Comments on: Two different speeches on torture

By: Blissex

Blissex — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 13:35:03 +0000

The only reason why this debate is happening is that elections are imminent and USA voters are broadly in favour or torture, ”because we can”, ”they are not coming for me”, ”just in case”, ”better safe than sorry”, ”you can never be safe enough”.
The President and Congress are in effect *boasting* that (most) Republicans endorse the practice torture, and the Democrats are keeping silent because they cannot boast of the same: how many brown skinned suspects have been tortured by the Democrats? None, and that means being unpopular with the voters, who often consider scruples and the law quaint annoyances for losers.
To the average USA voter what are the benefits and the costs of torturing brown skinned suspects? There may well be benefits, even if small and uncertain, but there are no obvious costs. It is a no brainer: head we win, tails we don’t lose.
Newt Gingrich described clearly what good Americans are like:
http://classwebs.SPEA.Indiana.edu/bakerr/v600/a_new_look_at_environmental_poli.htm
�If you have a society where almost every middle class person routinely fudges the law, that’s telling us something. We have laws that matter-murder, rape, and we have laws that don’t matter. [ ... ] The first thing that every good American says each morning is “What’s the angle?” “How can I get around it?” “What does my lawyer think?” “There must be a loophole!” Then he proceeds to work the angle, and the bureaucracy spends its time chasing that and writing new regs to stop him.
America is the most incentive-driven society on the planet.�
Among the laws that don’t matter are those about torturing brown skinned nobodies. All the President wants is for Congress to write him one giant loophole, to do what USA citizens want.

By: mike jones

mike jones — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 01:38:54 +0000

But torture is not a weapon like rifles or nuclear warheads. It is a moral choice, not unlike the decision of whether to go to war, or whether to eliminate “inferior beings”. It is, in fact, nothing less than the decision of whether others are, in fact, human. We should not torture because of concern for what the victims are, but because of concern for what we become.

By: Suzanna McMahan

Suzanna McMahan — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 05:56:39 +0000

By the way, your form on that page doesn’t work.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 05:54:24 +0000

Hi! I would like to say that your comment about you rather living in Sweden that Mississippi is understandable, but have you ever visited my beloved state? True, we have had our share of bad press, but here are some things you may not know:
For one, I work for the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce here in Madison, Mississippi where Madison is touted as one of the best 100 cities to live and retire in. My chamber serves four other states as well as our own too.
Secondly, the International Ballet Competition comes to Jackson, every for years, That’s right, our capitol is on par with Varna, Bulgaria; Moscow; and Tokyo.
Lastly, we have had dignitaries from Germany, France, Russia and the King and Queen of Spain visit our capitol for each cultural exhibit we have had from those countries.
If you’d like to know more (and there’s a whole lot more where that came from), feel free to e-mail me anytime! Everyone else reading this is also invited!
Oh, and by the way, Madison has a Swedish architecture thoughout to show our pride as a sister city to Sollefte�, Sweden and both parties will continue to help each other economically for as long as it shall last!
Take Care,
Suzanna McMahan
Office Manager
Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce
South Central US
officemanager@sacc-scus.org
http://www.sacc-scus.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The McCoy Federal Building in Jackson was the first U.S. federal building named for an African American.
The Mississippi Legislature passed one of the first laws in 1839 to protect the property rights of married women.
Alcorn State University in Lorman is the world’s oldest black land grant college.
MCW in Columbus (est 1884) was the first state college for women in the U.S..
The first PTA met in Crystal Springs.
The International Checkers Hall Of Fame is in Petal.
Cartoonist Rick London (London’s Times) is from Lumberton.
John Stetson learned hatmaking in Dunn’s Falls.
The Vicksburg National Cemetery is the second oldest in the U.S.
The oldest Holiday Inn is in Clarksdale.
The King and Queen of the Gypsies are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian.
The 4-H Club started in Holmes.
Joseph A. Biedenharn founded Coca Cola in Vicksburg.
Belzoni is the Catfish Capital of the world.
The company that makes Icee Drinks is in Edwards.
Peavey Electronics in Meridian is the world’s largest manufacturer of musical amplification equipment.
Football’s Walter Peyton was from Columbia.
Elvis was born in Tupelo.
The Mississippi Gulf Coast has the world’s longest man-made beach.
National Geographic is printed in Corinth.
Dr. Tichenor invented his antiseptic in Liberty.
Jackson is one of the four cities of the world sanctioned by The International Theater/Dance Committee.

By: miker

miker — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:24:29 +0000

steve, you would torture people even if it didn’t work? what kind of fucking tool is that? are you an american or some piece of shit that would agree with al qaeda if they were your next door neighbors?
and dano i was imitating steve with that comment

By: Dano

Dano — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:13:35 +0000

torturing hundreds of people and killing tens of thousands in Iraq is not as bad as killing 3000 in america.
Suuuuuuure.
Who Would Jesus Torture?
How many innocents did Jesus say it was OK to kill to pertect yerself?
Pathetic.
Best,
D

By: steve sturm

steve sturm — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:43:10 +0000

Miker: what’s dumb is reading things into my comment that aren’t there. I never said torture ‘works’, nor did I say that we know a suspect has information we want. Torture is simply (yes, simply) a weapon to be used if and when appropriate… just like artillery and rifles and nuclear weapons… and failing to use it when it is called for means sentencing some number of Americans to death. Who (other than me, I presume) are you willing to see die in order to keep your conscience clean? Your parents, your spouse, your kids, your next door neighbors, your colleagues at work? Who is expendable to you?

