Guantanamo Bay: Shame on you, United States

[InfiniteNow]

To those who have been my opponents and critics on this thread, I would like to hear what positive comments they might have about their homeland. My impression is that most Americans engaged on this thread have nothing good to say about their lives in the US.

Look inward, and ask yourself if you truly believe this to be the case, or if you're presenting an oversimplified view of the points others have made so you may more easily dismiss them.

 

 

It's okay that you feel strongly, questor, but you seem unable to accurately perceive and understand the approach to this issue taken by others who happen to disagree with your stance.

[questor]

Inf, since you have joined the conversation, why don't you tell Michael and I why you love your country and want to continue to live in the USA. Maybe if he understands why all the non-haters love America, he will lighten up on us and stop publishing all the left-wing hate articles.

[CraigD]

Questor, in post #44 of this thread, I offered this 1821 John Quincy Adams quote:

"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own... even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty."

Based on your statement in this thread, I conclude you disagree with Adams’s statements. Do I err?

[Michaelangelica]

Michael, I am listening and I am understanding. You and others,

No you are not

including many of my countrymen are constantly taking shots at the US.

Is that not free speech?

Are you getting a lot of criticism directed at your country?

yes + we are a greater terrorism target because of our support for Bush.

The more you help, the more enemies you make.

Depends on your definition of "help"

The opponents you don't help think you are scum and need to be eliminated. This helps to explain foreign hatred of the US , but does not explain the home grown self hatred. To those who have been my opponents and critics on this thread, I would like to hear what positive comments they might have about their homeland. My impression is that most Americans engaged on this thread have nothing good to say about their lives in the US. As I have said, it shows that there are very large differences in the attitudes of Americans.

I would be very surprised if this was true

Criticism is not QED= to hatred.

By the way, there seem to be a number of people who seem to have lost or think they are losing their civil liberties. I wonder where they lost them. I live in the States, and I still have all of mine.

You may not have noticed but you have.

[Michaelangelica]

Inf, since you have joined the conversation, why don't you tell Michael and I why you love your country and want to continue to live in the USA. Maybe if he understands why all the non-haters love America, he will lighten up on us and stop publishing all the left-wing hate articles.

And you say you are listening.

So sad.

[Boerseun]

Questor, we are criticising your opinion.

 

First off, THAT is free speech.

Secondly, we are not fighting your right to post your opinions. THAT is free speech.

Thirdly, this thread is about Guantanamo Bay, and the moral pros and cons of the whole issue. You are attempting to hijack this thread and make it about all the US's good points. We don't want you to do that. THAT is basic thread moderation.

 

But please feel free to open a new thread for that particular issue. THAT is free speech.

[REASON]

Reason, yes, I am willing to discuss the subject of torture. First, let us define our terms. Tell me your definition of torture, since some of the reported acts committed are not considered torture by everyone.

 

OK, now we're talking.

 

I am perfectly willing to accept the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the UN Convention Against Torture, and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the War Crimes Act of 1996 as adequate definitions, rules, and laws regarding acts of torture.

 

Second, give me a ballpark guess on how many prisoners were so treated, out of the hundreds confined?

 

It's difficult to know for sure. We have held nearly 800 detainees at Guantanamo alone. At it's peak in 2004, Abu Ghraib under US control held as many as 7,000 detainees. And, "according to John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), those held in Abu Ghraib prison were among an estimated 14,000 people imprisoned in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546."

 

So let's just say we've held as many as 15,000 detainees. If only a third of those were subjected to some form of cruel, inhuman, or torturous treatment in violation of the Conventions I noted above, we're talking about as many as 5,000. Col. "Janis Karpinski, the commander of Abu Ghraib, demoted for her lack of oversight regarding the abuse, estimated that 90% of detainees in the prison were innocent." In my opinion, US policy allowing the torture of one prisoner is too many.

 

Third, since there are varying reports about the general living conditions of most prisoners, would you describe your opinion of that subject?

