Thursday, 21 Sep 2006
By Dave
The modern War on Terror is facing a unique and monumental challenge at the moment: how to handle terrorists that are captured. With the recent resurfacing of the debate and the compromise today between three Republican senators and the White House, I am beginning to worry what interrogation techniques we will have left.
In English class today, we were given a New York Times article on the meeting of the senators and the White House, and asked, among other things, to give our response to whether the US should change it’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions. I replied that we shouldn’t, for good reason: we don’t need to. The Geneva Convention does not apply to the current detainees. If you doubt this, here are direct quotes straight from the Conventions:
“Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.”
excerpt from Article 2
“A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.”
excerpt from Article 4
Based on these excerpts, today’s terrorists obviously do not satisfy the requirements of a prisoner of war, and therefore, the Convention’s protections are null. However, our supremely wise Supreme Court, in their ineffable wisdom, has decided to toss out the specifics of Articles 2 and 4, and apply the protections to all detainees.
Now, in my opinion, I see an obvious rebuke to my post. We need not take the path of least resistance; in other words, we should take the high road. Even if we found some loophole in international law, doesn’t mean we should take it. But this is no petty loophole. These specifics were included the Convention for good reason. In addition, the high road isn’t really at issue here. The terrorists dismember, torture, electroshock, behead, suicide bomb, take hostage, and more. We keep them up late and play Red Hot Chili Pepper’s really loud. I thought that was called college.
September 25th, 2006 at 7:52 am
US Interrogator:
“Please, Mohammed, won’t you pleeeeze tell us where in Los Angeles you’ve hidden the atomic bomb?”
Mohammed: “……….”
Interrogator: “Pretty please with sugar on top?”
I heard there was a Moslem holding a sign, in one of the protesting crowds subsequent to the Pope’s remarks, that read: “BEHEAD THOSE WHO SAY ISLAM IS NOT A PEACEFUL RELIGION!”
October 20th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
The debate over the Geneva convention really boils down to a debate on torture and how a civilized society should act when faced with barbarianism. The inputs to this debate are observations such as:
1. The prevalent opinion among interogators and psychologists is that torture is ineffective. It produces false evidence as the prisoner says whatever he thinks will please the torturer. False confessions and false incrimination of others are well documented results of torture.
2. Those who support torture like to frame the debate in terms of questions like “Would you use torture if it could prevent the murder of your innocent family?”. This is a red herring. We don’t always know if the prisoner has information. Indeed, we don’t always know if the prisoner is even involved. There are well documented cases of false incrimination leading to the arrest and torture of innocent people. The better question around which to frame the debate is “Would you agree to having your innocent family tortured because someone wrongly suspects they are guilty of something?”
3. Adopting torture and brutality when facing savages is a tacit concession to the superiority of barbarism.
4. Ends-justifying-the-means reasoning is inherently flawed. Christian morality has never accepted that immoral acts become justified if the intent is a good outcome. It is also part of our Christian teaching that torture is immoral. The Catholics among us can refer to Veritatis Splendor 80 for the magesterial teaching on torture. I’ll leave it to the “Bible-only” Christians to find New Testament support for torture (hint: you won’t find it; you will find however that Jesus, the innocent Lamb, was tortured before being put to death). If you can find even one instance where Jesus condones the use of torture by his disciples, then write to the Vatican. They, apparently, haven’t found it yet
October 20th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
While all that you state is true, you neglect to state what constitutes torture. Obviously, no one here is arguing to cut off the limbs of prisoners or put the prisoners on a rack, yet, these are common perceptions of the term torture. It is the exact definition of torture that s actually being argued, not your 5 contentions. So, do you believe that discomfort, such as hot and cold temperatures, constitutes torture? If so, do you have evidence that discomfort is as ineffective as the other forms of torture?
Lastly, any way of getting information has its problems. For instance, bribery can also cause the prisoner to give false information. Therefore, we must clearly weigh the pros and cons of each method.
October 21st, 2006 at 12:56 am
Repeatedly holding someone under the water until just before they drown (i.e., waterboarding) is torture. Chaining someone to be suspended from the ceiling (i.e. stress positions) is torture. Boiling people’s in oil is torture — this technique is used in Uzbekistan, one of the nations to which we transfer prisoners for interrogation by the locals.