By: miker

miker — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 17:45:51 +0000

Steve, the amount of dumb assumptions in your post is amazing.
1. torture works
I don’t know why you think torture works better than other interrogation techniques.
2. the people we interrogate are terrorists
Under current policy the president can pull a U.S. citizen off the street and hold them indefinitely as a terrorist suspect. Also, no detainee in our secret prisons or Guantanamo has ever been tried, let alone convicted of anything related to terrorism.
3. when we interrogate a suspect, we already know that he knows the information we want
that’s just dumb. this is often the assumption made with the ticking bomb scenario. While this might happen in a few cases, I don’t see this happening in even a decent percentage of them.

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:19:02 +0000

shmuel: "If you capture Mohammad Atta before 9/11 and can accept his silence, you are a better person than most." If you captured Atta on 10 September 2001, you would not not know what his plans were. If you did, you could frustrate them without torture. Is your suggestion to subject all captured suspected terrorists to torture immediately, on the off chance that thay have set in motion some unknown plan for mass murder tomorrow? Not doing so isn't particularly virtuous but basic rationality. Most "ticking bomb" justifications of torture are based on situations that don't arise. For two real situations that approximated it, see my old comment here: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/12/13/151717/80#comment-75052. Paul Teitgen was I think indeed a better man than you, or me. For the sake of my exercise, I had to assume the truth of Bush's factual assertions about KSM, which are no more than plausible, since we already know he made false ones about Zubaydah. For more on this, see http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/10/news/henchman.php: presented as a "balanced" he said/he said story, when the only real story is the allegations from FBI sources. The CIA denials are routine.

By: steve sturm

steve sturm — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:08:14 +0000

Deciding on whether to use torture is a pretty simple decision: the question is whether you are more committed to saving the lives of your fellow citizens than you are about the well-being of the suspect.
I understand your sentiments… it’s just that I would rather order ‘extreme interrogation’ to be used than have to go before the families of the victims of the attacks that could have been prevented and explain to them why I didn’t use every tool at my disposal to keep that from happening. Have you told your loved ones that you’d rather see them dead than have Bush order the torture of a terrorist believed to have information that could prevent the attack that would kill them? If so, I would bet you’re quite popular at family gatherings, right?
And, your point that refraining from using torture helps us in the long run is as flawed as your (collective) arguments about our presence in Iraq making America less safe… the terrorists were attacking us long before Bush sent troops into Iraq and they were attacking us long before any reports of torture surfaced. And if we didn’t torture, they’d simply pick some other reason to attack us…
Other than that, I see nothing wrong with your post…

By: miker

miker — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 06:27:06 +0000

torturing hundreds of people and killing tens of thousands in Iraq is not as bad as killing 3000 in america.

By: shmuel

shmuel — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:34:06 +0000

If you capture Mohammad Atta before 9/11 and can accept his silence, you are a better person than most. Alternatively, you could care less about 3000 people as long as you moral stance is pure.

By: Sven

Sven — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 19:23:27 +0000

“Torture is a continuum, at the extreme high it is terrible; slapping one over the face is considered torture, but akin to driving above the speed limit.”
th
No, it isn’t. For an explanation why, follow this link and go to page 22: http://tinyurl.com/gsz5o

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 19:09:15 +0000

Of course there are worse crimes than torture. So what? Pick any crime you want, and someone can name a crime that’s arguably worse. But that doesn’t give the top law enforcement official in the country a pass for conspiring to commit serious crimes in the unverifiable belief that some other crime(s) might thereby be prevented. That way lies of covernment of criminals, not of laws.

By: Scorpio

Scorpio — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:58:19 +0000

Imagining George Bush as an honorable man is an exercise in futility and fantasy.

By: fishbane

fishbane — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 17:41:26 +0000

“Torture is a continuum, at the extreme high it is terrible; slapping one over the face is considered torture, but akin to driving above the speed limit.”
Um, no, in fact; we call it “battery”. Depending on the jurisdiction and the facts, premeditated battery can be a rather serious felony. As mens rea is already satisfied, assault and battery are basically both no brainers. If it goes beyond a slap, you’re getting close to aggravated battery or in some jurisdictions, mayhem. There are many other statutory crimes one can be charged with, too.
Those who wish to define torture down need to look seriously at what they’re suggesting.
“As bad as torture is, there are worse crimes.”
I do disagree. Torture is the assertion that others are less than human, and are simply things to be manipulated without regard to any sense of morality outside of whatever you think is correct. It is also mostly unreliable.
Again, those who wish to define torture as acceptable, or attempt to minimize the evil, need to seriously think about what kind of world they wish to live in. A really good place to start is to ask if you’d consider if just to be subject to the system of “discovery” if you were mistaken for, for instance, a terrorist.

By: shmuel

shmuel — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 16:40:44 +0000

While Bush is celebrating what turned into the 9/11 festival, many of his opponents celebrate an orgy of holier than thou.
Torture is a crime. Killing 3000 people is a crime. A suicide bomber commits a crime. As bad as torture is, there are worse crimes. Absolutism is good for religions, but human being don’t have that luxury or duplicity.
Torture is a continuum, at the extreme high it is terrible; slapping one over the face is considered torture, but akin to driving above the speed limit.
I wish we stop being sanctimonious and deal with torture in more realistic terms. It will have one huge contribution: instead of a white and black issue, torture will become something other than water boarding or nothing.

By: rilkefan

rilkefan — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 16:27:43 +0000

KR? I only know Kr.

By: Aaron Adams

Aaron Adams — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 15:28:51 +0000

The Case for Capturing Osama bin Laden http://usapassport.blogspot.com/2006/09/case-for-capturing-osama-bin-laden.html