In the wake of Abu Ghraib, how will these proposed military commissions affect national security? Will this plan expose our troops, now deployed around the world, to similar treatment?
Posted by Amar C. Bakshi on September 9, 2006 5:09 PM
It is beyond my comprehension, why so many still have doubts whether Iraq is the front of the war on terror? DUH.... Osama said so, as did Zawahiri and Zarqawi (i.e. cooked,well done).
Tom Burka and others really amaze me by their failure to grasp the immense moral gulf between the Islamofascists and the west - with all of our flaws. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to the similarities between our treatment of illegal combatants and our enemy's treatment of legal combatants and innocent civilians.
It is easy to sit on top of the moral mountain and proclaim your virtue by condemning any act you disaprove of - regardless of context. That is the place for moral cowards - the useful idiots so handy to any totalitarian ideology.
Harder is to actually weigh the issues and try to determine an allowable compromise between the heady air of the moral high ground and the terrible miasma of true evil.
So perhaps one should examine the issues a bit more, rather than screaming torture or geneva convention or whatever.
Warfare is horrible. Warfare is to be avoided. But the nature of man leads us to the inevitability (so far) of war. War has been declared on us - by Al Qaeda and various other Islamist groups, including Iran's cat's paw, Hezbollah. Whether that is our fault is irrelevant.
War has been declared on us by a disparate group united by their hatred of western culture and ideas, and by their fanatical religious goals. Sunni and Shia Islamists, blood enemies, both are working to achieve these goals. Both want to destroy western freedoms. Both have contorted their religion to justify the slaughter of innocents and the use of suicide.
Both have killed many Americans. Hezbollah has killed hundreds. Al Qaeda (Sunni) killed almost three thousand civilians from 81 countries in the 9-11 attacks. These numbers, horrible as they sound, are not at the level of casualties in a real war (although 9-11 had more casualties than Pearl Harbor). So perhaps this is not a war - just a criminal issue. But that doesn't look to the future - to the goals and capabilities of our enemy, many of these repeatedly stated.
We are in an existential struggle, as much as WW-II or the Cold War. Too many missed the 9-11 epiphany - that fanatics with 9th century rules and goals are capable of constructing or acquiring 21st century WMD's, and fully intend to do so and use them against us.
The threat is new. The world has never seen it before - ever: Kamikazis, with nukes, targeting civilians; nuts with diseases which make Smallpox look benign (vaccinia virus plus the ILK-4 gene, for example - routine genetic engineering).
If you recognize the threat, if you truly appreciate it, you at least have some of the information on which to make a judgement. If you deny the threat, you are blind or technically and historically uninformed.
Critical to understanding the need for intelligence, and the need for "coercive interrogation" is the fact that these movements operate through terrorism, moving among us and among the innocent (and the less guilty) of their own ethnic and faith groups. Many of these terrorists were born in the west; more were educated in the west - undergraduate and beyond; they are among us (especially in Europe) and they intend to kill as many as they can. These are not poverty-stricken rebels seeking freedom - they are well educated and often middle class.
When we capture a leader of one of these groups (such as Kalid Sheik Mohammed - KSM), we have a source of information that can save untold number of lives. That information can even help us distinguish the innocent (of which we probably have some in Guantanamo) from the guilty.
Unfortunately, getting that information is not simple. The terrorist is a killer, a fanatic and an enemy.
Fortunately, coercive intelligence techniques do work (KSM was a good example - waterboarding did the job). These techniques do not constitute torture, and in fact we use them in training our own troops (I've been through this training).
We have a choice: do we subject a person almost certainly a high ranking enemy to uncomfortable, humiliating and frightening procedures , saving many innocents while dirtying our hands, or do pay for a lawyer and give him a room with a private toilet (as ruled by one European judge based on #3 of the conventions)?
Do we go farther and employ torture - extreme pain and psychological distress, mutilation, etc?
How do we treat our enemies is a question the nation has been debating, in such a confused mannere.
So, let's say we occasionally use coercive interrogation (which works well enough that true torture apparently doesn't add much). Contrary to what so many of the human rights absolutists here seem to believe, that does not cost us the moral high ground. We might drop from way up on the moral scale to a little farther down, but let's get serious:
1) We don't attack civilians on purpose. We do not try to terrorize.
2) We don't gruesomely execute our prisoners (unlike past enemies and current)
3) We don't encourage our children to kill themselves in the process of killing our enemy's innocents
4) We don't seek to force our religion on others. We don't even have an official religion.
5) We don't kill people because someone, in another country, said something that was or could be considered insulting to our religion
6) We don't have celebrations in the streets when enemy civilians are killled.
7) We don't burn down Mosques when Muslims make offensive statements
8) We don't take people hostage and force them to convert on threat of death
9) We don't try to kill people in foreign lands who offend us with their writings (ask Salman Rushdie about that or Theo van Gogh)
10) We do not hide behind children when we launch our attacks, hoping that the return fire will kill those innocents
11) We have not proclaimed that our enemies should die by nuclear fire, in order to bring on the Twelfth Imam (Iranian Islamofascists) or the next caliphate (Sunni Islamofascists).
Those who would create a moral equivalence between the midieval haters of life and even the worst of our culture are moral weaklings. By pushing such illogical tripe, they encourage our enemy and weaken our own resolve. Worst of all, they create a moral confusion because of their own lack of vision. They see it all as black and white - coercive interrogation = torture = we are as bad as our enemies.
Do you people imagine that the world is going to just keep on trucking - you just keep on having your academic arguments from the moral high ground - while nothing bad happens to you and yours; that the threat is minimal; that we can stop these fanatics with reason and appeasement? Many of the absolutist arguments about the morality of what we are doing give that impression.
Brigadier Ed Butler, the head of NATO's 4,500 strong British contingent, is reported as saying that the violence in Afghanistan is now "worse than in Iraq." But the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan appears to have less to do with the level of violence than the amount of attention it is being given by the media. In part this seems to reflect Washington's unwillingness to discard the conventional wisdom that Afghanistan is still the "success story" in the war on terrorism.
Lakhdar Brahimi, who served as Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, now acknowledges that in guiding the process that led to the formation of Afghanistan's new government, he made what he describes as "a very, very big mistake" in not talking to the Taliban. But to do so would have run counter to a fundamental tenet in the Bush administration's approach to combating terrorism: We don't talk to terrorists.
What's ironic about this insistence on refusing to communicate with the enemy is that it implies that a mere exchange of words and ideas constitutes a defeat. Do we really stand on such vulnerable territory that we should be afraid to speak?
I completely agree with Instapundit Glenn Reynolds. This country has done without torture for far too long and it is with joy that I say we bid goodbye to the hamhanded and overly literal adherence to the outdated Geneva Conventions. It's about time we stopped setting an example for the rest of the world by showing off old world concepts such as "respect for human dignity," "civil rights," and "integrity," let alone "due process." We can still preach these American ideals. Who says we have to handicap ourselves by practicing them?
We have to face the fact that we have fallen woefully behind in the area of "alternative interrogation," as our President so well put it, and have much to do in order to catch up on the latest in aggressive interrogation techniques. We are, I regret to say, losing the ?arms race? in the field of torture. The terrorists have decades more experience and no doubt have innovations that could not be imagined by most of us, with the possible exception of Dick Cheney.
Tom Burka writes satire for Opinions You Should Have (tomburka.com).
I seen one of the writers describe the United States as the beacon of hope for other countries, NOT any more my friend. The United States is not liked very much around the world at all. I know directly after 9/11, most countries (even Iran) had empathy for us, not any more. North Korea is increasing nuclear weapons, we are in a heated debate over nuclear weapons with Iran, and of course we are in Iraq. I have heard citizens of European countries wonder what is "going on with our government". So our beacon of hope is more like a flicker of hope, mostly due to the Iraq war and the fact there were no WMD, yet the war goes on, but I won't go there.
The Geneva Convention Laws were changed after WWII and went into affect 1950. Countries sat down together to come up with laws to abide by for the treatment of prisoners (third geneva convention) and civilians (fourth geneva convention) because of Hitler, and the mass murders that took place for those who were opposers. To change these laws are wrong, and to change these laws during a time of global turmoil is more than wrong, it, itself is a crime to any U.S. soldier who enters our forces. What Bush is wanting is setting up a very scary precendence for all.
Bush has been found guilty of illegal torture of prisoners by the supreme court in June of this year. He has been found guilty of illegal detention of prisoners by a district court in 2002. The laws that Bush has broken have been against our own constitution and now he is ready to interpet and violate international law. What Bush is asking for is a military tribunal made up of 5 military personel and 1 judge. The prisoners never even have to see a court room, they dont have to see evidence against them to be found guilty. Does anyone really think that is right? Do you want our military soldiers to be treated this same way? What about here at home?
He already has illegal wiretapping (found guilty in District court Aug. 2006) going on here at home, will I become a POW, because I am opposed to the Iraq war? Will I become a POW, because I believe it is not about taking over nations, but working with nations and fighting terrorism together? Will I become a POW because I do not go along with the ideas the current administration is handing out?
If you are unsure about the Geneva Conventions, look it up, simply go to widipedia.
Carl Shelley - I have said so before, and I'll say it again, the whole notion of the "war on terror" has been twisted and turned on it's head. Sure, there are some truely evil men in the Middle East and the "Arab Street" is a dumb and gung ho as our own soccer moms. The genuine "warfare using terror" is the one being fought right now by Bush-Rove. They have been, ARE, using terror and the threat of boogy men, to frighten voters into supporting them. Over the past several years we have seen them waste that support on things like tax cuts for their wealthy friends, stupid and wasteful corporate contracts, skullduggery, unconstitutional invsion opf people
s privacy, and lies, lies, and damn lies! People simply need o wake up and look. They will see a genuinely evil and twisted man and a coollection of perverts that have taken control of our government. The question is NOT, can we survive Osama Bin Laudin or some other ragtag group of psychotics, but CAN WE SURVIVE BUSH!
A common theme of conservative reponses to this issue is to only discuss the issue in the black and white perspective on the world. Encouraged by our President who can only see enemies and friends, many still feel we have to 'win' in Iraq to succeed against the 'Terrorists.' Unfortunately, the world is more complex. Besides our friends and our enemies, are a vast majority of the world who are deciding each day, with each action, how friendly they will be toward America. Here is where Bush would claim the arguement is leading to being soft in hopes the 'terrorists' will appreciatively become nice. No. The terrorists will be terrorists, and in response to us continuing to revere the law, just treatment of prisoners, and a willingness to sacrifice for all of our values, sacrifice even lives to terrorists, the terrorists will laugh at our foolishness and perceived weakness. But the vast majority of our world will continue to try to emulate this sacrifice for something better. They will sacrifice themselves to defeat terrorists in their countries, even when its their own governments.
