Torture? Or just tough love?

[shereads]

Rumsfeld Downplays Detainee Mistreatment

By Pauline Jelinek
The Associated Press
Friday, September 10, 2004; 3:12 PM


WASHINGTON - Amid allegations he fostered a climate that led to the prison abuse scandal, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday that the military's mistreatment of detainees was not as bad as what terrorists have done.

"Does it rank up there with chopping someone's head off on television?" he asked. "It doesn't."

<snip>

But Pentagon investigations in recent months have said there have been some 300 allegations of prisoners killed, raped, beaten and subjected to other mistreatment at military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay since the start of the war on terror.

SR notes: He's right; no heads were cut off, not even off of the dead prisoners. I feel better about the entire episode.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

The antihero thing — the we’re just as corrupt as the bad guys except we’re good guys — just doesn’t seem to work in real life.

 

[shereads]

The antihero thing — the we’re just as corrupt as the bad guys except we’re good guys — just doesn’t seem to work in real life.

It makes me wonder what he was "taking responsibility" for. The embarrassment?

 

[fogbank]

Big cultural difference here: the american perspective that life is sacred (well, in most states), and as long as someone still is alive, they really can't complain; vs. the arab perspective that there's honor in a good death, and a good death is much preferable to a shameful life. I'd guess that most of the prisoners in Iraq would chose a simple (and recorded!) beheading over the humiliations they were subject to. Of course that's just speculation on my part.

I don't remember reading any accounts that anybody held by the various beheading groups were tortured. Those that were released generally said that they were treated well, in all aspects other than nearly being executed. There is no hate or disrespect for the individuals here, and this is the central element in Rumsfeld's regime: a total lack of respect for other cultures and individuals. It's equatable to the idea that rape is not really as serious crime, because in the end, the victim was left in relatively healthy condition.

 

[rgraham666]

What you resist, you become. Indeed.

 

[destinie21]

Milgram all over again

 

[Guest]

You give chaos.

Chaos gives back.

 

[shereads]

I don't remember reading any accounts that anybody held by the various beheading groups were tortured. Those that were released generally said that they were treated well, in all aspects other than nearly being executed. There is no hate or disrespect for the individuals here, and this is the central element in Rumsfeld's regime: a total lack of respect for other cultures and individuals. It's equatable to the idea that rape is not really as serious crime, because in the end, the victim was left in relatively healthy condition.

I agree with you that there are worse things than dying, but disagree that the hostage-takers, because of their faith, have displayed more respect for the individual. Have you seen the videotapes from inside the Russian school? In at least one case, a child made to watch as one of his captors pretended he was going to trigger a detonator. Terry Waite and other hostages of the Iranians during the Reagan administration were kept in solitary confinement for years at a time and psychologically tortured by being told they would be released, then told they were about to be executed. Once in a while, some compassion shines through - and is punished by others in the group. Look what happened to the two women among the terrorists in Russia last week. On the videotape, the women argue that the children should be released, and are executed for it - in front of the kids.

None of which excuses Rumsfeld's attitude. I wonder if he could have stomached being in the room when one of the Guantanamo prisoners was receiving the "special treatment" he authorized. I'll bet not. He and the president were shocked by the photographs, but there was nothing in the photos that they hadn't been made aware of in the Red Cross report and the investigation that followed it. A bit squeamish when made to look at the consequences of their leadership.

 

[shereads]

How do we become so selective about who is and is not a torturer? When Saddam was our man, he was free to gas Iranians on his borders with Rumsfeld's best wishes. When General Pinochet was "disappearing" his enemies by the thousands, he wasn't a murderer; he was just a staunch opponent of Communism.

Hypocrisy keeps biting us on the butt and we keep swatting it away and continuing to approve or condemn people's actions based entirely on their usefulness to us.

 

[Pure]

How far can we go before we're as bad as terrorists?

My dear, such confusion.

Since the US is on the side of right, there is no such thing as 'going too far', in harsh, coercive, or even destructive methods used proportionately against evil.

Remember the glorious A bombs?

If you'll forgive the limitations of the analogy, your move is like asking "Didn't God go a little too far in destroying Sodom and Gomorahh?"

"too far" is simply INapplicable.

