So, to help me along with this effort, I am spending an awful lot of time at the computer. This has a two-fold effect:
Keeps me up and alert.
Makes me write multiple posts to the Bund which you have to read.
Read an interesting editorial from our brothers to the North... about the question of torture versus the Bush Administration's "enhanced interrogation".
In 1945-46, the US Government made the following definition of a specific "war crime":
- Simple and intentionally low-calorie rations
- Hard, uncomfortable beds specifically designed to interrupt REM sleep
- Darkened cells
- Deprivation of sleep
- Forced exercise intended to exhaust the prisoner
- repeated blows with a padded stick or baton
- Hypothermia (specifically induced by a very cold cell environment augmented with ice-water wetting)
- "Waterboarding" (strapping a prisoner to a board and simulating drowning)
These crimes were defined by actions laid out in inter-governmental documents written by the Gestapo... actually, authored by the office of Klaus Barbie himself, the "Butcher of Lyon", who is credited with having tortured and killed as many as 4,000 French, Romani (Gypsy), Jewish and Catholic men, women and children... by his own hands... in the years he was Station Chief of the Nazi Gestapo in Lyon.
American jurists at Nuremberg paved the way for international agreements banning and decrying this very sort of "interrogation" that have defined the word "torture" for the last 60+ years in nearly every civilized nation on the face of the earth.
None the less, each of those bulleted-items listed above are now accepted forms of "enhanced interrogation", according to the Bush Administration. The author of the afore mentioned article even made this point: the German word used to define the "bulleted" procedure in official Nazi terminology is "verscharfte vernehmung"... literally, "enhanced interrogation".
We have discussed here (numerous times) the validity of the practice of "waterboarding" as a means of gaining intelligence in the War on Terror, and I'm not restarting that again. I am only asking why it would seem like a good idea to so completely emulate in action and policy the words and deeds of an organization like the Gestapo... and worse still, a man like Barbie... in explaining interrogation and intel-gathering techniques to the media today?
2 comments:
Here we go again
As stated in other posts we know that extended periods of torture or for that matter discomfort doesn't get you credible information but we have also learned that if accomplished over the short term some of these tehniques are very effetive in obtaining immediate information. The secret is knowing the difference. Although I'm not allowed to go into specifics about the school or its technique I have attended military SERE school and I can tell you that administered by the right persons under the ideal conditions which can be created all of these methods are effective in the short term for obtaining information.
If you want to discuss torture at its finest all you have to do is read a little about the Hanoi Hilton during the period of the Vietnam conflict after the Chinese started sending advisors to North Vietnam to assist in information gathering. Those techniques are only good for creating lifelong disabilities and obtaining propaganda for the enemy. Also effective to some degree for that purpose.
Regardless of anyones personal opinion on the definition of torture I will once again give my opinion on the use of such techniques by the American government.
"If tossing some skinny out of a helicopter at 1000 ft naked sans parachute will give us the information to save American lives then we do what we have to do."
I don't like the idea of doing it at all and I would reserve it for a last resort for the guy with the most information that isn't coughing it up. I promise you we aren't playing war with a group of peeps that not only didn't sign the Geneva convention but wouldn't live by it even if they had.
I do see the rational side of an argument that states that American security comes first, and if the “discomfort” of some enemy combatants can provide information that might save American lives, so be it.
However, I dare anyone… Baddboy included… to find a US official in any capacity that will condone or defend the example you give as acceptable in ANY situation. Whether we are speaking of Somali militia strongmen or al Qaeda terrorists… the intentional murder of ANY US prisoner makes us absolutely no better than the men cutting heads off on video. The sole reason they do that is to try and coerce people to do what they want… and your example is the exact same thing.
Now, I do understand facetious analogy and sarcastic whit very well… and I am sure that you are simply using a graphic but hypothetical action to make your point: that American security comes first. When is that NOT the case, though? When is the interest of an abstract concept like “justice” or “human rights” the greater value than “national security”?
The fact that the United States has in the past, is now, and will again be fighting men (and women) that do not recognize or follow the precepts of ANY of the Geneva Conventions does not mean that we don’t have to. In point of fact, as a signatory nation of the Conventions (Hague, Geneva, or any of the 3 protocol amendments to the same), we are BOUND to follow them even when our enemies do not.
I cannot stress enough, as has been stated in this forum before, that what is illegal in the CIVILIAN world is illegal in the MILITARY world. There is only ONE rule of Law in this nation, and all facets of this nation function and operate under that rule. The only difference is the Court by which that Law is enforced. No organ or arm of this Government is above that Law… none.
I think it was Seneca that said “Dura lex, sed lex” (The Law is harsh, but it is the Law)… and I am inclined to agree with him. I am simply saying that if the Law calls something illegal, then no facet of our Government (military or civilian) has the right to circumvent it.
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