Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

So, to disagree with your government is treason now. We are guilty of sedition.

Do you hear yourself Manning? Do you ever stop to think that you may be on the wrong side in this particular fight?
 

To disagree per se is not treason, but to advocate the overthrow of the government is treason. That is the most extreme form of disagreement, don't you think? There are ways to disagree without advocating violence and disruption.
You know this, I am sure, but you distort the word disagreement.
 

I do not advocate violence. I do not advocate revolution. I believe the Senate os a special prosecutor should look into the legality of the war in Iraq and just when planning for the invasion of Iraq was begun.

I actually believe the issues of torture and treatment of captives in the "war on terror" will be what destroys this administration.

While I have no doubt you have seen far more violence than I, I have no illusions about what kind of horror some sort of coup or revolution waould bring in this country. It would be the Balkans writ large and I have no desire to be a part of such bloodshed.

I want this madness to be brought to a civilized LEGAL conclusion.
 

Sorry, that was me. Forgot to sign my name.
 

Thank you for that response. We at least agree on some key points.

I personally have no objections to a Senate investigation of prisoner abuse, at least to get the facts out, and to debate what is to be done about it. Whether any such action would become the downfall of the Administration is hard to predict.

A SI, I believe, would ultimately lead, after months and even years of effort, to Congress in some manner, and the usual press leaks along the way would be totally unfair to all parties. So my choice would be the Senate up front, and get it done.

Perhaps I am not as upset about the abuse as you are, however. I do believe we have had some truly sadistic men involved who went too far in their kind of interrogation.

But the value of the products obtained has not entered into the picture. Did these tactics result in anything at all? I believe they have, and spectacularly, at that.
The products, if exposed, could well be shown to have saved many lives. This aspect has to remain classified, of course, to keep what we know from the other side.
Some of this has been written about by Richard mimiter in his book Secret War.

So it comes down to a moral dilemma.

Suppose we strongly suspect a captive of having information that would save thousands of lives if we could get him to talk in time. He refuses to coooperate.

Then we find out from collateral sources that this man is very high up in the terrorist world, and is therefore extremely likely to have critical information about a specific plan of the terrorists involving a nuclear device and a najor city in the West.
What to do?

I will be honest and say that I would do whatever was necessary to find out what this man knows, very quickly!

This hypothetical situation should not be translated into general application to everyone captured.
But once is enough to have established that I am willing to go around the Geneva Convention if the stakes are as high as I set forth, especially since I personally do not consider the GC to be applicable to ununiformed combatants. I am far more interested in saving many lives in that city, wherever it is: Rome, London, NY, DC, Toronto, Paris, Moskow, or ...

What would you do? Leave the man alone and let it happen?
 

The "ticking bomb question" is a tired argument that fails to address the issue of torture.

Late last year several prisoners were released from Gitmo because there was not enough evidence to convict them in court. These men claim that they were tortured while in custody. There was no ticking bomb.

There was no ticking bomb at Abu Ghraib. There was no ticking bomb at Bagram Airbase. People are being tortured to DEATH in these places. Innocent and guilty alike.

Are you comfortable with innocent people being tortured to death?

For God's sake, the FBI knew that the 9/11 pilots were training in the US. They knew that Middle Eastern men were asking to be taught how to take off and to maneuver the planes but were less than interested in learning how to land. If that's not a ticking bomb what is ?

One of the President's daily biefings in August 2001 had the words "commercial airlines,Bin-Laden, New York, and attack" on the same damn page.

Did Bush spring into action over that ticking bomb? No.

These are the people you want to trust with deciding who should be tortured?
 

Tired or not, you didn't answer the question, MK. Under those circumstances I postulated what would YOU do? It addresses torture directly, if that is what is required to obtain the information.

I have already agreed that egregious excesses should be rooted out and punished, but there is STILL the question of the 'ticking bomb", as you put it.

Those who are there now are not the one's involved before at Abu Ghraib. The chain of command has been changed. I would have to trust that the situation is under control now.

As a matter of fact, I do not know what intel was gotten out of anyone there in Abu Ghraib, nor would I, necessarily. Nor would the public in general, or the press.
 

The concept of an "innocent" captive, who threw down his AK-47 and his grenades after spraying our troops with automatic fire, and bursts from thrown grenades, and then was captured on the field of battle, is rather alien to me.

I don't believe they were innocent; it was a matter of not having the necessary formal proof available to convict, which is not a declaration of innocence. Troops are not trained to take sufficient evidence during a firefight! That is rediculous!
 

"The concept of an "innocent" captive, who threw down his AK-47 and his grenades after spraying our troops with automatic fire, and bursts from thrown grenades, and then was captured on the field of battle, is rather alien to me."

