THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

Nimh you yourself said it didn't matter how many people were in danger when it came to the ethical treatment of a terrorist prisoner. I am NOT whiny, at least about this. Both Ican and I have suggested that we list those things that would be acceptable; then we can decide if the administration is overstepping its authority, legally or ethically. Nobody except Craven was willing to do that. That to me would be answering the question. You keep saying 'follow the existing law' and we say that would not be adequate or useful when it comes to interrogating terrorists.

Others keep citing the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and stuff reported at other prisons as if we all hadn't read or seen a thing and knew nothing about that. But saying that the offenders have been prosecuted and punished isn't even acknowledged, much less factored in.

So I don't know any other way to say it. That's the honest truth. You are within your rights not to conduct the debate the way I wish it would go. But I don't find it helpful to just recite again and again how terrible we're treating prisoners.

I do think it is important to have a sense of the responsibility our government(s) have in ensuring the safety, security, livelihood, and welfare of its citizens. We have thousands of people out there, armed to the teeth, who have avowed to bury us. I take that seriously. I think others should to.
And it think it is important to understand that treatment of terrorists can't be all nice and touchy feely and compassionate when they have information that will help us save lives.

If you don't want to discuss that fine. But don't fault me for not wishing to rehash all the other stuff either.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Nimh you yourself said it didn't matter how many people were in danger when it came to the ethical treatment of a terrorist prisoner.

First, we were talking suspected terrorists, a distinction you seem not to want to grasp. But never mind. Main thing is that this here does not equate with "terrorists deserving more consideration than the people they intend to make targets".

Say, you know there's a guy on the loose in your town, planning to run amok with a gun. You have ten suspects that you brought in to jail to question. One of them is - perhaps, probably - the guy. Is insisting on treating him like the law obliges you to treat a US citizen in police custody the same as "giving more consideration to a murderer than to the people he intends to murder"? No? Rhetorics, then.

Foxfyre wrote:

Both Ican and I have suggested that we list those things that would be acceptable; then we can decide if the administration is overstepping its authority, legally or ethically. Nobody except Craven was willing to do that.

(Not just Craven, Cyclops did, too. So there's two already, even according to your standards.)

Foxfyre wrote:

That to me would be answering the question. You keep saying 'follow the existing law' and we say that would not be adequate or useful when it comes to interrogating terrorists.

And I DO think it would be adequate and useful when it comes to interrogating terrorists.

So? That, dear Foxfyre, is not ignoring your question - it's disagreeing about the answer. Crucial difference there. Please start seeing it. Do me a favour.

You say your opinion "that current laws re domestic prisoners and the Geneva Convention are not adequate for interrogation of terrorists" is "based on sound evidence" - I disagree. I don't think it is.

You asked, what would you consider acceptable treatment of suspected terrorists - I gave you my answer. I have defined the "things that would be acceptable", by referring to the 'codebook' I'd use for reference. And I even explained why I would.

How is that refusing to answer the question? I don't think current laws are inadequate, so my answer is by definition not going to come in the form of a list of extra stuff I'd allow on top of the law. That doesn't mean I'm ducking the question - it just means I disagree with the answer you seem to be demanding.

Foxfyre wrote:

Others keep citing the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and stuff reported at other prisons as if we all hadn't read or seen a thing and knew nothing about that. But saying that the offenders have been prosecuted and punished isn't even acknowledged, much less factored in.

Because we disagree about that being the fact you make it out to be. New allegations are still surfacing all the time, even if its not on the frontpage anymore. Only a handful of people (well, seven or something, right?) have been taken to court, even though your own government's (Taguba) report noted that abuse had gone on for half a year, etc. We simply don't think "the offenders have been prosecuted and punished", and we think we have "sound evidence" for that. That's why people keep posting "stuff reported at other prisons" - because its stuff thats not been prosecuted and punished yet. Again, we're not simply refusing to acknowledge "that the offenders have been prosecuted and punished" -- we are disagreeing that they have been. And we're bringing pieces of evidence to make our case. What more can you want?

I think - but thats just my opinion and you are of course free to ignore it - that you really need to get over this, 'if they don't come round to my side on this, they must be ignoring it' thing. <shrugs>

Foxfyre wrote:

We have thousands of people out there, armed to the teeth, who have avowed to bury us. I take that seriously. I think others should to.