 

[Jagged]

Taking off heads and killing an inocent person does not compare with prisoner mistreatment. Both are wrong, but one is worse.


Donald Rumsfeld has taken responsiblity. Those guilt of the crime are being charged. The killers, torturers, and murders that were being held are receiving rights that they never even considered for others.


In Cuba prisoners released from the facility have been caught again in the Middle East fighting once again under a terrorist banner.

 

[shereads]

Taking off heads and killing an inocent person does not compare with prisoner mistreatment. Both are wrong, but one is worse.

When you say that Mr. Rumsfeld took responsibility, what exactly do you mean? He did use the words, "I accept responsibility." Has he also accepted some sort of consequence for his actions? Does he seem repentant to you? Were you impressed by his televised apology to the Iraqi prisoners, or did you wonder, as I did at the time, whether he thought the prisoners were watching TV? In Bush-speak, accepting responsibility doesn't seem to mean more than holding up your hand and saying, "I'll take this one."

I continue to be amazed at the way supporters of this administration are able to deny reality, even when the reality is in the form of a Pentagon report. Killings are not killings and rapes are not rapes. They can't be, because we're the good guys and we don't do that kind of thing.

Anybody we mistreat must have done something serious, because we're the good guys and we would never rape a teenaged boy just for violating curfew or throwing rocks.

That "terrorist banner" you referred to. Is there one? Really? Let's hope they don't agree on uniforms next. Then it would be hard to tell who's a detainee and who's a prisoner of war.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

While the things that went on at AG are abhorent, I don't think they compare with things that happened under Saddam's regime, or what terrorists do to their victims.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

While the things that went on at AG are abhorent, I don't think they compare with things that happened under Saddam's regime, or what terrorists do to their victims.

Is that the new measure of Americans?

Hey! We're not as bad a Saddam Heussain!


DAMN!

 

[shereads]

While the things that went on at AG are abhorent, I don't think they compare with things that happened under Saddam's regime, or what terrorists do to their victims.

So it isn't the killing that matters, but the method used. i see.

Heads off: you're a terrorist. Heads on: you're an army of liberation.

Wild, we killed prisoners. We hid prisoners from the Red Cross. We posed bodies of prisoners with smiling soldiers. We took kids into custody for looting, or violating curfew, or participating in street riots, and then we took bets on which ones would lose control of their bowels if they were threatened by attack dogs. We sodomized some of them and filmed it, and e-mailed snapshots of dead bodies to our buddies stateside. We threatened people with electrocution and made them sleep naked on concrete floors, in their own waste.

In which way are we different from Saddam? Quantity of victims? Level of embarrassment when our methods are made public? Please clarify.

 

[rgraham666]

That favourite Taoist aphorism is bouncing around in my mind. "What you resist, you become."

And then there's the only wise thing Nietzsche ever said.

Beware when you battle monsters,
lest you become a monster.
And as you gaze into the abyss,
the abyss gazes also,
into you.

 

[shereads]

That favourite Taoist aphorism is bouncing around in my mind. "What you resist, you become."

And then there's the only wise thing Nietzsche ever said.

Beware when you battle monsters,
lest you become a monster.
And as you gaze into the abyss,
the abyss gazes also,
into you.

"We have seen the enemy, and he is us."

~ Pogo Possum

 

[cantdog]

God bless us. The Land Of Not So Bad As Pol Pot. Be proud.

 

[Edward Teach]

While the things that went on at AG are abhorent, I don't think they compare with things that happened under Saddam's regime, or what terrorists do to their victims.

In 1258, Hulugu Khan sacked Baghdad killing almost every man, woman, child, cat and dog in the city, over a million people. He threw the contents of the library into the Tigris river. He ran out of bags to haul off the loot with so he made sacks out of human hides.

See, we aren't so bad. All we did was allow the library and museum to be looted and torture, rape and humiliate a few sorry ass prisoners.

Ed

Ps- As to what Rummy meant by "taking responsibility," I think he means that he will be responsible for finding a few scapegoats.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I've had the long-standing opinion that we are too soft regarding the manner in which we conduct warfare. Having never seen combat (never having been in the military, beyond school), I take my opinion from my grandfather--who took a Purple Heart away from Iwo Jima in the Marines--and my father--who survived two wars, a true veteran (just in case people feel like saying "oh, you're young" or "oh, you'd feel differently if you'd seen the horrors of war").

