about a man who had 3 years of his life robbed from the nonsense of torture. It is a shame and I hope he gets justice.
I can’t wait until I hear the Republican reaction on this one. I know that only 33% of the Americans throughout support torture and far more Republicans than Democrats do; I speculate, but I need to hear there case for it. As far as I know, without the proof; torture is not justified.
I was hearing a hardcore Christian speaking about how Bush is a great Christian and torture is justified. I looked at him in the eye and calmly said, “Love your neighbor as yourself but torture is good.” He then proceeded to argue that they are Muslims and deserve to be tortured.
Like Adam pointed out, we are all human. Where is this Islamofascism coming from? Who is promoting this garbage? I have a lot of questions and not many answers.
It is just too ironic for me. Judiaism, Christianity, and Islam all preach supreme love in their times view which kills the notion that those books are the Words of God. Judiaism is easily the most chauvinistic of all of the Western religions. Christianity is probably on the same scale as Islam for tolerance in certain avenues. The New Testament says women shouldn’t speak in churches, the Jews are the children of the devil, if you date someone outside of your religion; you are playing with fire as a threat. Islam isn’t much better as the Qur’an says that paradise is under the shade of the sword (whatever interpretation of that.) They, however, were the first to let women divorce their husbands and had tolerance amongst its own people. They did too with Jews and Christians but like society, that attitude quickly evaporated. What is my point? Religion is hijacked from men and they are remarkably similar. I don’t see where the bigotry is coming from when speaking of the Religious Right and how they approve of torture, for the most part anyway.
I don’t see either why Liberals, and I am one, tolerate Islam so much. Islam is against anything that Liberals preach. I also don’t see why the Religious Right hates Islam so much yet worship Jews. Islam is a hardcore conservative religion and it matches well with Christianity besides doctrine. Cognitive dissonance anyone?
I did let a lot of stuff loose here but it is all intertwined together. I would think that the ones who support the torture the most is the Religious Right faction because they find torture to easily be justified so I decided to tie in a few stuff here and there.
Excellent article Adam and thanks for bringing this to light to people who do not know our case yet.

Great article, Adam.

Here is another story from todays Boston Globe:
FILES SUGGEST U.S. TROOPS TRIED TO HIDE ABUSES

Why are the Democrats and Republicans staying away from this issue? Do I have to say something that insinuates a riot such as, “I think Osama Bin Laden should not be tortured but set free to live a long and prosperous life.” I am just troubled that neither side wants to get down and dirty and debate this all important issue.

I am here but I doubt you will ever get a Republican though. They are very good in ignoring reality.

The President used the word Crusade at one point which created a helluva international flap due to its religious historical implications. Now, we have the Bush administration sanctioning and covering up a revitalization of the Christian Inquisition where torture was used for all manner of needs from kicks, to political control to police work.

Those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. There simply is no justification for torture by any civilized human being as a matter of policy. That makes Bush and company “uncivilized”, and those who support them as well.

David,
(This is just a punch to the Religious Right) AMEN!

Thanks for all the positive feedback. I know this topic has been discussed on all three columns of WatchBlog, but it’s not going away, is it? The Bush administration seems to believe punishing those involved will end the problem, when as far as I can tell the problem starts right there with them. It’s as bad as the Tobacco companies making commericals telling people not to smoke. The whol debate over what can and can’t be done to prisoners is just morally empty.

Anybody seen Hotel Rwanda? I like the line Joaquin Phoenix has that says something like, “Americans will watch this and say ‘that’s terrible’ and then just go back to eating dinner.” The line still fits here. It’s time to get up some public outrage for this.

I humbly remind this forum that torture has been practiced by non-religious people with tremendous fervor - anybody remember the Communists of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, or Cuba? Torture is not a relgious problem, torture is a human problem. Ditto for racism.

Now, regarding the problem of racism. I think the majority of the religious right (of which I guess you’d probably consider me a member) is “okay” with torture because they naively believe that either torture is being carried out only by vicious “bad apple” soliders, or against terrorists. The possibility that it is being directed against suspected terrorists who are, in fact, innocent, is not often thought of.

Here’s my question. By and large, would the readers of the forum support the use of torture against terrorists? If the answer is “yes,” then the question is whether we’re doing a decent job of identifying who the terrorists are. If “no” then the question is whether this forum is willing to suffer from a lack of information these terrorists could provide.

Oh, and we need to spell out what we mean by “torture.” Is keeping detainees awake for days and days in order to dull their edge torture? Is torture doing anything to the detainee that the detainee does not like? What constitues torture?

Now for my own opinion. Defining torture as inflicting pain on people that requires healing (breaking bones, beating into submission, putting people on the rack, etc) is not acceptable, no matter what the information is. If keeping people awake and questioning them for hours constitutes torture, then I’m hesitantly for it, though I hope we have a darn good reason for it.

Anybody read The Sum of All Fears? For those that have, was what Mr. Clarke did to the terrorist in order to extract information (breaking the bones of his fingers and scraping them together) acceptable?

I think that the general consensus of most people is that torture is acceptable for certain kinds of criminals for certain reasons.