So do I <shrugs>. You're doing black-and-white thinking here - as if all those who dont agree with you on the interrogation methods / laws thing thus automatically must not be "taking [the terrorists] seriously". Straw man, I believe. You will find, if you browse through this site, that many of your 'opponents' here have written lengthy opinions about how best to ward off the extremist/Islamist danger. You will not agree with the strategies they propose, but that doesnt mean they "dont take it seriously".

Foxfyre wrote:

And it think it is important to understand that treatment of terrorists can't be all nice and touchy feely and compassionate when they have information that will help us save lives.

More black and white thinking, and outright making up of things we didnt say. Nobody said anything about "touchy feely and compassionate". Tell me, do you think the US citizens in prison are treated all "touchy feely"? No? So if I insist that foreigners in our custody should be treated by the same rules as our own prisoners, how does that make me into a proponent of being "all nice and touchy feely and compassionate" with them? Rhetorics again. <shrugs>

Foxfyre wrote:

... help us save lives. If you don't want to discuss that fine.

Discuss what? The fact that "treatment of terrorists can't be all nice and touchy feely and compassionate"? Non-argument, cause I never said it could, and dont think staying within current law means it will be "nice and touchy feely and compassionate". Or do you mean discuss the desired / necessary "treatment of terrorists", per se? Discussed it with you for endlessly now. What is it you mean, then? That I dont want to discuss how far beyond current law we should be able to go? Well, that's because I don't think we should. What can I do? That's not ducking the question ... thats giving the only honest answer I can give <shrugs>

Look, what about not making up stuff people didnt say anymore, and not acting as if anyone that doesnt agree with your definition of the problem or the solution must thus automatically be a "love is the answer - touchy feely" guy, OK? Oh, and not saying that, if they refuse to give the kind of answer to a question of yours that you would be able to halfway agree with, they apparently "don't want to discuss" your point.

Anyways, I'm giving up. Perhaps some other time again <shrugs>

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ican

the one post I didn't get to today was yours...I will tomorrow

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http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000987.html

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Mr. Bush's Mismatch

THE VOLUNTEER ARMY expects to bear the brunt of danger on behalf of the
country in any war. But when failed leadership turns volunteers into
conscripts, soldiers have every right to feel misused. President Bush has
compared the war against terrorism to the 20th-century struggles against
totalitarianism and communism, calling it "the great challenge of our
time." But he has refused to adjust his policies to those stakes. And the
first casualty of this crippling disconnect between rhetoric and reality is
the U.S. Army.

The latest evidence of institutional strain was the Army's recent
announcement that thousands more troops will be ordered to extend their
duty well beyond their expected discharge dates. Soldiers, including
reservists, whose units are deployed or redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan
will be expected to complete those tours of one year or more and an
additional 90 days, even if they would have been scheduled for release
months earlier. The Army is doing this for the same reason it extended the
Iraq deployments of units that were supposed to have been sent home,
depleted its force in South Korea and even explored sending an elite
training regiment into combat: It's short of troops.

The president's failure to adequately staff the armed forces is just one
way in which he fails his own commitment to what he called this week "the
imperative of our age." The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed Mr. Bush's
view of the world, but he never adjusted his fiscal strategy; he continues
to reduce the tax burden on the wealthy and leave the government without
adequate resources for the fight. He has yet to invest the funds and
energy, on a scale appropriate to an existential struggle, in public
diplomacy, Arab-language training, foreign student exchanges, nuclear
materials control and many other ventures that are key to eventual victory.
And he has yet to acknowledge that the downsized military he favored in
2000 is no longer suitable in 2004.

The reason for this failure -- whether an unwillingness to face the
political consequences of demanding sacrifice, or an inability to let go of
cherished views on military transformation, tax cuts and the like --
matters less than the consequences. We support Mr. Bush's "vision of
dignity and freedom in every culture," but he undermines the cause and
feeds only cynicism when he refuses to match the tools to the task. More
immediately he places an unfair burden on those in uniform and their
families.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/admin/emailfriend?contentId=A35762-2004Jun11&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle
© 2004 The Washington Post Company

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This is interesting discussion on the validity of making terrorist subjects "uncomfortable" in the run up to their interrogation with the goal of preventing incidents that would take any national's life. The question seems twofold. Given an Iraqi taken into custody and suspected of terrorist activity or knowledge thereof should the authorities in Iraq:

1. Afford the non U.S. citizen terrorist suspect all the legal rights and privileges of an American citizen? If so, we need go no further.

