THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

Foxfyre wrote:

Nimh, the only thing a the captor is allowed to require and the only thing a captive is required to give via the Geneva Convention is name, rank, and serial number. I just don't think that will cut it getting necessary information from terrorists.

I agree. One of the problems IMO is that the Geneva pretty much precludes any interrogation at all in war, not to mention torture etc.

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Quote:

... Unlike the Abu Gharib prisoners 70 to 90 per cent of whom were innocent of any crime, according to the Red Cross - ...

Yeap, that's my definition of "rarely"

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Nimh, agreed which is my entire point. Currently in the U.S., there is no law that specifically addresses the treatment and interrogation of terrorists. Our president and others responsibility for the national security are being accused by some of doing or condoning immoral and/or unethical treatment of prisoners.

I think it would be helpful if we could all agree that rather rigorous questioning and making things quite unpleasant for a terrorist is not necessarily torture and not necessarily unethical or immoral. I think we can all agree that inflicting pain, maiming, mutilation, compromising a person's health or life is torture. I thought it might be useful to come to some kind of consensus on what is acceptable given the current ability and propensity of bad people who want to hurt us.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Currently in the U.S., there is no law that specifically addresses the treatment and interrogation of terrorists.

Currently in the US there are no laws that specifically forbid murdering a black guy on an interection who is smoking a corn cob pipe and singing off key.

But the nature of legal systems is such that more inclusive laws cover such cases.

As with nimh, I disagree with the "void" card.

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Foxfyre wrote:

And if my loved one is a suspected terrorist but innocent, I would expect that he or she would give whatever information she would have and her captors would check it out. It has happened that the innocent have been convicted, but it is relatively rare.

Hhmmmmm .... that sounds very optimistic (you know about the different sets of famous IRA "terrorists" that were wrongly jailed for decades in the UK, right? The Birmingham Seven or the Manchester Five or what they all were called. This terrorism thing is new to you, but not to other countries - and the UK, for one, has been learning from its mistakes (in a way this excuses you, since it took them a few decades as well).)

On a more important note, the problem isnt so much (or just) about those who end up wrongly convicted. The problem (and our question) was about what interrogation techniques you'd find acceptable, if it was your relative being suspected of terrorism by some other state, that would lead TO that conviction (or acquittal). Yes, your brother might be freed in the end (though in Iran ... <winks>). But what means would you find acceptable for them to ascertain his innocence?

This is where my Young Iraqi Male story comes in again. Your brother says he doesnt know anything. The Iranians dont believe him. They submit him to sleep deprivation. He insists that he doesnt know anything, he tells them all he knows. They "check it out" but maintain that he's withholding something, and subject him to "intimidation and abject terror" (does that include the dogs and everything?). He screams and yells that he really doesn't KNOW anything! They tie him down in a cell and for (how many?) days give him all kinds of truth drugs. They yield nothing. He goes to trial and is acquitted - we're taking your optimistic scenario along with your suggested means of interrogation - and comes back home.

Would you think that had all been a reasonable course of action for the Iranian government to undertake - against what turned out to be an innocent man - or would you have been scandalised?

Just in case you'd be scandalized, why would it have been OK if the suspect had been an Iranian's brother, held as suspect by US soldiers?

(In case you'd think it had all been the rightful Iranians' prerogative, of course, I tip my hat to your consistency - though in a fearful kind of awe :wink:).

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When it comes to our own loved ones, I think we emotionally apply different criteria than we expect to be applied to society as a whole. But when it comes to the health, safety, security of a people against an enemy sworn to destroy them, I would hope that policy not be based on feelings or anecdotal sensibilities but would be based on a clear understanding of ethical conduct balanced against practical needs.

Of course people who think all you have to do is be nice to people to get them to love you will have a different perspective than will people who believe there are evil people in the world and we better be prepared to defend ourselves against them. Somewhere in the national debate, there is always room for compromise if people are willing to look for it instead of demonizing each other.

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Foxfyre wrote:

When it comes to our own loved ones, I think we emotionally apply different criteria than we expect to be applied to society as a whole.

Fair enough. I wouldnt have said "your brother", myself, its true - I would just have said "your countryman" - an American held in Iran on Iranian suspicions of etc.

