Has the basic question on torture been asked?

[jpgray]

"If one of our servicepeople were captured, would you want them to be subjected to the same interrogation methods we use? Waterboarding? Sleep-deprivation? Attack dogs?"

then the obvious followup:

"Therefore we expect terrorist organizations to treat prisoners better than we do?"

Have these basic questions been asked of the relevant policymakers? In public press conferences? Let me know if that's so, as I'd like to see the answers.

[Mojambo]

1. Thom Hartmann: "Torture IS TERRORISM" n/t

[jpgray]

3. I know many editorials have made the argument, I'm wondering which admin folks have been confronted

Directly, if possible.

[Orrex]

2. Like idiots, they cling to a preposterous delusion

We don't interrogate the military personnel of a sovereign nation, captured as prisoners of war; we interrogate enemy combattants, who have attacked our "interests" without belonging to the formal military of any sovereign state.

Honestly, I can't think of any other way that they can possibly justify it to themselves, and it hinges on the self-deception that we're the "good guys" acting in righteous good faith to protect freedom and democracy and whatever else.

How would our esteemed members of Congress react if it were learned tomorrow that Iran had captured and "interrogated" a dozen or so US service personnel? Our bombers would be in the air by dawn of the next day.


Your post is excellent. K/R!

[jpgray]

5. I believe the Geneva Convention makes clear provision for irregular combatants

In article IV:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention#Article_4

The easy question in that case is to ask what defines an "enemy combatant," and then ask "Is the US honoring its treaty obligations with regard to the Geneva Conventions?"

There's no way to define an enemy combatant such that they don't fall into one of those categories, barring a totally ridiculous misinterpretation. Which is to be expected.

:P

[Captain Angry]

4. Unfortunately, they'd reply with beheadings.

[razors edge]

6. Beats some of the shit we do.

I'd rather go quick, than be humiliated and photoed for shits and grins, fucked with for five years then dragged out back and shot.

[Captain Angry]

7. Not arguing on that one.

I'm just saying that the beheading thing would be the perfect 3 second soundbite retort. The context you added would never be given on TV.

[razors edge]

8. Played for all the milage they could get. n/t

[Captain Angry]

9. My dad was a bomber pilot in Viet Nam.

He doesn't even like to think about what would have happened if his plane went down. And that's one of the (many) reasons he's so against us torturing. Anything we do opens us up to retaliation.

We have not needed to torture a single person to get any of the fake information we've received.

The people who are ok with torture in any way, shape or form are not thinking of the future. The precedent set today will bite us in the ass.

Right, Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in 1983? Bastards.

[razors edge]

10. It's all been a waste of time.

I did my four in the Corps, air-winger, but a lot of my friends were grunts. I was stationed in Kaneohe Bay HI, they have both there.

There used to be an old saying in the war torn areas where we were in control, "Tell it to the Marines", it didn't mean to rat people out, it meant that if you had a question about what was going on tell it the Marines for a straight answer. That trust was hard earned over two centuries and lost in months under bush.

Torture has only one benefit to a leader, keep the population in fear. The kind of leader using it cares nothing for his own troops, but they are now as young as I once was and don't see that yet.

We may never get get back what bush cast aside.

[razors edge]

11. Why haven't the terrorists posted all the

same type of humiliating things we do to their people being done to our troops?

Do they have higher standards?

[JVS]

12. I think the official answer to that question would be to say that what the opponent does to our...

people makes waterboarding look like a walk in the park.

[Disturbed]

13. Speaking of Prisoners. The Iraqi Insurgency still have three

US Troops.