Instead we have Americans, including a President and Congress who refuse any sacrifice in taxes, in working for a functioning safety network like responses to natural disaster, or even in allowing the slight risk that a terrorist event could be prevented by not becoming ourselves a little of the monster we see in our enemies, the terrorists.
Who are these Americans that are so unwilling to sacrifice? As they use the last 'glorious' war as justification, do they not see that many Germans would have described many war crimes as simply a way to defend their Fatherland and as attempts to save the innocent lives of their citizens defending it? Why can't the fight and sacrifice for values alone as in the Civil War and in the World Wars.
Bush seems a spoiled child who has taken a sucker punch. When he jumps up, he goes after the first person he sees who has been a bully, and doesn't care if it causes a larger fight. Some see this as a brave boy who is acting the tough man, someone who others will not want to mess with again. But the one that threw the sucker punch sees that Bush is much less loved than before, is taking blows from many directions, and is even hitting before he knows who is guilty just to look strong and avoid any possible injury. And the one who threw the sucker punch is just waiting for when the spoiled boy is tired, has made too many enemies, for just the right time to throw the next sucker punch.
The Republicans have taken on the mantle of good Christians, but they are using the Old Testement rather than the New, definitely not turning the other cheek. Many fall to describing their enemy in terms of the religion the terrorists are part of and compare it to our 'Christian' nation. Belittling our patriots from many religions, our government has played into the hands of the terrorists identifying themselves as the face of Islam in conflict with a Christian nation. It's as if the boy Bush only got a glimps of the kid who sucker punched him, but he did see the kid wore a green ball cap. Now Bush is the impatient bully pushing around anyone with a green ball cap accusing them of having hit him. Shouldn't our goal be to get the ones in green ball caps to help us find the one who hit us, rather than starting a fight with the billion in green ball caps. Encouraging Americans to become torturers is an example of the Bush administration's consistently playing into the hands of the terrorists, unwilling to sacrifice and all supporting the terrorists aims to make this conflict about a Christian nation versus a billion Moslems.
I just had a thought - who are better than the soldiers and other personnel, who live and fight on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere to ask for opinions on these conditions. The problem may be the fear of retribution from authorities. Perhaps, they can do it anonymously. We can ask the Washington Post and others to host an online Town Hall Meeting. It is indeed easy for me to sit here and argue, coax, cajole, second-guess, and play armchair policymaker, till I turn blue in the face. Nothing beats the experience borne out of the "trenches."
We can also ask a few of the former generals from DoD and such persons as John McCain to particpate and weigh in on this Abu Gharib situation.
I am afraid that I am getting ahead of myself, here. Heck, what do I have to lose? Talk is cheap! What do you guys think?
Thank you and while I would consider myself an independent (how's that for a cop out?) my republican friends think I'm a commie and my liberal friends think I'm John Birch.
We are all immensely proud of your son (not to mention you), as Thom stated. I can only just begin to understand the mental anguish and trauma you, and many others like you, are going though. Proud moments like these will help spread goodwill and our (the vast majority of us) true feelings toward Humanity.
BobL-VA -
If you look at the front page photo on CNN's web site right NOW, the medic helping the woundd soldier is my youngest son. God, I'm proud of him...and frightened for him.
I hear what you are saying. However, Kamikazes are unique in the sense that we could easily idenity those devils. Islamic fundamentalists and terrrorists (for that matter, terrorists of any religion) are very difficult to identify. You see, we could "relatively easily" eradicate identifiable, known terrorists. Unfortunately, modern-day terrorists are guerrillas (asymmetric warriors) and do exist and blend in right in the middle of us. We cannot readily distinguish them from the innocents by facial features, color of the skin, or even religious affiliations. (John Walker Lindh, Ryan Anderson, Richard Reid, the Californian, whose name I cannot recall right now, and countless others are perfect examples.)
BobL:
I agree with your comments. MikeB, I also (as do - I am sure - many other posters) pray that your son comes back home soon safely.
General:
You may want to read the following article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
Mideast Peril
Growing Concern: Terrorist Havens In 'Failed States'
Instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon Raise Risk That U.S. Seeks to Address
Stupid jokes and stupid wars. That was a really good assessment you provided and I agree with it. I'm so pleased you also addressed the question of what our military is good at and what it is not good at. One of these days we need to bring our foreign policy into line with what our military can support.
Finally, I can't tell if you are a Democrat or a Republican. I like that.
The Bush administration is not the right group of people to tackle terrorism head-on. Wiretapping and listening in on Americans is laughable. After 911 and bin Laden's escape in Tora Bora, do you think the terrorists will use their cell phones and faxes again? Torturing the captured terrorists will not help either. Each one does not have the full "picture" of what AlQaeda is planning as if AlQaeda has a Pentagon! We Americans should accept that we have enemies ( we should know who they are in order for us to win. 1st rule of war: Know the enemy. So far, Bush has conflated all varieties of enemies. 5 years after 911, Bush & cohorts are whirling about across the world dropping bombs. Are we winning yet?
Eventhough we are limited to I believe 1.3 million military personnel we are still a very potent force. However, as you noted, this force isn't sufficient to take on the likes of China, but it wasn't designed to. In order to do that we'd have to go back to the draft and it would take a couple of years to put enough troops and equipment in the field to compete with several countries on this planet. Are we capable of it? Sure we are. Do we want to do it? I sincerely hope not.
However, my main point really centered around the ill-advised use of our military in occupations. Forget for a second what the underlying reasons for military intervention are. Whether justified or not our forces aren't designed to become involved in guerrilla/terrorist style operations over long periods of time. We don't have the capabilities or the current manpower to engage in these types of conflicts. Somewhere along the line our leaders have thought because we can kick butt that this ought to translate into being a good occupational force. Conventional war is one think. Occupational forces are entirely different. I'd argue no country does occupation well on hostile soil anymore.
Generally, if something arises to the level of needing military force to be used it should be done only when we can get in and then get out. Staying around is what causes us trouble every time.
Iraq just happens to be the worst of the worst.
1. We had no legitimate reason to invade Iraq
2. We had no contingency plans what to do with it once we invaded
3. We had no contingency plans on how to get out
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/Rove et al simply put have screwed up Iraq and the Middle East about as badly as is humanly possible. They've managed to destablize the region, start a civil war, needlessly kill and injure hundreds of thousands of people and give most of the planet a reason to think we're a bunch of hypocrites.
While most wars are rather stupid this conflict rises to the level of ludicrous. There was a joke about the Iraq war a few years back that went like this:
Bush and Rumsfield are sitting in a DC restaurant talking about their plans to invade Iraq. Rumsfield tells Bush about 1 million Iraqis will die. Bush looks back at Rumsfield and tells him 1 million Iraqis and 1 beautiful blonde woman will die. A person at the next table over hears this and asks the president why a blonde must die. The president slaps Rumsfield on the shoulder an says, "See, I told you no one cared about the Iraqis."
It's a stupid joke, but then again it's been a stupid war.
Torturing a captured enemy is really a sign of weakness by the torturer. What 911 and Bin Laden have proven is that America, despite its long tradition of truth & justice, can be "reduced" to the lowest common denominator of a terrorist. For over 200 years, America talked up a good propaganda as the beacon of freedom. Even when slavery was being practiced, people in other countries still believed in America's goodness. 911 was the true test of whether America will hold true to its ideals. Obviously, America is failing - we do not have leaders like Eisenhower who faced the worst of the worst, leaders who have maturity and good judgement, leaders like FDR who was not afraid. AlQaeda and its threats of relentless terrorism is nothing but a fly, a mere miniscule entity elevated to the highest order by Bush. What a sad pathetic turn for America.
Bringing up the Kamikaze is a good thing. They are an example of completely dedicated people willing to kill themselves for their beleifs. Americans found this to be as foreign to out values as anything we had ever seen.
Yet, fifty years later, with the intervention and good-will of the American people the ideal has been utterly eradicated from Japanese society.
If you don't see the parallel with what is going on now, you're either too young, or just don't want to see it.
Your comments (typos, immigration, and all) go for me, too! We want only the best, brightest, and the most dedicated to human values. (Bear in mind that I did not the "Western" values.) You may want to read today's issue of The Wall Street Journal, where in there is article on qualified "illegal" immigrants, such as Dan-el Padilla Peralta (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115819403186062558.html?mod=hps_us_editors_picks).
Harry Lee:
It was Harry Truman who dropped the dreade "bombs," thereby effectively starting a nuclear arms. (Although, FDR initiated the Manhattan Project.) One must also keep in mind that many of the pioneers forewarned us about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, those (Kamikaze) days were vastly different. However, we must be prepared to use violence, if necessary. Our foreign policies NEED TO CHANGE, first.
Srikanth Raghunathan - I apologize. I don't type and make lots of mistakes, which sometimes makes my posts just plain unreadable. If there was a spell checker on these things I could use that to correct most of the typo's, but there isn't... At least you get the idea of what I am referring to in the posts, though.
It seems to me that our "leaders" and corporate types haven't thought out the long term ramifications of a lot of their actions. Hence, Iraq, our trade policies, guest worker programs, and a lot more. I am NOT opposed to immigration. I simply ONLY want immigrants who are determined to become U.S. citizens and I want them in numbers that we can handle without sinking our economy or putting millions of "already-Citizens" out of work.
Frankly, President Roosevelt have faced down suicidal enemies of US in the past and effectively overcame these fanatical enemies in the form of Kamikaze pilots, submariners and the defenders of the Marianna Islands right up to Okinawa. When considering the risks involved in the invasion of the Japanese mainland, the Democrat President and his military advisors were concerned about likely tremendous casualty rates for Allied invasiuon forces in light of the Japanese last line defenders and their suicidal tendencies. Finally, the ALlied conmmanders agreed to deploy nukes against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which essentially ended WWII. A valuable lesson to be learned here no less.
