Torturer-in-Chief: Secret Prisons in Eastern Europe!
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Zoomerang96
ONE love, blood, life
haha
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
They did the dirty work using ex-Nazi's to run the European spy rings in the Cold War, they did the dirty work by using germ warfare information obtained by Unit 731, they did the dirty work in fighting proxy wars all over the world, they did it by killing off communist leaders and socialists, it was backing Mujahadeen to fight the Soviets in the Afganistan and giving them Stinger missiles etc.theblazer said:
It is the darker underside that protects the ideals of any system, it doesn't compromise it as long as nobody know about it
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Scarletwine
New Yorker
Zoomerang96 said:
Exactly!
It boggles the mind.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
John McCain was on Larry King last night
KING: As a prisoner yourself you've become an outspoken foe of the treatment of prisoners by this country. I think you and Hillary Clinton share this battle that we should not treat anything away from the Geneva Accords and no hidden camps, et cetera. Isn't that -- why -- why should this country, and by the way I think President Bush said today we should never torture anyone, so what's the problem?
MCCAIN: I think the problem is that there are some exceptions being made to the Geneva Conventions and treaties that we entered into, one in the Reagan administration concerning torture, including declaration of rights of a man concerning cruel and inhuman treatment.
And, I understand that there is an urgency sometimes when you capture somebody but it's not about them. It's about us. The United States of America needs to win militarily but we also need to win the hearts and minds of people all over the world and, if we torture or treat in a cruel and inhumane fashion people that we take captive, then we will lose that war because then we won't be any different than they are.
KING: Did you learn a lot -- by the way, you would know this better than anyone, do we learn a lot from torture?
MCCAIN: No, we don't, Larry. If you inflict enough physical pain on someone they'll tell you anything that they want to know to relieve it. It's interesting to me that the Israelis, who deal with acts of terror all the time, their Supreme Court ruled against torture and they don't use that against the prisoners that they take.
In fact, they use a lot of psychological kinds of techniques and so if the Israelis don't have to do it, certainly it seems to me that we don't have to either.
I'm working with the White House. I hope we can get an agreement. I hope we can put this behind us and recognize that our image in the world has been very, very badly tarnished.
Colin Powell wrote a letter when we had a vote which passed 90-9 in the Senate where he felt very strongly that our image has been damaged rather badly and we need to fix it.
KING: And he said so on this show recently backing your measure to ban cruel, inhumane and degrading but the president said the same thing today, so what's the problem?
MCCAIN: I think that there's a definition problem about the treatment of some particularly by the CIA and I'm not exactly sure what is being done but if we just -- there's opposition to this piece of legislation that says we will not inflict cruel, inhumane or cruel or torture on any captive and the procedures for the treatment and interrogation of prisoners will be in the Army Field Manual.
That's a manual that the Army, in a classified section of the Army Field Manual then it seems to me it solves all of our problems as the belief of most human rights organizations.
KING: What do you read into these secret prisoners -- prisons?
MCCAIN: I don't know what to think about it. I didn't know about it until it appeared on the front page of "The Washington Post." We probably need to know more about it. If people are treated humanely there, then that's not a problem. It might be rather expensive I would think but I don't think the symbolism of using a former Soviet Union prison to incarcerate prisoners is very good. But it's more the treatment of prisoners that's the problem not the location.
KING: Senator, I know this seems simple, why don't we put them on trial?
MCCAIN: Well, I think that there has to be some kind of adjudication of their cases, in other words I don't think a terrorist is entitled to the same rights as our citizens to a jury of 12 people of their peers and all of the protections because they are terrorists.
These are bad people but there should be a system of tribunals and judgment of their cases and, look, some of these guys are really bad guys and if we want to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives, it's fine with me but we got to have some kind of adjudication of their cases in order I think to comply with the kinds of standards that we as the United States of America maintain.
KING: Especially for those that may not be as accused guilty.
MCCAIN: Yes.
KING: As a prisoner yourself you've become an outspoken foe of the treatment of prisoners by this country. I think you and Hillary Clinton share this battle that we should not treat anything away from the Geneva Accords and no hidden camps, et cetera. Isn't that -- why -- why should this country, and by the way I think President Bush said today we should never torture anyone, so what's the problem?
