Droopy,
Thank you for responding. Before I address your comments, I would like to say two things.
Firstly, I want to apologize for my last posting. My tone was frankly disrespectful, and I'm sorry. The subject of torture happens to touch a nerve with me, and I happen to become very passionate over issues such as these. That is no excuse for being rude, however; it was unbecoming, wrong, and I'm sorry.
Secondly, we differ on the definition of torture. Mine falls in line with the definitions as laid out in the Geneva Convention, international law, as well as what is stated in U.S. Foreign Policy (as opposed to U.S.
actual policy; there is a disparity between the two). Yours seems to fall somewhere in between the excesses of King Edward I of England's predatory attentions on Scotland, and the Rape of Nanking. I do not know how we can rightly have a conversation when we cannot agree on so simple a thing as a working definition of what torture is.
I very much like this quote on the subject of torture:
"Terrorists are "the quintessence of evil." But it's not about them; it's about us. This battle we're in is about the things we stand for and believe in and practice. And that is an observance of human rights, no matter how terrible our adversaries may be."
What flaming liberal said that? John McCain.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175444,00.html
So, with those two things having been said said....
Droopy wrote:No, they do not. You may call this abuse, you may call this maltreatment, but to call this (which was an isolated incident, by the way, having no relation to U.S. policy)
This was not an isolated event. I believe you will freely admit that the same excesses occurred at Gitmo Bay as well; "two" cannot also mean "isolated event." It is a mathematical impossibility.
Furthermore, U.S. openly-stated policy differs from what is in actual practice; there is every indication that this is a widespread policy that is ongoing in all of the secret prisons the CIA has scattered around the globe, and also used in cases of extraordinary rendition.
torture is to deracinate the word of its substantive connotations and, quite frankly, mock those, from the Bataan death march to the Hanoi Hilton, to La Cabana, who have really undergone torture worthy of the name.
What you are saying in this comment is substantively no different than looking at two rape cases, the first of which is a woman who was raped by one man, the second, who was gang raped by ten men, and saying of the first, "Well, she wasn't raped ENOUGH, so it wasn't rape."
Much of this, ironically enough, are sexual desegregations that many people pay to see people do to each other on countless pornographic websites on a daily basis.
Irrelevant.
This is a fantastic example of just why it is plausible, with a critical enough mass of citizens like yourself, that we could conceivable lose the global war on Islamism.
No, this is a fantastic example of the stance on terror as taken by the man who will very possibly be your next president, John McCain. I can provide substantiating quotes of this upon request. His views on both the nature of torture and its efficacy are quite well known.
The fact is, Droopy, you are at wide variance with the standpoint of your chosen political party nominee for President in this matter. Perhaps he has been listening to too much John Lennon, or perhaps, it is because he himself was tortured, and knows that it is an ineffective method at best for extracting information. He has been quoted many times saying exactly that.
That's not the reason they were let free. Try something else on me other than the MoveOn.org/Code Pink propaganda Halle, you're discrediting yourself by the post.
If the "terrorists" were not set free because there were no charges made against them, then why on earth did your government,
the government you trust to keep you safe, set them free?
A number of these people have, in fact, coughed up useful information. Sometimes that takes harsh interrogation measures. Its either that or more Marines dying in ambushes that could have been avoided or major military strikes that might have been thwarted before they began. That matters little to you, of course, as your sole focus is on the poor, oppressed, abused terrorists.
I never said I was against
reasonable interrogation methods. Do not put words into my mouth or mischaracterize my stance. I said I was against the sexual humiliation and sexual molestation of prisoners, as seen in Abu Ghraib and other prisons.
In any case, these are prisoners of war, not civilian criminals, and the Army needs no evidence, in a civilian legal sense, to hold them as long as they please.
Then why, as I asked above, did the Army let them go free?
Secondly, they are not normal enemy combatants, but terrorists who fight in civilian cloths and use other civilians as human shields. The Geneva Convention does not even apply to them.
Not all Muslims are al-Qaeda; you understand this, don't you?
The Geneva Conventions do not apply to al-Qaeda terrorists. However, a U.S. district court ruled that Taliban fighters are protected under the Geneva Conventions.
Again, our civilization, all of it; everything that has been built and created at such great cost and effort, you will sacrifice on the alter of the decadent and debased "morality" that is really nothing but the self doubt and self absorption of a morally exhausted civilization.
I find it mildly surprising that you, a member of a church which prizes sexual morality so highly, think nothing of prisoners being anally raped by broom handles wielded by U.S. Military personnel,
or by those Military personnel themselves, and in fact, quite vociferously defend their right to do so, as a valid method of "interrogation techniques."
You are a Dhimmi Halle, quite equal in your Dhimmitude to the many Europeans who now sit prostrate, jaws hanging, watching their democratic freedoms, liberty, and western civilizational patrimony erased by Muslim fanatics and their western leftist enablers in the intelligentsia and political class.
Name, not ten, not five, not three, but ONE democratic freedom that has been erased by Muslim fanatics, as an example for this assertion.
You are morally and intellectually disarmed, and have no defense against the Islamists. Your only option is surrender and capitulation, and when intellectual and moral pusillanimity (wearing the mask, as it many times does, of pacifism and morality) becomes wide spread enough (as it has in Europe and the U.K.), real dangers are afoot, as our progenitors discovered in 1939.
I do not believe that sexual humiliation and rape are valid methods to achieve any goal. I am very proud of this stance.
If you believe otherwise, you are perfectly in line with Slobodan Milosevic and his Yugoslav cronies.
Anyway, I'm not all that impressed by the these photos (as a pre-exer, I'm much more impressed by detailed evidence presented in literate form by at least plausibly reliable sources. I'm not that much impressed by snapshots that show what appear to be some frankly brutal conditions, but do not provide context or explanation of the conditions obtaining when the photo was taken (think Kim Phuc).
I provided a link to Seymour Hersh's interview of the Army Major General called to investigate the Abu Ghraib scandal. Did you read it? There is plenty of textual, credible evidence there, since he was the man hand-picked by the Bush administration to carry out the investigation.
These mild interrogation techniques (again, used on people who would saw the head off of you, your children, and your loved ones as you watch without the slightest compunction, or blow up, nuke, or let loose a bioweapon on thousands, tens, or hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens without a second thought) are the least of what we should expect our soldiers to do in an attempt to extract information that would save American lives on the battlefield and civilian lives on our own shores. That this does not seem important to you is disconcerting if not frightening. But then, what is to be expected from a Dhimmi?
Again, do NOT mischaracterize my position, and then attack that mischaracterization. It is a strawman argument and a logical fallacy.