Letters to the Editor
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Little Dick
Asscrack, Tacobellgrande Gonzales, and Bushit have specifically claimed that the Geneva Conventions do not limit their selective perversity. They aver that they can incarcerate and torture anyone they name as "enemy combatant". They are fascists, Richard. Look it up, assuming you own a dick-tionary. What they have done erodes the very basis of this democracy. If you'd like to educate yourself beyond your freshman year (I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it's college), read the PNAC manifesto available on line. Wolf-o-shits, Perles before Swine, the Dick, and the rest of that ratpack, plainly state their imperial goals. I do not yet claim that they were complicit in 9/11, but they used it to implement what they were going to do anyway: invade the middle east for oil. They're machiavellian whores. They do accept all major credit cards. Dial 1-900-endlesswar. Don't try to patronize me, Dick. I'm not a 7-11 or your trailer park concession stand.
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Do we really need to get Medieval on anyone's ass?
Aside from the fact that torture defiles the practictioner as much or even more so than the subject, the primary argument against it is its ineffectiveness. In an extremely rare circumstance it could theoretically be morally justified, for example, if information so obtained might be crucial to averting a genuinely horrendous event. In such a case the torture would necessarily be ruthless and extreme - something along the lines of the "I'm gonna get medieval on your ass" threat in Pulp Fiction. Unfortunately, information squeezed out of a subject by such methods is usually unverifiable within the time constraint imposed by the impending doomsday event. Suffice it to say that Torquemada, just as a for-instance, wasn't really very effective in advancing the interests of Christianity.
What seems apparent, at least to me, is that any individual who possesses genuinely critical or at least valuable information is usually a true believer in whatever cause he or she is involved in and has probably been steeled against torture. Might it not possibly be more productive to engage such individuals in methodical and highly sophisticated conversation with the goal of changing their minds and converting them to our side? Are our ideas and ideals so feeble that they cannot possibly prevail over fanaticism?
It goes without saying that such methods would be productive only when applied to the tiny percentage of detainees who actually possess significant information, and the questioners would necessarily be exceptionally capable of strenuous and sustained debate, extremely competent in philosophical and political argumentation and Jesuit-like in their determination to "turn" the objects of their attention. This degree of time and effort could be lavished only on a few detainees and an effective screening process would necessarily have to be in place.
I suppose what I'm proposing is simply that we get more sophisticated rather than more brutal. If what I've read is to be believed, many of our detainees are more of a liability than an asset. I'm certain that it would be far more beneficial to our interests if such detainees were released with stories of humane treatment rather than sophmoric torture.
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A Replacement for Rumsfailed?
Harriet Miers.
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Talk therapy?
"Are our ideas and ideals so feeble that they cannot possibly prevail over fanaticism?"
Fanaticism is impervious to rational discourse. That's why it's called fanaticism. Effective arguments should be equally irrational like appeals to emotions such as a sense of honor, but they have to be cast in the cultural references of the fanatic.
The ideas and ideals of the West are not necessarily universally valued. However, the West and Islamic world do have interests that intersect. We should work on interests we already hold in common than try to make Muslims think like Westerners or vice-versa.
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Rumsfailed
If that's a coinage, mason, my congratulations. A classic. If every a chump deserved a perp walk in an orange jump suit on his way to Poundyerass Prison, he be da guy.
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voting and Judging evil
"Let's get one thing straight: I have an intense dislike for all politicians, . . . the whole lot of them is corrupt . . . I don't like Bush. I believe that in this last election he was merely the . . .
lesser of the two evils".
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George Bush Junior vs John Kerry??
Bush would only be the lesser of two evils IF
Hitler had been his opponent.
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Exactly
jitblancet correctly opines, vis-a-vis my previous posting: ". . .the West and Islamic world do have interests that intersect. We should work on interests we already hold in common (rather)than try to make Muslims think like Westerners or vice-versa."
Exactly. These common interests, and as human beings we indubitably have common interests, might be a useful chisel to chip at the doctrinaire fanatacism that powers radical movements such as Al Queda. Even if such a chisel proves too dull to accomplish much, at least we will be expressing our core beliefs rather than undermining them.
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Terrorists have given up all their rights...
One terrorist being stressed out by harsh treatment, oh my! This guy loved seeing people roast in jet fuel and turn into mush when they jumped rather than burn up. He was part of it. He wanted it. He would have flown the plane and killed my people. Wake up and smell Islam folks. If you aren't one you are in trouble. He deserves any punishment they dish out to get whatever information out of him they can to help us get other terrorists and when they are done they can execute him as an enemy.
This is not WW1 or WW2. This is terrorist tactics, terrorist warfare and typical conventions are mute.
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If Rumfsfeld was responsible
Very simplely he should be FIRED and removed from office....no need for long and lengthy debate....just simplely FIRED.
Ted
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Rumsfeld didn't know?
Certanly the criminal Rumsfeld knew the treatment of a Guantanamo detainee, I am sure about that, he promote it and authorize it because he is similar to Sadam Hussein, Pinochet, Galtieri and many other criminals. UN never start sactions against USA for started a war on Iraq. USA is searching for oil, no freedom for the poor people in Iraq. We need a trial against the warlords Mr. Bush and Rumsfeld. We do no't belive in democracy impose by force, we do not belive in a puppet UN under the control of super powers, we do not belive any more in Kofi Annan who is involved in corruption in the programme oil for food and certanly we do not belive in the new Iraq government because Iraq has no government, the US army soldiers are not liberators, they are SS searching for blood.