Coming Home to Torture Questions
We came home yesterday, a day earlier than we had planned. Frankly, we became sick of seven dollar bottles of water and fourteen dollar martinis. What a rip. If, as a guest of the hotel, you wanted to sit in one of the hotel’s chairs down on the beach, there was a fee to be paid. There was a fee for everything. We decided to come home where the martinis are cheap and the water is basically free.
I sort of tuned out on the news these past couple of days. You have to sometimes to hang onto your sanity, as I’m sure you too have learned. As we were packing to leave yesterday I heard the president was going to give a news conference in the rose garden. Due to the timing this would happen while we were in transit. After I got home I discovered C-Span was going to replay the whole thing. So I watched and listened.
Sadly, our country is debating how much, if any, torture we will condone. Where did we lose our way? Where did we lose our sense of humanity? When did we become such frightened children that we close our eyes to sensibility?
I have not heard one professional interrogator say that torture actually works to retrieve good information from those who have been captured. Torture gets you what the captive feels you want to hear. That’s what is so bizarre. We don’t need information that we want to hear, we need information that tells us something we didn’t know.
For the president to threaten that we will not be able to conduct interrogations if it’s not done his way is just short of blackmail. He says it’s his way or no way. That’s just not true and hopefully America will see through his rhetoric and bluff.
The president wants his illegal acts to be made legal. That’s not the way we do things in America. That is unless we are no longer living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We must show this president that America is brave enough to remain free. We will not lose our souls to the enemy or to his administration. Our reputation as a country is far more important than covering his illegalities for him.
I sort of tuned out on the news these past couple of days. You have to sometimes to hang onto your sanity, as I’m sure you too have learned. As we were packing to leave yesterday I heard the president was going to give a news conference in the rose garden. Due to the timing this would happen while we were in transit. After I got home I discovered C-Span was going to replay the whole thing. So I watched and listened.
Sadly, our country is debating how much, if any, torture we will condone. Where did we lose our way? Where did we lose our sense of humanity? When did we become such frightened children that we close our eyes to sensibility?
I have not heard one professional interrogator say that torture actually works to retrieve good information from those who have been captured. Torture gets you what the captive feels you want to hear. That’s what is so bizarre. We don’t need information that we want to hear, we need information that tells us something we didn’t know.
For the president to threaten that we will not be able to conduct interrogations if it’s not done his way is just short of blackmail. He says it’s his way or no way. That’s just not true and hopefully America will see through his rhetoric and bluff.
The president wants his illegal acts to be made legal. That’s not the way we do things in America. That is unless we are no longer living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We must show this president that America is brave enough to remain free. We will not lose our souls to the enemy or to his administration. Our reputation as a country is far more important than covering his illegalities for him.
posted by pissed off patricia at 5:05 AM
55 Comments:
I would be rolling on the floor with my tummy hurting from laughter if it weren't such a sad situation. It is hilarious that you people are so weak and dishonest that you refuse to even debate this subject on logical grounds. And you wonder why you get ignore so often?
First, there is the amazing situation that you actually want the people who are trying to kill as many people as possible to be pampered.
Secondly, there is the definition of torture. According to the left, what we should do is sit them in a chair and calmly reassure them of their value as human beings, and that it is terrible that people actually judge their actions as evil. When we are done singing campfire songs, we should politely ask if they will tell us where the cells are that are going to kill someone's children. Of course, the terrorists will give as much information as possible, hving been touched by singing Kumbaya, and giving up their eternity with their god to give you information bcause you asked so nicely.
Please. I don't think that subjecting these people to Red Hot Chili Peppers music and being in a cold room is hardly torture.
It is sad that you value your "humanity" so much...Without the ability to breathe, there is no humanity. I think that little fact escapes the left.