I would expect that their living conditions be consistant again with the Conventions I noted above. Granted, they are prisoners, and I don't expect that it should be like a resort hotel. But excessive solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, inhuman treatment, torture, and ghosting of detainees while being held for years without charge doesn't seem like proper living conditions to me.

 

Since the presence of torture seems to be an important topic to you, what would you suggest we do about the torture being committed by our opponents?

We should condemn it as barbaric. We should appeal to the UN and to our friends and allies to join us in that condemnation and we should do whatever we can within the law to stop it. We should call to accountability any host nation or govenment involved in the perpetration of such acts, including our own. But it's hard to hold our opponents accountable when we are perpetrators as well.

 

Has that subject been covered sufficiently for you? Has the global outcry met your standards?

No. Particularly among Americans.

 

Do you think that Bush issued a directive that prisoners be tortured? This seems to be the opinion of some.

Actually, it's the opinion of many. I am unaware of any particular directive by Mr. Bush. I have heard him regularly deny that we have participated in the torture of detainees.

 

But if you consider what the Bush Administration has done with regard to this issue such as, the Abu Ghraib scandal, using signing statements to by-pass the McCain Torture Ban legislation, using contract interregators to avoid military interregation standards, the admitted use of Extraordinary Rendition and Black Sites by the CIA, the last minute passage of the Military Commisions Act of 2006, which restricts the Geneva Conventions and Habeus Corpus, and retroactively provides immunity for acts of torture, the withholding of information for so called National Security, the refusal to acknowledge Waterboarding as a form of torture by the Justice Department, and the destruction of CIA interregation tapes.....

 

.....it doesn't appear that this president is very concerned about preserving the integrity of the United States of America with regard to the treatment of prisoners of war.

[modest]

What we saw in Abu-Ghraib - the pictures and stories. That was just the “warm up” for what happened later. Everything that shocked the world was what happened outside the interrogation room. We don’t often hear what happens when the interrogators are alone with just the detainees, the dogs, and a locked door. When we do hear it's frightening:

 

“I heard the door being closed. And then they beat me from all sides, from everywhere, with hands and feet. With knives or scissors they took away my clothes. In silence. The beating, I think, was just to humiliate me, to hurt me, to make me afraid, to make me silent. They stripped me naked. I was terrified. They tried to take off my pants. I tried to stop them so they beat me again. And when I was naked I heard a camera.”

 

- Khaled el-Masri (German car salesman abducted and torture by the CIA)

 

How many of these stories are not told? Abdul Wali can’t tell his story having died from his torture. What if he were just beaten to within an inch of his life? We still wouldn’t know his name or his story. How often is this the case?

 

Interrogations happen behind closed doors. We can only guess the particular habits of each group of interrogators. I’m not claiming our military intelligence or CIA practitioners are any more or less capable of awful things than Americans on average. But, it doesn’t take an unaverage person to do unimaginable things to another person. This is demonstrated by the Stanford Prison Study where ordinary college students who took the role of guards quickly started doing rather sadistic things to the prisoners. It would seem that just about anyone is capable of this behavior as shown in the Milgram experiment in the 1963. Here is a quote from “Why Ordinary People Torture” from Science Nov. 2004:

 

In short, ordinary individuals under the influence of complex social forces may commit evil acts. Such actions are human behaviors that can and should be studied scientifically

 

It is because of this we need checks and balances. Any such checks seem to be intentionally kept out of the system. The recent government sponsored destruction of video-taped torture sends a message to military and civilian interrogators that government doesn’t want to know what they’re doing behind closed doors. It is human nature for things to get out of hand in this situation. We tell these kids to only torture the bad guys a little bit and at the same time force them to talk. We are further intentionally fuzzy on the details of what these kids legally can and can’t or should and shouldn't do. It’s a recipe for disaster demonstrated every time a story of atrocity leaks out.

 

It’s long past time for us to wake up and listen to what the studies have told us.

