Tuesday, May 26, 2009

My Two Cents on Torture....again.

This will be my third post on the topic, but I think it's really important. And I want the liberals who read this to comment.

I found out about this from NewsBusters.

On Memorial Day 2002, Hannity and Colmes interviewed Army Staff Sergeant Troy Dunlap, who was held in Iraq as a POW during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He was bringing a lawsuit against Iraq and Saddam Hussein for the torture he and other POWs had to endure.

"We have 17 POWs, the injuries range from broken legs, fractured skulls, beatings that were so bad that the body looked like it had been dipped in indigo dye. Techniques that were used where things such as beatings to the point where most of the beatings stopped only when the POW reached unconsciousness, use of electric shock, cattle prods, drug injections."

"In another case described in the lawsuit, Navy Cmdr. Lawrence Randolph Slade remembers fearing for his life 'every single second' of his six weeks in captivity. Guards broke his teeth and his nose, ruptured his eardrums, fractured vertebrae and knocked him unconscious. On four occasions, they put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. "

"The 200-page suit details beatings of American POWs with pistols, weighted rubber hoses, blackjacks and fists. POWs were subjected to mock executions, threatened castrations and electrical shock. Some were kicked with steel-toed boots or hit on their knees with mallets. In at least one case, a POW plaintiff was so severely starved he ate the scabs off his own body. 'The first night I was there I was sure I was going to die,' the 31-year-old Dunlap said Tuesday. What kept him going, he said, was that a fellow captive was a female flight surgeon, who was seriously injured and sexually assaulted. 'I felt like I had to be strong for her' he said." (Andrew Herrmann, Chicago Sun Times)


The article literally brought tears to my eyes. Starvation to the point of eating your own scabs? While the scumbags at Gitmo gained weight from their three square meals a day?

To the traitors coming to the defense of the three terrorists who were waterboarded: you should be ashamed of yourselves. Where were you when these guys, OUR guys, had burning hot spoons placed on the back of their necks? Where were you when they were systematically starved? Why weren't you there, pointing fingers at the Iraqi teorrists who did this? Why weren't you screaming "torture" then!?

If someone says anything along the lines of "two wrongs don't make a right" or "we are better than them," your argument means nothing. It is IMPOSSIBLE to compare our techniques to theirs. Waterboarding does no physical damage; it creates the illusion of drowning. On the other hand, our guys were scarred and legitimately suffer from the real torture they had to endure.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the Libtards whine about waterboarding.

The Law said...

"Where were you when these guys, OUR guys, had burning hot spoons placed on the back of their necks? Where were you when they were systematically starved? Why weren't you there, pointing fingers at the Iraqi teorrists who did this? Why weren't you screaming "torture" then!?"

If this is your argument, then you missed the WHOLE POINT. The reason why we don't starve detainees and beat them within a half inch of thier life is because WE ARE A LAW ABIDING NATION. THEY ARE NOT. We signed a treaty called the Geneva Convention that strcitly prohibits that kind of treatment to detainees. To practice anything of the sort is BREAKING THE LAW. There is no other reason that should be necessary. Does terrorists torturing our soldiers piss me the F off? hell yea it does. Do I want every one of those terrorists who hurt our troops to feel the severe weight of American power? hell yea I do. But laws are only as good as our ability to practice and enforce them. without laws, we ARE NO BETTER THAN THEM.

It's not toture because we only did it 3 times?? are you serious? so if I rob your house, and then robbed your neighbors house, and because i feel lucky robber yoru other neighbors house, should I not go to jail? I only robbed three houses!

If I came to your house and killed your significant other in the middle of the night, and you only caught a very quick glimpse of me in the darkness of night, and the next day you found a suspect who may have been the one to commit the murder, is it ok to torture waterboard him into coffession? If someone killed your significant other right next to you, I'm sure you'd want him just as dead as a terrorist.

We are a nation of laws. pure and simple. to give into reveneg at the sake of the law is 3rd world mentality. I fwe are truly a superior nation, then we are better than that.

Obama Nation said...

It wasn't my argument, I just wanted to know why there wasn't an uproar then. It seems to me that the left always comes to the aid of America's enemies first.