Robert you really don't have a grasp of what this is all about do you? This issue is about allowing Bush and his pals to "reinterpret" the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3. The purpose of this "clarification" as they call it is to allow them to perform acts of interrogation that under the present understanding of Common Article 3 are, in fact torture. The following is what 33 military leaders including Colin Powell, Stansfield Turner and Generals John Shalikashvili and Joseph Hoar wrote in a letter to Congress...
Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions provides the minimum standards for humane treatment and fair justice that apply to anyone captured in armed conflict. These standards were specifically designed to ensure that those who fall outside the other, more extensive, protections of the Conventions are treated in accordance with the values of civilized nations. The framers of the Conventions, including the American representatives, in particular wanted to ensure that Common Article 3 would apply in situations where a state party to the treaty, like the United States, fights an adversary that is not a party, including irregular forces like al Qaeda. The United States military has abided by the basic requirements of Common Article 3 in every conflict since the Conventions were adopted. In each case, we applied the Geneva Conventions -- including, at a minimum, Common Article 3 -- even to enemies that systematically violated the Conventions themselves.
We have abided by this standard in our own conduct for a simple reason: the same standard serves to protect American servicemen and women when they engage in conflicts covered by Common Article 3. Preserving the integrity of this standard has become increasingly important in recent years when our adversaries often are not nation-states. Congress acted in 1997 to further this goal by criminalizing violations of Common Article 3 in the War Crimes Act, enabling us to hold accountable those who abuse our captured personnel, no matter the nature of the armed conflict.
If any agency of the U.S. government is excused from compliance with these standards, or if we seek to redefine what Common Article 3 requires, we should not imagine that our enemies will take notice of the technical distinctions when they hold U.S. prisoners captive. If degradation, humiliation, physical and mental brutalization of prisoners is decriminalized or considered permissible under a restrictive interpretation of Common Article 3, we will forfeit all credible objections should such barbaric practices be inflicted upon American prisoners.
This is what this is all about Robert. The above gentlemen are not "liberal appeasers" and I sure wouldn't call them "weak and dishonest" to their faces. These are men that can see beyond the petty "spoiled frat boy" motivations of George Bush and Dick Cheney and all of these men had the guts and morals to fight for their country. These are courageous men and brave enough to support what we as Americans have always held most dear.
Robert, Your attitude is condescending and your facts are wrong.
Patricia is correct in saying that professional interrogators have not come forward to say that torture works and it's true that torture usually just results in whatever the captor wants to hear. It happens in the US in police stations all the time. As a matter of fact, those who torture for the bush administration aren't professionals contrary to what he said this week. Look who did the administration's dirty work in Abu Ghraib. Pathetic. There are no "professionals" in Gitmo. God only knows who's operating in the "secret prisons"
People with a sense of humanity realize that if we torture, then our troops may also be tortured in return. Just because they are volunteers, doesn't mean that they signed up for a military which disregards Geneva conventions.
The president did not vow to protect the American people. If he did, he would have paid attention to the August 6th, 2001 PDB. He took an oath to uphold the constitution and he has failed miserably to date. Personally I would rather take my chances as to being attacked by terrorists rather than lose my civil rights to be "safer."
Your president has fed right into the hands of the terrorists. You are scared shitless, aren't you?
Bingo.
I frankly am beginning to see less difference between Hitler and Bush. I've said for a while, he'd kill a Jew with his bare hands if the media wasn't always watching.
We live in a scary world with a sad sad "leader".
More FEAR tatics from the President.
Just like "your either with us or your with the terrorists", Bush is trying to scare people into something illegal and immoral.
Again POP, you are right on, BLACKMAIL.
I have to compliment Robert on one thing -- certainly not logic or a coherent grasp of the facts or the ability to build an argument without using a tired old strawman. But at least he didn't hurl his stinkbombs anonymously. It's not much, but it's something, I guess.
Fortunately, there are conservatives out there who actually do realize what's going on and have the courage to stand up to Bush on this important issue. Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Colin Powell and John Warner to name a few. Maybe they'll finally win the day over the ignorant knob-polishers who equate Bush-worship with patriotism. But I'm not counting on it.