We stopped the progression of our taking warfare to its most dreadful end after WWII. Any means. All means. The target is destroyed, the enemy is killed, the body count will be high, the casualities from civilians will be extreme. War isn't a chessgame, it is a means to an end--it is unfortunate that the means isn't replaced by diplomacy, especially in the age of communication, but that it is unfortunate does not change anything.

We will destroy more and more, relentlessly, until surrender is offered. Hiding behind civilians is not a manuever that will merit negotiation. The enemy /will/ be destroyed.

If we had continued the development we had been moving towards, the war in Iraq (and most conflict we engage in) would be terrible, inhumane, and quick... it would be cost effective, would minimize the number of US casualties, and send clear messages that modern warfare ought be treated like nuclear weapons... no quarter, no mercy, only vast amounts of death and destruction. Countries will start treating armed conflict--with the United States--as seriously as they would treat a nuclear strike... making it the second least desireable outcome of pissing us off.

Its not pretty, but it appears to work.

To be topical... as horrid as it sounds, part of that comes with the notion that prisoners of war can expect one of two outcomes: (1) the exchange of any and all relavent information regarding the enemy for a simple and quick release of the prisoner; or (2) death. The former being a wholly useful tactic for injuring the morale of the enemy, by releasing their snitch and informing them he talked. The latter being efficient whittling down of the enemy.

At least, that's what my family believes. Most everyone's been in the military, save myself and a few others. Most have seen armed conflict, war, etc. Several are well decorated. None of them are Repubilcan, nobody's voting for Bush, and my father's not religious at all (to cover my bases).

 

[Pure]

We stopped the progression of our taking warfare to its most dreadful end after WWII. Any means. All means. The target is destroyed, the enemy is killed, the body count will be high, the casualities from civilians will be extreme. War isn't a chessgame, it is a means to an end--it is unfortunate that the means isn't replaced by diplomacy, especially in the age of communication, but that it is unfortunate does not change anything.

We will destroy more and more, relentlessly, until surrender is offered. Hiding behind civilians is not a manuever that will merit negotiation. The enemy /will/ be destroyed.

If we had continued the development we had been moving towards, the war in Iraq (and most conflict we engage in) would be terrible, inhumane, and quick... it would be cost effective, would minimize the number of US casualties, and send clear messages that modern warfare ought be treated like nuclear weapons... no quarter, no mercy, only vast amounts of death and destruction. Countries will start treating armed conflict--with the United States--as seriously as they would treat a nuclear strike... making it the second least desireable outcome of pissing us off.

What you don't say, is, Is this the view of your veteren relatives, or something you came up with?

Unfortunately your first sentence is not correct.

While the A bombs reach a kind of pinnacle (along with Dresden), an attempt to follow agreed 'rules of war' was followed by the Allies. They did NOT, for instance, always shoot prisoners, or always rape the civilians. Both sides avoided poison gas, more or less, as in WWI. In a way, WWI is a high point of inhumanity, with mustard gas, for instance.

So humanity was moving toward a consensus. The Islamists reject that, and maybe we have to start over.

What also needs to be pointed out, is that there are advantages to some of the rules. For instance, had we killed as many Japanese as possible, they wouldn't now be our allies. Lots of Chinese remember being raped by Japanese, but not too many Japanese can remember being raped by Americans.

In the current instance, just as the Islamists may break rules, so do we. We will yell and scream once a Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib is created by the Islamists. Geneva rules are arguably in our interests.

Unfortunately humans have a slow learning curve with backtrack periods.

The idea that 'ruleless' war will 'win' and/or be more effective is a shakey one, and you've provided no evidence. Your approach reminds me of a friend who said, "For each suicide terrorist, go an destroy his village including all his friends, family, etc; that will make him think twice." During the Vietnam war, some said, "A bomb it, and pave it over into a parking lot."

Unfortunately, pipe dreams. The French and Brits have tried a bit of it.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

There seems to be a comprehension problem. Did any of you miss the word abhorent? Never did I condone what was done at AG. I thought abhorent was a good word to use to show what I think of what happened there. I guess I was wrong. I'll see if I can think of a better word.

