The Torturers' Manifesto »
Posted By Beau7890 6 months, 3 weeks ago in Political NewsTo read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush's Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity.
Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before being locked in a box with an insect -- all to stop just short of having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture and abusive treatment of prisoners.
In one of the more nauseating passages, Jay Bybee, then an assistant attorney general and now a federal judge, wrote admiringly about a contraption for waterboarding that would lurch a prisoner upright if he stopped breathing while water was poured over his face. He praised the Central Intelligence Agency for having doctors ready to perform an emergency tracheotomy if necessary.
These memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on interrogations, which was the authors’ statutory obligation. They were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic values.
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Beau7890
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captgeobob6 months, 3 weeks ago
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And I suppose you believe that decapitating an innocent American is not nauseating? Listen my friend, when a nation is at war and we are at war, you must do whatever it takes to protect you country, citizens, and family and our way of life. If you do not do these things then you will lose and then you will either be killed or made to do things against your will.
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Beau78906 months, 3 weeks ago
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Right. And since torture produces unreliable information, it doesn't protect our country, citizens or families. It further endangers our armed forces. And because our way of life involves attempting to claim the moral high ground, torture destroys that all on its own.
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Gransater6 months, 3 weeks ago
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And if you lower yourself to the level of your enemy, then, you have allready lost the war.
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When you abrogate your principles of morality, you in fact become lower than your enenmy, because you gave up on these on own free will, and surrendered any claim to rigtheous superiority.
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cheif6 months, 3 weeks ago
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There's another manual that will lead you into the depravity you so willingly apply to Americans and their laws...try the KORAN..
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Go to some of their web sites and see how REAL torture, finalized by beheadings, all according to strict rules in the death manual,(Koran in case you forgot already)...
I'll bet you would LOVE to be questioned by Americans than (I forgot - the KORAN says you don't question anyone - you just torture, then murder because they're 'infidels')
I almost said you would probably want to be questioned by an islamic regime, but...who wants to die???
By the way...how many of these prisoners were willingly murdered by their sick, depraved American captors???-
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truthiness6 months, 3 weeks ago
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what possible difference does it make how our enemies behave? we are talking about how we behave. we are a nation of laws, if we break our own laws then who are we?
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you talk about doing whatever is necessary to protect our way of life. If we know longer live that way of life, what are we protecting?
If the only way I can stay alive is to take action X, then of course action X is justified. But that is not the case. It is not necessary to torture people to protect America. There are other proven techniques for gathering reliable information from a suspect/perp/enemy.
you can say anything you want about yourself, but in the end, nothing says more about who you are than your actions. -
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Beau78906 months, 3 weeks ago
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If you're fighting for some sort of principle, you're putting yourself in harm's way. If survival is the ONLY thing that matters, then why would you fight to begin with? Why not desert?
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If you're interested in survival over the long term, wouldn't you prefer that after you win you don't place yourself in the same kind of supposedly barbaric society you're fighting against?
As truthiness said, you're not actually defending your life when you're torturing prisoners. You're trying to get information from a prisoner--an entirely helpless person. Torture is not necessary for survival. And punishing those whose inhumanity you dislike is not the purpose of war--accomplishing your nation's objective is...right? -
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quackpot6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Your dislike of some passages of the Koran justifies, in your mind, the torture of anybody who reads it?
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Just who do you propose to be a candidate for torture? How will these particular people be identified?
In one post you suggest that being a citizen of a particular country is an adequate basis. In another you suggest that being a member of one of the worlds leading religions is an adequate basis. Such though is not even dangerous, it is simply absurd.
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cheif6 months, 3 weeks ago
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As I said before - when someone cuts your throat on national tv,
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yelling ALLA AKBAR, they're following a religious ceremony of death TAUGHT in their koran...do you think this justifies what they did to Dan Pearl?
I don't think they should torture those people; just do as the Russians did when they caught a few of them committing atrocities on them - shoot them; pour pig's blood all over them, and put them in a hole and forget them - I remember they let one go to tell the others what happened - didn't happen anymore...-
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dissent6 months, 3 weeks ago
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for someone who claims to have seen all the horror that a battlefield can deliver you are overly fascinated by what can be seen on tv.
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what we don't see or hear much of on tv or any place else is the more than a million dead iraqis, the 4 million iraqi refugees, the thousands of dead afghans.... guess they had it coming to them, huh?
or maybe, like pearl, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. difference is, they were in their own homes, schools, workplaces, farms, weddings, hospitals, mosques, cars, etc. and most importantly.... they were in their own countries -- wrong place, wrong time, huh? :|
i've got a fair idea their surviving loved ones feel much the same about you as you do about the killers of daniel pearl. it's that feeling that feeds their hatred just as it feeds yours. -
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PainGoddess6 months, 3 weeks ago
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I have heard of our guys in Iraq and Afganistan putting a little pigs grease on the ammo before using it.......You know from breakfast...lol
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Nothing justifies what those basturds did to Dan Pearl. Nobody deserves that.
But a little revenge on our part can go a long way if done subtle.....
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berkeley6 months, 3 weeks ago
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why did the nytimes suddenly decide bybee is no longer mr. nice? he was part of the power structure that we all knew was responsible for the many crimes of the last few years. the droids at the nytimes knew this as well, yet did they complain during his confirmation hearing?
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they didn't. so what changed?
now bybee's name is on the front page for a different reason, and they are going along with the chorus.
while i'm glad to read they want him gone, it doesn't begin to compensate for their aiding and abetting bush and cheney for years. -
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coolslow6 months, 3 weeks ago
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I don't think that anyone likes the idea of the US using torture, but the definition is not universdally accepted. Waterboarding could perhaps be torture, but what else? I'm sure the cry of "one victom is too many", will be raised, but a little perspective before going to international courts for indictments of crimes against humanity is called for:
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1) Perhaps not 100% but a very high percentage of those subjected to harsh treatment were battlefield captures, or arrests from known terrorist cells or organizations who committed and are planning attacks.
2) The legal status of these individuals as combatants or criminals is uncertain, even more so now. Their physical location is also uncertain.
3) It is a matter of conjecture as to the usefulness of information obtained from the subject. Some say it has no value, others say it has high value.
4) An extremely limited number of individuals, not thousands, or hundreds, or even scores, have been subjected. Have any been killed or suffered lasting physical incapacities?
5) Stress inducing measures taken to cause disorientation and weaken resistance are effective. These captured are pretty tough characters, accustomed to harsh conditions in developing countries, dedicted to a cause and likely trained to resist interrogation. A few smokes and a cup of coffe and friendly banter aren't likely to have them give up information. Why wouldn't they lie?
6) US Marine boot camp is about as tough, including being dropped in a pool with full gear and backpack.-
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Progressive6 months, 3 weeks ago
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"Have any been killed or suffered lasting physical incapacities?"
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...the 519th Military Intelligence, the Army unit that set interrogation guidelines for Abu Ghraib, had...worked closely with the CIA, learning torture techniques that left at least one Afghani prisoner dead.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0909-16.htm
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Progressive6 months, 3 weeks ago
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A former senior interrogator in Iraq says that abusing prisoners results in unreliable information, costs American lives, and it still hasn’t turned up Bin Laden.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/200...-
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Progressive6 months, 3 weeks ago
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CIA Tactics Can Cause Mental Harm: Doctors
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http://www.newser.com/story/56630/cia-tactics-can-...
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