The only reason the Bushites are fighting this tooth and nail is that the entire administration is subject to war criminal charges - he knows it and the generals of our military have warned him repeatedly that this is not what they want to do. Think about all the times Bush denied that we torture or use secret prisons and now, now we have the tape and the documentation and the proof that he did order it. He was legally, morally and intellectually wrong then and he is compounding his errors now. So, Robert, you are a spokesperson for world-class criminals who are being held accountable for their crimes.
Welcome back POP. Shame you had to mortgage the farm to pay for a few days of relaxation.
I'm being my usual oversimplistic self.
Even if torture worked (and I don't believe it does), what will we gain if "we" turn into "them"? We're fast on our way to doing exactly that.
Sadly, our country is debating how much, if any, torture we will condone. Where did we lose our way?
This is it in a nutshell. This admin also has us debating what constitutional freedoms we're willing to give up in the name of security.
If Congress remains Republican after November, this criminal administration knonws it has just two years left to do its work. If you think things are bad now, wait...
FallenMonk took care of the Department store Dummy, far better than I could, btw.:) The ONLY things that seperate one side from another in war is beliefs, and behavior. We, and the terrorists, both believe in God. So then, we're fighting to see who's God is bigger. Nobody in the insurgency is demanding oil be returned, or 4,000 prime acres of South Texas be given them: there are no material demands being made at all. They want one thing: Drag our religious asses out of town!! That leaves behavior. Bush is trying to learn from the terrorist's behaviors, and doing pretty well. However, the rest of the world knows both Bush and the terrorists are complete frigging idiots!! So then it's a race for the bottom of the humanity tank. Who'll get there first? Our very own First Fool.....or the Jihadists?
Further, this whole uproar is distracting from one PROVEN thing: Bush is NOT concerned about America's safety, or Osama Bin Laden would be a red cloud of dust right now. Nobody from Iraq hit the twin towers. It actually might be to our advantage to give him all he wants, then the minute he steps down in '08, turn him over to a world war crimes tribunal. Let him hang himself in the meantime. He wants to be a criminal, let him be a criminal.
Ahh, you just proved torture works. After being subjected to seven dollars per bottle water and fourteen dollar martinis, and pay per sit lawn chairs, what did you do? You "surrendered" and went home. See, it works even when it isn't suppossed to work.
All everyone's comments on Robert's comment aside, I find it telling that he would express the idea of rolling on the floor and laughing. The topic of this post is torture, and it makes him think of laughing himself silly.
Wow...
It is better to be pissed off than pissed on.
Listening to a whole press confrence of Bush is torture. I last about 3 minutes then my teeth start to hurt.
Welcome back to reality, PoP...at least Bush's version of it...
Excellent response to his most recent attempt at manipulation and mind-control! I can't watch or listen to the guy without my blood boiling or feeling the need to hurl. So I have to wait to read the written transcript.
This issue is of course about what is humane, as well as what is morally and legally right. It isn't about pampering presumed terrorists. It is about honoring the law and the geneva conventions and not behaving like barbarians.
Well Hon, the thing is, life is like a can of mixed nuts, the big ones work their way to the top.
I do not want him impeached, that might make things worse, just look at who would take charge then? Ever think about that? If you think that he is bad, just think about his replacement.
I can't approve of impeachment unless we can call up new elections at the same time.
I also posted this comment on another blog. Really, Impeachment should call for new elections at the same time.
Other wise it's just those bastards protecting themselves.