But this is the real world and there is the moral imperative to prevent further death and destruction. This is the responsibility the authorities in Iraq have been charged with. So the second question bifurcates into methods of interrogation and their degrees of harshness.

The first question is easily answered in the negative merely by way of legal definition. So the legal definition seems to counter-intuitively lead us into a legal never-never land of polar opposites of opinion: One side worries about legalities and our moral responsibility towards the innocent, and rightly so. They constantly throw Americans' own bromides about "innocent before proven guilty" back into our faces. This is annoying but also correct. After all the American justice system is built upon this very foundation.

The other side laments such nobility that, carried to the extreme, may actually be the downfall of such a society that allows its avowed enemies to exterminate its members thereby destroying the very principle and the society itself.

The Gestapo's actions were also correct in their goal to eliminate the "insurgents". Stability in France was just as important then as it is now in Iraq. America's goal seems to make its actions more palatable, but the Nazis really believed in their cause also. I do not mean to infer any similarity with Nazi and American goals. We all know the outcome of both ideologies has a totally different fate in mind for humanity. So does the question distill down to whether the ends justify the means?

Perhaps, there is a middle ground but how do we justify compromise when referring to lofty goals? Alternately, how legitimate are noble principles which contain the very seeds of our society's destruction? As American's we have always exhibited not only nobility but also the ability to bend and even fudge a little when principles and real world events collide. In so doing, we have been able to keep alive the quest for the noble goal of freedom for all.

Perhaps we might look to two events in our past to guide us. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the banning of the Communist party in the U.S.
The first circumvented the ultimate destruction of our much vaunted capitalistic system that seemed to spawn the seeds of its own destruction by allowing monopolies. The second flew in the face of American political free speech by banning a political ideology but prevented the destruction of democracy by those who, like Osama Bin Laden today, call for the extermination of our society. Perhaps this present situation calls for such real world American ingenuity.

JM

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Nimh acknowledging your post and respecting your point of view. You and I see what has been said differently but I doubt that can be remedied. I do appreciate your mostly noncontentuous way of expressing your point of view.

I wish we (collective we) could discuss and rebut points of view more than discussing how people express them. I do get tired of being told that I am immoral or disingenuous or whiny or a moving target or flat out a liar or in some other way am informed that my way of expressing myself or saying things are unacceptable. Sooner or later on any thread that seems to be what it comes down to. And that gets really really old.

I suspect Ican will hang in with you here. He is a fountain of knowledge and wisdom--he's a bit tougher on those terrorists than even I am Smile

I would have enjoyed having that debate.

Blatham on another thread you called me a liar when I said the Democrats criticized Reagan for suggesting we should share SDI technology, if developed, with everybody. I spent some time looking, but the sources that have it are deeply archived. Information that they opposed SDI is available. I found references to the issue in question, but I am not willing to pay the necessary fee to get to them so I'll let you think you won that one. Of course you don't think I win any of them anyway.

I'm not quitting the poltiical forum but will take a break for awhile and play in places where I don't annoy people so much.

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Isn't torture 'punishment meted out before conviction'?

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nimh wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
nimh wrote:
Yes. The Red Cross has shown itself, over the past century, to be one of the most stringently and consistently neutral observers in the world, much more so than any national government, whether yours or mine.

That seems to have been true in the 20th century. I'm unsure about that in the 21st century.

Why? Because this time they criticized America? They were admirably neutral all this time before, no matter whom they had to call to account, but now that you happen to end up on the receiving end, that must mean the RC has turned partisan?

The answer to your Why? is embedded in your own comment to me, to wit:

Quote:

They were admirably neutral all this time before, no matter whom they had to call to account...

The International Red Cross's neutrality was so stringent in the 20th Century that they held tenaciously to their policy of confidentiality when they called a nation to account. As a result they were generally quite effective in righting wrongs. This policy is no longer true in the 21st Century. In my opinion, that departure from confidentiality is a departure from a necessary component of neutrality and effectiveness. That is why I am unsure. Perhaps now all the findings of the International Red Cross are still nevertheless valid; perhaps not.