It's high time we started fighting this war as ruthlessly as our enemies to ensure victory. We'll worry about retaliations "as a result of root causes" (i.e. Miss Meir's worn-out apologist argument on behalf of terrorists and those with leftists'agendas, most democrats a.k.a. Always Blame-America-1st and Code Pink types), negative world opinions and condemnations ..and UN objections when the time comes, not as if they mattered anyway. Let's Roll?
Thanks for the information. You donot have to "expand" all punctuation marks in a website address. You may also want to check out the FBI's counterintelligence website at this link (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/ci/cases.htm).
This exactly what the terrorists envisioned: an American government that stoops down to their level rather than the beacon of morality and justice that they once hated us for. Now the rest of the world view our behavior in the similar light as that of the terrorists. Evidence from torture is inherently unreliable! That is not the "One Country Under God" I love and admire. Our actions should be different from those we label as barbarians - if you look at Abu Garaib and Guantanmo - as well as the renditions with torture, no - these were not perpertrated by the sick terrorists, but by our government's policies - we are better than that so STOP IT!!!!
BobL - "...United States, without any doubt, has the military power to defeat any known enemy in a conventional war..." Unfortunately, no longer true. We have so over-extended our military and supply lines that we would loose a conventional war with China or Russia for a certainty and most analysts think we couldn't even stand up to North Korea. This Whitehouse amatures and their treasonous corporate allies have ill equipped our soldiers, sold our weapons technologies, and placed business profits above troop safety and U.S. security, and the political goverance and daily meddling by the Whitehouse have demoralized our troops, to the extent where we could not take on an enemy on anything like equal terms. If North Korea attacked the South or if China invaded Taiwan, there isn't one thing we could do about it, evern if we went nuclear. If we were so stupid as to attack Iran right now, we would loose virtually all of our troops in the Middle East and you could count on the fall of every country surround it AND the total loss of oil to us and Europe.
I know you think this is just fuzzy liberal thinking and most right wingers will claim that it is wishful thinking, as if I am hoping for this. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I HAVE a son in Iraq right this minute and he would be one of those immediate casulties AND I love this country. I and most analysts (read Janes Defence) think that the Bush Whitehouse has crippled this country's defence capabilities. If it weren't so staggeringly dangerous, it would be ironic, that the breast beating patriotic neocons and Republican's have done more jeapardize this country than any enemy this country has ever faced. And, sad to say, one mistep is going to bring us down like a house made of wet cardboard. Left to his own devices, I fully expect George Bush to make that mistep. The November elections are literally about the survival of this country and the very lives of those brainless and hysterical soccer moms and NASCAR dads who vote for the Republican's. A Republican vote this time around is literally an act of suicide.
The United States, without any doubt, has the military power to defeat any known enemy in a conventional war. On two separate occassions we went through Saddam's forces like a hot knife through butter. We're extremely proficient using overwhelming force (Shock and Awe) against second and third rate armies who don't have the weapon systems, training, supplies, intelligence data and command and communication systems we have.
What we don't do well is occupy other nations. We did a poor job of it in Vietnam and we've done a poor job of it in Iraq. Just because we have awesome military power doesn't mean we're equipped to occupy other countries. The "enemy" no longer fights a conventional war. They build tunnels, they engage in suicide bombings. They engage in "terror." We are totally unprepared and inept in dealing with this type of warfare that comes with occupation. GW has made the same mistake JFK, LBJ & RMN made with Vietnam. Indigenous peoples with their own cultures and religions aren't interested in our telling them how they should live and trying to force the issue with occupation.
Our inability to impose our will through occupation leads to frustration. Frustration leads to those in power to try desperate and sometimes stupid things. Frustration leads the majority of Americans to get sick and tired of the conflict. Lindsay Beyerstein in a post above detailed why torture and secret military tribunals are counterproductive. What Lindsay didn't say is no amount of torture or secret tribunals is going to change the outcome in Iraq or the murky war on terror. That outcome has already been determined by seriously flawed and arrogant foreign policy. This is not a fight we should be engaged in.
It is part of the administration myopia to call for the rules of war and the Geneva conventions when events menace other nations. As revealed, these same mouthings do not apply to American conduct. Rather, the administration considers expedience above everything when its heels are hung to the fire, and it behaves like all those fascist stereo-types my generation was programmed to hate (with good reason) from the old black and white movies of the 1940s.
TOP COMMENTATOR, LINDSAY BEYERSTEIN, majikthise.typepad.com :
Bush's proposed legislation is a threat to our national security. If Congress passes this legislation, it will send a very dangerous message: The US flouts international law, embraces torture, and rejects due process.
American troops will be among the first to suffer. Proponents of torture dismiss this concern, arguing that the terrorists aren't signatories to the Geneva Convention. This is a dangerously short-sighted attitude. Our adversaries will be less likely to surrender on the battlefield if the US rescinds any assurance of humane treatment or due process. Therefore, more US troops will be killed fighting adversaries who would otherwise have surrendered peacefully.
Torture also creates popular sympathy for terrorists. The United States bills itself as a paragon of democracy and human rights, but the pictures from Abu Ghraib told a very different story.
How many torture victims will go on to become torturers, or even terrorists? Surely, many of apolitical detainees who were tortured at Abu Ghraib joined the insurgency because they were tortured? How many more terrorists will be created by the CIA in the "long war" ahead?
On a practical level, if the US wants to torture suspects, other intelligence agencies will hesitate to cooperate with us. Apparently, Condoleeza Rice clashed with Dick Cheney over the CIA's secret prison program because she realized that the program was undermining security by alienating our allies.
Other countries don't look kindly on the US for kidnapping and torturing their citizens. Extraordinary rendition and torture have already strained relations between US and its allies.
If these suspects were proven guilty of heinous crimes, then our allies might be sympathetic and even grateful to the US for locking them up at Guantanamo in the name of international security.
However, Bush's plan would also deny terror suspects any semblance of due process. These secret military tribunals wouldn't even allow the accused to see the evidence against him. Evidence obtained under torture could also be used against him. Presumably, a suspect could be tortured into confessing terror ties and executed for those confessions. Such a spectacle recalls the Spanish Inquisition and the Stalinist show trials. Saddam Hussein also liked to execute people for what they confessed under torture.
The president is demanding the right to try suspects in secret and execute them at his personal discretion. Given Bush's zeal for executions as governor of Texas, this is a truly frightening possibility.
Without real trials, the world has no assurance that these people are guilty of anything. We are being asked to trust that the president is just, benign, and well-informed. Yet, this is the same president who flouts treaty obligations and champions torture. The civilized world would rightly regard such a leader as a despot.
If this legislation passes, the global war on terror could cease to be global. In the grand scheme of things a few extra confessions from squalid cells in secret prisons are worthless compared to the respect and cooperation of our allies.
try www -dot- cicentre -dot com and check under "espionage"
www -dot - freerepublic -dot- com slash focus slash f-news slash 1511147 slash posts
is one of several stories about the Indian engineers stealing and selling the plans, not just for the B2 bomber, but **ALL** of our current steralth technology.
"Posted on 10/27/2005 6:43:10 PM PDT, AP
HONOLULU - An engineer who calls himself the father of the technology that protects the B-2 stealth bomber from heat-seeking missiles has been arrested and accused of selling U.S. military secrets involving the aircraft to a foreign country, the FBI said. Noshir S. Gowadia, 61, of Haiku was arrested Wednesday.
According to the FBI, Gowadia faxed a document detailing infrared technology classified top secret by the Air Force to a foreign official. He also provided classified information to two other countries, the FBI said.
The government would not identify the countries or disclose how much he allegedly received.
Gowadia was an engineer with Northrop Grumman Corp. from 1968 to 1986 and had helped design parts of the B-2's propulsion system that make the bomber difficult to be seen by enemy missiles. The technology remains highly classified.
He was jailed without bail on a charge of willfully communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison."
Similar searches for the Iranian underwater missile will turn up another Indian firm. Ditto for nuclear weapons technologies and Indian and Brazil, Argentina and North Korea. In fact, the missile feul plant in Saddam's Iraq that was found was built and manned by Indian workers.
It was not immediately known whether he had a lawyer.
According to state records, Gowadia and his wife own an engineering and consulting company
Here is a thought. What if it was your child that was about to die unless you could get this scumbag in front of you to talk? Torture may be unreliable but in the absence of anything coming out of his mouth without torture I'd grab the plyers and get to work.
This is called "Defusing The Ticking Bomb" and is an essay in process.
I am the Education & Development Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). PO BOX 4634, Jerusalem 91046 Israel.www.stoptorture.org.il
Introduction
Even after the important High Court of Justice (HCJ) ruling in 1999 , torture still exists in Israel and it is most often used within the context of the employment of what is known as the ìdefense of necessity.î The extent to which the Court actually banned the use of torture is debatable. The Court did not equate the methods used by Israelís General Security Service (GSS) with torture. Furthermore, the Court discussed in depth the issue of necessity as a defense in the event that a GSS agent may be prosecuted following an interrogation related prosecution. The Stateís argument in the case (paragraph 33 of the decision) is that it can use the necessity defense as a means to imply the authorization, a priori, of the use of force ìin order to prevent serious harm to human life or limbî that is, in the case of a ìticking bombî. The State also raised this argument but would not limit using force to preventing catastrophic consequences. The Court held in paragraph 40 that:
ÖWe declare that the ìnecessityî defense, found in the Penal Law, cannot serve as a basis of authority for the use of these interrogation practices, or for the existence of directives pertaining to GSS investigators, allowing them to employ interrogation practices of this kind. Our decision does not negate the possibility that the ìnecessityî defense be available to GSS investigators, be within the discretion of the Attorney General, if he decides to prosecute, or if criminal charges are brought against them, as per the Courtís discretion.
However, when the Court examined the matter of the ticking bomb scenario (that is, a situation in which there is an imminent threat to human life (usually) on a large scale and, according to the scenario, that torture is the only way to get information to neutralize the threat and save lives) it recognized that necessity defense claims might be appropriately applied.
We are prepared to assume that ñ although this matter is open to debateÖThe ìnecessityî exception is likely to arise in instances of ìticking time bombsî, and that the immediate need (ìnecessary in an immediate mannerî for the preservation of human life) refers to the imminent nature of the act rather than that of the danger. Hence, the imminence criteria is satisfied even if the bomb is set to explode in a few days, or perhaps even after a few weeks (Paragraph 34).
