Letters to the Editor
-
are we the same species as this administration?
We have heard repeatedly about the torture and killings carried out by the CIA or whatever secret mercenaries we have hired to do these things. Who are these people? Why are they doing these things to humans with our tax money? How can we stop them? During the Republican candidates "debate" last week, it seemed as though they trying to outdo one another (with the exception of McCain who knows something about torture) to show off how quick they'd be to torture information out of the bad guys. They seemed like another species. Torture does not work and puts our soldiers at risk when they are captured. We have been taken over by a gang of madmen.
-
Why do the CIA allow this?
The shock of this sort of behaviour is not so much that it's happening at all but rather that, despite recently tightened legislation, the CIA and others are absolutely determined to carry on torturing using any method they think they can get away with and hiding behind various legal formulations such as narrowly-defined definitions of torture.
In other words, they think it's absolutely fine to torture the bad guys as long as they don't get found out (by using Black Sites and keeping the Red Cross away, for example).
I don't know about you, but I'm appalled by this. Maybe I don't live in the 'real world' where this sort of brutalization (of the torturers as well as the tortured) is a necessary tool in The War On Terror, but this is also sending clear signals to America's enemies: you know what you can expect if captured by the US, and thus in their own eyes it validates any brutality they might inflict on captured Americans.
-
Military Whitewash Act of 2006
Mark Benjamin says:
The White House apparently lost when Congress overwhelmingly passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It forbids detainee abuse, using specific language that experts on human rights and international law say would be hard, if not impossible, to circumvent legally.
On the other hand, Amnesty International says:
Now Congress has passed the Military Commissions Act. Amnesty International will work for the repeal of this legislation which violates human rights principles.
Read the extensive list of problems at http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006 which includes "Narrow[ing] the scope of the War Crimes Act by not expressly criminalizing acts that constitute "outrages upon personal dignity, particularly humiliating and degrading treatment" banned under Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions."
I say:
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was nothing more than an act of political theater, as was exposed in Salon at the time. I'm saddened and surprised that a Salon reporter would at this point characterize it as something so meaningful and substantial. It is not surprising in the least to find that it didn't change anything in the administration's behavior.
-
GET OFF IT
Get off it !! You lefties are always ready to think the worst of our governments actions. Do you think maybe we have information that some radical group it trying to break him out of detention. If you do not have proof thet he is eing tortured "get off it". By the way do you think out captured army men are being treated with kid gloves ?
Raven
-
TORTURE DOESN"T WORK ?
IF we are torturing WHY are we torturing. BEACAUSE IT DOES WORK. I see no reason NOT to torture for information.
OF course it's perfectly alright to have out troops tortured in not why not bomb the area where they were captured or do we want them to be tortured ? This is a WAR. ALL IS FAIR IN WAR AND PEACE. GET THE SNOOPY REPORTERS OUT OF THERE OMAKE THEM TELL THE WHOLE STORY
-
Embrace the horror
renewing suspicions the agency could be violating the law and using torture.
No! It cannot be!!
Here's a little morsel for the eager fascists who penned letters on this article: how about if Cheney and Bush43 are tortured in some secret prison until they give up what they REALLY know about 9/11/01?
I think that would be... enlightening. Door swings both ways, right? And waterboarding isn't really torture, is it? So why wait? A little debriefing for the boys? What do you say?
-
We know the intent
As flawed as the military commissions act was, the intent was clearly to stop the use of torture and secret prisons. That such legislation has to be written so carefully and tightly because otherwise it will be broken shows how morally bankrupt Bush has become. Someone as determined to break the law regardless of what tortured theories he has to use deserves impeachment for this above all the other crimes he could be impeached for.
-
Protections?
The purpose of that law was to give legal sanction to the abuses already taking place, not to protect prisoners from abuse.
-
Torture causes terrorism
Torture "works" only to justify further acts of terrorism against the USA in the eyes of the world. We are engaged in a war of ideologies, not of weapons, and every time the world has trouble telling the difference between Al Quaeda and the US government, Al Quaeda wins that much more legitimacy. Al Quaeda can't survive without the world's support, so we need to stop giving the world reasons to support them.
-Jeremy
-
"Torture works" is no defense
Saying that torture is morally acceptable because "it works" is a weak argument. Leaving aside for the moment the question about whether it actually does provide us with useful information (a very debatable point), let's list some other things that might conceivably "work" to win the fight against terrorism:
- nuking selected cities in any country suspected of supporting terrorism, to set an example
- raping the wives and children of suspected terrorists in front of the suspect, to convince the suspects to talk
- releasing a genetically engineered virus that kills only people of middle eastern decent
- public disembowlment of suspected terrorists, to set an example
- making the practice of Islam illegal
Would any of those help us get more terrorists? Possibly. Given that they might, would be justified in using them? Of course not -- we'd be monsters if we did. Torture is no different. There are some things that are just wrong, period, and torture is one of those things. People who think otherwise need to take a long look in the mirror, because they are becoming the very thing they fear.
-Jeremy