Some executives in our domestic Red Cross have been discovered to have engaged in practices questionable enough to warrant their replacement. So on that account, I am also unsure.

nimh wrote:

Call me old-fashioned, but I feel that we have a overriding duty to call our own governments, countrymen and allies on any misdeed they may commit. It is our citizen's duty -- plus, it makes sense because we're actually in a position to do something about it.

Old-fashioned, perhaps; responsible, almost certainly.

It occurs to me that I am not being adequately clear about a distinction I am making regarding domestic homicidal maniacs, DHM and international homicidal maniacs, IHM. While they both want to kill and do kill Americans there is an important difference. The DHM did not declare their intention to kill Americans "whereever you can find them" and repeatedly fulfill that declaration, while the IHM did and are doing that. So when a suspected DHM is arrested there is usually relatively little reason for suspecting that he/she is knowledgeable of any current plans of others with whom he/she is associated to commit more maniacal homicides. But when a IHM is arrested, there is considerable reason to suspect that he/she is knowledgeable of current plans of others with whom he/she is associated to commit many more maniacal homicides. I conclude zero painful interrogations of DHM, and whatever it takes painful -- short of killing and maiming -- interrogation of IHM.

To say the least, it is far more important for Americans to timely gain that IHM knowledge so as to stop future homicides than it is to indict, try, and imprison a particular accused IHM perpetrator. In fact, given the choice, I would say, stopping future homicides is far more important than punishing proven homicidal maniacs, if such could be stopped without threat of punishment of proven homicidal maniacs.

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There is too much BS in this one post to respond to it all in a timely manner. So for now, I'll pick just two.

cicerone imposter wrote:

And he has yet to acknowledge that the downsized military he favored in 2000 is no longer suitable in 2004.

He favored Question

That is what he inherited from his predecessor. That is what he attempted to immediately correct despite immediate great resistance by the left (e.g., John Kerry)

cicerone imposter wrote:

The reason for this failure -- whether an ... an inability to let go of cherished views on ... tax cuts ... matters less than the consequences.

It is clear now to everyone who can make objective observations that tax cuts for the rich produce more not less revenue. Check the consequence of John Kennedy's tax cuts, Reagan's tax cuts, and, yes, Bush-43's tax cuts. The first two produced more not less revenue. Kennedy kept expenditures relatively under control ("do not ask what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country") and generated a surplus thereby. Bush-43's tax cuts have already done the same with much more revenue to come if those tax cuts are renewed. Reagan's tax cuts doubled tax revenue (while halving the inflation rate, the unemployment rate, and the interest rate he inherited from Carter). However, revenue increase was offset by federal expenditures tripling in the same time period because of huge increases in entitlement expenditures. That is what produced the huge deficits. Too many were reversing Kennedy's admonition.

Attempting to placate pernicious envy with high taxes on the rich comes at a high price for everyone -- not just the rich. Look at Carter's experience with a tax rate on the rich of 70%: he had a budget deficit, plus an inflation rate, an unemployment rate, and an interest rate all in double digits.

Clinton did much better than Carter with a tax rate on the rich of less than 40%. However, in Clinton's last year the economy started to go down the toilet. That's because typically the full effects on the economy of a tax rate change on the rich are not felt for 18 to 30 months after the change.

Why do tax cuts produce more not less revenue? Because they leave more money in the private sector to grow the economy and generate more jobs, higher salaries, and other incomes that become higher taxable revenues -- higher by a far greater percentage than the percentage cut in taxes. Think of it this way: (1) if the tax rate were 100% there would be zero tax revenue because no one would have incentive to risk investments (e.g., job producing investments) or otherwise work for a living; (2) if the tax rate were 0%, there would be zero tax revenue because a zero tax rate would generate zero tax revenue. Somewhere between 0% and 100% is that tax rate which generates the most tax revenue. Reagan has shown that that tax rate on the rich is less than 30%.

Reference: www.britannica.com

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Gelisgesti wrote:

Isn't torture 'punishment meted out before conviction'?

Torture can come both before and/or after conviction. In deed it has.

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Foxfyre

I pray you make an early return to this forum. The character of the discussion and debates here can only be improved by your continued participation.

I've learned that the discussion here is little different from the discussion between left and right throughout our country. People are generally not rapidly persuaded solely by pure logic and facts no matter how scrupulously presented. Rather they are persuaded in time by their own experience and evolving desires drawing on their prior exposures to facts and logic. Yes, time is also a key dimension in the art of rational persuasion. Also it is more important that all participants come to realize that neither left or right have a monopoly on truth and consequently come to realize the real nature of the very difficult practical tradeoffs between solutions proposed by all sides.