My five points are exactly what is being argued. Because what the US has done, and has paid to have done in its name, is torture. Trying to parse the word torture into meaninglessness doesn’t change that.
October 21st, 2006 at 3:18 pm
The debate is not whether torture should be used. For example, “President Bush decided shortly after the September 11 attacks that terrorism detainees would be treated in accord with the Geneva Conventions, despite legal advice that this was not required, to adhere to ‘our values as a nation,’ according to a memo he wrote himself… ‘Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country. We do not condone torture,’ Mr. Bush said yesterday before the memos were released. ‘I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.’”
You can’t get much clearer than that, yet your entire argument held the assumption that our government supports torture in general.
As I said, the real debate is what constitutes torture. You state that waterboarding, chaining people from the ceiling, and boiling people in oil are torture (as I also believe). Yet, other people may disagree. Thus, it is imperative to define torture and distinguish it from discomfort in order to come to a conclusion.
Lastly, your logic is could use some work. For instance, one of your arguments goes like this:
*Boiling people in oil is torture.
*This technique is used in Uzbekistan.
*Uzbekistan is one of the nations to which we transfer prisoners for interrogation by the locals.
*Therefore, the US supports the technique of boiling people in oil.
Even if all of your beginning statements are true (which you need to prove), you still cannot use them to come that conclusion. For instance, you would have to also prove that it is state-sanctioned that prisoners in Uzbekistan are boiled in oil, and that the US is aware and endorses its use, among other things, for the argument to make logical sense.
October 21st, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Katelyn, we trasnfer prisoners to other states for interrogation knowing full well what techniques are going to be used. It is naive to think that we do not. That makes us morally and legally culpable. If you disagree, then I take it you would hold your parents blameless if they knowingly put you in the care of a sexual predator.
I don’t care what Bush says. I care what he does. What he did was pull out all his political grease to get congress to give him the discretion to torture without oversite, accountability, nor definition of the word torture.
October 21st, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Liberal gay, I don’t know why you are being so critical of Uzbekistan’s techniques. After all, they are a piece of that ex-Soviet Socialist Regime that you lefties are so enamored with. Isn’t that what the left is all about? Perhaps you should do some research into the policies imparted on Russia’s own people by Stalin or even, some of the exisiting social regimes like eh…North Korea. Yeah, there’s some happy people!
Maybe I watch a little too much 24 but, I can justify torture. If I know some Islamo-fascist terrorist holds key information to a nuke which is set to go off in some major metroploitan area within hours, then I say torture away.
If Uzbekistan has state sanctioned torture then, where is the U.N? Where is Amnesty International and all the other lefty orginzations who undermine U.S. policy? What angers me more is that your defending terrorists! Where is your anger for all the dead innocents of 9/11?
October 22nd, 2006 at 4:30 am
Paladin, what century do you live in? The left hasn’t been enamored of the Soviet Union for about 45 years now. The reason some on the left were enamored in the first place was the economic success of the post-war Soviets. They were growing much faster than the west. They outstripped us in almost all areas of economic growth, including technology. They beat the US to space at a time we weren’t even thinking about it. Economists were confused and considering the possibility that Marx could have been right.
We now understand that their success was due to their increased investment in capital per worker, raising worker efficiency. At the time, John F. Kennedy met the challenge by doing something extremely left-wing. He started a national work program, pouring billions of dollars into the space research. That money, cycled through private business, started a technological revolution in the west that is still going today. Once that was playing field was leveled, the USSR was hitting diminishing returns and lowered capital. They were more productive for a while, but eventually the drawbacks of authoritarian centralized control, five-year plans, and state collectivism killed their economy. We are lucky Kennedy did the liberal thing and used state money to fund private enterprise.
Don’t give me the canard about torturing people who you know have knowledge. The first problem with torture is that innocent people are subjected to it. We have made lifelong enemies of many families in Iraq by torturing innocent people who we “thought” had knowledge.
You may think saying you would torture someone makes you sound tough or decisive. But it actually makes you sound immoral and ignorant. If you truly knew someone had knowledge of a WMD set to go off, you’d be far better off using a dose of sodium pentathol. It would be faster and more reliable.
