Letters to the Editor
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The true intent
If your intent is to first terrorize and then embitter civilians, torture works.
I hadn't thought of that! Perhaps terror and bitterness are Bush's (and Shooter's) intent. Which explains Shooter's comment that "torture works." And explains the cumulative results of Bush's presidency which, shown in this new light, hasn't actually been a failure at all. It's been an unmitigated success!
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It's Over
Look, Schumer and Feinstein have decided to support torture. It's over, folks, at least insofar as Congress is concerned.
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Okay shooter, the gauntlet is down
And as I said, I don't like them either. In fact I don't think you'll find anyone who IS in favor of them as an abstract. Whether or not they are necessary at any given time is a whole different matter.
Much of Glenn's frustration is the disconnect between what the polls "say" and what Congress does, yes? I take the cynical view that politicians are exceptionally sensitive barometers of public sentiment. If the poll questions were phrased around whether OBL's driver should be sleep deprived or even waterboarded until he cracks, I have no doubt the results would be greatly different.
Most people understand that torture works. While it's commendable to be against any kind of human suffering, as a philosophy it's dependent on being willing to endure the consequence of pacifism. Which is, having one's fate left to others.
You seem to believe that laws should be selectively applied depending on who commits the crime, and who the victim is. That isn't rule of law, and you know it. I was wondering which rock the people defending the systematic torture instituted by Bush and his administration would crawl under next, I speculated it would be that to complain about that big meany U.N. and their nasty treaty or that some criminals are so bad you just can't obey the laws with them. You chose the latter.
So it's a form of pacifism now to oppose torture if the object of the torture is bin Laden's driver? Then 74 nations are signatories and 145 are parties, making this a form of pacifism believed in by the overwhelming majority of human beings on the planet. You spit the word pacifism as if it is something to be mocked by realists. It isn't. It is revered by human beings.
I'll tell you what: It is part of the record, variously reported, that Khalid Sheik Mohammad was subjected to by some accounts more than a month of sensory deprivation and disorientation. The techniques are documented in Jane Mayer's article. In addition, he filed a complaint of torture at and before his military commission hearing.
That means the United States, as both a party and a signatory to the U.N.CATCIDT, has obligations to investigate his allegations, to detain and prosecute all responsible for his torture, and to insure that he faces a court of law to seek recompense and rehabilitation for the damage caused. Under the Geneva Conventions, it means that U.S. personnel stand accused of grave breaches (war crimes), it means if there was a system in place in the Black Sites, which Mayer documents that there was, and directives issued to create that system, which came from President Bush and others, that some in the Administration stand accused of crimes against humanity. The U.S. as signatory to the treaty has an obligation to investigate fully the accusations, and prosecute those responsible, it also is obliged that their punishment not be trivial.
That is where your cavalier attitude toward torture and law have got us. If push comes to shove, we are in violation after violation after breach after grave breach of the most rudimentary laws of war and human decency on the planet for the treatment George W. Bush has had applied to a man who should have been an example of the most despicable kind of person imaginable. The beacon of freedom, morally indebted to a mass murdering psychopath, because we tortured him, because we didn't do the right thing. That hurts so bad it's hard to find words.
Oh, yes, he does deserve his day in court. Look at our history. The ACLU defended George Lincoln Rockwell and the Klan, because there are no exceptions to basic civil rights. The Christ that so many of your right wing buddies call on night and day, he supports that form of judgment: "Inasmuch as you have done this unto the least of my brethren you have done it to me." We are judged by how we treat the worst people in the world, not the best. And we have made a victim of a mass murderer with your torture and your justifications. Democracy says I have to help bear the shame and stain your attitudes have caused. But it doesn't say I have to like it.
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Thank you, ondelette
Oh, yes, he does deserve his day in court. Look at our history. The ACLU defended George Lincoln Rockwell and the Klan, because there are no exceptions to basic civil rights. The Christ that so many of your right wing buddies call on night and day, he supports that form of judgment: "Inasmuch as you have done this unto the least of my brethren you have done it to me." We are judged by how we treat the worst people in the world, not the best. And we have made a victim of a mass murderer with your torture and your justifications. Democracy says I have to help bear the shame and stain your attitudes have caused. But it doesn't say I have to like it.
-- ondelette
My skin was crawling after reading shooter's latest. Thanks for a small candle against the foul breath of darkness. (I can mix my own metaphors pretty well....)
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drichmond @ 3:08.
And it is a grand honor.
I wish, O, to share soup.
Turnip greens cant and won't hurt.
I wish WE/You could say- O, some peace!
And share 'it' so 'them' could be enjoyable.
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@ Ondelette
Did you note that legislation didn't claim jurisdiction over non-citizens out of the country?
I guess we've wrapped up that it was done, that everybody up to the top sanctioned it, and that it continues, you're only trying to argue that waterboarding isn't torture now, right?
Not me. It's whether that particular torture is/was legal. That's a separate question from the morality of it.
Given the above, what would you say about prolonged sensory deprivation, stress positions that cause damage to the heart, liver, and kidneys, and techniques that "break down all the senses", cause "rupturing experiences", "deep breakdowns", and "semi-psychotic states"? Do you, the Wall Street Journal, Mukasey, and all the usual crowd want to argue that these are "tools"?
Yep. But not currently in use. Considering that nuns of days gone by would now be considered torturers, I'm not to exorcised over it. Should I presume you would just threaten to rescind room service at Club Gitmo as incentive to spill secrets? I know it sounds snarky, but it seems there is no incentive at all for prisoners to talk if you outlaw coercion.
Will you turn to the other desperate argument that the U.S. should never have acceded to the U.N. CATCIDT and "if they knew then what we know now" would never have signed Article 2 without modification?-- ondelette
I'm not sure I get the reference, but I presume it's something along the lines of Geneva Conventions, yes? I'm not to worried about it either. Like every other country in the world we'll ignore the UN with impunity.