For the president to threaten that we will not be able to conduct interrogations if it’s not done his way is just short of blackmail. He says it’s his way or no way. Good. Then it's agreed. No way works for me as well, you retard of a president.
that torture should or should not be the policy of the united states alone makes my eyes spin in different directions. before we were even a nation george washington issued several sets of very specific orders regarding humane treatment of british, but especially of hessian prisoners. the hessians had a reputation for cruelty and brutality. during the fight for manhatten there were many cases of continental soldiers being fastened to trees with bayonets and left hanging there to die slowly. stripping and torturing with heated bayonets and swords was also a common practice. when hessians fell into colonial hands pay back was felt to be a natural response. washington however felt differently. he several times stated that the issue was not what the enemy was doing to us. it was about who we were, and who we were trying to become. a happy result of his policy was that the longer they stayed on the continent the worse desertions became for the hessian brigades. their rank and file had realized that the rebels would treat them better than their own non-coms and officers. that there was land for the taking in the west. that there were whole communities of german speaking people there to boot. is there anyone out there who would argue that dubya is a wiser more moral man than washington? that's like reforming christianity by first saying st. peter was a fuck up. as for the next argument about this being a new, somehow different conflict, i would suggest that they read about the roman gaius marius and his campaigns in spain. marius too faced a local insurgency, funded by a foriegn power. one of his main policy changes when he took over command of the roman forces was to insist that his intelligence officer cease torturing locals. his reasons were based on the unreliability of the information, the hardening of the opposition from the local population and the pragmatic realization that prisoners who had been tortured and maimed had a much lower value on the exchange market when trying to get romans returned. new type of conflict? marius, sulla, alexander, zenophon, epamindondas would all beg to differ. new and different enemy? sherman wouldn't think so. neither would custer for that matter. crook and miles who face my apache ancestors out here in arizona would recognise iraq in a heartbeat. they also had to face numerous bloody uprisings that sprung directly out of brutal and horrid conditions on the reservations. the turkey creek massacre where the apache scouts turned on the regular soldiers was an incident where the army began shooting up a religious ceremony. new? hah. i submit that muktada al sadr and the rest of these yahoos aren't a pimple on geronimo's ass when it comes to terror and raising hell.
no, what's new here is that we have an american president who is trying to justify crimes he has already been exposed as committing. what's new here is that a spoiled frat boy who got his daddy to get him into the guard while the rest of us were being shot at, and then couldn't even be bothered to follow through with that now has the goddamned gall to lecture the men who served in combat, endured torture at the hands of the enemy and bore wounds and comrades from the fields of battle on the nature and truths of war.
it. makes. me. sick.
Bush is fighting for his life because he is a Christian. They see that they are fighting a losing battle but they can't give up. They will lose though, someday, and then the world will be a better place without them.
Pop, I don't still quite know how you do it? Your writing is always so thoughtful, gentle and hard at the same time. Slowly but surely, I am getting a Martini addiction, and I thank you for it!
Hey, POP, you got an email address? I thought I had it but I don't and I can't find it on the page. If you'd be so kind, my dear, drop me a line.
Fallen, I have a complete grasp of what this is about. Article 3 is so vague as to make serving cold meals inhumane if it were desired to interpret it that way.
The arguement that this has protected our troops is a joke. There has never been a single conflict where our troops were held within our standards. I seem to remember our civilians AND troops being castrated, having eyes gouged out, limbs hacked off, and beheaded within the last year. What protections are you espousing?
A new war for a new time. It requires a little less "humanity" and a little more resolve.
Forgot one thing, forgive me.
What Americans have held most dear are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I don't recall preventing mass murderers from physical discomfort being in the Bill of Rights.
Great Post Patricia.
I don't know what to say. I just know that most Americans still support Bush, according to many polls. (God, how the polls are as different as the American ethnic composition). I also know that many Americans are God-fearing Christians, and this, I fear, is the problem. It's a war of ideology.
We are Christian, and they are not. We are better than them.
Come to Korea, where the water is free, and you are never charged to sit on a deck chair. In fact, they give away parasols at the beach.
Robert, the point is that the Geneva Conventions are common to all civilized countries. That barbarians fail to adhere to them is no reason to abandon them.
No one is suggesting the existence of the Geneva Conventions guarantee decent treatment. The point is that they provide common guidelines for civilized nations to follow. If one country starts making up rules unilaterally, it gives everyone else free reign to do the same, and a common agreement that has stood for generations will be lost.