 

1) Information gotten by torture is unreliable.

 

The interrogators maintained that, even in the most urgent situations, torture can not be considered a viable option. The involuntary circumstances of the disclosure would compromise the integrity of the information obtained.

Georgetown University research seminar

 

2) Torture is an entity that needs guarded against as it will happen in lieu of prevention.

 

The basic paradigm to be presented illustrates the relative ease with which “ordinary,” good men and women are induced into behaving in “evil ways” by turning on or off one or another social situational variable.

"The Psychology of Power and Evil"

 

The system we’ve set up invites abuse of the kind where people's lives are destroyed in the worst way. I can't understand why we're not doing something about it. Indeed, why we are resisting the efforts of people who are trying to do something about it.

 

-modest (well, not on this issue)

[questor]

For a repeat of my position, I do not support the use of torture. It is barbaric has no place in the modern world. You may also say that war is barbaric and has no place in the modern world. The question then arises--what does one do when attacked? What are the alternatives? Assuming one does go to war, what does one do when there are two sets of rules--one narrow, limited set for you and no rules at all for your opponent? If you read the Conventions,

UN Convention Against Torture

 

Part I

Article 1

''For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application. ''

 

This, if read closely, would pretty well obviate any methods known for extracting information from an enemy quickly. Since the US is the go-to country to keep peace in the world, that means we would not be able to protect our troops and the people we are helping with intelligence. This of course would cause far greater loss of life on our side.

I don't think many Americans would approve torture, but they also don't want their sons and daughters killed because of lack of intelligence. That creates a great problem with no easy solution. I believe the best solution is what I have proposed before. America should not accept the role of Big Brother. Let other countries settle their own problems. Trade only with those nations who are peaceful and help those who need food or medical aid.

The Iraq war is being waged in behalf of people who may never have peace in our lifetime.The same for Afghanistan. War is brutal and barbaric and America should not be in a war unless she has the means and determination to win.

That being said, I take offense at the constant criticism of the States about the torture question while not giving the same opprobrium to the atrocities of the other side. Why do our newspapers not publicly condemn the jihadists and their supporters on a constant basis? Why do foreign newspapers not do the same? Why is there not a constant global outcry against the jihadists crimes against humanity? Makes you almost think there are some America haters out there?

By the way, I do not support torture.

[questor]

CraigD, I agree with Adams statement. I assume you would agree that it calls for an isolationist policy? I have advocated just that in several posts. We have saved several nations with our money and with military help. This has not accrued much to our credit from the world generally. I would withdraw as the peacekeeper of the world and trade only with other peaceful nations. Let other nations solve their differences. Of course this would mean genocide in some countries and many attacks upon some of our''allies'' until it all gets sorted out, and perhaps some nuclear activity overseas, but maybe thats the way it should be.

[freeztar]

CraigD, I agree with Adams statement. I assume you would agree that it calls for an isolationist policy? I have advocated just that in several posts. We have saved several nations with our money and with military help. This has not accrued much to our credit from the world generally. I would withdraw as the peacekeeper of the world and trade only with other peaceful nations. Let other nations solve their differences. Of course this would mean genocide in some countries and many attacks upon some of our''allies'' until it all gets sorted out, and perhaps some nuclear activity overseas, but maybe thats the way it should be.

 

I see your point, and perhaps you are right.

On the other hand, I tend to view isolationism as a relic of our history. What place does isolationism have in a post 9/11 world? How would our allies view us if we suddenly abandoned the world?

 

Imho, it's the abandonment of the world (hands over the ears) on issues such as Gitmo and Iraq that have led to such international dissent. Of course, if we were 100% peaceful, neither issue would be an issue, and on this point I think we are in total agreement.

[Buffy]

The problem of course is that if you are going to claim the moral superiority required to justifiably act as the world's policeman, then you must--as with Ceasar's wife--be above suspicion.

