You know, I hear a lot of people of the anti-war left screaming about the indecencies and atrocities of interrogating terrorists and terrorist suspects at various detention centers.
Granted, it's not pretty or peaceful. It can get violent, it can grind on the psyche of these prisoners, and it's brutal...but as time has proven, it's necessary if you want to get these terrorists to tell you the information you need to know so we can defend our nation against future attacks.
My question is very simple, and I want an answer to this: How else do you propose we get these people to provide us with vital information that can help us defend our borders. How else do we get these people to talk?
If someone can come up with a form of interrogation, that is at least as equally effective as our current tactics, and doesn't involve wearing down the physical, emotional, and/or mental state of a prisoner...let me know. I know of no such tactics, and frankly, I don't think anyone else does, either.
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Are the borders worth "defending" at the cost of a fundamental change to the identity and character of the country within them?
You're talking about "defending America" by abandoning core values that make us what we are. What you propose to "defend" through the use of torture isn't America anymore if we sanction that.
Rightwingers like to say the terrorists attacked us because they hate our freedom.
If we respond by curtailing our freedoms, and compromising our values, the terrorists have truly won.
Personally, I would prefer to die in a terrorist bombing than surrender my Constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties to any Presidential administration, regardless of party.
I think anyone worthy of the appellation, "patriot" would necessarily agree with this.
Time to drag out the threadbare-yet-always relevant quote from Poor Richard:
In 1755 (Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, Tue, Nov 11, 1755), Franklin wrote: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
I think this also applies to our core values that make us who and what we are.
So you propose that stop our interrogations and "take our chances", so to speak?
Also, how does our interrogating of terrorists/criminals who are not protected by the Constitution change the core values of the nation...interrogating terrorists isn't curtailing the freedoms of American citizens and legal residents.
Who's a "terrorist?"
Whoever the Bushies say they are?
And did you forget Jose Padilla, an American citizen, civilian, taken on American soil and held as an "enemy combatant" in a military facility for years without charges, trial, or access to counsel?
And esentially, driven insae to the point where he was unable to participate in his own defense, once they got around to charging him with something?
No, Phil, the real threat isn't the "terrorists" from outside.
The real threat to our country, which I love, comes from those who daily propose to do violence to our Constitution, our core values, and the things that make us what we are.
if conservatives would be as aggressively defensive of the rest of our rights as they are defensive of my right to keep and bear arms (and bless them for that) I would sleep a lot better at night.
Phil asks:
So you propose that stop our interrogations and "take our chances", so to speak?
I propose that we do not sacrifice simple decency on the altar of fear.
No, Phil, the real threat isn't the "terrorists" from outside.
The real threat to our country, which I love, comes from those who daily propose to do violence to our Constitution, our core values, and the things that make us what we are.
Living in a safe, secure nation is part of what makes us who we are, Eddie.
A "terrorist" is someone who sees America (that includes you and me, both) as inherently evil and either plots, physically/financially supports, and/or carries out attacks against the United States and/or her territories/protectorates.
Now, I believe (given the evidence) that Jose Padilla was guilty...and given the fact that we were/are at war, the process changes slightly. It has been like that since the foundation of this great nation, which you know that I love as much as anyone. See every war we've been involved in, and you'll see how the process is altered due to the state of things.
Imprisoning an American citizen, a civilian, in a military facility for years without charges, trial, or access to counsel is hardly a "slight change to the process."
It is grounds for the impeachment of the President of the United States and any other elected officials in the executive branch who authorized or condoned this.
Also, we are NOT "at war."
No declaration of war has been issued by Congress since 1941.
The AUMF does not constitute a declaration of war.
The situation in Iraq is not a war (except to the extent it is an Iraqi civil war), it is an occupation.
And an occupation cannot be "won."
It can end in one of two ways: annexation or withdrawal.
Do you propose to annex Iraq?
Phil:
I am very surprised and disappointed at this post. I have not seen a single complaint from a Democratic elected offical criticizing interrogation of terrror suspects. What Most Democrats--and many Republicans--object to is torture, because more often than not torture provides bad intelligence.
I think you are playing word games here Phil, because interrogation isn't inhumane and we can interrogate someone as long as we like and there is nothing wrong with that. It is when we torture people that we cross the line: legally and morally.
The Bush administration's use of tactics like sensory deprivation, stress positions, water boarding and the dozens of other methods ranging from petty cruelties up to and including outright murder works against our cause in countless ways.
