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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:18
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Call themselves what they will, they're still going d o w n !
It's pretty exciting.
Someone said Bin Laden might be living inIran, but this may indicate he's in Pakistan, which gives hope. I guess if he's got an aide he's not quite as dead as I was hoping however. I was wondering if maybe he was buried under tons of rubble at the bottom of a spiderhole or in a cave.
Oerdin, do you think they want him alive? A trial might be a stage for him to whip up more terrorism while a dead body is just as good and less mouthy.
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Admiral
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of the peace and coexistance movement
Feb 2001
time: 00:18
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
Torture is bad A. when it is done on innocents B. when it pervades a judicial system, and becomes a tool in the hands of the state against domestic political enemies C. When classic "torture" methods are used that inflict so much pain that they elicit false and unreliable information.
None of which is what Gitmo was all about. It was the use of a borderline techniques designed to break people and make them more likely to reveal info - it was used against a fairly small number of individuals, all of whom were foreigners (an important point, since it means it could not be used as a domestic political tool) almost all of whom were clearly connected with Al Qaida, who by their status as unlawful combatants were NOT protected by the Geneva convention, etc. And who WERE connected to an organization that is at war with virtually the entire world.
By using said techniques in Iraq(and by mismanaging the prisons in Iraq, so that further techniques which were not approved ANYWHERE were used), the DoD has endangered their justified usage elsewhere. Feith is longer working for the government (a fact about which there seems to be an odd silence) Im not sure Rummy shouldnt also be held responsible. |
No. This isn't about US law, or political advantage, or anything. Torture is wrong, and there can be no justification. Torture is the distillation of all the pain of war into an ultimate form, designed to destroy the world of the one who is tortured. The Question is a fiction, something presented to the outside world to legitimize torture, but in reality, once the pain threshold of the victim is passed, and they break, nothing they say can be trusted, as they will say anything. One does not gain intelligence through torture, one destroys intelligence.
It doesn't matter if it was only used against a small number of people, it doesn't matter who they are connected to, or anything. Once the US tortures them, or knowingly gives them to a third party expecting to have the third party torture them, the US loses any moral high ground it has.
You mention that we are only using borderline techniques, to which I have two responces. A) Would it be ok if we used tactics that bordered on genocide? Of course not. Just because it isn't quite an extreme evil doesn't make it acceptable. B) The slippery slope argument. Abu Ghraib hurt our ability to fight effectively. And Abu Ghraib happened because, from the highest levels of government, there was an atmosphere of permissivity for techniques that bordered on torture. In this context, of course people are going to cross the line, and engage in outright torture. The stress of their position is something that the Defense Department has trouble understanding, and it is no surprise that they'd crack, or confuse the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
In the end, torture by the US would be about revenge. And when we consider that in the minds of Al Qaida, terrorism is motivated by revenge, we see that we would be no better than them. And I care enough about my country not to want that to happen.
But in response to the OP,  .
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:18
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
The only thing we know is that we have him in custody. We don't know how he got there, when he got there, or even if he's there as a guest or a convict. This is no holds barred information warfare (hopefully). |
"Al-Libbi, who allegedly orchestrated two assassination attempts against Musharraf, was arrested after a firefight on the outskirts of Mardan, 30 miles north of Peshawar, capital of the deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, the government and security officials said"
If he was arrested after a firefight, hes presumably not a guest. Since there are officially no US troops in Pakistan, and certainly no ground troops engaged in fire fights, he was presumably arrested by Pakistanis. Whether he is still in Pakistani custody is not clear. For reasons I made clear above, I think he will be left in Pakistani custody for some time, since he is a tough character and will require techniques of interrogation beyond "tell us where bin laden is, pretty please?" In any case he has apparenly commiitted major crimes in Pakistan, including two assasination attempts on Musharraf. The Pakistanis have plenty of reason to want the first shot at him.
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:18
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LotM: You're just spinning assumptions. By law, our guys can't lie to our press (they can refrain from telling the press lots of things, of course). But they can ask the Pakistanis to lie to our press and our guys can lie to their press no problem. Whatever information is best tactically for us to be in the press is in the press, no matter the truth. Don't take that quote at face value.
Last edited by DanS on 04-05-2005 at 23:13
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04-05-2005 18:49
Yeah, your title was way better then mine. 
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