The Court, in the above-cited paragraph, did recognize the contentious nature of the scenario but its treatment of the matter seems to tolerate the potential use of torture. The Court, though is careful to note that it does not need to decide this matter in order to come to its ruling. It is possible then to understand the Courtís ruling in this manner: The Court correctly maps the position of international law, that torture and cruel and inhuman treatment is absolutely prohibited. However, the Court did not actually equate Israelís interrogation methods with ìtortureî (in ruling that the methods are illegal forms ñ see paragraphs 9-13 for a treatment of the methods ñ of interrogation) and it recognizes that there may be circumstances in which an agent of the State theoretically being prosecuted for committing torture may employ the necessity defense. Additionally the Attorney General (the authority responsible for determining whether or not to prosecute) can determine that a case of necessity was presented and that prosecution is unwarranted. Further, in the event of a ìticking bombî scenario it seems to be that the Court accepts that it is certainly arguable that necessity could be used as a defense in such a matter.
This leads us into a brief examination of the Ticking bomb scenario. PCATI has seen indications that the GSS has predetermined in certain cases that they are dealing with a ìticking bombî scenario and that they will therefore use force in the course of the interrogation. There is, of course, little documentation made public by the GSS of such instances, although PCATI has come into possession of or been able to view such texts on a very limited number of occasions. But the critical matter at hand is not the determination of the individualís status as a ticking bomb but whether or not that justifies torture. In short, it should not.
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
Furthermore the notion of accepting the ticking bomb scenario as a given reality that can, under certain circumstances, justify the use of torture by a democratic regime is quite problematic:
ìÖThe liberal ideology of torture, which assumes that torture can be neatly confined to exceptional ticking-bomb cases and surgically severed from cruelty and tyranny, represents a dangerous delusion.î
Torture is absolutely prohibited precisely because it presents an abuse that is so abhorrent that it threatens the fabric of a society. Luban argues that even the presentation of the ticking bomb scenario is an effort to get those who are absolute prohibitionists to give in on one small point. Then, if it is possible to get him to accede to the use of torture he no longer possesses a morally superior position. His implication is that the ticking bomb scenario is an intellectual manipulation and, in his discussion, it leads to totally unacceptable scenarios regarding the devolution of society. Further he argues that the scenario is reduced to an exception or a one time only scenario. Reality is that interrogations are not based on case-by-case thinking, but rather by policy. That is, if torture is to be used under such circumstances it has already wound its way into the fabric of the practice of interrogations. Perhaps this is describes the situation in Israel, explaining how on the one hand Israel makes asserts its democratic nature, but, at the same time continues to use torture.
Be this as it may, the question remains: if there is a chance of saving many lives by using torture why not use it? There are a number of sources treating this question. Suffice it to say that one must determine oneís moral stance and oneís vision of a just society. A particular stream of this discourse has expressed suggestions for setting up a system of supervised torture, under a warrant regime. This would, in effect legalize the illegal validate the invalid. Michael Ignatieff wrote:
[Professor] Dershowitz's ideas suggest that it is possible to bring the rule of law into the interrogation room, but as an exercise in the lesser evil, it is likely to lead to the greater. Once you allow warrants for genuine ''ticking bomb'' cases — situations in which torture can prevent an imminent calamity from occurring — little by little, torture may be used when there is no immediate danger. There has never been any certainty, moreover, that information extracted by torture is more reliable than information coaxed out of a suspect by persuasive means. Why should we suppose that pain produces truth? And how can we forget what everyone who has ever been tortured always tells us: those who are tortured stay tortured forever. If you want to create terrorists, torture is a pretty sure way to do so.
Even if one could argue as Dershowitz wrote, "Everybody says they're opposed to torture. But everyone would do it personally if they knew it could save the life of a kidnapped child who had only two hours of oxygen left before death. And it would be the right thing to do." William J. Aceves, a professor of international law writes that the ticking bomb scenario ìfalls apart upon careful scrutinyÖ it assumes that torture will be effective in gaining access to the critical information. In fact, however, torture is notoriously unreliable.î Torture has a tendency to not work, to illicit false information. Further, although Dershowitz reasoning might lead one to believe that there is an efficacy in the use of torture the opposite seems to be true.
There is no demonstrable and convincing evidence that degradation, humiliation and other HCI [highly coercive interrogation, LF] techniques will produce truth more effectively and quickly than equally or potentially more persuasive methods of skilled interrogators that are not degrading or humiliating.
To be fair, Dershowitz asserts his opposition to torture. He writes, ìI am against torture as a normative matter, and I would like to see its use minimized.î But since he knows that torture (ìmoderate forms of non lethal tortureî) is being used by the US and other states he would like to see the practice brought under judicial management. The process would involve requesting a warrant, which would take the decision making power out of the hands of a field officer under intense pressure and place it in the hands of a reasoned jurist, comparable to the process of requiring a police officer to obtain judicial approval (a search warrant) to conduct a search. His opinion is that this regulation of an otherwise objectionable act would reduce its use and remove it from the realm of being extra-legal to being legal, supervised and limited. He has many critics, most of whom he cites in his ongoing discourse on the issue. Many of them are of the opinion that if you regulate and allow torture in one case the danger of applying it on a wider scale or in using the same reasoning to apply warrants to other instances of potential official violence magnifies.
In my opinion the problem with Dershowitzís argument is two-fold. First, the warrant process, (upon which Dershowitz bases his legal analysis), demands that a warrant be obtained in accordance with the protections found in the United States Constitution. The Fourth Amendment states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is clear that the amendment recognized a right/protection that can be violated only under very particular circumstances. These circumstances are obviously limited to law enforcement and prosecution and are intended to be strictly scrutinized. The point is that the Constitution does not seem to offer the possibility to exercise the warrant option in order to infringe on a right in matters in which the Constitution would otherwise absolutely prohibit such an infringement. Even the (obviously mistaken) understanding in many United States Jurisdictions that the Death Penalty is not ìcruel and unusualî (see the Eighth Amendment) is being challenged, with even the conservative Supreme Court outlawing the death penalty in an increasing number of cases. So, in many ways the application of a warrant system for using torture is a jurisprudential step backwards in any state that calls itself enlightened and democratic, especially the United States, and in turn Israel. United States jurisprudence has advanced in many respects (although, in practice, the United States has some distance to travel in terms of satisfactorily achieving equality and social justice). So, the institutionalization and legalization of torture would be a significant setback.
On another matter, Professor Dershowitzís reasoning regarding the use of torture is such that he assumes that reasonable people would approve of its use to save lives in the face of imminent danger. He used the case of a kidnapped child running out of oxygen and, as we saw above, the ticking time bomb situation, in which the persons being tortured are evil criminals or terrorists. But if we follow his reasoning, that torture could be used, should be used and probably is being used to protect innocent life threatened by imminent danger of mass death and destruction (by terrorists) where would that leave us in other situations: The imminent release of releasing deadly toxins into a public drinking water source by a factory owner; the cases of Love Canal or Bhopal; life threatening defective products being sold to the public. In such cases it is arguable that those responsible for such disasters and potential disasters may have had prior knowledge of the situation and of its danger yet refused to inform the public. Would Professor Dershowitz allow judicially regulated physical coercion to be used in cases in which the authorities have reason to believe that corporate executives have such information but refuse to reveal it? These are important issues that should be addressed. The critical point is that the danger is clearly present that once you authorize torture, even under judicial supervision, it will surely be expanded in its use and abuse.
Thus, while there are a variety of arguments regarding torture and the ticking bomb, my conclusion is that the risks and the abject harm to the body and soul of the individual victim, the corruption of the perpetrator and of society do not justify approaching the risks inherent in giving torture a legal, moral or ethical stamp of approval, under any circumstances.
Oops, one last note...that Indian Engineer was originally here on an H1-B visa but had achieved permanent resident status by the time her was arrested. And, for your nightmares all, he SUCCESSFULLY sold those plans. Another Indian engineer stole and sold the plans for an underwater missile system recently tested by the Iranian's. Just wonderful!
Mary, sorry, I tried to post links to wen sites but (perhaps wisely) the moderators blocked that. I would refer you to the web. A good report by the House panel on immigration is entitled "SOURCES AND METHODS OF FOREIGN NATIONALS ENGAGED IN ECONOMIC AND MILITARY ESPIONAGE". Likewise, you can look up the FBI stats on their web site. ANother excellent source is the Counterintelligence Centre, a government clearhouse for espionage news, in Canada.
One really wonderful story (please look it up) is of an Indian engineer who stole the plans for the B2 bomber just last year - lock, stock and barrel - and was arrrested by the FBI. His contacts in India are still free, beyond the reach of U.S. law.
I am amazed that your preface states that military commissions would violate prisoners Geneva Convention rights. I believe that is untrue from my readings of the Geneva Convention. I also believe that our moderators have dishonestly poisoned this discussion from the very outset, with that statement.
If you want discussion, ask for discussion. If you are only providing an infomercial for your side of the argument, that is dishonest of you.
Readers’ Responses to Our Question (190)
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March 2, 2007 8:55 AM | Report Offensive Comments
i guess we could just do what the russians and iranians do and just kill all of them. then we will save a bunch of money by shutting down the prison.
March 1, 2007 9:21 PM | Report Offensive Comments
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March 1, 2007 12:33 PM | Report Offensive Comments
It is beyond my comprehension, why so many still have doubts whether Iraq is the front of the war on terror? DUH.... Osama said so, as did Zawahiri and Zarqawi (i.e. cooked,well done).
September 19, 2006 12:37 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Tom Burka and others really amaze me by their failure to grasp the immense moral gulf between the Islamofascists and the west - with all of our flaws. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to the similarities between our treatment of illegal combatants and our enemy's treatment of legal combatants and innocent civilians.
It is easy to sit on top of the moral mountain and proclaim your virtue by condemning any act you disaprove of - regardless of context. That is the place for moral cowards - the useful idiots so handy to any totalitarian ideology.
Harder is to actually weigh the issues and try to determine an allowable compromise between the heady air of the moral high ground and the terrible miasma of true evil.
So perhaps one should examine the issues a bit more, rather than screaming torture or geneva convention or whatever.
Warfare is horrible. Warfare is to be avoided. But the nature of man leads us to the inevitability (so far) of war. War has been declared on us - by Al Qaeda and various other Islamist groups, including Iran's cat's paw, Hezbollah. Whether that is our fault is irrelevant.