In my opinion this forum has not given adequate attention to what the US administration should do to more effectively accomplish the noble goal of securing liberty for the people of the Middle East. While valid criticism of past mistakes is in great supply, recommendations for rectifying past mistakes and enlarging upon past successes is in short supply.

This is where I think you can make your next best contribution. Imagine yourself the leader of the present or a replacement US administration. How would you like to see that administration rectify its mistakes and enlarge upon its successes?

I for one would love to join you and the others here in that discussion and debate.

i can; you can; we all can.

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ican711nm wrote:

Gelisgesti wrote:
Isn't torture 'punishment meted out before conviction'?

Torture can come both before and/or after conviction. In deed it has.

And if the victim/s turn out nnocent?
Or do you just advocate torture of the guilty?

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Zionists looking to establish an exclusive state and working towards that goal are technically actions, whether they are "actual or potential criminal actions" is a point of endless debate just like the one being carried out in this thread about torture. That they are immoral actions is a fact. That "they are not actions that warrant their perpetrators and their posterity being victimized by homicidal maniacs" is a straw man argument. Can you name anything that warrants "being victimized by homicidal maniacs?" The establishment of an exclusivist state on a pre-populated land was morally wrong. "Being victimized by homicidal maniacs" is not justification. How, exactly, should that immorality be redressed? By establishing segregated states, as you and UN res.181 have offered? That's segregation.

So what if there wasn't a state of Palestine before the Israeli declaration? That land was designated as part of other Arab countries and territories. The imperialist British and ethnocentric Zionists imported Ashkenazic Europeans to these Arab lands.

The designated character of that state is not merely form without substance. A candidate cannot run for a seat in the Israeli congress if he negates the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. So an Arab voter in Israel has a choice only between candidates who support the ethnocetric raison d'être of Israel. What good is suffrage if your forced to vote for your second class status in the country of your birth? What will the Jews in Israel do once the Arab population there reaches and surpasses fifty percent? Or sixty, or seventy percent?

How should the Arabs have responded to the immigrant ethnocentic, separatist European expropriators, ican?

About Operation Dani, one thing is what Ben Gurion might have said, another thing is what the other Israeli leaders said and wrote, and the "actual actions" that occurred during the war. Israeli historian Benny Morris says that there was an expulsion order for the city of Lod, which was signed by Ytzhak Rabin immediately after Ben-Gurion's visit to the headquarters of Operation Dani in July of 1948. "From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created."

There were twenty-four small scale massacres perpetrated by the Israeli forces in 1948. Morris says, "in some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.

"The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion.

"That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres."

There was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order in Operation Hiram. "One of the revelations in the book [The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2004] is that on October 31, 1948, the commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel took this action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern Command in Nazareth."

What people comprise the native population, you ask? People born in Palestine. The Ashkenazim were born in Europe. They were not native born in Palestine.

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ican711nm wrote:

blatham wrote:

And so, how do I know that Ican and Fox (even aside from the time lapse) have chosen not to read Danner's piece nor gone to any of the footnoted links? Your confidence is built upon a poverty of information and a lack of courage to challenge your preferred beliefs. Both of you restrict your reading sources to a narrow band of palatable ideas and that too evident fact is reflected with repetition every day on every thread.

If either of you are truly interested in engaging the legal and moral questions of Abu Ghraib and of this administration's prosecution of prisoner treatment, you'll take on something like Dworkin HERE, and you'll take it on with dilligence.

These presumptions of yours are your problem not mine. While I could engage in the same kind of presumptions about you, I think that would be equally inappropriate and irresponsible of me. Bernie apologizes.

Now back on topic.

I read Dworkin, not his references, and ended disagreeing with his fundamental thesus.

Dworkin wrote:

My first principle is that the US government exists for the primary purpose of securing the liberty of those living within its jurisdiction. I base this principal on the following:

Quote:
The Declaration of Independence
(Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776)
...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

I have previously stated in this forum that I have applied my own interpretation to certain words and phrases in this declaration:

I interpret -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" -- as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all innocent human beings are created equally endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I interpret -- "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" -- as follows:

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among innocent human beings, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Those are my first principles. I'm truly sorry if they may in any way discomfort you, but nevertheless for me they remain unshakeable.