If you're looking for my criteria on where the limits should be, thats my litmus test. Don't apply any routines that you would be vilified or scandalised to find another country applying to one of yours.

Foxfyre wrote:

Of course people who think all you have to do is be nice to people to get them to love you will have a different perspective

Straw man. As if our national laws that prescribe the limits of interrogation of our own citizens allow only for "being nice to people". (In fact, the US prisons are a scandal enough themselves, but thats for another thread).

Foxfyre wrote:

people who believe there are evil people in the world and we better be prepared to defend ourselves against them.

I guess I'm one of the people who believe evil might just hide in each of us ... and we therefore need rules and standards to keep us from crossing the line in stressful situations.

(Don't mention Abu G.! Don't mention Abu G.! <winks>. Not that it would make my point to mention Abu G. here, if you don't believe, like me, that Abu G. wasn't the work of a handful of twisted souls, but rather the effect on normal soldiers of sending them out into an unfamiliar, hostile situation with little experience, great suspicion and fear and few instructions except the instruction not to apply the rules all too closely.)

I don't believe love is the answer. I believe law is the answer.*

*(Melancholic aside: somewhere inside me, an orphaned anarchist is weeping ...)

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Bush: Told prison officials to obey law
But president does not rule out use of torture
By Corbett B. Daly, CBS Marketwatch
Last Update: 7:30 PM ET June 10, 2004

SAVANNAH, Ga. (CBS.MW) -- President Bush said Thursday he ordered U.S. officials holding detainees overseas to abide by all American laws and international treaties, but didn't respond directly when he was asked if the use of torture to obtain information from terrorism suspects was justified.

What I authorized was staying within U.S. law," Bush said at the closing pressing conference of the Group of Eight summit.

The administration has come under fire for the treatment of terrorism suspects held by the United States.

Asked if he had seen a controversial memo, written in 2002, from the Justice Department to the White House advising that Bush, as commander-in-chief, could stay within U.S. laws and approve torture, the president said he could not recall if he had seen it. Attorney General John Ashcroft earlier this week refused to release the memo to Congress.

Pressed repeatedly about the memo, Bush stood firm.

Bush was asked: "What we've learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?"

Bush responded:

"I'm going to say it one more time. Maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at these laws. And that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions from me to the government."

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<grins>

(ignores the irony of that post immediately following mine)

thats funny, how the article stands in "stood firm" for "ducked the question" ;-)

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Even back home they're starting to wonder. This from an editorial in yesterday's Houston Chronicle ...

The United States' moral authority to call for the rule of law and respect for human rights has been undermined by legal machinations the Bush administration undertook to justify torturing prisoners taken in the war on terror.

Administration officials have attempted to downplay the significance of a March 6, 2003, Justice Department memorandum that concluded that, as commander in chief in time of war, President George W. Bush is bound neither by federal law nor the tenets of the Geneva Conventions that ban torture as a means of extracting information from detainees.

...

The March memo asserts that interrogators could inflict severe pain on a detainee with impunity as long as the intent was something other than to torture. An interrogator would be culpable only if he knew his actions would inflict suffering that is severe enough to induce "prolonged" physical or mental effects. An interrogator would be immune from punishment if he believed he acted to prevent a larger harm, the lawyers determined.

The memos were obviously concocted to defend acts that are clearly beyond the bounds of a civilized nation.

The memos support the view that the prisoner abuses uncovered at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were not merely the grave mistakes of a few soldiers, but resulted from policies formed at the highest levels of government. They strengthen concerns about how detainees at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan are being treated.

As I suggest today in The Hill, I think we're actually pretty far past that point.

We're like contestants on Wheel of Fortune with a long phrase spelled out in front of us with maybe one or two letters missing. We know what the letters spell. It's obvious. We just don't have the heart to say it out loud.
-- Josh Marshall

SOURCE

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Quote:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Denmark said Thursday it opened an investigation into claims by a translator for Danish and U.S. troops in Afghanistan that he witnessed incidents of torture and killing of prisoners in American custody two years ago.

Denmark's military prosecutors will determine whether the claims can be substantiated, said Cmdr. Torben Martinsen, a spokesman for the Defense Command, the country's top military authority.

Martinsen refused to release details about the Danish translators claims, including the number of alleged victims. The man was not identified by name nor was it known if he was a military man or civilian working with the 100 Danish soldiers on assignment in Afghanistan in 2002.