War has been declared on us by a disparate group united by their hatred of western culture and ideas, and by their fanatical religious goals. Sunni and Shia Islamists, blood enemies, both are working to achieve these goals. Both want to destroy western freedoms. Both have contorted their religion to justify the slaughter of innocents and the use of suicide.
Both have killed many Americans. Hezbollah has killed hundreds. Al Qaeda (Sunni) killed almost three thousand civilians from 81 countries in the 9-11 attacks. These numbers, horrible as they sound, are not at the level of casualties in a real war (although 9-11 had more casualties than Pearl Harbor). So perhaps this is not a war - just a criminal issue. But that doesn't look to the future - to the goals and capabilities of our enemy, many of these repeatedly stated.
We are in an existential struggle, as much as WW-II or the Cold War. Too many missed the 9-11 epiphany - that fanatics with 9th century rules and goals are capable of constructing or acquiring 21st century WMD's, and fully intend to do so and use them against us.
The threat is new. The world has never seen it before - ever: Kamikazis, with nukes, targeting civilians; nuts with diseases which make Smallpox look benign (vaccinia virus plus the ILK-4 gene, for example - routine genetic engineering).
If you recognize the threat, if you truly appreciate it, you at least have some of the information on which to make a judgement. If you deny the threat, you are blind or technically and historically uninformed.
Critical to understanding the need for intelligence, and the need for "coercive interrogation" is the fact that these movements operate through terrorism, moving among us and among the innocent (and the less guilty) of their own ethnic and faith groups. Many of these terrorists were born in the west; more were educated in the west - undergraduate and beyond; they are among us (especially in Europe) and they intend to kill as many as they can. These are not poverty-stricken rebels seeking freedom - they are well educated and often middle class.
When we capture a leader of one of these groups (such as Kalid Sheik Mohammed - KSM), we have a source of information that can save untold number of lives. That information can even help us distinguish the innocent (of which we probably have some in Guantanamo) from the guilty.
Unfortunately, getting that information is not simple. The terrorist is a killer, a fanatic and an enemy.
Fortunately, coercive intelligence techniques do work (KSM was a good example - waterboarding did the job). These techniques do not constitute torture, and in fact we use them in training our own troops (I've been through this training).
We have a choice: do we subject a person almost certainly a high ranking enemy to uncomfortable, humiliating and frightening procedures , saving many innocents while dirtying our hands, or do pay for a lawyer and give him a room with a private toilet (as ruled by one European judge based on #3 of the conventions)?
Do we go farther and employ torture - extreme pain and psychological distress, mutilation, etc?
How do we treat our enemies is a question the nation has been debating, in such a confused mannere.
So, let's say we occasionally use coercive interrogation (which works well enough that true torture apparently doesn't add much). Contrary to what so many of the human rights absolutists here seem to believe, that does not cost us the moral high ground. We might drop from way up on the moral scale to a little farther down, but let's get serious:
1) We don't attack civilians on purpose. We do not try to terrorize.
2) We don't gruesomely execute our prisoners (unlike past enemies and current)
3) We don't encourage our children to kill themselves in the process of killing our enemy's innocents
4) We don't seek to force our religion on others. We don't even have an official religion.
5) We don't kill people because someone, in another country, said something that was or could be considered insulting to our religion
6) We don't have celebrations in the streets when enemy civilians are killled.
7) We don't burn down Mosques when Muslims make offensive statements
8) We don't take people hostage and force them to convert on threat of death
9) We don't try to kill people in foreign lands who offend us with their writings (ask Salman Rushdie about that or Theo van Gogh)
10) We do not hide behind children when we launch our attacks, hoping that the return fire will kill those innocents
11) We have not proclaimed that our enemies should die by nuclear fire, in order to bring on the Twelfth Imam (Iranian Islamofascists) or the next caliphate (Sunni Islamofascists).
Those who would create a moral equivalence between the midieval haters of life and even the worst of our culture are moral weaklings. By pushing such illogical tripe, they encourage our enemy and weaken our own resolve. Worst of all, they create a moral confusion because of their own lack of vision. They see it all as black and white - coercive interrogation = torture = we are as bad as our enemies.
Do you people imagine that the world is going to just keep on trucking - you just keep on having your academic arguments from the moral high ground - while nothing bad happens to you and yours; that the threat is minimal; that we can stop these fanatics with reason and appeasement? Many of the absolutist arguments about the morality of what we are doing give that impression.
September 17, 2006 10:39 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Brigadier Ed Butler, the head of NATO's 4,500 strong British contingent, is reported as saying that the violence in Afghanistan is now "worse than in Iraq." But the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan appears to have less to do with the level of violence than the amount of attention it is being given by the media. In part this seems to reflect Washington's unwillingness to discard the conventional wisdom that Afghanistan is still the "success story" in the war on terrorism.
Lakhdar Brahimi, who served as Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, now acknowledges that in guiding the process that led to the formation of Afghanistan's new government, he made what he describes as "a very, very big mistake" in not talking to the Taliban. But to do so would have run counter to a fundamental tenet in the Bush administration's approach to combating terrorism: We don't talk to terrorists.
What's ironic about this insistence on refusing to communicate with the enemy is that it implies that a mere exchange of words and ideas constitutes a defeat. Do we really stand on such vulnerable territory that we should be afraid to speak?
See his blog, http://warincontext.org
September 16, 2006 7:39 PM | Report Offensive Comments
I completely agree with Instapundit Glenn Reynolds. This country has done without torture for far too long and it is with joy that I say we bid goodbye to the hamhanded and overly literal adherence to the outdated Geneva Conventions. It's about time we stopped setting an example for the rest of the world by showing off old world concepts such as "respect for human dignity," "civil rights," and "integrity," let alone "due process." We can still preach these American ideals. Who says we have to handicap ourselves by practicing them?
We have to face the fact that we have fallen woefully behind in the area of "alternative interrogation," as our President so well put it, and have much to do in order to catch up on the latest in aggressive interrogation techniques. We are, I regret to say, losing the ?arms race? in the field of torture. The terrorists have decades more experience and no doubt have innovations that could not be imagined by most of us, with the possible exception of Dick Cheney.
Tom Burka writes satire for Opinions You Should Have (tomburka.com).
September 15, 2006 1:03 PM | Report Offensive Comments
I seen one of the writers describe the United States as the beacon of hope for other countries, NOT any more my friend. The United States is not liked very much around the world at all. I know directly after 9/11, most countries (even Iran) had empathy for us, not any more. North Korea is increasing nuclear weapons, we are in a heated debate over nuclear weapons with Iran, and of course we are in Iraq. I have heard citizens of European countries wonder what is "going on with our government". So our beacon of hope is more like a flicker of hope, mostly due to the Iraq war and the fact there were no WMD, yet the war goes on, but I won't go there.
The Geneva Convention Laws were changed after WWII and went into affect 1950. Countries sat down together to come up with laws to abide by for the treatment of prisoners (third geneva convention) and civilians (fourth geneva convention) because of Hitler, and the mass murders that took place for those who were opposers. To change these laws are wrong, and to change these laws during a time of global turmoil is more than wrong, it, itself is a crime to any U.S. soldier who enters our forces. What Bush is wanting is setting up a very scary precendence for all.
Bush has been found guilty of illegal torture of prisoners by the supreme court in June of this year. He has been found guilty of illegal detention of prisoners by a district court in 2002. The laws that Bush has broken have been against our own constitution and now he is ready to interpet and violate international law. What Bush is asking for is a military tribunal made up of 5 military personel and 1 judge. The prisoners never even have to see a court room, they dont have to see evidence against them to be found guilty. Does anyone really think that is right? Do you want our military soldiers to be treated this same way? What about here at home?
He already has illegal wiretapping (found guilty in District court Aug. 2006) going on here at home, will I become a POW, because I am opposed to the Iraq war? Will I become a POW, because I believe it is not about taking over nations, but working with nations and fighting terrorism together? Will I become a POW because I do not go along with the ideas the current administration is handing out?
If you are unsure about the Geneva Conventions, look it up, simply go to widipedia.
September 15, 2006 8:23 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Carl Shelley - I have said so before, and I'll say it again, the whole notion of the "war on terror" has been twisted and turned on it's head. Sure, there are some truely evil men in the Middle East and the "Arab Street" is a dumb and gung ho as our own soccer moms. The genuine "warfare using terror" is the one being fought right now by Bush-Rove. They have been, ARE, using terror and the threat of boogy men, to frighten voters into supporting them. Over the past several years we have seen them waste that support on things like tax cuts for their wealthy friends, stupid and wasteful corporate contracts, skullduggery, unconstitutional invsion opf people
s privacy, and lies, lies, and damn lies! People simply need o wake up and look. They will see a genuinely evil and twisted man and a coollection of perverts that have taken control of our government. The question is NOT, can we survive Osama Bin Laudin or some other ragtag group of psychotics, but CAN WE SURVIVE BUSH!
September 14, 2006 8:01 PM | Report Offensive Comments
A common theme of conservative reponses to this issue is to only discuss the issue in the black and white perspective on the world. Encouraged by our President who can only see enemies and friends, many still feel we have to 'win' in Iraq to succeed against the 'Terrorists.' Unfortunately, the world is more complex. Besides our friends and our enemies, are a vast majority of the world who are deciding each day, with each action, how friendly they will be toward America. Here is where Bush would claim the arguement is leading to being soft in hopes the 'terrorists' will appreciatively become nice. No. The terrorists will be terrorists, and in response to us continuing to revere the law, just treatment of prisoners, and a willingness to sacrifice for all of our values, sacrifice even lives to terrorists, the terrorists will laugh at our foolishness and perceived weakness. But the vast majority of our world will continue to try to emulate this sacrifice for something better. They will sacrifice themselves to defeat terrorists in their countries, even when its their own governments.
Instead we have Americans, including a President and Congress who refuse any sacrifice in taxes, in working for a functioning safety network like responses to natural disaster, or even in allowing the slight risk that a terrorist event could be prevented by not becoming ourselves a little of the monster we see in our enemies, the terrorists.
Who are these Americans that are so unwilling to sacrifice? As they use the last 'glorious' war as justification, do they not see that many Germans would have described many war crimes as simply a way to defend their Fatherland and as attempts to save the innocent lives of their citizens defending it? Why can't the fight and sacrifice for values alone as in the Civil War and in the World Wars.