MCCAIN: I think the problem is that there are some exceptions being made to the Geneva Conventions and treaties that we entered into, one in the Reagan administration concerning torture, including declaration of rights of a man concerning cruel and inhuman treatment.
And, I understand that there is an urgency sometimes when you capture somebody but it's not about them. It's about us. The United States of America needs to win militarily but we also need to win the hearts and minds of people all over the world and, if we torture or treat in a cruel and inhumane fashion people that we take captive, then we will lose that war because then we won't be any different than they are.
KING: Did you learn a lot -- by the way, you would know this better than anyone, do we learn a lot from torture?
MCCAIN: No, we don't, Larry. If you inflict enough physical pain on someone they'll tell you anything that they want to know to relieve it. It's interesting to me that the Israelis, who deal with acts of terror all the time, their Supreme Court ruled against torture and they don't use that against the prisoners that they take.
In fact, they use a lot of psychological kinds of techniques and so if the Israelis don't have to do it, certainly it seems to me that we don't have to either.
I'm working with the White House. I hope we can get an agreement. I hope we can put this behind us and recognize that our image in the world has been very, very badly tarnished.
Colin Powell wrote a letter when we had a vote which passed 90-9 in the Senate where he felt very strongly that our image has been damaged rather badly and we need to fix it.
KING: And he said so on this show recently backing your measure to ban cruel, inhumane and degrading but the president said the same thing today, so what's the problem?
MCCAIN: I think that there's a definition problem about the treatment of some particularly by the CIA and I'm not exactly sure what is being done but if we just -- there's opposition to this piece of legislation that says we will not inflict cruel, inhumane or cruel or torture on any captive and the procedures for the treatment and interrogation of prisoners will be in the Army Field Manual.
That's a manual that the Army, in a classified section of the Army Field Manual then it seems to me it solves all of our problems as the belief of most human rights organizations.
KING: What do you read into these secret prisoners -- prisons?
MCCAIN: I don't know what to think about it. I didn't know about it until it appeared on the front page of "The Washington Post." We probably need to know more about it. If people are treated humanely there, then that's not a problem. It might be rather expensive I would think but I don't think the symbolism of using a former Soviet Union prison to incarcerate prisoners is very good. But it's more the treatment of prisoners that's the problem not the location.
KING: Senator, I know this seems simple, why don't we put them on trial?
MCCAIN: Well, I think that there has to be some kind of adjudication of their cases, in other words I don't think a terrorist is entitled to the same rights as our citizens to a jury of 12 people of their peers and all of the protections because they are terrorists.
These are bad people but there should be a system of tribunals and judgment of their cases and, look, some of these guys are really bad guys and if we want to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives, it's fine with me but we got to have some kind of adjudication of their cases in order I think to comply with the kinds of standards that we as the United States of America maintain.
KING: Especially for those that may not be as accused guilty.
MCCAIN: Yes.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
President Carter's comments on Larry King
KING: Whether you agree or disagree, you can't deny the timeliness of this book, "Our Endangered Values" by President Jimmy Carter. For instance, you write, "It's an embarrassing tragedy to see a departure from our nation's historic leadership as a champion of human rights with the abandonment defended legally by our top officials." You're talking about the treatment of prisoners and the like.
Tomorrow night Senator John McCain will be here, take the same position as you do on this.
CARTER: Yes, that's true.
KING: What led to this?
CARTER: Well, I think...
KING: Fear with 9/11 did it right?
CARTER: Well, I think the decision to go into Iraq as a war was made before Bush was elected President George W. Bush, and I think that it was before 9/11 because some of the top officials in his government now decided after the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait under George Bush, Sr. that he should have gone all the way to Baghdad and have removed Saddam Hussein from power. So that decision was made by some of them long before George Bush even was elected.
I don't think there's any doubt that lately, as John McCain has pointed out, and as 90 of the 100 Senators have approved that our government has illegally and improperly been torturing prisoners, so John McCain and others are trying to have in the law just now being considered we should not be permitted to torture prisoners. This has been a part of our nation's policy ever since I can possibly -- well for more than 100 years at least.