You mean the troops resisting the invasion and occupation of their country? Those troops?

So by your reasoning, if the U.S. was invaded and occupied by a foreign nation, you choose to fight and are captured, you would find it perfectly reasonable that you and your fellow soldiers are tortured for information?

I will answer your question.

If it was me. If I alone had access to this man I knew,beyond a shadow of a doubt,had information about an imminent attack, I would use whatever means was necessary to extract that information.

Then I would submit myself for whatever punishment was called for under the UCMJ or international law. I would take responsibility for the evil act I committed.

However, as I said, this is not the case in the torture that seems to have becom SOP with regards to captives held under SUSPICION of being part of terrorist organization.

Now I have answered you honestly I want you to do the same.

Do you believe that the Bush administration has conducted the war on terror in a satisfactory and efficient manner? Do you honestly trust this administration?
 

Good! Now we are on common ground. There IS a place for extreme measures.

Do I believe Bush's Admin has conducted the WOT in a satisfactory and efficient manner?

Two thoughts compete in my mind. First, I have no real comparison to measure with. This WOT is a new worldwide phenomena, especially when you add in the threats of WMD.

Second, since any war is a very messy thing, with mistakes made daily, and since the reportage has been extremely slanted negatively, and since the successes we have had are not well-displayed in the media, and since the necessary secrecy of some aspects seriously precludes an all-knowing assessment, all that I have is an impression or two, and not enough facts.

I was from the first a proponent of massive force. If we were to go in, there should have been heavy followup forces to that of Tommy Franks group. We needed to saturate the streets and the borders quickly. Perhaps double the number we eventually had there would have been sufficient.

That also meant to me that we should have imposed Martial Law, and rapidly disarmed everyone in sight, or taken out those who carried AKs or RPGs around, and didn't respond. In addition, we should not have been so damned sensitive to the idea of liberation vs occupation, at the beginning. This cost a lot of lives. I really don't think that subtle distinction made any difference. We were, to most of the Iraqis, occupiers by definition. I have no idea how well we might have made our true intentions clearer, either, but it might have helped if there had been more definitive public statements.

Additionally, we should have made some kind of provision for the mass of Iraqi army personnel suddenly let loose and roaming the streets. Forming them up into squads attached to US platoons might have worked. Or mixed them into US squads. Any sort of activity, maybe building things under strict supervision would have given them pay and kept them from reverting to fighting us.

The final thought I have had, is that we seriously botched the post-conflict planning and execution.
Since we have not been into reconstruction of whole nations since WWII, we have lost the insights of a generation of men who knew what to plan for and do from experience.

What we did find there was a infrastructure that was degenerated to nearly nothing as a result of neglect over many years, which was a big shock to the people who had the responsibility to fix things up. Paul Bremer was not the man I thought he was, either. Who knew?

I think we lost one or two years from all of these factors, and as a result, lost a larger number of our troops, and wasted billions of dollars in the bargain.

All that said, we have done something dramatic and exciting there. They had their elections, and their government is beginning to function free of our control, and their security and armed forces seem to be taking hold, and their oil is flowing, sort of. Their infrastructure will be far better than it has ever been also.

For these problems, I do fault the Administration. But I was not there in the room when decisions were made, and not privy to the information they were acting upon.
So I have to live with their results, trust that they have done the best possible, and then continue to grieve over the men we lost. Hindsight is so very ... insightful!

The alternatives to accepting the results they have obtained and the errors they have made are not acceptable to me.

What is the price of freedom for 27 million Iraqis? For that we should be proud.

I hope this all comes out ok, for we paid for it with our blood and resources.
 

One addendum. Torture is an abomination, but it is used all the time elsewhere.

I would indeed expect to be tortured by Saddam's people, or those of Giap, or what's his name in NK. I would have expected it from the Russians, Turks, Syrians, Egyptians,Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranians, Yemanis, Lebonese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians. and most of the new African nations.I would include the Indonesians for certain. There would be no exposure, simply disappearances.

And, just to make things more "balanced" I would expect it from France, Italy, Germany, the Checz, The Serbs, the Croatians, etc. etc. etc. And no one from their world would live to tell the tale, either. The UK would be far more subtle, but the end result would be sufficient "torture" to find out what they wanted.

That is the reality, much as we shudder at the practice. Can I prove this picture? No. But I believe it, just as you have admitted that there are circumstances under which you would commit torture. Other people's thresholds for use of torture are far lower than ours, perhaps to the same degree that their respect for life itself is cheap.
 

tkaae out cheap and replace with non-existant.
 

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