The allegation came days after the U.S. government ordered a snap review of its military's handling of prisoners in Afghanistan. The scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners has drawn new attention to allegations of mistreatment in Afghanistan, including the deaths of three prisoners in custody....
In May, a Danish medic working in Iraq claimed that British troops in September 2003 had beaten two Iraqis during a field interrogation, including one who allegedly died.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Denmark-Afghanistan-Prisoner-Abuse.html

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Quote:

An unusual racketeering lawsuit filed by human rights lawyers accuses U.S. civilian contractors at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq of conspiring to execute, rape and torture prisoners to boost corporate profits from military payments.

Some of the new abuse allegations were among the cruelest described so far within the Iraqi prisons.

One person, identified in court documents only as a prisoner named Rasheed, told lawyers his tongue was shocked with electricity and his toenails pulled out. Another person, identified only as a prisoner named Ahmed, said he was forced to watch while his 63-year-old father, Ibrahiem, was tortured to death.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Prisoner-Abuse-Lawsuit.html

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Fight Fire With Compassion
June 10, 2004
By DONALD P. GREGG

Recent reports indicate that Bush administration lawyers,
in their struggles to deal with terrorism, wrote memos in
2003 pushing aside longstanding prohibitions on the use of
torture by Americans. These memos cleared the way for the
horrors that have been revealed in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Guantánamo and make a mockery of administration assertions
that a few misguided enlisted personnel perpetrated the
vile abuse of prisoners.

I can think of nothing that can more devastatingly undercut
America's standing in the world or, more important, our
view of ourselves, than these decisions. Sanctioned abuse
is deeply corrosive - just ask the French, who are still
seeking to eradicate the stain on their honor that resulted
from the deliberate use of torture in Algeria. French
soldiers had been tortured in Vietnam, in some cases
revealing valuable information to their Vietminh captors.
Senior French officers decided that the same tactics might
work for them. As Alistair Horne put it in "A Savage War of
Peace," use of torture may have won the battle of Algiers
for the French, but it cost them Algeria.

In 1951, as a young paramilitary officer trainee in the
C.I.A., I heard my instructors say that to win the cold
war, "fighting fire with fire" would be required. I
remember asking, how, if we did that, we could maintain any
distinction between what we stood for, and what our
communist opponents represented. I was told to sit down and
shut up.

But the agency, I am gratified to say, took a strong stand
against the use of torture in Vietnam. Under William
Colby's direction, interrogation centers were set up, under
American control, and coercive techniques were forbidden. I
learned from my experiences in Vietnam from 1970 to 1972
that by treating prisoners humanely we frequently (though
not always) gained valuable intelligence from them. This
was particularly true of battered prisoners who had held
out against prolonged South Vietnamese torture, but
responded to being treated with compassion by Americans.

As C.I.A. station chief in Seoul from 1973 to 1975, I faced
a personal choice of either keeping silent about egregious
use of torture by South Korea's intelligence agency, or
taking action against it. In August 1973, South Korean
agents kidnapped Kim Dae Jung, the opposition political
leader, from his Tokyo hotel room. When word of the
kidnapping got out, anti-government riots broke out at
Korean universities. The Korean spy agency arrested an
American-educated Korean professor, accusing him of
provoking riots at his university. The professor denied
this assertion - which was false - and was tortured either
to death or to the point where he jumped out a window to
escape further pain.

When I learned what had happened, I reported it immediately
to C.I.A. headquarters. I sent a follow-up message asking
permission to protest the South Korean actions. My boss in
Washington, a man who is now dead, replied: "Stop trying to
save the Koreans from themselves. That is not your job.
Just report the facts."

For the only time in my C.I.A. career, I disobeyed orders.
I went to the chief bodyguard of President Park Chung Hee
and told him that I found it difficult to work with the
South Korean spy agency because it seemed more interested
in stifling domestic dissent than in working against North
Korea. I made clear that I was speaking personally, and
that I had not been instructed to register a protest
against their actions, of which the bodyguard was fully
aware.

A week later, the powerful director of Korean intelligence
was fired. He was replaced by a former justice minister,
whose first action was to prohibit torture by the agency's
officers.