KING: But we didn't -- we didn't have a 9/11.
CARTER: Well but we had the Second World War, which was a lot more destructive for our people. In fact, my own uncle, Tom Gordy (ph), was captured by the Japanese about two weeks after Pearl Harbor and he was a prisoner for four years. He was tortured severely, only weighed 85 pounds when he came out of prison. He was almost dead.
And after that the Geneva Accords were written, which was approved by and even negotiated by the United States and we agreed that in order to protect our own reputation and in order to prevent our own service people from being tortured if they were captured that we would not torture prisoners who were held by us.
That in a radical way is now being rejected by many people in our government and it's not a unanimous thing even within the Bush administration. There's a big debate going on whether the CIA should be permitted or the Defense Department should be permitted to torture people.
I think it's completely wrong. It's completely damaging to our country and it's never been done before. That's just another one of the principles that bothers me.
KING: And the story today on the front page of "The Washington Post" reporting that the CIA set up covert prison systems nearly four years ago with facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, a secret prison system. What do you make of that?
CARTER: I was not surprised. In fact, I covered that in my book because there has been a program that was fairly well known that when we were condemned by members of the Congress for what was going on in Guantanamo, we began to move prisoners out of Guantanamo and those others that are captured in the Mideast and put them in countries where torture is alleged or permitted.
And so this was not a revelation. It was very surprising because it's been a policy. And, as you know, just a few days ago the vice president went to the Congress to try to get key Senators to agree not to put in the McCain Amendment but to let the CIA have permission to torture prisoners.
This has never been done in our country and it violates the reputation of our nation and it also I think makes it possible for our own prisoners to be in danger in the future.
KING: Whether you agree or disagree, you can't deny the timeliness of this book, "Our Endangered Values" by President Jimmy Carter. For instance, you write, "It's an embarrassing tragedy to see a departure from our nation's historic leadership as a champion of human rights with the abandonment defended legally by our top officials." You're talking about the treatment of prisoners and the like.
Tomorrow night Senator John McCain will be here, take the same position as you do on this.
CARTER: Yes, that's true.
KING: What led to this?
CARTER: Well, I think...
KING: Fear with 9/11 did it right?
CARTER: Well, I think the decision to go into Iraq as a war was made before Bush was elected President George W. Bush, and I think that it was before 9/11 because some of the top officials in his government now decided after the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait under George Bush, Sr. that he should have gone all the way to Baghdad and have removed Saddam Hussein from power. So that decision was made by some of them long before George Bush even was elected.
I don't think there's any doubt that lately, as John McCain has pointed out, and as 90 of the 100 Senators have approved that our government has illegally and improperly been torturing prisoners, so John McCain and others are trying to have in the law just now being considered we should not be permitted to torture prisoners. This has been a part of our nation's policy ever since I can possibly -- well for more than 100 years at least.
KING: But we didn't -- we didn't have a 9/11.
CARTER: Well but we had the Second World War, which was a lot more destructive for our people. In fact, my own uncle, Tom Gordy (ph), was captured by the Japanese about two weeks after Pearl Harbor and he was a prisoner for four years. He was tortured severely, only weighed 85 pounds when he came out of prison. He was almost dead.
And after that the Geneva Accords were written, which was approved by and even negotiated by the United States and we agreed that in order to protect our own reputation and in order to prevent our own service people from being tortured if they were captured that we would not torture prisoners who were held by us.
That in a radical way is now being rejected by many people in our government and it's not a unanimous thing even within the Bush administration. There's a big debate going on whether the CIA should be permitted or the Defense Department should be permitted to torture people.
I think it's completely wrong. It's completely damaging to our country and it's never been done before. That's just another one of the principles that bothers me.
KING: And the story today on the front page of "The Washington Post" reporting that the CIA set up covert prison systems nearly four years ago with facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, a secret prison system. What do you make of that?
CARTER: I was not surprised. In fact, I covered that in my book because there has been a program that was fairly well known that when we were condemned by members of the Congress for what was going on in Guantanamo, we began to move prisoners out of Guantanamo and those others that are captured in the Mideast and put them in countries where torture is alleged or permitted.