Whether thru ignorance or a desire to obfuscate, you keep framing the debate as if it were about placing Osama bin Laden on fluffy pillows, feeding him bonbons and providing a team of psychologists to help him work out his issues. It's not about that. It's about unilaterally destroying a common agreement.
Your opening remarks demonstrated beyond doubt that you have no respect for those whose political views differ from your own. So perhaps you should go find the remarks made on this issue by fellow conservatives such as Lindsey Graham, Colin Powell, John McCain and John Warner. Or maybe you consider them Kumbaya-singing pinko pansies too.
What I consider them is mistaken and staking out a position based upon polling data.
If it doesn't guarantee decen treatment, then this is an exercise in futility, is it not?
It aso depends on your definition of decent treatment. Again, I don't consider placing terrorists in the same conditions as our troops (cold. wet, hungry, etc) to be indecent.
Robert....
Even Hitler's army didn't violate the Geneva Convention against its captured prisoners. True they committed atrocities against Gypsies, Blacks and Jews, but they didn't torture captive soldiers.
It doesn't matter whether our enemy abides by the Conventions or not. What does matter is whether we abide by them and what we are as a Nation.
Remember, all Bush has to do is say your an enemy combatant and you can end up in a secret prison, being tortured, possibly killed and never have any rights to a lawyer or trial, even if your a american citizen.
If you believe its alright to torture people maybe you should move to a country where torture in common place. You now the countries I'm talking about. China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and others.
God Bless all
Robert....
One more thing. IIRC Hitler was a Christian. What does this say about Christians?
There are many good Christians who feel that the Radical Fundamentalist Christians are giving Christians a bad name, and I agree with them.
Why don't you pratice what Jesus taught and not what Satan Does?
God Bless all
So yes, I believe in making people hungry to get information to save Americans. I believe in sleep deprivation to mak them give information. I believe in keeping them cold to break them. I am pretty sure I endured all of these things at Parris Island when I went through Boot Camp. Well, maybe not the cold thing. South Carolina doesn't get uch of the in June
I am not talking about torture. I am talking about the things listed above which are apparently too evil to stomach.
So yes, I believe in making people hungry to get information to save Americans. I believe in sleep deprivation to mak them give information. I believe in keeping them cold to break them. I am pretty sure I endured all of these things at Parris Island when I went through Boot Camp. Well, maybe not the cold thing. South Carolina doesn't get uch of the in June
I am not talking about torture. I am talking about the things listed above which are apparently too evil to stomach.
Robert, your motives are starting to show. You want them to go through the boot camp treatment you endured. Did that boot camp treatment make you talk? If you were deprived of food, subjected to cold, etc., would you spill your guts for a hot meal and an electric blanket? If you believed in a cause that you thought was bigger than your own life, like suicide bombers do, there is not amount of torture in the world that would make you give honest information, especially if it would save the lives of the sworn enemy they were willing to die for. In other words, torture doesn't work and at the end of the day, the only ones who lose are the torturers and the citizens who condone it. What is it about this that escapes you?
Interrogation tactics like the ones mentioned in my earlier post do work. I don't know what information you are using, but police use these tactics every day. Police provide copious amounts of beverages so that a suspect is uncomfortable. They turn the temp down, they exhaust him with hours of questioning. It produces accurate and effective.
My motives? I have no motive except putting in my two cents worth and support those who are trying to keep me alive, and the country secure. My boot camp comments were to show that I have volunteered and endured the same treatments that you consider torture. It really isn't all that bad.
Maybe some of you might spend your time condemning those who use REAL tirture against our troops and civilians.
Robert, go back and re-read Minstrel Boy's comments.
He's a vet - from 'Nam..........
more of a patriot than some loser like you will ever be.
There's a reason all the supporters of the torture policy are people who never served when it was their turn to and all the opponents are people who did.
