God, how I hate this war.
Even though I still believe that it was right decision to liberate Iraq. Even though I still support the reconstruction efforts going on in that tragic, bloody, terrorist infested, miserable strip of land where the killing goes on and on. And even though I still support the President and his announced policy of bringing democracy to Iraq in the belief that the autocratic and dictatorial regimes elsewhere in the Middle East will come crashing down as ordinary people realize that ultimate power rests in their hands.
After saying all of that, I now believe it’s time to bring to account those who through their brutish and beastial treatment of prisoners, have besmirched the name and reputation of the United States and brought shame and ignominy to their comrades in arms and their fellow citizens.
This piece in the Washington Post, based on eyewitness accounts, classified documents, and interviews with investigators, paints a picture so at odds with what America should stand for – even in a brutal war for survival – that it should give all of us who still support this war and its objectives pause to reflect on a fundamental question: Is this really what we want our soldiers doing in our names to protect us?
Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.
What this article makes crystal clear is that these methods of interrogation are not the product of the sick imaginings of a few sadistic soldiers. They did not spring into being in a vacuum. What the reports make unambiguously clear is that the soldiers believed the interrogation techniques were approved – approved at the highest levels in their chain of command.
The implications of this are too horrible to contemplate. It means that these are not the “isolated incidents” that I and most others who have been defending our detention policies over these many months have been excusing. It also means that there have been deliberate and systematic violations of both US law and the Geneva Conventions in the interrogations of prisoners.
And it means that those responsible for these policies must be brought to justice. Not just the perpetrators of the torture, but those who formulated and approved whatever guidelines the soldiers were using to justify these barbarous and unholy acts.
No matter where it leads. No matter who is involved. Justice must be done in order to restore some honor to the good name of the United States and its military. To do less dishonors the memory of those who have already died in this war as well as all those who we ask to put their lives on the line in order to protect us.
My own role as an enabler of this behavior has been unconscionable. By turning a blind eye to previous intimations of this organized and approved assault on simple human decency, I have, in a small but significant way, empowered those who have cynically used my support for the war and the President’s policies to literally get away with murder.
No longer. I am not going to give the benefit of doubt to an out of control interrogation process that treats human beings – even terrorists – as beasts to be beaten and murdered and pass it off as national policy. I didn’t sign on for that. I’m sure you didn’t either.
It’s one thing to be hard in war. It’s one thing to be pitiless in the prosecution of it. But its quite another thing to violate all tenets of civilized behavior in acheiving your objectives. Even in war, the ends cannot justify the means. If you believe that it does, then ask yourself what kind of country you will have at the end of it? Will it be the kind of country you can live in with pride? Or will history itself remember us with scorn and derision for abandoning the very principals we were fighting to protect.
There may be extreme circumstances where torture is justified. This incident wasn’t one of them. And if, as I now believe, these violations occur routinely and as part of a sanctioned interrogation process, then it is past time for a thorough, impartial, and independent investigation of the facilities where we house the prisoners, the soldiers and intelligence agents who carry out the questioning of detainees, and the interrogation policies and procedures formulated by the military and civilian elements in our government.
If the only way to make such an investigative body truly independent would be to allow international representation then reluctantly, I would have to agree with that stipulation. What’s at stake here is the very soul of America and in a larger sense, the values for which we in the west are fighting to preserve. And while I doubt such a body could remain above the political fray given the explosive nature of the subject matter and the division in our national polity, it must nevertheless go forward. Let the American people and indeed, the rest of the world decide who is playing politics and who is seeking the truth.
John Cole, who has been out front on this issue since reports of the torture and mistreatment of prisoners first began to surface, sums up the problems:
I really want to believe that this is just a few rogue soldiers in all of these cases, but the evidence keeps pointing back to approved interrogation techniques (and in fairness, much of this went well beyond approved methods), a sense of ‘anything goes’ because of the muddled legal status of the detainees, a general disregard in the chain of command, a chain of evidence linking policies to different detainment centers, willing participation by clandestine services working in concert** with military intelligence officers and being given free reign with prisoners and junior level enlisted men, and it stinks. It smells like institutional rot, and at the very least a pattern of negligence and callous disregard, something even the military appears willing to admit.
