I was going to write a long and boring bitch about the current adminstration's position on the torture of prisoners, but frankly, I don't have time. I do want to note a couple of qoutes from a cnn article I read earlier today. "The ban on mistreatment of prisoners, and another provision standardizing the interrogation techniques used by U.S. troops, have stalled two defense bills in Congress, including a must-pass wartime spending measure."
"The administration fears the provisions could limit the president's ability to stop a terrorist attack and it is seeking to add language that would offer some protection from prosecution for some interrogators accused of violating McCain's provision."
"The goal is the same here," (Karen) Hughes said on CBS' "The Early Show." "The goal is to make it very clear that the United States is a nation of laws and that we operate our detainee policy within our laws, within our international obligations and without torture." (If this was true, than we wouldn't be having this discussion right now, you lying bitch!)
OK. First off, I believe that torture is complete and utter bullshit! Anyone will tell you anything that you want to hear if you hurt or scare them enough. That doesn't make it fact. If we send the message to the world that torture is OK, then we'll surely increase the probability of our troops being tortured in current or even future conflicts. McCain knows and understands this. He was once a POW and he was tortured.
Well that is my basic take on this. What do you think?
3 comments:
I'm going to cut the politics out this issue, and tell you that it's a military issue for military commanders and soldiers.
I don't like the media second-guessing what our soldiers are doing under fire. If their behavior is out of hand, the commanders need to deal with it. Every commander in uniform was once a soldier, and he faced at least the possibility of being taken a prisoner of war. You treat a soldier from another nation as a soldier in your own army, and you treat another man as you'd want yourself to be treated. That being said, Islamic terrorists and insurgents are not uniformed soldiers, and do not deserve to be treated with the dignity of a soldier. They are the lowest of cowards, and deserve the harshest, swiftest punishment any man could ever deserve. I'm not sure that torture is going to do any good (as any veteran military commander would tell you), but I'm not there everyday risking my life so I'm not going to pass judgement. We asked our military to do a job, and I say we let them do it.
I understand people may be against the torture of prisoners for humanitarian reasons, but what's humanitarian about burying bombs under roads so they blow up and kill peacekeepers? Those same bombs kill untold numbers of innocent people. Why would you care what we do with those cowards?
I don't necessarily believe in torture, but I'm not an intellegence specialist, nor am I a warden. I beleive in letting the military do what we asked them to do.
I do think all the New York Times' coverage of Abu Ghraib is not only ridiculously unwarranted, but it's done wonders to piss off the Arab world. I'm certainly not saying that they shouldn't be allowed to talk about it, but it's distasteful to intentionally draw excessive attention to it, and there's no doubt it makes our soldiers' jobs harder.
Hey Axe,
I understand and appreciate what you're saying. I hate these terrorists just as much as the next guy, but I feel that the use of torture lowers us to their standards and has the potential of endangering our young men and women.
We need to set an example as to how prisoners are to be treated, so that the Iraqi people can form a government that they can be proud of. Here in America, we do not treat the most vile of criminals in tht manner, so we shouldn't do it over there.
I don't blame the NY Times for the Abu Ghraib scandal, they just reported it. That is their job. The blame rests solely in the hands of the ones who committed the acts and their superiors for letting it happen.
Please don't think for a minute that I'm against our soldiers, because I do support them 100%, but our military is better than this and it is a shame that a few fuckheads are giving them a bad name.
I agree with both of you here. The morons who tortured the people at Abu Ghraib weren't doing anything significant for intellegence at all, they were just making an ass out of our military. I have no sympathy for any of them because their actions were entirely inexcusable.
The fact that soldiers are against torture is exactly why I'd want our commanders to have the judgement call. John McCain, like you said, would never allow his soldiers to do the things he suffered through to another human being. This is why I'd rather not babysit our distinguished military commanders by telling them what to do. They know how to do their job, and they know what is and what isn't appropriate.
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