And so this was not a revelation. It was very surprising because it's been a policy. And, as you know, just a few days ago the vice president went to the Congress to try to get key Senators to agree not to put in the McCain Amendment but to let the CIA have permission to torture prisoners.
This has never been done in our country and it violates the reputation of our nation and it also I think makes it possible for our own prisoners to be in danger in the future.
randhail
Rock n' Roll Doggie
theblazer said:
Well said.
It's nice to look at the world through rose colored glasses, but people need to be out there protecting us even if this is how it's done. Colonel Jessep's speech in A Few Good Men pretty much sums it up -
"You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to."
Sherry Darling
New Yorker
A_Wanderer said:
Mmm....how'd that work out for us?
I have so much more on this subject to say, and I hate doing a "hit and run" on this topic. But I have no choice--it's a busy day for me.
Love your enemies, and bless those that curse you. Jesus says this is THE centerpiece of the law. Paul says loving one's enemies is THE mark that seperates those who follow Christ from those who do not.
Hence I totally oppose torture, no matter what.
That is not to say I think we should have "revolving door" prisons ala Arafat, or that we do not respond to terror militarily at all. Such arguements are a false dichotomy. Also, there is, as some have pointed out here, the practical matter of the fact that so many CIA guys say that it is not effective. This stands to logic--people will say whatever you want them to say to make the torture stop. Those who are (either directly or by insinuation) defending the use of torture in this thread have been sidestepping this point.
They have some 'splanin to do.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
randhail said:
I for one don't happen to think it's looking through rose colored glasses to believe that the US should be adhering to certain standards of human decency. Don't we look like a joke and a bunch of hypocrites if we don't? I think we do
Not to mention torture doesn't work, read what John McCain and others familiar with it say about that.
I don't want the "protection" of people who torture, humiliate, and degrade human beings. Frankly anyone who does that or condones that can stick their "protection" where the sun doesn't shine.
joyfulgirl
Blue Crack Addict
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Sherry Darling said:
Not to get nit picky, because you and I really do agree on the subject of torture (as well as many other things), and I also respect you mentioned you were rushed, but I just want to point out that as a non-Christian myself I have loved and forgiven many an "enemy" (for me that means people who have caused harm to me personally). So I suppose this is directed at the Christians in here to prod them into walking their talk but could be insulting to the non-Christians who live by very high codes of ethics and just plain common sense (i.e., torture is evil). I'm not offended, but just wanted to point that out.
OP
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Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
randhail said:
um, and what was the outcome of that movie?
the whole fucking point of AFGM was that freedom means nothing if it's maintenence requires the violation of the very ideals upon which it is founded.
and one could argue that all the CIA has done, as enumerated by A_W, came back to slap us in the face with 3,000 murdered innocents on a very clear morning in September.
we have international rules. if we see to create the credibility and moral authority that will give us legitimacy in the eyes of the world to lead, as we had before the Bushies, then we cannot ignore said rules when they become an inconvenience.
this isn't high and might talk as well.
many, many people in here have pointed out that 1) torture doesn't work, and 2) it makes us less safe.
OP
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Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
theblazer said:
to me, this is an anti-patriotic, anti-American statement.
joyfulgirl
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Irvine511 said:
That really says it all.
nbcrusader
Blue Crack Addict
I doubt there is any room for discussion on this topic. While no one has said, "torture is good" the judgments being levied on those who fail to toe the zero tolerance line is unfortunate, yet not unexpected. We have even seen judgments that, in any other discussion, would not be tolerated by most on this board.
No one likes the idea of torture, but there may be a degree of freedom we have today because someone did some unspeakable acts in our past.
.
No one likes the idea of torture, but there may be a degree of freedom we have today because someone did some unspeakable acts in our past.
.
joyfulgirl
Blue Crack Addict
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nbcrusader said:
No doubt...yet I believe those unspeakable acts were not the only or best way to achieve that degree of freedom and now that these kinds of unspeakable acts have been brought to the world's attention we must not continue to shrug it off as 'that's just the way it has to be sometimes.'
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Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
nbcrusader said:
no, no one has said that torture is good, but they have said that it is necessary.
there's not as much of a distinction between the two statements as you seem to think.
as for the judgements, i think you'd find similar condemnation on this board of things like child pornography and the international sex trade where, as with torture (to most minds), it really is a right vs. wrong issue.