I’m forced to agree with Mr. Cole that what we’re looking at is nothing less than an institutional problem in the military. I cannot believe that all of these soldiers and CIA agents are members of some sadistic cult. They simply must be enabled by a culture that either approves of these methods or turns a blind eye during the practice of them. Either way, it’s high time we tear the whole rotten system down and put something else in its place. Anything – even turning the detainees over to civilian control – would be preferrable to this canker on the body politic that, if it continues to fester, will prevent us from winning this war and at the same time, inure us as a people to the brutality practiced by our sons and daughters in our name.
UPDATE
Attention trolls: I have an extremely thin skin on this issue. Any personal attacks, any off topic comments, any gloating, anything that I don’t much care for will be deleted and the commenter banned. You can disagree with what I’ve written. If you can’t do it in a civil manner, don’t bother to comment.
It’s my blog. If you disagree with this policy. Get your own damn site.
8:11 am
Rick,
Before you sell short the US Military and intelligence services, let’s put the whole operation into perspective. Military conventions were designed for large armies to accept surrender and cease hostilities. They gave assurances that the surrendering military would be given quarter and humane treatment. Saddam’s regime organized, trained, financed the insurgency we are fighting. To receive the protection of the conventions, it is the obligation of the regime elements to cease operations, surrender. They have chosen to continue, thus they are illegal combatants. While I agree that some of the methods should be reviewed, you cite 2003, and probably have been, I don’t equate a moral equivalence of free people attempting to cease senseless slaughter of civilians and US military personnel as being in conflict with our high standards of decency. We aren’t the reason for the continued violence, the people we capture are, they deserve neither quarter or respect. Howe had plenty of opportunities to crush the Continental Army, but he chose a more civil course of action for the humanity of the Empire.
10:04 am
Rick,
I have a healthy respect for your opinions and you make a compelling arguement here, but I believe the supporters of all the Presidents policies thus far maybe be getting tunnel vision here. In part I believe it is because we are continuously bombarded with how immoral and evil our interrogators are becoming. I do believe that we need well defined guidelines of interrogation that are very explicit, “Army proof” if you will. Now that all being said, let me say my piece. One of my jobs I trained for while in the military would have be to guard these prisoners. It upsets me to no end to here comparisons of my bothers in arms to the Nazis or the Russian gulag. While there are a few that would and will always push their sadistic ways on those they feel they have power over, but there are far more who would not. To simply say this has run rampant throughout the system would be to say we have all lost our integrity. Integrity is the virtue that is stressed the most and what most of us took pride in. So you really have to ask yourself this question, how is it that we have to come to learn of these incidents to begin with? I say it is because of the integrity of those directly or indirectly involved. Secondly, although asked but never really investigated, what do the people who give out this information have to gain from this exposure? As you have pointed out previously there is another war going on here. Elements of the government vs. the administration. Let’s face it, if there really was a cover up within the military this kind of stuff would not see the light of day. The fact that we are hearing about it implies there is internal investigations going on to punish offenders and curb further offenses. Also, doesn’t it seem odd that most of this reports are from a few years ago, I would rather here about what we are doing today to ensure these kinds of things are not still going on. Ultimatley that is what has to be answered. If the administration would get off their butts and answer what is being done today there probably would not be wavering support from people like yourself.
11:09 am
Dalton,
Sovereignty is he who maintains the most lethal force. Any government where that is not the people is illegitimate. The insurgents use violence similar to the previous regime. Your sexual filth is adolescent. My best friend is Muslim, but he has a better understanding of you than I. He had to leave Uganda because he wasn’t black enough to survive your idea of a sovereign government.
11:52 am
Rick: caution is urged when considering material from WAPO. Their reliability is not perfect. WAPO has joined NYT in abolishing the distinction between the editorial page and the front page.
You may count on this: the WAPO will put the worst possible light on what they find. And if what they find is not bad enough, they will embellish it (edit it) so that it comes out worse.