We are stuck in a circle that will keep repeating itself as long as Bush is president. Democrats--and some Republicans--say we should not torture. Bush insists on torturing people, but calls it "interrogation."
It's hard to have a meaningful dialogue on policy with people who distort the meaning of the words used to discuss that policy.
I'll answer this in order
Eddie - No, it's not a "war", but it is a "military action", is it not? I'm the first person to say that "this isn't a war" in Iraq...we won that war a long time ago. NOW it is an occupation, and has been since we ridded the world of Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party.
RD - I think one has to define what is "outright torture" and what is "interrogation". Sensory depravation, in my opinion, is not outright torture. Neither is blasting Metallica and such 24/7 throughout Guantanamo Bay. If a prisoner acts up, physical restraint is not torture, either.
Now, simply throwing a prisoner into a room and beating the ever-living crap out of them, that's torture.
However, there are those that believe simply detaining these people is torture...and it's too much. I will agree, RD, that you don't hear these calls so much from Democratic politicians as you do from Democratic pundits.
Phil, others have touched on these points and I don't have the energy tonight to philosophize at much length, but there are two basic problems with your argument, as I see it. First, your use of the term "terrorist" implies an adjudication that hasn't taken place. Do George Bush and his henchmen get to decide that anyone they seize is a "terrorist" and therefore the public will swallow anything that is done to them? For many of the detainees, there is no evidence of connection with terrorism. Take the case of Sami al-Hajj, about whom I wrote at Cobalt6. He was a journalist in the wrong place at the wrong time, there is no evidence of a connection to terrorism, and yet he's been detained without charges and allegedly tortured. So who is a terrorist? And second, even though this seems trite, if we stoop to evil, then evil wins. If we can't hold ourselves to a higher standard, what right do we have of holding the rest of the world to that standard. If we are safer as a result of information obtained through torture, then it is only in the very short term. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that these tactics spell our doom and probably doom for the human race.
And then in your replies you seem to use "interrogation" as a synonym for torture. It is not the same thing.
"Imprisoning an American citizen, a civilian, in a military facility for years without charges, trial, or access to counsel is hardly a "slight change to the process."
It is grounds for the impeachment of the President of the United States and any other elected officials in the executive branch who authorized or condoned this."
If this is correct than Abraham Lincoln should have been impeached since the policy at Andersonville was to let them live in filth and starvation until the war ended.
You can't have it both ways.
Cliff, I'm referring to those who have connections to terrorist activities. I've also stated examples as to what, in my own mind, constitutes torture and what constitutes interrogation.
From what I'm understanding, Cliff (and maybe your lack of energy contributes to how I'm interpreting this), you believe that we should only go after terrorists "post-attack". How is that protecting our nation and saving innocent lives?
Banned from the New Dominion: Help me with that statement...because Andersonville, if I remember correctly (which I probably don't) was a Confederate prison, wasn't it?
Phil, no I'm not saying we can only act "post-attack." But there needs to be a method, or a standard, by which someone is determined to be "connected to terrorism" and therefore subject to detention. (At present, since it is all done in secret, all we know that detentions are overbroad and there do not seem to be any such standards.) Furthermore, there must be some way of challenging those detentions in specific cases so that individuals who should not be detained can obtain their release. (Courts are beginning to move in that direction, I'm happy to say, but the government is fighting them every step of the way.)
And if we're only talking about non-torture interrogation for suspects (suspicions based on reasonable standards), then I'm with you. Interrogate away. (The Army should get Kyra Sedgwick from The Closer to help them -- she's a terrific interrogator.) There is plenty of literature about what constitutes acceptable interrogative technique, and there are international agreements banning torture. Admittedly the lines aren't as clear as I might like, but in general the rule should be: No torture.
Also, in general, I'm troubled by the notion that we should "protect innocent lives" by taking (or otherwise destroying) innocent lives, or by allowing arbitrary unreviewable decisions as to who is innocent and who isn't. These extra-judicial proceedings and abuse of executive power will lead us down a very dark path.
My apology for the misstatement, However early in the war both sides traded prisoners. Later both sides retained prisoners. Many Confederate prisoners were held in the southern Maryland area. Lincoln did agree to these prison encampments. There may be some slight differences between solders and Terrorist but in any case war means suspension of civilities until normality returns.
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