Every year or so, I speak to groups of active-duty C.I.A.
officers. I always tell my Korean story to them, noting
that it is one of the things I am proudest of in my agency
career. I also urge my listeners to do likewise if they
find themselves in a similar position. A few months ago, I
received a letter thanking me for my latest presentation to
such a group. It was signed by the director of the agency
at the time, George Tenet.

Donald P. Gregg, national security adviser to George H. W.
Bush from 1982 to 1988 and ambassador to Korea from 1989 to
1993, worked for the C.I.A. for 30 years. He is chairman of
the Korea Society.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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InfraBlue wrote:

Zionists looking to establish an exclusive state and working towards that goal is an action. The establishment of Israel was the result of said action.

Zionists looking to establish an exclusive state and working towards that goal are technically actions, but they are certainly not actual or potential criminal actions; they are not actions that warrant their perpetrators and their posterity being victimized by homicidal maniacs.

It is debatable whether the establishment of the independent state of Israel in Palestine is a criminal action. What law did they violate? That action was itself a consequence of a UN Resolution (not a criminal action), the withdrawal of the British from Palestine (not a criminal action), and the very human desire of the Palestinian Jews to establish a government that would secure their liberty (that desire was not an action and therefore not a criminal action). Even if one were to argue that the Israeli declaration of independence and its establishment of the independent state of Israel within the territory known as Palestine were a criminal action, one cannot rationally argue such action warrants the perpetrators and/or their posterity being victimized by homicidal maniacs.

Almost half the population of the new state of Israel consisted of Palestinian Arabs. That mix changed some when maniacs within Palestine and within neighboring states convinced some of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel to flee Israel. Was there a state of Palestine before the Israeli declaration to which those fleeing arabs could flee? There was not. Was their a Palestinian Arab right to declare itself an independent state after the existence of Israel. I believe there was, but that right was never exercised by any arab government of Palestine. Instead, maniacs have acted to destroy the self-declared independent state of Israel.

InfraBlue wrote:

Zionists established a state whose by-laws demand the maintenance of a religious/ethnic character, a "Jewish" character. A candidate cannot run for a seat in its senate if he negates the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people (7A[1] of the Basic Law of the Knesset). The forced maintenance of a religious/ethnic "character" is ethnocentric exclusivism, suffrage notwithstanding.

That's BS. Suffrage is withstanding. Suffrage is the main element of what grants equal right to liberty regardless of whatever ethnocentric religious character is established for a free state. As long as the individual inhabitants of that state are free to practice the religion of their free choice, the designated character of that state is mere form without substance.

InfraBlue wrote:

... I'll go further and say assault does not justify assault; assault does not justify murder; and murder does not justify murder. But both sides engaged in violent retaliation.

Not true! Maniacal Palesinian Arabs are engaged in retaliation. Non-maniacal Palestinian Jews are engaged in self-defense. If the maniacal Palestinian Arabs were to cease their retaliation, the Palestinian Jews would cease their self-defense and incarcerate any remaining maniacal Palestinian Jews.

InfraBlue wrote:

... Ben Gurion issued the order for Operation Dani [July 1948], the order for ethnic-cleansing. The order for ethnic cleansing came from the highest leadership of the Zionist organization, and it was carried out by the Zionist organization's military force. ...

That never happened. It's pure fiction. Neither Ben Gurion or any other Israeli leader ever issued any order for ethnic-cleansing.

InfraBlue wrote:

... We're all living with the blunder of an imperialist power making promises of homelands to ideological extremists at the expense of native populations.

Such promises were made by Britain to the Palestinian Arabs by Britain's high commissioner of Egypt in 1915, as well as to the Palestinian Jews by the British secretary of state in 1917. Native population? What people comprise the native population? Answer: Arabs and Jews and others!

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Nimh writes:

Quote:

I don't believe love is the answer. I believe law is the answer.*

I couldn't agree more. So the question is, what shall the law be? We can keep quoting article after article describing the perceived and rumored and documented atrocities in prisons here or there or everywhere, or we can decide what is and is not acceptable and make our judgments based on that. The choices are, treat em like honored guests or torture them or find some reasonable humane but effective policies in between those two extremes.

It gets very wearisome trotting out a litany of sins when one has no clue how it should be done.