 

By constantly saying "why don't you look at how bad the other guy is" you lose all moral superiority, especially when playing games with the definition of the word torture, as the Bush Administration has done: "We do not torture...but we reserve the right to redefine any activity as not torture."

 

With this sort of attitude, there is no moral suasion that can be applied: its the exact attitude of the cruelest of bullies, and is exactly the sort of "moral relativism" that extreme conservatives have been throwing at "liberals" for years. That's perceived as hypocritical.

 

To answer your completely offensive question: yes, those of us who criticize the disastrous policies of the current administration do indeed love America, and it makes us both angry and sad that the foolish acts of Bush and company have done so much to tarnish the reputation of our country.

 

By wrapping themselves in the flag and calling all that disagree with them "traitors," they only look worse both in they eyes of loyal Americans as well as the rest of the world.

 

While you may not mourn the loss of the 1st and 4th amendment, maybe you should be concerned that once there is an established mechanism for suspending the the Bill of Rights, the 2nd and all the others will fall too.

 

Are you not worried about your right to bear arms?

 

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy,

Buffy

[questor]

Buffy, your problem seems to devolve around the rascally republicans and the Satan, George Bush. I guess he gets no credit for his actions to protect our country from further attack or his attempt to bring freedom and political stability to the Middle East. This does not seem to be an important concept to some people even though our safety and energy supply for the immediate future rests heavily upon the outcome of the Iraqi war. The next president will have to deal with this problem and God forbid it will be the Dems.

Would you explain to me what rights or constitutional laws have been changed that worry you so much? I live in DC in the heart of the beast and I haven't noticed my life being curtailed in any way. Perhaps only the libs have been affected.

While I do not support torture, I do understand situations where some intelligence may save many lives. If you have a prisoner in custody that possesses pertinent intelligence to save these lives, how far should we go to prevent the sacrifice of many innocents for the one bad guy?

[modest]

While I do not support torture, I do understand situations where some intelligence may save many lives. If you have a prisoner in custody that possesses pertinent intelligence to save these lives, how far should we go to prevent the sacrifice of many innocents for the one bad guy?

 

You assume that the best way to get reliable information quickly is via torture. Studies do not show this. They show the opposite. I find this study particularly compelling because the participants were the interrogators themselves:

 

The interrogators, all of whom are also peripherally involved in training interrogators, have conducted interrogation and other human intelligence operations in Vietnam, Grenada, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the ongoing war in Iraq. They reviewed for the psychologists the U.S. military training program for interrogators and the established interrogation methodologies

 

In other words - the psychologists were not developing theories on the effectiveness of torture in the vacuum of their comfortable office and hypothetical situations. They were hearing the actual stories from the interrogators themselves who have experience with this topic more than we would want to know.

 

According to the interrogators, harsh approaches are typically the first choice of novice and untrained interrogators but the last choice of experienced professional interrogators. The detainee’s fear, the interrogators said, can easily turn to anger, which may escalate to the point that the interrogator cannot re-establish emotional control of the situation. The interrogator then loses all possibility of cooperation from the detainee. But cooperation is crucial to the goal of trustworthy information. Severe stress and injury, interrogators added, may also impair the mental ability of the detainee to provide accurate information.

 

It would seem that torture is not only not necessary to obtain good information quickly, it is unhelpful. We should trust the word of experts in both fields.

 

Torture does not yield reliable information and is actually counterproductive in intelligence interrogations, which aim to produce the maximum amount of accurate information in the minimum amount of time. In fact, popular assumptions that torture works conflict with the most effective methodologies of interrogation, as well as with fundamental tenets of psychology.

 

-modest

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

questor... Bush hasn't saved us from future attacks...only further ensured that more will follow...911 is the direct result of our military involvment in the middle east....For decades now we've been fking with them now that they've had enough it's finally spilling over onto american soil...Where a vast majority don't even know we've been at war in the middle east since long before the first gulf war...and we're still making orphans, widows, and widowers eager to exact revenge and more than willing to accept any opportunity offered.