What eyewitness accounts? What eyewitnesses? Interviews with what interrogators? What classified documents, and how did they obtain access to classified documents?
And as was the case with Sen. Durbin, I ask (not as a joke) how this compares with Cook County, IL?
Too many previous WAPO reports have turned out to be specious.
Just look at the Karl Rove fiasco, where Robert Novak claimed he used Who’s Who to get his supposedly classified information.
Do not be too quick to come to a conclusion. As was the case with Joe Wilson, wait until the other shoe drops.
1:45 pm
The ‘outrages’ [which Rick originally was spun up about] were likely committed by the ‘allied Iraqi or indigenous personnel’ who are allowed temporary access to prisoners and captured. In other words, US uniformed personnel are not generally involved in the use of so-called ‘torture’ & beating.
We, the general populace, must avoid being too scrupulous in our attitudes. These ‘illegal combatants’ will not reciprocate humane treatment by the US to any ‘crusader infidels’ who fall under THEIR control or gunsites. They generally deserve the treatment they are receiving and are fortunate they are not treated as THEY would treat captured ‘infidels’.
gluck, peterNaCl
1:55 pm
Like you, I think this war was the right policy. I voted for Bush and knowing what I know today, I would vote for him again. Nevertheless it has been apparent to me for a long time that the ongoing pattern of harsh, inhumane treatment of prisoners is the result of deliberate policy that originates at a high level within the administration, probably from the president himself.
Like most people, I have no experience as an interrogator. Therefore I have no idea whether inhumane techniques are effective. But I do know that at best, they are a tradeoff. Even if these techniques succeed at extracting useful information, they do it at a cost. The cost is moral corrosion of our country’s soul and damage to our country’s reputation.
3:49 pm
“Iraq is a disaster, our country’s name is a disaster, the president’s credibility is a disaster. What else to you need to understand that it was wrong to invade Iraq?”
How is this not post-hoc reasoning? Many people, including people in the media would like to make failure in Iraq a self-fulfilling prophesy. That said, the legitimacy of the invasion has NOTHING to do with the treatment of illegal combatants (unless of course you believe that America is inherintly bad). Why many have taken this sort of “we are treating combatants awfully, therefore the invasion is not justified” argument can only be attributed to moral relativism. I can go on and on about how a democratic Iraq deals a crushing blow to the neo-Ottomans and what doubts I have currently about the course of Iraq (I fear another theocracy), but the point that I want to make is that I am sick of people trying to use the poor (an absolute term) treatment of foreign fighters to bolster the anti-war movement.
I have concerns about the treatment of these fighters, not as prisoners of war (i don’t think that they are, technically), but as humans. I will, however, always think that the invasion of Iraq was justified in that it helps to bring the caliphate out of reach of these 9th century thugs.
3:58 pm
Actually, when I say “poor” treatment, I mean those that were treated like General Mowhoush, not those who have to go without airconditiong for a while or those who are humiliated by being called homosexuals or getting a lapdance or having to wear panties on their head (all in a good day at the gentlemen’s club if you ask me).
4:10 pm
In this case the Post’s account is directly from government documents that the Post has made available on their website, so whatever you think of the paper in general….
I’ve done an awful lot of research on this issue, specifically “rendition”, and been close to giving up on Bush supporters ever reaching a point where they acknowledge that something is happening, that it’s not just a few bad apples, that it has to stop. Frankly I’m still pretty pessimistic. But this post has made me less so. So, thanks.
6:53 pm
I am quite glad to see someone take off the blinders for once. It’s a little sad reading some of the excuses others have for maintaining the belief you just left. Allegiences can lead to some major logic gaps.
This isn’t “moral relativism”(buzzword!), or some anti-war carrot on a stick. I really don’t care that we agree on any other issue, but this one just shows how contrarian people can be. It’s something people should be completely repulsed by. This is one part of America we should never give away because we’re scared shitless of terrorism. Someday it could be used against our own troops. Or, maybe someday it could come stateside. Where were you on the night of August 24, 2003?
Oh no. Never. Not America. .
...