Article 4 of the third Geneva Convention describes a POW as "having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance . . . of carrying arms openly . . . of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war." Terrorists do not carry arms openly nor do they conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. I suppose they have a fixed distinctive sign, and that would be Islam, if we're talking about Muslim extremists (because I do recognize that there are non-Muslim terrorists). But I'm pretty sure that's not the kind of "sign" the authors had in mind.

Therefore, terrorists aren't protected under any type of law. Besides, the Justice Department ruled at the time that waterboarding was not torture.

No laws have been broken. Next?

The Law said...

Here is where I will agree with you. The Geneva Convention never accounted for warfare conducted outside the purview or authorization of the state. In the history of war, there was no such thing as "terrorists" they way they are today. Even the barbarians that fought against the Romans were a unified group of nomads. Technically speaking, no law has been broken.

In such case, we defer to moral law. Terrorists are enemies of the state. Because we are morally superior (at least I'd like to think we are) then we treat them as if they were soldiers from a sovreign nation. Does that put us at a disadvantage? In a way it does.

The act of war is not where the battles are won. Wars are won politically. Torturing each other prolongs warfare, which ultimately treats the symptoms and never the disease. Without understanding the root cause of conflict, there is no end to any war.

I just hate it when people say the left come to the aid of enemies first. This is simply not true. The left, understand that 90% of war is NOT fought on the battlefield. It is a battle of morale. Diminush the morale of the enemy and they will be crushed. Diminish the morale of a nation and at best there is stalemate, at worst there is defeat. When we put detainees in Gitmo without trial, this RAISES morale for the enemy. And they will continue to fight.

Consider the war in Kuwait, American firepower was so devestating, and the strategy so well planned, the enemy morale was crippled in weeks.

As long as enemy morale is high, we will always have to sleep with one eye open. That's why torturing makes us unsafe. Eric Holder said waterboarding is torture. If it wasn't illegal then, it most certainly is now.

AdamS said...

My concern first and foremost about torture is this. There are certain legal processes that the procedures of a nation should adhere to. Unlike what many advocates of torture may say, this isn't done for the benefit of the defendant only - it's for the benefit of all of us, for we one day might be that defendant, justly or unjustly.

So allowing such a morally irresponsible process as trial by kangaroo court, torture and indefinite, unjustified "detention", is an insult to the principles of liberty and legal justice.

Often the argument is heard, "but these Arabs are mass murderers! You're not for mass murderers, are you?"

Mysteriously, I am not for mass murderers. However, I am also not for allowing this foot-in-the-door against due process. Remember the MIAC report, veterans among others are 'terrorists' now. You or I could easily be the next "suspected terrorist" sent to Gitmo or a CIA black site in Jordan or wherever. Oh, you want a trial now? Too late.

If a veteran was arrested without warrant, held without trial, or convicted without evidence, then tortured without reason, for years on end, you'd be no doubt outraged, and rightly so. If the nightly news then told you that was good, that government was doing what was needed to keep America safe, you would tell them they were wrong and were just spinning propaganda to keep people afraid of a threat that was not so grave that all freedom has to be surrendered to the government in a heartbeat.

I challenge you to start digging for information on CIA black sites worldwide, as well as deaths at places like Bagram air base that go unpunished.

One mistake made by both the left and right is to think Obama is ending torture. Well he's not!

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12041

Is it true that many Guantanamo and other detainees are in fact completely innocent?

http://www.macon.com/198/story/377952.html

Yep. Which is kind of the idea behind, you know, a trial, with that other thing, you know, evidence. But hey, let's just start locking people up and torturing them! Who needs proof that they are who the government says they are anyway? It's what we need to do to keep America safe. Sigh. This isn't an episode of 24, it's the real world, a world in which torture is about as useful for gaining reliable information as a magic 8-ball.

But of course, as the pro-torture folks tear down the Constitution, anyone who speaks out against them is a traitor. The irony. :/

But there's an upside. Since I am in your opinion a traitor, you can order my detention, suspension of legal rights, and torture! Hey at least I get to wear an orange jumpsuit! (and get beaten to death so that someone can pose in a photo with my corpse)

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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