Sherry Darling
New Yorker
Joyfulgirl--thanks for your post. I agree and I don't think it was a "picky" point at all.
NBC--thanks for engaging this thread. It's an important discussion. I am struck, though, but your language in your last post especially. It's, if I may say so, tentative, hedging, vague. "some unspeakable acts" --who are you referring to, the 9/11 hijackers? There "may be" more freedom now to torture? I find "flirting" with a clear statement typical of people who are uncomfortable with torture (go figure) but who are also unwilling/unable to clearly condemn it.
As I said above, I think for Christians, the scriptures I referenced above, as well as an overall pro-life ethic, make it necessary for me to clearly and loudly condemn torture--which again does not mean terrorists go free. If "love your enemies" doesn't mean "don't torture them", what in the world does it mean in any sort of concrete, practical sense? For non-Christians, Joyfulgirl and others' "its just wrong" approach works for me, too.
And I still haven't seen anyone here who supports the use of torture or flirts with supporting it respond effectively to the point that it's not effective as an intelligence gathering measure anyway. Lots of articles to this effect have been posted in the past, but I can try sometime this weekend to dig one up if folks would like.
NBC--thanks for engaging this thread. It's an important discussion. I am struck, though, but your language in your last post especially. It's, if I may say so, tentative, hedging, vague. "some unspeakable acts" --who are you referring to, the 9/11 hijackers? There "may be" more freedom now to torture? I find "flirting" with a clear statement typical of people who are uncomfortable with torture (go figure) but who are also unwilling/unable to clearly condemn it.
As I said above, I think for Christians, the scriptures I referenced above, as well as an overall pro-life ethic, make it necessary for me to clearly and loudly condemn torture--which again does not mean terrorists go free. If "love your enemies" doesn't mean "don't torture them", what in the world does it mean in any sort of concrete, practical sense? For non-Christians, Joyfulgirl and others' "its just wrong" approach works for me, too.
And I still haven't seen anyone here who supports the use of torture or flirts with supporting it respond effectively to the point that it's not effective as an intelligence gathering measure anyway. Lots of articles to this effect have been posted in the past, but I can try sometime this weekend to dig one up if folks would like.
Scarletwine
New Yorker
Another reference to Cheney. this is from Powell's second in command that spoke out last week. Totally Disgusting!
Another Thunderbolt from Wilkerson
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, November 4, 2005; 12:45 PM
Another shocking accusation by former administration insider Lawrence Wilkerson appears to be going under the media radar today.
On NPR yesterday, the former chief of staff to the secretary of state said that he had uncovered a "visible audit trail" tracing the practice of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers directly back to Vice President Cheney's office.
Here's the audio of Wilkerson's interview with Steve Inskeep. The transcript is not publicly available, but here are the relevant excerpts:
"INSKEEP: While in the government, he says he was assigned to gather documents. He traced just how Americans came to be accused of abusing prisoners. In 2002, a presidential memo had ordered that detainees be treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions that forbid torture. Wilkerson says the vice president's office pushed for a more expansive policy.
"Mr. WILKERSON: What happened was that the secretary of Defense, under the cover of the vice president's office, began to create an environment -- and this started from the very beginning when David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, was a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions. Regardless of the president having put out this memo, they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to, in my view, what we've seen.
"INSKEEP: We have to get more detail about that because the military will say, the Pentagon will say they've investigated this repeatedly and that all the investigations have found that the abuses were committed by a relatively small number of people at relatively low levels. What hard evidence takes those abuses up the chain of command and lands them in the vice president's office, which is where you're placing it?
"Mr. WILKERSON: I'm privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to assemble this paperwork, which I no longer have access to, it was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms -- I'll give you that -- that to a soldier in the field meant two things: We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.
"You just -- if you're a military man, you know that you just don't do these sorts of things because once you give just the slightest bit of leeway, there are those in the armed forces who will take advantage of that. There are those in the leadership who will feel so pressured that they have to produce intelligence that it doesn't matter whether it's actionable or not as long as they can get the volume in. They have to do what they have to do to get it, and so you've just given in essence, though you may not know it, carte blanche for a lot of problems to occur."