“..hey that could work on that idiot that spray-painted my building.!”
Some things are just wrong, and this is one of them.
Wait! Was this satire?! Oh, I would be so pissed. I’d also be impressed at the same time.
6:54 pm
The WaPo article in question is long on lurid details and extremely short on actual facts. That does not mean some or all allegations are false, just unproven.
Our military has a very good system for investigating and prosecuting wrongdoers. The Abu Ghraib scandal details came from military investigatory documents as has the evidence for the WaPo article. Our military has been investigating these allegations and so, in effect, the media is damning them based on the military’s effort to do the right thing.
Even though you may think the media glare makes justice more likely, I beg to differ. If you think some international representation would help, I would love to see evidence of any military anywhere doing what ours is doing by investigating and prosecuting wrongdoers. I think a little perspective is in order here.
8:26 pm
I could not disagree more with your sentiment here. I was pleased to learn that we are finally REALLY interrogating these savages. They know not any limit to the brutal savagery with which they will commit to kill the infidel.
I think now we need to beat a few heads (and ribs) in Basra where it seem the British are allowing illegality and mayhem to reign. Read Stephen Vincent’s articles. We don’t need less strong arm tactics, we need more. Just don’t let em die.
The average man will plead to his God to save him from the pain long before he will give up any information he feels will compromise their operations. What are you gonna do? Where ya gonna go?
10:50 pm
“What this article makes crystal clear is that these methods of interrogation are not the product of the sick imaginings of a few sadistic soldiers. They did not spring into being in a vacuum. What the reports make unambiguously clear is that the soldiers believed the interrogation techniques were approved – approved at the highest levels in their chain of command.”
I don’t see where the article makes anything of the sort crystal clear. The fact that they are being tried on extremely serious charges, effectively refutes your statement.
First: the WaPo implies coverup by describing “partially open court proceedings” and that “court records have been censored to hide the CIA’s involvement in his questioning, and reporters have been removed from a Fort Carson courtroom when testimony relating to the CIA has surfaced.” Oooh, very scary. Aren’t these the same folks who want Karl Rove’s head on a pike for (allegedly) “blowing the cover” of some office pogue at Langley? Yet, they want everything in these proceedings out in the open? I call BS.
Second, it is in no way exculpatory to point out that these types of things have occured in every conflict. If it is believed that one of these butchers has time-sensitive information, that can save the lives of American forces, some interrogators will go off the reservation PDQ. Some will even grow to enjoy it. Yet another reason why war is not a good thing. The fact is, every soldier and Marine has been well indoctrinated with the protocols, by the time they’ve graduated Boot Camp. If the President directly orders you to do something illegal, you are to refuse. “I was just following orders” is never a defense. It’s natural that the guilty will attempt to shed responsibilty for their own actions, and put it off on their superiors. It may even be true—in some cases—that their superiors gave the green light. It absolves nothing and they knew it going in.
Under the right set of circumstances, I might even do it myself. However, if caught, I know—in advance—that I’d be going up for a long stretch at hard labor. If I were on the tribunal, I’d cut them no slack. If I were standing before the tribunal, I’d expect none.
Ita est.
11:22 pm
[...] Point By: John Cole August 5, 2005 at 12:22 am Rick Moran has had enough in the abuse and torture case, and he is shrill. Well, good fo [...]
11:55 pm
Never really read through here, just came over via Balloon Juice. But honestly, some of the rationalizations that are presented in the comments are absolutely appalling. The concept that we should be torturing prisoners because insurgents would do worse to us is representative of the absolute worst of civilization. The very idea that the United States of America, which is supposed to be the shining beacon of democracy and freedom, would stoop to tactics that are normally found in the most brutal of dictatorships is beyond unbelievable and I find it sickening. We aparently have a contingent of “Untouchables” (“He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue!”) here in the US, and it’s not only sad, but scary.
If those are the values you want your own children to grow up with – you’re welcome to them but I weep for your future. Just stay out of my damn neighborhood.