As for anger for all the dead innocents of 9/11, I am angry. I wish we had a President who would have finished the job in Afghanistan instead of redeploying troops to Iraq. We have let the murderer, Bin Laden, run free to snub his nose at us. Now Afghanistan is reverting back to the Taliban. What a joke!
I say, respect the innocents who died on 9/11. Avenge their deaths by actually capturing Bin Laden and really destroying the Taliban, whose state supported the attack. Don’t defile the memory of the innocents by using their deaths as a pretext to fight an unjust war in Iraq. How shameful and disgraceful that is.
As for your assertion that I have defended terrorists, you are wrong. And you know you are wrong. But that’s ok. When you have to resort to those tactics, everyone can see you are flailing and unsure of yourself… well, everyone except those who are immersed in the same pseudo-patriot groupthink.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Liberal Guy:
Sorry for not responding sooner, but in your previous comment, you ignored any real points and then kept repeating unsubstantiated claims.
Please support your claims with evidence, preferably from someone outside MoveOn.org and the like. I have done research and have yet to see anything supporting your argument. Unless you do so, there’s really no use in responding to your comments.
November 3rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Katelyn, end your willful ignorance. Look broader than what you are being told by the government and your party. I do not believe you have done research because you have not cited any in your rebuttals. Instead, you make allegations that I don’t have sources and then throw around conservative boogiemen, like MoveOn.org. Below are three separate sources for you. Instead of just reacting to them by saying the are “liberal”, try refuting them with evidence instead of rhetoric.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/international/01renditions.html?ex=1272600000&en=932280de7e0c1048&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6?050214fa_fact6
Listen to both of the audio programs on this next link from the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/353898.html?c=on#c159888
November 4th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Another link for you to read from today.
The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the “alternative interrogation methods” that their captors used to get them to talk.
The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets and that their release — even to the detainees’ own attorneys — “could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage.” Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.
As one law professor points out in the article, this is beyond Kafka-esque. Terrorists know what interrogation techniques are being used. The CIA trained al Qaeda in their methods when we were using them to overthrown the soviet-backed government in Afghanistan in the 80s. The only ones being kept in the dark are US citizens.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301793.html
November 4th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Can you provide evidence that the CIA trained al Qaeda in their interrogation techniques in the 80’s?
November 4th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
Sorry, I mispoke. I meant the Mujahadeen, not al Qaeda. The CIA directly aided and trained the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. Of course, the Islamic fundamentalists we supported against the Soviet Union became Taliban and al Qaeda. Did we support them? Read the following interview.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
Here are three other links I posted above. The note is marked “awaiting moderation”, so perhaps you haven’t seen them. Since you haven’t provided of the research you claim you’ve done, the ball is in your court.
Don’t try to convince me you are right. Search for the truth instead. Use all the evidence. Don’t elide inconvenient evidence like that presented in all the links I’ve provided.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/international/01renditions.html?ex=1272600000&en=932280de7e0c1048&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050214fa_fact6?050214fa_fact6
Listen to both of the audio programs on this next link from the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/353898.html?c=on#c159888
November 11th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
You might want to show the postings of mine that have the data Katelyn requested. How else is she or the rest of your readers going to see them if you leave them in “awaiting moderation” status?
December 9th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Liberal guy,
Sorry for the inconvenience of my late response. Here are my replies:
First, you originally stated that “The CIA trained al Qaeda (actually Mujahadeen) in their methods when we were using them to overthrown (sic) the soviet-backed government in Afghanistan in the 80s.” You attempted to support this statement by using articles that say that the US supported the Mujahadeen against the Soviets. Proving that the US supported the Mujahadeen does not mean that the CIA taught them all their interrogation techniques. Please find facts to support your original statement.
About the Uzbekistan prisoner issue:
Your viewpoint does not make logical sense. Since you believe that torture is ineffective, and you believe the US is sending prisoners to other countries solely to torture them, why would the US would risk its reputation for nothing?
Secondly, if you read the articles that you supply, you’ll realize that the only primary sources are the terrorist suspects themselves. I find it odd that you take their unsubstantiated testimony to be the absolute truth.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
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