Support the Troops

[freedom fighter jh]

Torture is wrong for many reasons.

One reason (about which I have not seen much discussion on DU or in the media) is that it puts our troops at risk of the same treatment.

In their service, our young people risk their lives and well-being, but at least, mostly, the Geneva Convention ensures that if they are taken prisoner they will not be treated with cruelty.

By some bureaucratic logic, prisoners at Guantanamo are not considered prisoners of war; therefore the Geneva Convention does not apply. This is pure BS designed to find a way around the Geneva Conventions. This logic leaves the treaty weakened. It opens the door to other countries to do just what we have done: to declare American POWs to be something other than POWs, unprotected by the Geneva Convention

In recent wars very few of our soldiers have been taken prisoner; I guess that's why we don't worry about the welfare of our POWs. We've been able to avoid this risk to our troops partly because of technology -- a drone operator can be thousands of miles from a bomb -- but also because we have been in control of these wars, because they have been wars of choice. It may not always be this way. Someday we may be sending our young people out to fight in a ground war, in which they may be taken prisoner. If that happens, I hope international law will protect them from the enemy's cruelty.

To look forward we must first look back. We need to establish for ourselves and for the world that we will not torture and the United States will honor its obligations under the Geneva Convention.

Support our troops. Support the Geneva Convention.

[autorank]

1. Excellent k*r

Wow, where's the crowd. This makes a central point regarding respect for human life and dignity. When our rulers allow torture, they endanger our soldiers who then become subject to the torture.

The people have to make these points since our rulers can't.

[freedom fighter jh]

3. Allowing torture is wrong in itself . . .

. . . but if our rulers can't separate us from it just because it's cruel, because it's unnecessary, and because it violates a treaty that we have signed on to, I hope they can at least separate us from it because it endangers our young people. By "separate us from it" I mean (a) not do it and (b) now that we've done it, find some very clear way to say we should not have done it and we will not do it again. Trials have been suggested. I really can't think of any other way.

[jwirr]

2. The Geneva Convention was not put together because war crimes are not nice. It's main goal was

to protect all soldiers from torture in the future. Our soldiers and their soldiers.

[freedom fighter jh]

4. Yes. nt

[burfman]

5. WTF is up with my country.....Enhanced Interrogation is Torture

Thanks for the post, you prompted me to do some reading and thinking on the subject.....


You made some good points, I don't understand either why placing our prisoners in Guantanamo makes for a run around all of our laws that we hold dear (maybe our schools should do a better job of teaching American history). You would think that after 10 years we could give the prisoners a military trial at least.

I don't think that we even need to invoke the Geneva Convention to figure out that our 'enhanced interrogation techniques' are wrong and stupid.

You would have thought that these lessons about how ineffective torture is would have sunk in from our countries experiences in WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

It seems that our 'enhanced interrogation techniques' of the recent past just ended up degrading us more than helping solve anything.

Sen. McCain has been taking initiative on this issue for quite some time. As he was on the receiving side of 'enhanced interrogation' in Vietnam, I think he has more insight into the problems than most people in the house and senate. It's hard to imagine what he truly thinks of some of his fellow Republicans judgement.....


Thanks again freedom fighter jk, peace - burfman


Notes below:



from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness_of_torture_for_interrogation

FM 34-52 Intelligence Interrogation, the United States Army field manual, explains that torture "is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."[4] Not only is torture ineffective at gathering reliable information, but it also increases the difficulty of gathering information from a source in the future.


other interesting links pointed to by the above one....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_34-52_Intelligence_Interrogation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_2-22.3_Human_Intelligence_Collector_Operations

[freedom fighter jh]

7. Thanks for this, burfman. nt

[burfman]

14. Two interesting articles in the Wash Post today about torture - 12/20/14

Freedom fighter jh,

Check out these two short articles in the Washington Post today (Sat 12/20/2014) regarding torture and interrogation.

The first one is a letter to the editor by House Democrat James Moran titled 'Where interrogation worked'. An example of very successful interrogation during World War II by us that did NOT involve torture. Page A14 or: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/where-interrogation-worked/2014/12/19/c273232e-8611-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8_story.html

The second article is in the 'Free for All' section titled 'Think waterboarding is not torture? Try it." A letter from a former US airman who in 1969 went through Navy survival training including 'introduction to waterboarding' (on the receiving side I think). He also states that "Even in 1969, waterboarding was presented in formal Navy training in clear and specific terms as torture".