12:49 am
The posters here who make excuses and offer rationalizations are engaging in precisely the kind of moral relativism they say they dislike. They are also overlooking one of the most fundamental and universal truths in moral philosophy: the ends do not justify the means; the ends are shaped by the means, the means and ends cannot be separated.
We cannot create anything like a benevolent democracy by allowing, excusing, and closing our eyes to, sadism committed in our name.
America is supposed to stand for something more transcendant than wealth and power. We’re supposed to stand for something better than that; we’re supposed to be better than that. We’re supposed to have learned from history, our own and others, that you cannot “free” people by brutalizing them. You cannot win a war of ideas by making excuses and justifications for brutality.
As for the war itself: it was doomed to fail from the very start. The war planners kept changing rationales for the war, and each one involved different and mutually exclusive tactics. Was the war about liberating Iraq, or about using Iraq, and Iraqis, as terrorist flypaper? How can a nation be freed and democratized if it’s also intended to be a magnet for terrorists? Answer: it can’t be done.
1:25 am
My comments have always been that someday Rick and John and the rest of the Bush supporters will have to live with what has been done on their name.
You can’t sacrifice the ideals of America and still be America.
We were hurt gravely on 9/11 at last the rage to retaliate is giving way to a realization the the ends do not justify the means.
Good. Now maybe we have a chance of winning without losing our souls.
8:45 am
Rick-
Came over from John Cole’s place. I am one of his liberal antagonizers, but I have tremendous respect for him and his opinion. I started reading his blog around the time of the Schiavo affair, and it has been refreshing to see a conservative Republican willing to open his eyes and discuss events as they are rather than how the GOP or White House wants them portrayed.
I still have my differences with JC, but I can respect his viewpoint and approach as honest and open-minded. An honest discussion is what is needed for the future of the country before we get too far down the diverging paths we currently find ourselves.
I look forward to engaging in that discussion here. Nice to “meet” you.
8:48 am
Salute Mr. Bottoms, real patriots are hard to find in this fiasco.
Richard Bottoms Says:
August 5th, 2005 at 1:25 am
My comments have always been that someday Rick and John and the rest of the Bush supporters will have to live with what has been done on their name.
You can’t sacrifice the ideals of America and still be America.
We were hurt gravely on 9/11 at last the rage to retaliate is giving way to a realization the the ends do not justify the means.
Good. Now maybe we have a chance of winning without losing our souls.
9:26 am
Rick,
You’re way ahead of me on this. When I get back from vacation, I’m going to learn more about this. I’ve been willing to give the admin and the military leadership a passs on the torture question, but when you and Cole are both hollering bullsh*t, then I gotta believe there’s an issue.
I won’t bug you with another invite, but ... but ... but .. if you keep being this impartial, you’re going to have to change the name of the blog.
Cheers.
10:59 am
“If you believe that it does, then ask yourself what kind of country you will have at the end of it? Will it be the kind of country you can live in with pride? Or will history itself remember us with scorn and derision for abandoning the very principals we were fighting to protect.”
I submit that it’s the social degradation of the last few decades that has led to the “Soldiers Gone Wild” of today, not the other way around. Can you imagine Lindy England, ciggy in lips, pointing her finger-guns at a naked Nazi in 1943? Of course not.
Regardless of our treatment of prisoners (and I am on record as saying that Muslim Fundies who choose to pray that they will be called to murder infidels have given up ALL their rights by that choice), our society won’t even notice a blip in their freak-ometer when our soldiers are returned to normal life. It’s already maxed out.
11:29 am
And it means that those responsible for these policies must be brought to justice. Not just the perpetrators of the torture, but those who formulated and approved whatever guidelines the soldiers were using to justify these barbarous and unholy acts.
Yup.
12:59 pm
peterNaCl writes:
“These ‘illegal combatants’ will not reciprocate humane treatment by the US.”
Is this the new measure of American “values”? To be one rung better than that those you consider to be the scum of humanity?
Is torture acceptable? The answer is yes or no. Accept torture as a tool or do not, but don’t tell me that it depends on who is giving and who is receiving.