Bush seems a spoiled child who has taken a sucker punch. When he jumps up, he goes after the first person he sees who has been a bully, and doesn't care if it causes a larger fight. Some see this as a brave boy who is acting the tough man, someone who others will not want to mess with again. But the one that threw the sucker punch sees that Bush is much less loved than before, is taking blows from many directions, and is even hitting before he knows who is guilty just to look strong and avoid any possible injury. And the one who threw the sucker punch is just waiting for when the spoiled boy is tired, has made too many enemies, for just the right time to throw the next sucker punch.
The Republicans have taken on the mantle of good Christians, but they are using the Old Testement rather than the New, definitely not turning the other cheek. Many fall to describing their enemy in terms of the religion the terrorists are part of and compare it to our 'Christian' nation. Belittling our patriots from many religions, our government has played into the hands of the terrorists identifying themselves as the face of Islam in conflict with a Christian nation. It's as if the boy Bush only got a glimps of the kid who sucker punched him, but he did see the kid wore a green ball cap. Now Bush is the impatient bully pushing around anyone with a green ball cap accusing them of having hit him. Shouldn't our goal be to get the ones in green ball caps to help us find the one who hit us, rather than starting a fight with the billion in green ball caps. Encouraging Americans to become torturers is an example of the Bush administration's consistently playing into the hands of the terrorists, unwilling to sacrifice and all supporting the terrorists aims to make this conflict about a Christian nation versus a billion Moslems.
September 14, 2006 5:33 PM | Report Offensive Comments
BobL:
I know the feeling. That is the price that we, Independents, pay for, well, independence and non-affiliation!
September 14, 2006 5:29 PM | Report Offensive Comments
I just had a thought - who are better than the soldiers and other personnel, who live and fight on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere to ask for opinions on these conditions. The problem may be the fear of retribution from authorities. Perhaps, they can do it anonymously. We can ask the Washington Post and others to host an online Town Hall Meeting. It is indeed easy for me to sit here and argue, coax, cajole, second-guess, and play armchair policymaker, till I turn blue in the face. Nothing beats the experience borne out of the "trenches."
We can also ask a few of the former generals from DoD and such persons as John McCain to particpate and weigh in on this Abu Gharib situation.
I am afraid that I am getting ahead of myself, here. Heck, what do I have to lose? Talk is cheap! What do you guys think?
SR.
September 14, 2006 5:18 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Cayambe from CA-
Thank you and while I would consider myself an independent (how's that for a cop out?) my republican friends think I'm a commie and my liberal friends think I'm John Birch.
September 14, 2006 5:03 PM | Report Offensive Comments
MikeB:
We are all immensely proud of your son (not to mention you), as Thom stated. I can only just begin to understand the mental anguish and trauma you, and many others like you, are going though. Proud moments like these will help spread goodwill and our (the vast majority of us) true feelings toward Humanity.
Best,
SR.
September 14, 2006 4:13 PM | Report Offensive Comments
We all are, MikeB.
September 14, 2006 3:48 PM | Report Offensive Comments
His name is Jordan. He is the most decent human being I have ever had the privilege of knowing and is the best thing I ever did. God be with him.
September 14, 2006 3:45 PM | Report Offensive Comments
BobL-VA -
If you look at the front page photo on CNN's web site right NOW, the medic helping the woundd soldier is my youngest son. God, I'm proud of him...and frightened for him.
September 14, 2006 3:36 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Thom, Washington, D. C., USA:
I hear what you are saying. However, Kamikazes are unique in the sense that we could easily idenity those devils. Islamic fundamentalists and terrrorists (for that matter, terrorists of any religion) are very difficult to identify. You see, we could "relatively easily" eradicate identifiable, known terrorists. Unfortunately, modern-day terrorists are guerrillas (asymmetric warriors) and do exist and blend in right in the middle of us. We cannot readily distinguish them from the innocents by facial features, color of the skin, or even religious affiliations. (John Walker Lindh, Ryan Anderson, Richard Reid, the Californian, whose name I cannot recall right now, and countless others are perfect examples.)
BobL:
I agree with your comments. MikeB, I also (as do - I am sure - many other posters) pray that your son comes back home soon safely.
General:
You may want to read the following article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
Mideast Peril
Growing Concern: Terrorist Havens In 'Failed States'
Instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon Raise Risk That U.S. Seeks to Address
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115811276948461524.html
September 14, 2006 3:24 PM | Report Offensive Comments
BobL-VA,
Stupid jokes and stupid wars. That was a really good assessment you provided and I agree with it. I'm so pleased you also addressed the question of what our military is good at and what it is not good at. One of these days we need to bring our foreign policy into line with what our military can support.
Finally, I can't tell if you are a Democrat or a Republican. I like that.
September 14, 2006 3:14 PM | Report Offensive Comments
The Bush administration is not the right group of people to tackle terrorism head-on. Wiretapping and listening in on Americans is laughable. After 911 and bin Laden's escape in Tora Bora, do you think the terrorists will use their cell phones and faxes again? Torturing the captured terrorists will not help either. Each one does not have the full "picture" of what AlQaeda is planning as if AlQaeda has a Pentagon! We Americans should accept that we have enemies ( we should know who they are in order for us to win. 1st rule of war: Know the enemy. So far, Bush has conflated all varieties of enemies. 5 years after 911, Bush & cohorts are whirling about across the world dropping bombs. Are we winning yet?
September 14, 2006 2:46 PM | Report Offensive Comments
MikeB-
Eventhough we are limited to I believe 1.3 million military personnel we are still a very potent force. However, as you noted, this force isn't sufficient to take on the likes of China, but it wasn't designed to. In order to do that we'd have to go back to the draft and it would take a couple of years to put enough troops and equipment in the field to compete with several countries on this planet. Are we capable of it? Sure we are. Do we want to do it? I sincerely hope not.
However, my main point really centered around the ill-advised use of our military in occupations. Forget for a second what the underlying reasons for military intervention are. Whether justified or not our forces aren't designed to become involved in guerrilla/terrorist style operations over long periods of time. We don't have the capabilities or the current manpower to engage in these types of conflicts. Somewhere along the line our leaders have thought because we can kick butt that this ought to translate into being a good occupational force. Conventional war is one think. Occupational forces are entirely different. I'd argue no country does occupation well on hostile soil anymore.
Generally, if something arises to the level of needing military force to be used it should be done only when we can get in and then get out. Staying around is what causes us trouble every time.
Iraq just happens to be the worst of the worst.
1. We had no legitimate reason to invade Iraq
2. We had no contingency plans what to do with it once we invaded
3. We had no contingency plans on how to get out
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/Rove et al simply put have screwed up Iraq and the Middle East about as badly as is humanly possible. They've managed to destablize the region, start a civil war, needlessly kill and injure hundreds of thousands of people and give most of the planet a reason to think we're a bunch of hypocrites.
While most wars are rather stupid this conflict rises to the level of ludicrous. There was a joke about the Iraq war a few years back that went like this:
Bush and Rumsfield are sitting in a DC restaurant talking about their plans to invade Iraq. Rumsfield tells Bush about 1 million Iraqis will die. Bush looks back at Rumsfield and tells him 1 million Iraqis and 1 beautiful blonde woman will die. A person at the next table over hears this and asks the president why a blonde must die. The president slaps Rumsfield on the shoulder an says, "See, I told you no one cared about the Iraqis."
It's a stupid joke, but then again it's been a stupid war.
Hope your son comes home soon and safe.
September 14, 2006 2:43 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Torturing a captured enemy is really a sign of weakness by the torturer. What 911 and Bin Laden have proven is that America, despite its long tradition of truth & justice, can be "reduced" to the lowest common denominator of a terrorist. For over 200 years, America talked up a good propaganda as the beacon of freedom. Even when slavery was being practiced, people in other countries still believed in America's goodness. 911 was the true test of whether America will hold true to its ideals. Obviously, America is failing - we do not have leaders like Eisenhower who faced the worst of the worst, leaders who have maturity and good judgement, leaders like FDR who was not afraid. AlQaeda and its threats of relentless terrorism is nothing but a fly, a mere miniscule entity elevated to the highest order by Bush. What a sad pathetic turn for America.
September 14, 2006 2:38 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Bringing up the Kamikaze is a good thing. They are an example of completely dedicated people willing to kill themselves for their beleifs. Americans found this to be as foreign to out values as anything we had ever seen.
Yet, fifty years later, with the intervention and good-will of the American people the ideal has been utterly eradicated from Japanese society.
If you don't see the parallel with what is going on now, you're either too young, or just don't want to see it.
September 14, 2006 2:29 PM | Report Offensive Comments
MikeB:
Your comments (typos, immigration, and all) go for me, too! We want only the best, brightest, and the most dedicated to human values. (Bear in mind that I did not the "Western" values.) You may want to read today's issue of The Wall Street Journal, where in there is article on qualified "illegal" immigrants, such as Dan-el Padilla Peralta (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115819403186062558.html?mod=hps_us_editors_picks).
Harry Lee:
It was Harry Truman who dropped the dreade "bombs," thereby effectively starting a nuclear arms. (Although, FDR initiated the Manhattan Project.) One must also keep in mind that many of the pioneers forewarned us about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, those (Kamikaze) days were vastly different. However, we must be prepared to use violence, if necessary. Our foreign policies NEED TO CHANGE, first.
September 14, 2006 2:22 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Uh, Roosevelt dropped the Bombs? Tough to do from a grave.
September 14, 2006 1:54 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Srikanth Raghunathan - I apologize. I don't type and make lots of mistakes, which sometimes makes my posts just plain unreadable. If there was a spell checker on these things I could use that to correct most of the typo's, but there isn't... At least you get the idea of what I am referring to in the posts, though.
It seems to me that our "leaders" and corporate types haven't thought out the long term ramifications of a lot of their actions. Hence, Iraq, our trade policies, guest worker programs, and a lot more. I am NOT opposed to immigration. I simply ONLY want immigrants who are determined to become U.S. citizens and I want them in numbers that we can handle without sinking our economy or putting millions of "already-Citizens" out of work.
September 14, 2006 1:54 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Frankly, President Roosevelt have faced down suicidal enemies of US in the past and effectively overcame these fanatical enemies in the form of Kamikaze pilots, submariners and the defenders of the Marianna Islands right up to Okinawa. When considering the risks involved in the invasion of the Japanese mainland, the Democrat President and his military advisors were concerned about likely tremendous casualty rates for Allied invasiuon forces in light of the Japanese last line defenders and their suicidal tendencies. Finally, the ALlied conmmanders agreed to deploy nukes against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which essentially ended WWII. A valuable lesson to be learned here no less.