Nothing discomfiting there. Though we'll see if the addition of the word 'innocent' serves you or not.

It is an undeniable fact that the TMM (i.e., Terrorist Murderers and Maimers) of the world are attempting, and sometimes succeeding, to deny those rights to innocent human beings. Some TMM have formally declared their intention to murder all Americans as well as all others not adhering to their system of beliefs based on their faith. I believe them! I believe their declaration.

What you've done here is to define a class of individuals such that you avoid precisely the complexities, moral and legal, that are at issue.

"When in the course of human events" a TMM perpetrator is captured by the US and is judged to possess knowledge that if known to us will reduce the probability of the death or maiming of one or more of the innocent people among us, then terrorizing, hurting, or discomforting, but not killing or maiming, that captured TMM perpetrator to learn that knowledge, is a moral imperative.

You've already defined TMM as to intent and as to real guilt. In the paragraph above, you use the term 'judged'. How judged? Consider that the majority of people at Abu Ghraib were there as a result of sweeps of suspicious looking/behaving people (eg, saying something negative about American occupation). We now know many of them were tortured. Some were beaten to death. As many have now been released, they clearly weren't TMMs according to your definition.

So here is where you miss an important part of what Dworkin is saying. What if the possibility exists that a single innocent American life is or MIGHT BE at risk? Does this give you the justification to torture three hundred Iraqis on the possibility that a single innocent American life might be spared? This is Dworkin's point that American policy places American life ABSOLUTELY above the lives of others

Killing, maiming, terrorizing, hurting, or discomforting a captured TMM perpetrator for amusement, recreation, sport, hate, or anger is a crime for which it is morally imperative that the true perpetrator(s) of that crime be tried, convicted and punished as criminals. There must be no exceptions!
This looks to be noble. But in tandem with what else you hold here, it doesn't mean much at all. It is exactly as if you were to say that the police might round up folks in your neighborhood when something bad happens and torture them, but the only relevant moral/legal question relates to whether the police had fun or not.

blatham wrote:

Quote:
These constraints of fair criminal procedure and these humane rules of war are important not just when a nation's constitution or its treaty obligations make them binding, but because a very large community of civilized nations thinks that either they or closely similar constraints are necessary to prevent criminal prosecution or war from becoming a crude sacrifice of some people for the sake of others, a sacrifice that would ravage rather than respect the idea of shared humanity.
from Dworkin

This paragraph by Dworkin is evidence of his failure to comprehend who are actually the sacrificers and the sacrificees. The TMM are attempting to sacrifice us for their perception of what is for the sake of themselves. It is a sacrifice which if successful will "ravage rather than respect the idea of shared humanity." Our actions in our own self-defense may succeed in ravaging the TMM but not succeed in ravaging the idea of shared humanity. Rather such action on all our parts will succeed in protecting and nurturing the idea of shared humanity.

blatham wrote:
The claim and threat advanced by the administration is that those imprisoned and those not yet captured and held are out to destroy our freedoms and our values. But the fact and the irony is that they cannot do this. It can only be attempted by them. And it can only be accomplished by us ourselves.

If we or those we love are destroyed, then our freedoms or the freedoms of those we love, and our values or the values of those we love are destroyed.
No. That's wrong. If a gas explosion occurs in your house and two family members are killed, you have not lost your freedoms and liberties. If an innocent American is killed in a bus accident in Mexico, or killed by a gunman, your liberties and freedoms are not lost. If a terrorist blows up an apartment in Phoenix, your liberties and freedoms are not lost. During WW 2, with many Americans killed by an enemy, your freedoms and liberties were not lost. The ONLY way your liberties and freedoms can be lost is if either an occupying force controls you or if, and this is the real threat, you give them up (or some of them, or many of them) in order to attempt some impossible guarantee of security. The TMM have already done more than attempt to destroy some of us. The TMM have succeeded in destroying some of us.