Addington, incidentally, was promoted this week to the position of vice presidential chief of staff, replacing his indicted former boss, Scooter Libby. (For more on Addington, read my columns from Tuesday and Wednesday .)
The only news service I have found that covered Wilkerson's comments on NPR was Agence France Presse .
But if past is prologue, it will get picked up by more people soon.
In my October 20 column , I expressed surprise that Wilkerson's last thunderbolt hadn't made the front pages.
The previous day, he had given a speech in which he declared that a secret cabal led by the vice president has hijacked U.S. foreign policy and crippled the ability of the government to respond to emergencies.
But it's gotten a lot more attention since
Another Thunderbolt from Wilkerson
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, November 4, 2005; 12:45 PM
Another shocking accusation by former administration insider Lawrence Wilkerson appears to be going under the media radar today.
On NPR yesterday, the former chief of staff to the secretary of state said that he had uncovered a "visible audit trail" tracing the practice of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers directly back to Vice President Cheney's office.
Here's the audio of Wilkerson's interview with Steve Inskeep. The transcript is not publicly available, but here are the relevant excerpts:
"INSKEEP: While in the government, he says he was assigned to gather documents. He traced just how Americans came to be accused of abusing prisoners. In 2002, a presidential memo had ordered that detainees be treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions that forbid torture. Wilkerson says the vice president's office pushed for a more expansive policy.
"Mr. WILKERSON: What happened was that the secretary of Defense, under the cover of the vice president's office, began to create an environment -- and this started from the very beginning when David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, was a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions. Regardless of the president having put out this memo, they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to, in my view, what we've seen.
"INSKEEP: We have to get more detail about that because the military will say, the Pentagon will say they've investigated this repeatedly and that all the investigations have found that the abuses were committed by a relatively small number of people at relatively low levels. What hard evidence takes those abuses up the chain of command and lands them in the vice president's office, which is where you're placing it?
"Mr. WILKERSON: I'm privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to assemble this paperwork, which I no longer have access to, it was clear to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the field that in carefully couched terms -- I'll give you that -- that to a soldier in the field meant two things: We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.
"You just -- if you're a military man, you know that you just don't do these sorts of things because once you give just the slightest bit of leeway, there are those in the armed forces who will take advantage of that. There are those in the leadership who will feel so pressured that they have to produce intelligence that it doesn't matter whether it's actionable or not as long as they can get the volume in. They have to do what they have to do to get it, and so you've just given in essence, though you may not know it, carte blanche for a lot of problems to occur."
Addington, incidentally, was promoted this week to the position of vice presidential chief of staff, replacing his indicted former boss, Scooter Libby. (For more on Addington, read my columns from Tuesday and Wednesday .)
The only news service I have found that covered Wilkerson's comments on NPR was Agence France Presse .
But if past is prologue, it will get picked up by more people soon.
In my October 20 column , I expressed surprise that Wilkerson's last thunderbolt hadn't made the front pages.
The previous day, he had given a speech in which he declared that a secret cabal led by the vice president has hijacked U.S. foreign policy and crippled the ability of the government to respond to emergencies.
But it's gotten a lot more attention since
nbcrusader
Blue Crack Addict
Sherry Darling said:
The effectiveness (positive or negative) of torture can only be established through an analysis of classified data. We can theorize why it is not effective and collect various anecdotal tales, but as for controlling, conclusive evidence - it would appear to be out of our reach. Further, I would highly doubt that there is a body that would openly publish torture "success rates". Opposition articles, on the other hand, should be easily found.
We want national security. We want terrorist plots discovered before they are acted out. But, if given a person who may or may not know of such plots, how do you expect the information to be obtained? How far along the path of questioning will we go to prompt a response? We simply have no background or expertise in this area.
I'll pass on the "true Christian" statements that have been floated by others in this thread. Historically, if such statements were made in FYM, they were deemed reprehensible and judgmental.