Daniel:

What we have now is not an interrogation torture, but an all out torture. These are beatings, hangings, molestation, and rape. There is no excuse for it. There is no justification under judicial or moral law for the things these “bad seeds” have done to these alleged terrorists.

Even if I knew that these people were guilty of terrorism, I would not condone such actions against them. If it was just as simple as sleep deprivation then it would be a different issue. It is far beyond that.

Reading from the book Torture Papers tonight at Barnes and Noble, I just became saddened by the stories and the accounts given in the book, as well as the many memos dealing with the suspension of Geneva III. It is just sad times. The book is 1200 pages of memos, sworn statements, and other things relating to the torture in the War on Terror. That’s 1200 pages. I cannot believe such an amount of material could be put together. I still can’t believe Dan Rather is a scandal, but THIS is not.

Torture begins in boot camp of the American Military especially the Marines. Their indoctrination to military service is predicated on intimdation, pain, and suffering. Makes a “man” out of you. I went through boot camp and was an AIT platoon sarge for a few months.

This kind of indoctrination does not in and of itself lead to torturing of others. When however, it is followed by mission orders to obtain information or confessions and it is understood formally or informally, that the mission is primary to all other considerations and priorities which the President, Rumsfeld, the Military command and CIA all sanctioned, it is an easy step for many of America’s finest ignore Genevea Conventions and step over the line.

There is now an investigation underway, as there have been many in the past, of wrongful death of a marine trainee in a swimming exercise just this week.

If the Command Structure does not keep Geneva Convention guides paramount, mission will dictate torture of POW’s and suspected enemy agent. That is the climate our military finds itself in today with the ambiguous and two faced policy of Bush and his administration: saying on the one hand Geneva Conventions will not apply to terrorists, but, on the other stipulating we don’t order torture. It is a contradictory statement that gives military command wiggle room in dealing with suspects and detainees.

If the Command Structure does not keep Geneva Convention guides paramount, mission will dictate torture of POW’s and suspected enemy agent

That’s the key, David. At Abu Ghraib it may have been “the midnight shift” that actually did the torturing, but there was a wink and a nod all up and down the chain of command. And when it came down to responsibility, Rumsfeld damned quick changed his tune from,

“These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them. I take full responsibility.”

to

“What was going on in the midnight shift in Abu Ghraib prison halfway across the world is something that clearly someone in Washington DC can’t manage or deal with. And so I have no regrets,”

Good Post Adam,(You know I tell you when it is good even if I don’t agree with it)
I believe that if troops are commiting crimes against people they should be tried and, if found guilty, punished. Trials have already been held and people punished. They deserve our scorn. However, these are, at the present, only claims of torture. If and when they are substantiated and people tried and found guilty then you can chastise and denegrate. To do so now only casts doubt on the character of the troops that are serving honorably. BTW, they far out number those who are commiting crimes.
This is from above:
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Why is it, given all the evidence of crimes by UN “peace keepers” in Congo, you are not denouncing them for human rights violations as well as violating their own resolution.

A final question. Why is it that you chastise the soldiers for violating Resoultion 217 and blame the administration, yet many on the left feel it was OK for Hussein to ignore UN Resolutions for 14 years and think we should have given him more time?

As stated, I think torture is wrong (real torture where people get harmed, not discomforts like lack of sleep or poor temperature control) but I also think it is wrong to assume that this is wide spread based upon what people who were held captive said (and ignoring any soldier’s claims to the opposite) happened without allowing the judicial system to run its course.

Big Dog:

Honestly, if I knew what was going on in the Congo that would matter. This was just an issue I was thinking about last week and over the weekend. I don’t feel like I need to denounce every bad deed in the world before talking about torture in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba.

In the end though, if the United Nations had documents about suspending human rights like the conversations between Bush and his administration, we could argue that it was more than a few bad seeds with them too. Simply looking the other way like the U.N. is often accused of is no different than most nations in the world.

As for Saddam, I don’t condone what he did any more than I condone it with our troops. I’ve yet to meet anybody on the left who thinks it was okay for Saddam to commit the atrocities. In the end though, Saddam is only violating human rights, not the resolution. Iraq was not part of the signing. As for the United States, it’s a different story.

Why is it that we invaded Iraq when there are human rights violations across the globe? Iraq was far from the worst nation in the world, and far from the most dangerous. That’s a slap in the face of all our claims of liberation. The United States has both commited and supported genocide in the past anyway. You often talk about the hostage situation with Carter, but you won’t mention the fact that his administration continued support for Pol Pot, who was responsible for the deaths of 2 million people in Cambodia. Nobody put Pol Pot on trial before he died. We knew that we’d killed over 1 million already before Pol Pot even got started, so we didn’t speak up. These days though we simply refuse to label things genocide in order to not have to deal with it. Your good buddy Bill Clinton did it, and my good buddy George Bush has done it now too. Lovely, lovely.

Our troops are still being investigated, but some of this stuff I write about, specially in the comments above, comes from sworn statements by guards and prisoners. Trial will determine the troops innocent or guilty. The documents discussing these issues already prove this administration guilty.

Thanks for your comments, Big Dog. Nice to see you over in this neck of the woods.

I take that back. Pol Pot was put under house arrest. Excuse my error.