Bush has been intensely criticized for not preventing 9/11/2001, even while many of those same critics greatly limited him and his predecessors in accomplishing that prevention.
That's really a strawman. Bush has been criticized, as Clarke criticized, not for failure in preventing 9-11 but for ignorning the level of threat and putting resources elsewhere in opposition to the advices of those most knowledgeable. As to prior stops on appropriate actions that might have been taken against Usama, you ought to refamiliarize yourself with the speeches the Tom Delay made when Clinton did attempt to act against Usama
I lived through WWII and saw what the actual consequences of delaying our coming to the defence of our fellow innocent human beings -- our shared humanity. I pray we have no more delays of that kind ever again. I pray we have no more failures to do what free people everywhere must do to truly protect and secure innocent people everywhere.
Inappropriate analogy. WW2 provides no justification for torture.

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Gelisgesti wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
Gelisgesti wrote:
Isn't torture 'punishment meted out before conviction'?

Torture can come both before and/or after conviction. In deed it has.

And if the victim/s turn out nnocent?
Or do you just advocate torture of the guilty?

Geli - don't convolute the process, are you trying to make things difficult or something...... we can always make them admit they are guilty, see Exclamation

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Yeah, first you torture them to admit they are guilty, then follow that with more torture to get information. It's the process that counts!

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BillW wrote:

Gelisgesti wrote:
ican711nm wrote:
Gelisgesti wrote:
Isn't torture 'punishment meted out before conviction'?

Torture can come both before and/or after conviction. In deed it has.

And if the victim/s turn out nnocent?
Or do you just advocate torture of the guilty?

Geli - don't convolute the process, are you trying to make things difficult or something...... we can always make them admit they are guilty, see

See ... therein lies the rub ..... you have to convince the innocennt that they are guilty, and the guilty that they ..... are innocent.
All the while remembering who was what so as to stem cheating and thereby altering the curve. After a few weeks of that action they will talk.
If not, there is always Lenny Bruce's 'hot lead enema'.

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JamesMorrison wrote:

Given an Iraqi taken into custody and suspected of terrorist activity or knowledge thereof should the authorities in Iraq:

1. Afford the non U.S. citizen terrorist suspect all the legal rights and privileges of an American citizen? If so, we need go no further.

But this is the real world and there is the moral imperative to prevent further death and destruction. This is the responsibility the authorities in Iraq have been charged with.

I think you are making a crucial (and rather atypical) reading mistake here. Who was talking of "the authorities in Iraq"?

The discussion was about what interrogation methods should be available to us, when we are dealing with suspected terrorists or Iraqi insurgents.

Indeed, it was the US Army which was holding the suspected insurgents in Abu G. The "authorities in Iraq" you refer to were, I understand, not even allowed access to this place.

I said that we (the US, the Netherlands, whoever) should treat anyone in our custody according to our laws. If we end up holding a suspected terrorist with a Iranian passport, it is my conviction we should treat him the same as a suspected terrorist with one of our passports. Thats a point of principle but also of logic: if we deem the laws sufficient to get an American suspect to talk, why wouldnt they be sufficient to get a Bulgarian to talk?

Now when the Iraqi government interrogates its prisoners, there is of course no reason to stick to American law - though I would still expect them to stick to all the international laws and conventions.

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Gelisgesti wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
Gelisgesti wrote:
Isn't torture 'punishment meted out before conviction'?

Torture can come both before and/or after conviction. In deed it has.

And if the victim/s turn out nnocent?
Or do you just advocate torture of the guilty?

I'll answer as clearly as I can.

People observed and captured (i.e., poc) by us in the act of murdering or maiming are guilty of murdering or maiming.

People observed, not captured (i.e., ponc) by us in the act of murdering or maiming are guilty of murdering or maiming.

People who murdered and maimed but were neither observed or captured (i.e., pnonc) are guilty of murdering or maiming.

The poc should be interrogated to learn of planned murdering and maiming by ponc or pnonc, and to learn where/how to capture the ponc and the pnonc.

That interrogation should use whatever form of pain it takes short of killing and maiming the poc to learn what they know of planned murdering and maiming by the ponc or pnonc.

People captured as poc, but are not truly poc will suffer unearned pain.

People murdered and maimed by ponc and pnonc who would have not been murdered or maimed if poc had been painfully interrogated will suffer unearned death and maiming.

Yes, it is a horrible tradeoff Crying or Very sad

Yes, making this tradeoff one way or the other cannot be escaped by refusing to recognize this tradeoff. Crying or Very sad

Yes, This tradeoff will either be made deliberately or by default. Crying or Very sad

Yes, this is our reality: to painfully interrogate or not to painfully interrogate; that is our question.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

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