In 'Free for All - page A13 or: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/waterboarding-not-torture-try-it/2014/12/19/7b680b02-8571-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8_story.html

- Burfman

[freedom fighter jh]

19. I've checked them out.

Thanks for the links.

Must admit that until recently I believed there could be an excuse for torture, if only in a ticking time bomb situation.

But after reading Moran's letter and a bunch of stuff like it, I'm convinced that torture is just an assertion of power and a manifestation of mental illness.

[burfman]

20. "torture is just an assertion of power and a manifestation of mental illness"

I like your sentence, it pretty much summarizes the whole thing. I guess we also have to include under 'mental illness' some of our high ranking officials who felt that they had to do something no matter how ineffective, immoral or stupid it was.

This kind of crap of putting morals on the sidelines has happened before -

some small examples:

Operation paperclip (let's hire Nazi war criminals & bring them to the USA): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

The Church senate committee investigation (a whole bunch of nasty, illegal things that the CIA did):

check it out at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

Here's a quote from the MKUltra Wikipedia entry - Given the CIA's purposeful destruction of most records, its failure to follow informed consent protocols with thousands of participants, the uncontrolled nature of the experiments, and the lack of follow-up data, the full impact of MKUltra experiments, including deaths, will never be known.

MKUltra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

Hoover & the FBI on MLK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#FBI_surveillance_and_wiretapping


Our country should not have to sink so low that our methods become indistinguishable from that of our adversaries. If we do, what exactly do we stand for?

Note: MLK was not an adversary, the FBI & Hoover were just sick. If you ever go on a tour of the FBI in D.C. - when they show you Hoover's desk - make sure you ask the guide why Hoover hated MLK so much. I did and I just got denials that Hoover ever felt that way, maybe you will have better luck getting a more honest answer.

stay cool, love - Burfman.

[spanone]

6. we have already done the damage. we are the cruel enemy now.

[True Blue Door]

8. I have a simpler position.

No one should have to explain why torture is wrong. It's just obvious to functional human beings.

If you are someone who doesn't just automatically get it, you are a problem.

And if you become enough of a problem to take your psychosis to the level of actually torturing people, you are the enemy.

[freedom fighter jh]

9. I agree that torture is simply, obviously wrong.

Am pointing out a consequence of it that some may not have thought of. I'm thinking of people who are pro-war, trying to get them to think of the danger to our troops that comes from our use of torture.

But no, that is not all that makes it wrong. Causing great pain to anyone is wrong in itself.

[True Blue Door]

10. Those people will never get it. They are weak, stupid, foolish, and probably evil.

Fear is the air they breathe. Words of wisdom and light pass right through them.

[KingCharlemagne]

11. Torture works perfectly, if you want to discover

who's a witch.

[KingCharlemagne]

12. When I raaised this point a couple weeks back (having first heard

VP Biden make it when the news of Abu Ghraib broke), I was told by a couple people here that our enemies will torture any U.S. soldier they they capture anyway (the implication being, as far as I could tell, that the torture scandals were mostly just a matter of bad P.R.). Wish I had had access to your post back then to rebut their argument. As it was, I moved on to other threads and topics and never responded to them.

[freedom fighter jh]

13. Pity people think that way.

I agree with True Blue Door that the simple wrongness of torture is a good starting point. How can ppl not see from there that our doing it at all invites others to do it to us?

Some say the best way to improve the world is to improve your own consciousness. Hearing people support torture makes me think this approach may work: If there's any possibility of getting through to people, it may be only after treating them with love and helping them deal with the things that trouble them.

I just came home from a half-day Zen retreat. Everyone there emanated love. Exposure to such people may make it impossible to supper torture. At least I hope it will.

[burfman]

16. Not exactly sure about most American's supporting torture but ......

have you noticed that there does seem to be more public outrage about the Sony 'interview' film not being released than the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's paper about CIA torture?

[99Forever]

18. Who would have ever sunk so low that we...

...would be having this conversation? The really sad part is, that our current administration has chosen to just let the perpetrators slide for these Crimes Against Humanity, they are far more likely to happen again.