It's high time we started fighting this war as ruthlessly as our enemies to ensure victory. We'll worry about retaliations "as a result of root causes" (i.e. Miss Meir's worn-out apologist argument on behalf of terrorists and those with leftists'agendas, most democrats a.k.a. Always Blame-America-1st and Code Pink types), negative world opinions and condemnations ..and UN objections when the time comes, not as if they mattered anyway. Let's Roll?
September 14, 2006 1:48 PM | Report Offensive Comments
MikeB:
Thanks for the information. You donot have to "expand" all punctuation marks in a website address. You may also want to check out the FBI's counterintelligence website at this link (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/ci/cases.htm).
Sorry for the digression.
September 14, 2006 1:18 PM | Report Offensive Comments
This exactly what the terrorists envisioned: an American government that stoops down to their level rather than the beacon of morality and justice that they once hated us for. Now the rest of the world view our behavior in the similar light as that of the terrorists. Evidence from torture is inherently unreliable! That is not the "One Country Under God" I love and admire. Our actions should be different from those we label as barbarians - if you look at Abu Garaib and Guantanmo - as well as the renditions with torture, no - these were not perpertrated by the sick terrorists, but by our government's policies - we are better than that so STOP IT!!!!
September 14, 2006 12:56 PM | Report Offensive Comments
BobL - "...United States, without any doubt, has the military power to defeat any known enemy in a conventional war..." Unfortunately, no longer true. We have so over-extended our military and supply lines that we would loose a conventional war with China or Russia for a certainty and most analysts think we couldn't even stand up to North Korea. This Whitehouse amatures and their treasonous corporate allies have ill equipped our soldiers, sold our weapons technologies, and placed business profits above troop safety and U.S. security, and the political goverance and daily meddling by the Whitehouse have demoralized our troops, to the extent where we could not take on an enemy on anything like equal terms. If North Korea attacked the South or if China invaded Taiwan, there isn't one thing we could do about it, evern if we went nuclear. If we were so stupid as to attack Iran right now, we would loose virtually all of our troops in the Middle East and you could count on the fall of every country surround it AND the total loss of oil to us and Europe.
I know you think this is just fuzzy liberal thinking and most right wingers will claim that it is wishful thinking, as if I am hoping for this. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I HAVE a son in Iraq right this minute and he would be one of those immediate casulties AND I love this country. I and most analysts (read Janes Defence) think that the Bush Whitehouse has crippled this country's defence capabilities. If it weren't so staggeringly dangerous, it would be ironic, that the breast beating patriotic neocons and Republican's have done more jeapardize this country than any enemy this country has ever faced. And, sad to say, one mistep is going to bring us down like a house made of wet cardboard. Left to his own devices, I fully expect George Bush to make that mistep. The November elections are literally about the survival of this country and the very lives of those brainless and hysterical soccer moms and NASCAR dads who vote for the Republican's. A Republican vote this time around is literally an act of suicide.
September 14, 2006 12:11 PM | Report Offensive Comments
It will not probably expose anyone to more danger. And I believe torture can be effective for some goals.
Just don't call it justice. It has same relation to justice as Spanish Inquisition. And history already gave it's judgment about the last one.
September 14, 2006 11:57 AM | Report Offensive Comments
The United States, without any doubt, has the military power to defeat any known enemy in a conventional war. On two separate occassions we went through Saddam's forces like a hot knife through butter. We're extremely proficient using overwhelming force (Shock and Awe) against second and third rate armies who don't have the weapon systems, training, supplies, intelligence data and command and communication systems we have.
What we don't do well is occupy other nations. We did a poor job of it in Vietnam and we've done a poor job of it in Iraq. Just because we have awesome military power doesn't mean we're equipped to occupy other countries. The "enemy" no longer fights a conventional war. They build tunnels, they engage in suicide bombings. They engage in "terror." We are totally unprepared and inept in dealing with this type of warfare that comes with occupation. GW has made the same mistake JFK, LBJ & RMN made with Vietnam. Indigenous peoples with their own cultures and religions aren't interested in our telling them how they should live and trying to force the issue with occupation.
Our inability to impose our will through occupation leads to frustration. Frustration leads to those in power to try desperate and sometimes stupid things. Frustration leads the majority of Americans to get sick and tired of the conflict. Lindsay Beyerstein in a post above detailed why torture and secret military tribunals are counterproductive. What Lindsay didn't say is no amount of torture or secret tribunals is going to change the outcome in Iraq or the murky war on terror. That outcome has already been determined by seriously flawed and arrogant foreign policy. This is not a fight we should be engaged in.
September 14, 2006 10:09 AM | Report Offensive Comments
It is part of the administration myopia to call for the rules of war and the Geneva conventions when events menace other nations. As revealed, these same mouthings do not apply to American conduct. Rather, the administration considers expedience above everything when its heels are hung to the fire, and it behaves like all those fascist stereo-types my generation was programmed to hate (with good reason) from the old black and white movies of the 1940s.
September 14, 2006 10:06 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Bush's proposed legislation is a threat to our national security. If Congress passes this legislation, it will send a very dangerous message: The US flouts international law, embraces torture, and rejects due process.
American troops will be among the first to suffer. Proponents of torture dismiss this concern, arguing that the terrorists aren't signatories to the Geneva Convention. This is a dangerously short-sighted attitude. Our adversaries will be less likely to surrender on the battlefield if the US rescinds any assurance of humane treatment or due process. Therefore, more US troops will be killed fighting adversaries who would otherwise have surrendered peacefully.
Torture also creates popular sympathy for terrorists. The United States bills itself as a paragon of democracy and human rights, but the pictures from Abu Ghraib told a very different story.
How many torture victims will go on to become torturers, or even terrorists? Surely, many of apolitical detainees who were tortured at Abu Ghraib joined the insurgency because they were tortured? How many more terrorists will be created by the CIA in the "long war" ahead?
On a practical level, if the US wants to torture suspects, other intelligence agencies will hesitate to cooperate with us. Apparently, Condoleeza Rice clashed with Dick Cheney over the CIA's secret prison program because she realized that the program was undermining security by alienating our allies.
Other countries don't look kindly on the US for kidnapping and torturing their citizens. Extraordinary rendition and torture have already strained relations between US and its allies.
If these suspects were proven guilty of heinous crimes, then our allies might be sympathetic and even grateful to the US for locking them up at Guantanamo in the name of international security.
However, Bush's plan would also deny terror suspects any semblance of due process. These secret military tribunals wouldn't even allow the accused to see the evidence against him. Evidence obtained under torture could also be used against him. Presumably, a suspect could be tortured into confessing terror ties and executed for those confessions. Such a spectacle recalls the Spanish Inquisition and the Stalinist show trials. Saddam Hussein also liked to execute people for what they confessed under torture.
The president is demanding the right to try suspects in secret and execute them at his personal discretion. Given Bush's zeal for executions as governor of Texas, this is a truly frightening possibility.
Without real trials, the world has no assurance that these people are guilty of anything. We are being asked to trust that the president is just, benign, and well-informed. Yet, this is the same president who flouts treaty obligations and champions torture. The civilized world would rightly regard such a leader as a despot.
If this legislation passes, the global war on terror could cease to be global. In the grand scheme of things a few extra confessions from squalid cells in secret prisons are worthless compared to the respect and cooperation of our allies.
September 13, 2006 8:07 PM | Report Offensive Comments
try www -dot- cicentre -dot com and check under "espionage"
www -dot - freerepublic -dot- com slash focus slash f-news slash 1511147 slash posts
is one of several stories about the Indian engineers stealing and selling the plans, not just for the B2 bomber, but **ALL** of our current steralth technology.
"Posted on 10/27/2005 6:43:10 PM PDT, AP
HONOLULU - An engineer who calls himself the father of the technology that protects the B-2 stealth bomber from heat-seeking missiles has been arrested and accused of selling U.S. military secrets involving the aircraft to a foreign country, the FBI said. Noshir S. Gowadia, 61, of Haiku was arrested Wednesday.
According to the FBI, Gowadia faxed a document detailing infrared technology classified top secret by the Air Force to a foreign official. He also provided classified information to two other countries, the FBI said.
The government would not identify the countries or disclose how much he allegedly received.
Gowadia was an engineer with Northrop Grumman Corp. from 1968 to 1986 and had helped design parts of the B-2's propulsion system that make the bomber difficult to be seen by enemy missiles. The technology remains highly classified.
He was jailed without bail on a charge of willfully communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison."
Similar searches for the Iranian underwater missile will turn up another Indian firm. Ditto for nuclear weapons technologies and Indian and Brazil, Argentina and North Korea. In fact, the missile feul plant in Saddam's Iraq that was found was built and manned by Indian workers.
It was not immediately known whether he had a lawyer.
According to state records, Gowadia and his wife own an engineering and consulting company
September 13, 2006 8:07 PM | Report Offensive Comments
MikeB:
I cannot seem to find the links. Could you kindly provide me with the links (within the the body of your comments)? Thanks!
Srikanth Raghunathan.
Mary, Evansville, IN:
Sorry for mistyping your state abbreviation.
September 13, 2006 7:50 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Here is a thought. What if it was your child that was about to die unless you could get this scumbag in front of you to talk? Torture may be unreliable but in the absence of anything coming out of his mouth without torture I'd grab the plyers and get to work.
September 13, 2006 7:32 PM | Report Offensive Comments
This is called "Defusing The Ticking Bomb" and is an essay in process.
I am the Education & Development Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). PO BOX 4634, Jerusalem 91046 Israel.www.stoptorture.org.il
Introduction
Even after the important High Court of Justice (HCJ) ruling in 1999 , torture still exists in Israel and it is most often used within the context of the employment of what is known as the ìdefense of necessity.î The extent to which the Court actually banned the use of torture is debatable. The Court did not equate the methods used by Israelís General Security Service (GSS) with torture. Furthermore, the Court discussed in depth the issue of necessity as a defense in the event that a GSS agent may be prosecuted following an interrogation related prosecution. The Stateís argument in the case (paragraph 33 of the decision) is that it can use the necessity defense as a means to imply the authorization, a priori, of the use of force ìin order to prevent serious harm to human life or limbî that is, in the case of a ìticking bombî. The State also raised this argument but would not limit using force to preventing catastrophic consequences. The Court held in paragraph 40 that:
ÖWe declare that the ìnecessityî defense, found in the Penal Law, cannot serve as a basis of authority for the use of these interrogation practices, or for the existence of directives pertaining to GSS investigators, allowing them to employ interrogation practices of this kind. Our decision does not negate the possibility that the ìnecessityî defense be available to GSS investigators, be within the discretion of the Attorney General, if he decides to prosecute, or if criminal charges are brought against them, as per the Courtís discretion.