 

Adding more fuel to the fire are these issues of torture.

Which not only further enrage our enemies but destroy our credibility with our allies.

 

Do yourself and your country a favour WAKE UP! Wipe the BS out of your eyes and realise that not only will our nation's recent actions never make us safe.... but if allowed to continue will eventually lead to american citizens recieving the same treatment from our dear 'ol uncle and the loss of our most sacred rights - free speech, privacy, the right to assemble, and the right to bear arms. (And incedently will only continue to provide our enemies worldwide

with more propaganda to recruit even more martyrs for their cause.)

[CraigD]

Questor, in post #44 of this thread, I offered this 1821 John Quincy Adams quote:

…

Based on your statement in this thread, I conclude you disagree with Adams’s statements. Do I err?

CraigD, I agree with Adams statement. I assume you would agree that it calls for an isolationist policy?

I would call the policy prescribed by John Quincy Adams as one of non-involvement, a policy subtly but very significantly different from isolationism. Adams advocates diplomatic and other non-military forms of support for other countries (“She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all”), but not military support.

 

One might criticize this policy of providing no more than “moral support” as being outdated and overly idealistic, but IMHO, Adams was right. The legal confusion and compromise necessary for the US to “project force” into other countries is, I believe events of the past century and especially last half century show, threatening to the fundamental liberties upon which the Republic is based.

 

From another perspective, I find the belief that we in the US should protect ourselves from threats by surrendering our liberties – a belief that recent surveys have shown is held by more than 50% of US citizens when questioned about specific issues, and by about 45% in general (source: http://ippsr.msu.edu/Documents/PolicyBrief/911Briefing.pdf) – to be fundamentally and dangerously flawed, and in a fundamental way, cowardly. As other early US leaders famously said: “Those who would give up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARY SAFETY, deſerve neither LIBERTY nor SAFETY.” (source: Benjamin Franklin - Wikiquote)

 

IMHO, truly patriotic Americans understand that, to have the liberties we hold sacred, we must accept dangers from which citizens of less free societies may be more protected. In addition, I agree with Benjamin Franklin and others that the protection gained by surrendering liberty is likely to be only temporary, leading us to be ultimately both less free and less secure.

I have advocated just that in several posts.

My apologies for misunderstanding your position.

 

From your reaction to criticism of the present US Executive, particularly its promotion and prosecution of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, I had concluded that you support such policies. Now, I believe you are saying that you do not. I, too, do not support these policies.

[Buffy]

Buffy, your problem seems to devolve around the rascally republicans...

Actually I am a Republican and always have been. Unfortunately the last Republican I really liked was Howard Baker. And more depressingly, the Republican party has been taken over by the neo-cons who have nothing but scorn for the "reality-based community" and end up getting us into horrific geopolitical messes, and the "win at all costs, principles be damned" Gingrich-DeLay wing of the party who care solely about power and don't care who they sell their souls to as long as they get elected, thus leaving us with an over-consolidated and uncompetitive economy of companies who through luck and legal bribery find themselves at the top of the heap with not a clue as to what to do to keep it all from collapsing on their incompetence.

.. and the Satan, George Bush.

There you go again trying to associate any disagreement with Bush as being equivalent to irrationally "hating" him.

 

He is not in the least bit "evil." He appears to be quite honest in his convictions, and I genuinely believe he is motivated by fairly widely shared notions of morality. I agree with many of his reasons for pursuing the policies he has pursued, I only find that those specific policies lack much clarity of thinking about consequences or an understanding of what the world is like for the people outside his country-club set.

 

No Child Left Behind shows that he does care about education for all, but he seems absolutely clueless that its a policy that steals resources and mismotivates the educational community and drives education *away* from the excellence that is necessary to produce a high-tech economy: it just makes sure that everyone is average.