Applying a Romans 12:20-21 (or Luke 6:27) standard to our government (instead of applying the standard to our own behavior) raises a multitude of issues from use of military or police force to broad principles of governing by Biblical standards.
nbcrusader
Blue Crack Addict
There are many things in life where we enjoy the benefits and look the other way regarding the consequences. Enjoy a hot dog at the ballgame? Do we really want to know what went into its production? Enjoy buying new clothes? What did people go through to make those clothes for you? We face these choices all day long.
(Now, please don't make the ridiculous post that I'm "equating" hot dogs with torture - you've missed my point if that is the response)
If we place a value on obtaining information about future bad acts, then I think it would be better to outline the limits of the practices employed to obtain this information than to drive it back to the "black ops" hole from which it came.
(Now, please don't make the ridiculous post that I'm "equating" hot dogs with torture - you've missed my point if that is the response)
If we place a value on obtaining information about future bad acts, then I think it would be better to outline the limits of the practices employed to obtain this information than to drive it back to the "black ops" hole from which it came.
AvsGirl41
New Yorker
MrsSpringsteen said:
I think it's interesting that those who say we have no data on the effectiveness of torture blow off John McCain--who, I would think, would know more than any of us.
He's right. There are psychological methods--not neccessarily mental torture that are effective. My dad used to be a Denver detective--surprise, cops don't use tortures to obtain confessions, they use bargains or psychological methods. One of their favorite tricks for obtaining a confession was to bring in a folder stuffed with papers, and a videotape. There was nothing in the file, nothing on the tape. But it made the person think there was piles of evidence against them, so they would confess. Granted, it's not exactly kosher, if a DA or a jury found out there would probably be some questioning.
John Douglas described the same techniques in "Mindhunter" when catching a serial killer--blowing the photos up of the crime scene and putting them all over the walls, putting the murder weapon out on display and having that greet the suspect as they sat down...it has the right effect.
Terrorists are not inhuman killing machines, not anymore than a serial killer is. The same mind games will work on any human being--and result in more accurate information than smashing someone's foot.
But then again, it takes planning and brains and our CIA is lacking in both areas.
OP
OP
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
nbcrusader said:
but the Bush administration is opposing precisely this. through Gonzales, they have deliberately obfuscated the rules of detention. and Cheney is still *refusing*, despite pressure from McCain and others, cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment of suspects.
why? perhaps because of this:
[q]The secretary of defense under cover of the vice president's office," Wilkerson said, "regardless of the president having put out this memo" - "they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen." He said the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the U.S. military to abide by the Geneva conventions against torture.
There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detainees, Wilkerson said. The directives were "in carefully couched terms," Wilkerson conceded, but said they had the effect of loosening the reins on U.S. troops, leading to many cases of prisoner abuse, including at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, that were contrary to the Geneva Conventions.
"If you are a military man, you know that you just don't do these sorts of things," Wilkerson said, because troops will take advantage, or feel so pressured to obtain information that "they have to do what they have to do to get it." He said that Powell had assigned him to investigate the matter after reports emerged in the media about U.S. troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both men had formerly served in the U.S. military.
Wilkerson also called David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, "a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions.
http://iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/11/03/news/cheney.php
[/q]
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
nbcrusader said:
So it's revenge?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
And you would know.randhail said:
randhail said:
And you pretty much missed the whole point of that movie.
deep
Blue Crack Addict
No one likes the idea of TERROR, but there may be a degree of freedom we have today because someone did some unspeakable acts in our past.
have you done a mind-melt with those you oppose?
hiphop
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
nbcrusader said:
Instead? There is no instead in Luke 6:27 so it applies to every level, not only the personal, but also the military and governmental one.
----> Luke 6:41
randhail
Rock n' Roll Doggie
BonoVoxSupastar said:
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Maybe we can break the film down sometime and share some popcorn too. I'd like that, how about you?
OP
OP
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
randhail said:
i'm sorry, but you really did miss the whole point of that film. it really is about how wrong Colonel Jessup was to order a Code Red.
remember the end of the film when, you know, Jack Nicholson is arrested? seems like the message was pretty obvious:
[q]Downey: What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong.
Dawson: Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie. [/q]
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
randhail said:
Sure.
randhail
Rock n' Roll Doggie
BonoVoxSupastar said:
Awesome
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