However, when the Court examined the matter of the ticking bomb scenario (that is, a situation in which there is an imminent threat to human life (usually) on a large scale and, according to the scenario, that torture is the only way to get information to neutralize the threat and save lives) it recognized that necessity defense claims might be appropriately applied.
We are prepared to assume that ñ although this matter is open to debateÖThe ìnecessityî exception is likely to arise in instances of ìticking time bombsî, and that the immediate need (ìnecessary in an immediate mannerî for the preservation of human life) refers to the imminent nature of the act rather than that of the danger. Hence, the imminence criteria is satisfied even if the bomb is set to explode in a few days, or perhaps even after a few weeks (Paragraph 34).
The Court, in the above-cited paragraph, did recognize the contentious nature of the scenario but its treatment of the matter seems to tolerate the potential use of torture. The Court, though is careful to note that it does not need to decide this matter in order to come to its ruling. It is possible then to understand the Courtís ruling in this manner: The Court correctly maps the position of international law, that torture and cruel and inhuman treatment is absolutely prohibited. However, the Court did not actually equate Israelís interrogation methods with ìtortureî (in ruling that the methods are illegal forms ñ see paragraphs 9-13 for a treatment of the methods ñ of interrogation) and it recognizes that there may be circumstances in which an agent of the State theoretically being prosecuted for committing torture may employ the necessity defense. Additionally the Attorney General (the authority responsible for determining whether or not to prosecute) can determine that a case of necessity was presented and that prosecution is unwarranted. Further, in the event of a ìticking bombî scenario it seems to be that the Court accepts that it is certainly arguable that necessity could be used as a defense in such a matter.
This leads us into a brief examination of the Ticking bomb scenario. PCATI has seen indications that the GSS has predetermined in certain cases that they are dealing with a ìticking bombî scenario and that they will therefore use force in the course of the interrogation. There is, of course, little documentation made public by the GSS of such instances, although PCATI has come into possession of or been able to view such texts on a very limited number of occasions. But the critical matter at hand is not the determination of the individualís status as a ticking bomb but whether or not that justifies torture. In short, it should not.
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
Furthermore the notion of accepting the ticking bomb scenario as a given reality that can, under certain circumstances, justify the use of torture by a democratic regime is quite problematic:
ìÖThe liberal ideology of torture, which assumes that torture can be neatly confined to exceptional ticking-bomb cases and surgically severed from cruelty and tyranny, represents a dangerous delusion.î
Torture is absolutely prohibited precisely because it presents an abuse that is so abhorrent that it threatens the fabric of a society. Luban argues that even the presentation of the ticking bomb scenario is an effort to get those who are absolute prohibitionists to give in on one small point. Then, if it is possible to get him to accede to the use of torture he no longer possesses a morally superior position. His implication is that the ticking bomb scenario is an intellectual manipulation and, in his discussion, it leads to totally unacceptable scenarios regarding the devolution of society. Further he argues that the scenario is reduced to an exception or a one time only scenario. Reality is that interrogations are not based on case-by-case thinking, but rather by policy. That is, if torture is to be used under such circumstances it has already wound its way into the fabric of the practice of interrogations. Perhaps this is describes the situation in Israel, explaining how on the one hand Israel makes asserts its democratic nature, but, at the same time continues to use torture.
Be this as it may, the question remains: if there is a chance of saving many lives by using torture why not use it? There are a number of sources treating this question. Suffice it to say that one must determine oneís moral stance and oneís vision of a just society. A particular stream of this discourse has expressed suggestions for setting up a system of supervised torture, under a warrant regime. This would, in effect legalize the illegal validate the invalid. Michael Ignatieff wrote:
[Professor] Dershowitz's ideas suggest that it is possible to bring the rule of law into the interrogation room, but as an exercise in the lesser evil, it is likely to lead to the greater. Once you allow warrants for genuine ''ticking bomb'' cases — situations in which torture can prevent an imminent calamity from occurring — little by little, torture may be used when there is no immediate danger. There has never been any certainty, moreover, that information extracted by torture is more reliable than information coaxed out of a suspect by persuasive means. Why should we suppose that pain produces truth? And how can we forget what everyone who has ever been tortured always tells us: those who are tortured stay tortured forever. If you want to create terrorists, torture is a pretty sure way to do so.
Even if one could argue as Dershowitz wrote, "Everybody says they're opposed to torture. But everyone would do it personally if they knew it could save the life of a kidnapped child who had only two hours of oxygen left before death. And it would be the right thing to do." William J. Aceves, a professor of international law writes that the ticking bomb scenario ìfalls apart upon careful scrutinyÖ it assumes that torture will be effective in gaining access to the critical information. In fact, however, torture is notoriously unreliable.î Torture has a tendency to not work, to illicit false information. Further, although Dershowitz reasoning might lead one to believe that there is an efficacy in the use of torture the opposite seems to be true.
There is no demonstrable and convincing evidence that degradation, humiliation and other HCI [highly coercive interrogation, LF] techniques will produce truth more effectively and quickly than equally or potentially more persuasive methods of skilled interrogators that are not degrading or humiliating.
To be fair, Dershowitz asserts his opposition to torture. He writes, ìI am against torture as a normative matter, and I would like to see its use minimized.î But since he knows that torture (ìmoderate forms of non lethal tortureî) is being used by the US and other states he would like to see the practice brought under judicial management. The process would involve requesting a warrant, which would take the decision making power out of the hands of a field officer under intense pressure and place it in the hands of a reasoned jurist, comparable to the process of requiring a police officer to obtain judicial approval (a search warrant) to conduct a search. His opinion is that this regulation of an otherwise objectionable act would reduce its use and remove it from the realm of being extra-legal to being legal, supervised and limited. He has many critics, most of whom he cites in his ongoing discourse on the issue. Many of them are of the opinion that if you regulate and allow torture in one case the danger of applying it on a wider scale or in using the same reasoning to apply warrants to other instances of potential official violence magnifies.
In my opinion the problem with Dershowitzís argument is two-fold. First, the warrant process, (upon which Dershowitz bases his legal analysis), demands that a warrant be obtained in accordance with the protections found in the United States Constitution. The Fourth Amendment states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is clear that the amendment recognized a right/protection that can be violated only under very particular circumstances. These circumstances are obviously limited to law enforcement and prosecution and are intended to be strictly scrutinized. The point is that the Constitution does not seem to offer the possibility to exercise the warrant option in order to infringe on a right in matters in which the Constitution would otherwise absolutely prohibit such an infringement. Even the (obviously mistaken) understanding in many United States Jurisdictions that the Death Penalty is not ìcruel and unusualî (see the Eighth Amendment) is being challenged, with even the conservative Supreme Court outlawing the death penalty in an increasing number of cases. So, in many ways the application of a warrant system for using torture is a jurisprudential step backwards in any state that calls itself enlightened and democratic, especially the United States, and in turn Israel. United States jurisprudence has advanced in many respects (although, in practice, the United States has some distance to travel in terms of satisfactorily achieving equality and social justice). So, the institutionalization and legalization of torture would be a significant setback.
On another matter, Professor Dershowitzís reasoning regarding the use of torture is such that he assumes that reasonable people would approve of its use to save lives in the face of imminent danger. He used the case of a kidnapped child running out of oxygen and, as we saw above, the ticking time bomb situation, in which the persons being tortured are evil criminals or terrorists. But if we follow his reasoning, that torture could be used, should be used and probably is being used to protect innocent life threatened by imminent danger of mass death and destruction (by terrorists) where would that leave us in other situations: The imminent release of releasing deadly toxins into a public drinking water source by a factory owner; the cases of Love Canal or Bhopal; life threatening defective products being sold to the public. In such cases it is arguable that those responsible for such disasters and potential disasters may have had prior knowledge of the situation and of its danger yet refused to inform the public. Would Professor Dershowitz allow judicially regulated physical coercion to be used in cases in which the authorities have reason to believe that corporate executives have such information but refuse to reveal it? These are important issues that should be addressed. The critical point is that the danger is clearly present that once you authorize torture, even under judicial supervision, it will surely be expanded in its use and abuse.
Thus, while there are a variety of arguments regarding torture and the ticking bomb, my conclusion is that the risks and the abject harm to the body and soul of the individual victim, the corruption of the perpetrator and of society do not justify approaching the risks inherent in giving torture a legal, moral or ethical stamp of approval, under any circumstances.
September 13, 2006 6:59 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Oops, one last note...that Indian Engineer was originally here on an H1-B visa but had achieved permanent resident status by the time her was arrested. And, for your nightmares all, he SUCCESSFULLY sold those plans. Another Indian engineer stole and sold the plans for an underwater missile system recently tested by the Iranian's. Just wonderful!
September 13, 2006 6:31 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Mary, sorry, I tried to post links to wen sites but (perhaps wisely) the moderators blocked that. I would refer you to the web. A good report by the House panel on immigration is entitled "SOURCES AND METHODS OF FOREIGN NATIONALS ENGAGED IN ECONOMIC AND MILITARY ESPIONAGE". Likewise, you can look up the FBI stats on their web site. ANother excellent source is the Counterintelligence Centre, a government clearhouse for espionage news, in Canada.
One really wonderful story (please look it up) is of an Indian engineer who stole the plans for the B2 bomber just last year - lock, stock and barrel - and was arrrested by the FBI. His contacts in India are still free, beyond the reach of U.S. law.
September 13, 2006 6:27 PM | Report Offensive Comments
I am amazed that your preface states that military commissions would violate prisoners Geneva Convention rights. I believe that is untrue from my readings of the Geneva Convention. I also believe that our moderators have dishonestly poisoned this discussion from the very outset, with that statement.
If you want discussion, ask for discussion. If you are only providing an infomercial for your side of the argument, that is dishonest of you.
September 13, 2006 5:57 PM | Report Offensive Comments