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Two governments went in for
Two governments went in for torture in a big way in World War II: Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan. They LOST THE WAR. Doesn't that tell you something?
Torture is Convenient In
Torture is Convenient
In fact, all too often it happens to be a matter of convenience. Suppose I'm President Bush and I'm waging war in lands afar. Whoops. One group of terrorists surrendered, and now I have prisoners of war.
Now, the sensible thing to do would be to execute all of them--throw the good out with the bad. Nope. That's not what a 'moral' nation does. A 'moral' nation puts them all on trial at enormous cost, and inevitably winds up releasing many unrepentant fighters due to lack of evidence (which, we might've guessed, is hard to find after a firefight in backwoods Podunkistan).
These fighters will surely start killing my soldiers as soon as they can put their hands on a weapon, and so I, commander-in-chief, consider expensive trials a fairly impractical, 'moral' alternative to simply locking people up until hell freezes over.
But now I've got thousands of people, all of whom would like nothing other than to cut off my head and ---- down my ------, sitting in a sunny paradise, chewing up billions in detention costs. What if I could somehow exploit this 'moral' system to work for me?
Why, I could torture all of them! Hire a few psychopaths from the military to smack them around, choke them, break them down. Sure, torture is unreliable, but it doesn't cost me anything, and people use it for a reason: chances are, maybe just one of these tortured souls is going to crack and give me some verifiable intel.
Problem solved! Everybody wins! (Except for the people getting tortured, but who cares about them.)
Now, doesn't this 'moral' system work so much better than just shooting them all in the first place?
Oh yeah? Well, at least it's more convenient.
Wow. This is depressing.
Wow. This is depressing.
Not very many people that are currently being tortured in Guantanamo are actually terrorists. Plenty of them are just Arabs. Also, studies show that most people that are tortured for information (especially if they are innocent) will make things up just to end the pain and suffering. This is counter productive because having information on terrorist groups that isn't true can cause HUGE mistakes in future strategies for fighting them.
MOST IMPORTANTLY: Torture is cruel and inhumane.
"Suppose I'm President"
I'll end by saying that I'm SO glad you aren't.
Perhaps the sarcasm in that
Perhaps the sarcasm in that last post wasn't quite glaring enough. Read it again knowing that I believe Bush is evil incarnate, and it'll make it a bit cheerier.
And you'll note that I refer to verifiable intel. Interrogators are well aware that people will lie to stop their suffering. In many cases, though, if a tidbit of intel is leaked, CIA drones (the human variety, working in data mining centers) can verify the intel without any risk. Satellites, aerial recon, and civillian spies can confirm everything from weapons caches to insurgent headquarters, to 'enemy presence' in an area.
Next day, back the interrogators come, with waterboarding for the liars, and candycanes for the stoolies. (Knuckles isn't quite as dumb as Mark makes him out to be.) As you'd imagine, the liars stop lying pretty quickly in some cases. You almost (almost) feel a sense of solidarity with those that withstand the torture for years and years.
Is the whole act deplorable? Yes. I strongly believe that no amount of intel is worth sacrificing the once-proud national identity of 300 million people. The 'ticking time-bomb scenario' is utterly contrived, and could be used to rationalize virtually anything if tweaked the right way.
That being said, is torture effective? Sort of. It works some times and not others. But if there's no risk to verify the intel, then there's really no cost. Something that America gets for free, as it just so happens that thousands of people are incarcerated. There's a word for that...
Con...
Conve... something?
I just think that torture is
I just think that torture is something that we should stay away from, regardless of wether or not it works.
What is this? How naive can
What is this? How naive can I be and still feign literacy day?
That would likely explain why you all posted Anon!
The U.S., love it or leave
The U.S., love it or leave it. Think about what that means today.
"The U.S., love it or leave
"The U.S., love it or leave it. Think about what that means today."
You see, you can't just polarize someone's views of the U.S.A like that my friend. What you're saying sounds like more of the "you're either with us or you're supporting Al-Quaeda" garble.
Someone can easily love the U.S.A and still hate many of the things that it does.
For example:
I love the U.S.A.
However I do in fact hate: the bush administration, our governments persistence in continuing the Iraq war, the U.S.A.'s inability to give a woman the right to make up her own mind about whether or not to abort her fetus, the laws that forbid gay marriage in most states, the fact that the bush administration has COMPLETELY ignored the geneva convention and has allowed torture to exist at guantanamo, the fact that sexism is still not addressed enough by our government (for example McCain replying with "excellent question" when someone at a speech of his asked him (referring to hillary clinton) "so how do we beat the bitch?", and last but not least the fact that the U.S.A. used a completely un-true excuse (along with taking advantage of the country's fear and anger after
9-11) to justify the invasion of Iraq. Yes that's right, Iraq is MUCH worse off now than it was before we invaded.
I'll say it again I LOVE THE USA!! I hate all of the things listed above.
The same rings true for lots and lots of people.
Think about what THAT means today.
The Bush contribution only
The Bush contribution only regards publicity, torture has been a tool for a long time. Impeachment still is more likely over trivialities like sex affairs even when they're in spare time and paid by private money. The Bush crime gang OTOH doesn't get impeached despite having started illegal wars of aggression or saving criminal Wall Street gamblers with taxpayer's money.
Why hasn't bush been
Why hasn't bush been impeached over this? I am shocked he has managed to pull this stuff off for so long now.
Because, Pelosi (along with
Because, Pelosi (along with come other selected congress persons) have known about the torture since 2003 and she does not want risk getting questioned herself. That is why she has said right from the beginning that "Impeachment is off the table" even though she is fully aware of Bush and Cheney's numerous crimes against our Constitution, our environment and the people of the entire globe.
Bush is the banal "happy face" of evil and Cheney evil incarnate. Cheney's wife even brought a Darth Vader doll with her to give to John Stewart on the Daily Show!
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