(Addendum: of course any death or injury to a prisoner should be thoroughly investigated with swift and sure punishment rendered for violations of policy. But to assume that all prisoners are 100% helpless in the prisons in question is just as naive as thinking no prisoner ever gets violent in the country jail or the state prison. From time to time those in charge do have to exert excessive force and sometimes violent prisoners get hurt and even killed. It should not be automatically assumed that every prisoner claiming torture has been tortured nor should it be assumed that every injury or death among prison populations was the result of a brutal or vindictive guard.)

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Quote:

From time to time those in charge do have to exert excessive force...

No they dont.

Unless they are sadistic psychopaths addicted to inflicting pain and suffering for their own amusement or sexual gratification...

How does the US find such people? Are they specially trained in R2I at Fort Benning? Do they possess doctorates in refined torture techniques? Or do they just use the criminally insane from secure hospitals?

Its not even productive. A prisoner having his toenails ripped off is likely to say nothing at all intelligible beyond screaming.

Decent societies and decent people treat prisoners decently, and America and Britain have demonstrated to the world by their treatment of Iraqi prisoners (Iraqis who are now free from Saddam and liberated to be incarcerated in Saddams prisons, tortured by modern western techniques far more sophisticated than anything Saddam could dream up) that they do not qualify on that score.

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Foxfyre quite astonishingly wrote:

From time to time those in charge do have to exert excessive force and sometimes violent prisoners get hurt and even killed.

No, they most CERTAINLY do not.

This just doesn't very Christian (well, very New Testament Christian) to me.

Nor very American.

Surely you miswrote...

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For those trying to understand how America, of all countries, could have gotten itself into this mess of mis-begotten war and torture, just look at those at the top. They got into office on a whisker, but acted as if they'd won in a landslide. Their first actions, before 9-11, really tell the tale. Brash bullies who strode the world's stage like the big dogs they thought they were. They thought this ruling thing would be easy. Then came the slap in the face, the punch in the belly that was 9-11 and they have reacted like every other bully I've ever known.

When you hit someone hard they react in two ways. They think and then they strike back or they react out of fear and hit back wildly. I always prefer the latter because I know there's no foundation to their actions except for fear, and if I can keep them scared, I'm going to win.

Those at the top are scared, they haven't a clue about what to do, so they are striking out blindly, dispensing with anything that might impede them whether it be the Geneva Conventions or the basic rule of law on torture.

It's going to take a generation to repair America's standing after these bullies are gone.

Joe

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Foxfyre wrote:

Nimh writes:

Quote:
I don't believe love is the answer. I believe law is the answer.*

I couldn't agree more. So the question is, what shall the law be? We can keep quoting article after article describing the perceived and rumored and documented atrocities in prisons here or there or everywhere, or we can decide what is and is not acceptable and make our judgments based on that.

But those standards are already there. We don't have to make up new laws - we just need to choose to apply the laws that are there, to the people we find.

I want any foreign suspect to be treated the way I would want a Dutch suspect to be treated - that is, according to all international conventions. And if the foreign suspect is in our custody, I would want him to be treated according to what our own laws say about dealing with suspects. If its considered enough to get a suspect with a Dutch passport to talk, it should be considered enough for a suspect without one. They dont work any differently.

The rules are there. The "litany of sins" you complain of is merely the observation of as many cases of (alleged or proven) transgression of those laws and rules. The Red Cross is not asking you to make up good, new rules - it is merely requesting you to stick to the ones that are already there.

Now your government is trying to define those to be inapplicable, so as to make up some new rules that don't have to let those pesky conventions and rights get in the way. What you see here is people refusing to play that game. No more making up of new rules just because this time, that would suit us. Do unto others as you would want others to do to you. I'd say following the recommendations of the Red Cross is always a good idea, for one - pity those who've ended up on the other side of the fence.

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Joe I agree with your sentiments, but disagree about those at the highest levels not knowing what they are doing.

It might not make a lot of sense to us, but I think they do know what they want to achieve.

They have clear strategic objectives in mind. There might be difficulties and obstacles in the way, but they are focussed on the long term goals.

I have my own ideas about what those goals might be. But whatever they are, things make more sense set against the background of two momentous events which people often underestimate

1. Peak oil
2. Collapse of the USSR.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

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