Dan
2:46 pm
I applaud your integrity in facing the facts on this. We need a full and
independent investigation with the authority to go anywhere in the chain
of command. Since the activities of the military are subject to oversight
and regulation by Congress, whoever is responsible for the commands
and directives which led to this illegal torture, whether in uniform or in
the civilian leadership, must be found and held responsible. We may be
heading for a constitutional crisis if the administration continues to resist
congressional oversight (it seems that MG Miller in particular has lied in
testimony to Congress).
2:55 pm
“Like most people, I have no experience as an interrogator. Therefore I have no idea whether inhumane techniques are effective.”
This issue has been discussed at http://www.intel-dump.com with several
experienced military people. No-one believes that torture is a useful way
of gaining good intelligence: rather torture results from frustration and a
desire for retribution. Torturing an unarmed helpless captive is cowardly,
barbaric, and serves no purpose.
4:53 pm
Really scary thoughts by Mr. Korenthal above.
Interrogation rules, which are enforced, are necessary to prevent or punish torture. It really is such a simple point: we are the good guys here and we ought to act like it or do great disservice to the example we want to be. Torture is wrong. Period. It cannot be reasonably debated.
5:27 pm
i am new here, just saw this item on salon.com.
i have tremendous respect and love for our military. my husband was a marine, my uncle a sailor, my father in law, a soldier.
i am a democrat. like many voters, both right and left, no one platform speaks entirely for me, which is why i would love to see a split ticket, one which would include the best ideals of each party—fiscal responsibility coupled with a compassionate respect for the civil rights of all. that said, i will point out that even though i opposed the war i was DELIGHTED to see those two scumbags, uday and qusay hussein, taken out by our military.
that’s why it demoralizes and horrifies me to see our beautiful and courageous soldiers exploited in the name of freedom when they are permitted (or encouraged?) to torture and kill detainees. nothing is accomplished from this: john mccain, who suffered torture and imprisonment, has pointed out that no valuable information is gathered from torture—so why do it? i am so proud of this wonderful country, and i always count on us to uphold principles that other countries may not find expedient. let’s not lose our moral compass in the wreckage of 9/11. we lost enough there already. i just want to take a moment to honor the sentiments expressed at the top of this page—a sentiment which begs us to be our honorable selves—to reject torture and to stick to the geneva agreements. the last thing we want to do is inflame more terroristic feeling.
we’re the united states—let’s do the right thing.
6:38 pm
If you don’t think we’ve done terrible things, read Gen. Taguba’s Report:
http://www.agonist.org/annex/taguba.htm
and then think about this:
“Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images: “I mean, I looked at them last night, and they’re hard to believe.†They show acts “that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane,” he added. A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of “rape and murder.â€
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000990590
1:46 am
These reports, and much worse, have been showing up for more than two years in non-American news sites.
Our so-called-liberal-media is always among the last to deviate from the approved line and about the last to know if it doesn’t comes from a Washington source.
As an example, well before the war using London and Canadian sites it was possible to determine that Iraq had disbanded its nuclear weapons program immediately after Gulf War 1, that it had no biological or chemical weapons programs for the last ten years, and that the links to terrorist groups were being overstated and were extremely ambiguous. Even now the reports of the leaders of the US WMD searchers when they said WMDs were not carried out of the country were relegated to the back inside pages.
The first recovery step when you realize that you have been misinformed should be to broaden your information sources.
Yes, there are much more terrible cases of abuse out there and they are fairly widespread.
Here is a recent one: For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September last year.
In an statement given to his newly appointed lawyer, Mohammed has
given an account of how he was tortured for more than two years after
being questioned by US and British officials who he believes were from
the FBI and MI6. As well as being beaten and subjected to loud music for long periods, he claims his genitals were sliced with scalpels.
From his diary
They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed … I was just shocked, I wasn’t expecting … Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn’t want to scream because I knew it was coming.
One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. “I told you I was going to teach you who’s the man,” [one] eventually said.
Of course, this gets much wider play in the Arab countries particularly – part of our losing campaign to “win hearts and minds” and show we’re “spreading the blessings of liberty and democracy.”