With that being said, to compare what our forces did to what the regime of Saddam did isn't in the same league. Some of you act like there isn't a difference, but down deep inside you know better.

There are degrees of any crime. Our own criminal justice system uses degrees of crime. The degrees of what Saddam did and what a few bad apples within our forces did doesn't even come close to comparing.

I'm also amazed that it seems that some of you are acting like all of the American forces were involved in this. It was a handful of people involved out of the literally hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Iraq. The vast majority of these soldiers are good and decent people. To lump them in with the few idiots involved in the abuse is stereotyping in it's worst form.

It's no different than lumping the people of Cincinnati into the same category as Charles Manson simply because he's from there, or the people of Milwaukee with Jeffrey Dahmer.

No Virtual Burlesque, this isn't the measure of Americans. It is the acts of a very small sample of Americans. They did wrong, and I hope that all responsible are brought to justice. I will not judge the rest of our military or our country by the acts of these few though.

No ET, we aren't as bad as Huglu Khan. He came in and killed a million people. looted and ransacked. We removed a leader that has killed well more than a million people, in addition to the countless numbers that were tortured through out his time in power.

Khan kills a million, we remove the man that has killed millions. Yeah, real accurate comparison there.

If torture and killings are your biggest focal point with Iraq, I would think that all of you would be gateful that Saddam was removed.

If torture and killings are your biggest focal point in the world, why aren't any of you screaming about Sudan? There's torture and killing's a plenty there.

But that doesn't matter because it doesn't concern the administration that you don't want in office. That's what this is all about anyway. It's not about the torture, it's about getting Bush out of office, correct?

IF it were simply about ending torture and killings, then you would 100% support the removal of Saddam, and you would be talking about how to end the crisis in Sudan. Bush removed Saddam, so you can't support that. Bush isn't involved in Sudan, so you can't criticize that.

Does this mean that you think it's more important to get Bush out of office than it is to stop widespread totrue and murder in other parts of the world?

 

[Jagged]

My some of you should really write proganda for the enemy. The Iraqis don't even see us as that evil.


Like the enemy? They don't punish those who mistreat prisoners...they reward it. A officer in the United States military who sanctions such actions will find his/her career over if not jail time.


Talk to those who have been there and I have yet to hear of this evil army ravishing Iraq (I have talked not just soldiers but relief workers as well.)

If you don't see the differents from killing an enemy soldier in battle and killing a innocent civilian on live web while you sing the praises of god I can't help you...



Maybe you will all wake up when we are fighting these people the streets......of our cities.


The difference is we worry about human rights.....they worry about getting blood on their clothes. Yeah we aren't any different are they....kill a prisoner in the US Military you go to prison. The enemy (pick anyone of the groups we are battling) torturing a prisoner is a badge of honor that is bragged about. We are no different huh?

 

[SummerMorning]

I've had the long-standing opinion that we are too soft regarding the manner in which we conduct warfare.

We stopped the progression of our taking warfare to its most dreadful end after WWII. Any means. All means. The target is destroyed, the enemy is killed, the body count will be high, the casualities from civilians will be extreme...

etc.

Good grief. I cannot believe this. The only good thing that has come out of two world wars is the general consensus that:

1) war is always wrong
2) you can't slaughter people wholesale

...and yet you disagree with this position. No offence, but... have you ever thought about some other people who had similar opinions to yours?

Like maybe certain fascist regimes and their supporters?

Two things we get from millions upon millions of PEOPLE dead. People like you, like me, equally innocent, dead. Two things alone: war is always wrong and you can't slaughter people.

(Sure, there's a bit more than that - Geneva protocols on self-defense, the right to national and collective self-defense and so on - but aggressive war is out. Tell me - in what way did Iraq "fuck" with the US in 2001? With "chemical weapons"?)

 

[SummerMorning]

We are no different huh?

Well - if you don't follow the rules. No, you're no different.

If you want to be different - try to respect basic human rights (even though we could argue about their ethnocentricity, I will skip this argument here).

But here's an interesting point - do you think it's wrong to fight against an enemy who has occupied your land? Now define enemy and occupation... see, we run into trouble very quickly.

War benefits only one person - the guy selling guns.