 

Or back to torture: his gut--and the movies--tell him that torture works, but he's conflicted enough about it that even he would like to limit it to activities that "cause no permanent damage," something that is an abstraction to him. For all the same reasons you've outlined above--the other guys do worse, its "limited," its only done on "really bad guys who deserve it," and most importantly that "it works"--he's able to justify that its still "moral" to do it.

 

The problem is that neither he nor you seem to understand what *our own military* decided *decades* ago:

• You don't want to do it to other people, because (using the same excuse you give) they *will* do it to you, and others will simply think you deserve it and you'll get no opportunity for retribution. Yield the high moral ground and you lose *all* ability to maneuver. The Israelis are suffering from this precisely because of the neo-con tendencies of Likud. Even Ariel Sharon realized this--a bit too late--and was busy back pedaling from these kinds of policies before he was incapacitated.
  
• "Limited" is a grey area, and you will kill at least some people or damage some people mentally or physically, because not everyone is the same.
  
• You don't really know who the bad guys are, and you're just as likely to pick a total innocent as not.
  
• It does not work. It never does: people will tell you whatever you want to hear, and the only examples the administration has pointed to as "successes" have been described as baseless and useless inventions from unimportant players by the very people who have been involved in the torture. Conversely, some of the most useful intelligence (e.g. the thwarted bombing of LAX that came *before* the Bush Administration's push for "enhanced interrogation) has come from using *traditional* *non-coercive* interrogation.
  

Why do the neo-cons do this? Misplaced macho desires? Too many episodes of 24? A desire for immediate gratification? Who knows. But what is known is that the concepts have come from people who have *no idea* of what they're talking about, who question the patriotism of the experts who advise them to the contrary.

 

The belief that there are rational conclusions to be drawn from actual experience is obviously a "liberal value" that is "the worst thing that could happen to America."

 

Why are you so opposed to logic and scientific methods?

 

I guess he gets no credit for his actions to protect our country from further attack or his attempt to bring freedom and political stability to the Middle East.

No, he's alienated every ally we had because he told them all "my way or the highway." He pursued Iraq which was contained because the neo-cons were obsessed with the "loss" of Iraq because Bush 42, Colin Powell and a bunch of other policy wimps wouldn't "go all the way to Baghdad."

 

Why is it so hard to understand that there is a rational conclusion that leaving Saddam in power makes geopolitical sense? Old-era Republicans understand this. Its shocking that these new so-called Republicans so disdain logic and rationality that they would do anything to soothe their egos.

 

And to call this a partisan issue is to avoid the fact that the folks in power are *not* Republicans, they're selfish, small-minded little boys who are in way over their heads.

 

I'll take a moderate policy wonk of *either* party over the idiots in power right now.

Would you explain to me what rights or constitutional laws have been changed that worry you so much? I live in DC in the heart of the beast and I haven't noticed my life being curtailed in any way. Perhaps only the libs have been affected.

No, probably not. But they'll be coming for you next. As I mentioned in my previous post, Bush has set a precedent that allows the Executive Branch to abridge the Bill of Rights if they so choose.

 

With Democrats in the White House and both houses of congress, who knows what amendment of the Constitution that you*do* cherish that they'll take away.

 

Think you have an absolute right to have a gun? Maybe Hillary will send the black booted thugs into your home to confiscate them and throw you in jail as a terrorist for owning one. Who do you have to thank? George Bush!

 

On the other hand, maybe you think that the entire Bill of Rights and all those pesky other pinko amendments should be abolished. If you're a rich white male, you'll probably do just fine without them. But will this be America any more? Nope. *Then* who is the "traitor" to America?

While I do not support torture, I do understand situations where some intelligence may save many lives. If you have a prisoner in custody that possesses pertinent intelligence to save these lives, how far should we go to prevent the sacrifice of many innocents for the one bad guy?

You need to stop watching 24 and start listening to the folks in the military who are *experts* on this who disagree with this assertion.

 

Your premise is false, and therefore so is your conclusion. The only excuse for believing otherwise is a preference for fantasy over reality.

 

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity, :(

Buffy