Gary
4:20 am
And the recent defense appropriations bill was shelved by Frist because McCain and few other decent senators had the temerity to insert a few riders about the humane treatment of our captives.
So how high up does all this go? Remember that the Bush White House asked Gonzales for a legal justification for torture – and they got it. Remember why Gitmo was specifically sited where it is. Remember Rumsfeld’s “Interrogation Matrices.”
Yes, the problem is systemic. We’ve been getting reports directly from detainees, reporters from WAPO, the Guardian, the Independent, Salon, Slate, NYT, members of the Red Cross, the Taguba Report, and those in Congress who’ve seen images from the held-back material. It isn’t anti-American to acknowledge that we have a serious problem here. Quite the reverse.
9:50 am
Anyone who thinks that these sorts of things did not happen in EVERY war we’ve ever fought is simply naive.
Shooting captured prisoners? Do a Google search on “Peiper and Biscari and Sicily” Assaults on non-combatants? Check out Sherman in Georgia or Sheriden in the Shenandoah.
The difference is quite simple: now we cannot claim to be unaware. So the choice is simple: Are we going to surrender, as Islam requires by the word’s very definition? Or are we going to fight as before? The choice is yours; no one can make it for you.
10:26 am
Rick,
I’m impressed. I was against the war—not out of any love for Saddam Hussein, but because of my belief that we needed to concentrate on the decisive point, which to me was Al-Quaida, and I did not buy the claims of linkage. So I can’t share your perspective entirely, but I do respect your integrity, guts and willingness to see the accumulating evidence that we have done a big thing badly, as it concerns our treatment of detainees.
Your commentators seem to think that equivalency to our enemies is all we need to achieve (reminds me of the military theory of replication—that both sides to a conflict come to resemble each other) and to extend equivalence to individuals as well—torture of detainees is ok, as many—or some—are terrorists and deserve punishment.
I won’t belabor the point. Torture is inherently heinous. Torture of the innocent is especialy so.
We won’t agree on a lot of issues, but we do agree that the U.S. is more than just the biggest kid on the block. We are the standard bearers of freedom. That doesn’t mean we don’t defend ourselves. But it does mean we have an obligation to not be savages.
I honor your commitment to that, and to the truth, wherever it leads.
11:50 am
God, you people, don’t you know war is hell!! Don’t you know that there has never been a war where the prisoners have not been mistreated by both sides? Have you ever heard of the Bataan death march? In fact the general rule of the Japanese was to mistreat all of their prisoners.
Typically, non-military prisoners are considered spies or renagades (terrorists). The treatment of these prisoners has always been the worst. After interrogation which almost always include some measure of torture they were usually executed by hanging or firing squad.
So quite beating your breasts and being apologetic for the so-called mistreatment of these rabid dog terrorists. In my opinion, they do not deserve any sympathy what so ever.
1:53 pm
I’m a card carrying registered Democrat, liberal, although probably more moderate than most. Be that as it may, I also have a number of friends who are card carrying registered Republicans, some more conservative or less conservative than most as the case may be. I cherish my more right wing friends because these days in the US I hear a lot of folks who might look and act right wing talk about shooting liberals and what not—which I think flies in the face of our beloved consitution and what this country is all about.
While I don’t necessarily agree with all your views, I totally applaud your ability as a thinking American to express yourself. Our constitution guarantees this, and hopefully that’s a value that all Americans, repubs and dems alike would be willing to give their lives for. I especially admire your ability to say you don’t agree with the use of torture, in spite of what right wing folks might think or say.
Thanks for being a patriot, Love, a Sister Dem Liberal Patriot
9:01 pm
I am surprised that you trust the WAPO as a primary source. And I wonder what the true incidence of fatal “torture” is. How does it compare to the murder rate in a city like DC (pop. about a half million) where there might be 300 homicides or so a year? The agenda-driven MSM has lost its ability to evaluate a situation like this within its complex context. We are left with facile reporting and analysis that does not help to advance any argument, but rather gores a familiar ox.
10:38 pm
Two observations: One, it’s a recycled story. Two, you’re quoting Juan Cole? Are you serious?