- oddjob
(overstatement - all the prominent opponents)
- oddjob
The text of Gen. John Vessey's letter to Sen. John McCain regarding the authorization of a departure from the historic standards by which the country has conducted itself with regards to the Geneva Conventions. Gen. Vessey was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Reagan was in office.
As to "vague" definitions, I think Vietnam Vet. John McCain said it best when he mocked those arguing this by pointing out that the definition has been wholly understandable for over 50 years.....
Police provide copious amounts of beverages so that a suspect is uncomfortable. They turn the temp down, they exhaust him with hours of questioning.
Utter bullshit. Such information, even if it were useful, would be thrown out in a court of law during proceedings and any cop with a whit of training and sense knows that.
I don't believe you were ever at Boot Camp. If you were you would know that you did not endure these things. No one put a thermometer in your rectum while you were sitting in ice water to make sure the hypothermia was not so low as to kill you, but rather just above it....... No one beat you with a rifle butt until your legs were so broken you couldn't walk...... No one systematically deprived you of sleep for days on end while subjecting you to music so loud it gave you physical pain.........
Ass.
- oddjob
Even Hitler's army didn't violate the Geneva Convention against its captured prisoners.
True, although the Japanese did, and they caught a ration of s**t for it, too.
We are being led by a president and vice president who are war criminals. This is far, far worse than either the Teapot Dome scandal or Watergate, and it makes Monicagate look like nothing more than the sad, sorry soap opera it was.
- oddjob
Conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan's just published piece on the conservative revolt against the White House, a revolt which includes William Buckley, among other prominents.
- oddjob
Impeach and Imprison...there is no other way for them Criminals to be dealt with...It is unfathomable that this Criminal King wants the Geneva Conventions changed so he can torture...unreal...
A comparison of Bush's "alternative interrogation techniques" to the torture techniques of our enemies, the Communist Russians.
I link, you decide.......
- oddjob
A clueless neoconservative icon argues for abandoning America's legacy to the world (the rule of law, viewed from a humane point of view) and embracing that of Hussein's, the Kremlin's, and Idi Amin's (Bush's torture policies).
"You taught us no government worth its salt can subvert the rule of law. We believed you. That's part of what you have as a gift for the world. Then how can you commit Guantanamo Bay? Take back your country,"
- Desomond Tutu
- oddjob (Hat tip, Andrew Sullivan)
Oh, that liberal icon George Schultz (Sec. State for Ronald Reagan, and with a PhD in economics from the hyperconservative University of Chicago) also strongly opposes Bush's ideas and favors McCain, Warner, and Graham's.
Oh, my error.
George Schultz got his PhD in industrial economics from MIT. Later he was Dean of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business...........
By the way, Schultz was a Marine during WWII.
Another real vet. who knows bullshit when he sees it and says so.
- oddjob
Believe what you wish. I have not only served, but served in combat with the 2nd marine Division. I have spent a significant portion of my life in uniform and in the region. I have also been in law enforcement for more than a decade. Those things are NOT illegal, and would not result in a confession being excluded.
And you are right...when I did cold weather traiing in Norway I didn't have the benefit of a thermometer so that someone could warm me up if it were dangerous. Sleep deprivation? I guess not..unless you count 5 days of combat broken only by 30 minute catnaps a normal routine. It probably doesn't compare, but my teenagers take care of the music part. It isn't just the volume that gives me physical pain, but the lyrics.....
So I guess one must agree with your perspective to be a "real vet"?
If you think your cold weather training equals torture via hypothermia your stupidity speaks for itself.
- oddjob
Hmmm, an interesting one fo an analogy test:
Combat operations in subzero temps is to hypothermia "torture"
as
Hypothermia "torture" with medical personnel present is to castration, limbs hacked off while alive, and beheading.
If I had my choice, I would take the cold and the dcotor.
Nope, not the dcotor. The doctor.
Like I said. Your stupidity speaks for itself.
Thank God you were never in high command. You aren't fit to be.
- oddjob
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