[Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so shall you

[Paul Rumelhart]

If you can't demonize torture, what is there left to demonize?  
Possessing people?  Carrying pitchforks? 

Paul

g. crabtree wrote:
> And once again you miss the point, attempt to attach me to positions I 
> have not taken, hurl invective, and do your best to demonize and 
> silence a point of view with which you disagree.You are as predictable 
> as a paperboy with OCD. You deliver on time, every time.
>  
> g
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Andreas Schou <mailto:ophite at gmail.com>
>     *To:* g. crabtree <mailto:jampot at roadrunner.com>
>     *Cc:* Paul Rumelhart <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com> ; lfalen
>     <mailto:lfalen at turbonet.com> ; bear at moscow.com
>     <mailto:bear at moscow.com> ; vision2020 at moscow.com
>     <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
>     *Sent:* Thursday, April 23, 2009 10:31 PM
>     *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so
>     shall you
>
>     Gary --
>
>     From the FBI report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay under Geoffrey
>     Miller, the general later brought in to "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib:
>
>     "on several occasions, witness ("W") saw detainees ("ds") in
>     interrogation rooms chained hand and foot in fetal position to
>     floor w/no chair/ food/water; most urinated or defecated on
>     selves, and were left there 18, 24 hrs or more. Once, the air
>     conditioning was so low that the barefoot d was shaking with cold.
>     Another time, it was off so the unventilated room was over 100
>     degrees, d was almost unconscious on floor with a pile of hair
>     next to him (he had apparently been pulling it out throughout the
>     night). Another time, it was sweltering hot and loud rap music
>     played - d's hand and foot was chained and he was in a fetal
>     position on the floor. Upon inquiry, W was told that interrogators
>     [military contractors] ordered this treatment. Took place in Delta
>     Camp"
>
>     The report goes on to substantiate that more than one detainee (d)
>     was brought into the infirmary with hypothermia after an
>     interrogation session. Detainees pissing and shitting all over
>     themselves. Being sexually assaulted by female guards. Forced to
>     stay awake for longer than the human body can stand. Being
>     partially drowned. Being stuck in a coffin with what you're told
>     are scorpions.
>
>     These are not conditions you will find any Hilton other than the
>     Hanoi. They are not on the continuum of acceptable behaviors any
>     more than a knife is on the continuum of 'comfortable objects'
>     because, like a knife, it's also an object. These are techniques
>     we reverse-engineered from North Korean torture techniques in
>     order to create SERE, and then reverse-reverse engineered in order
>     to create GTMO and the "black sites." This is despite the fact
>     that we -- as in, our country -- prosecuted Japanese soldiers for
>     waterboarding, and even Israel, no friend of terrorists, has
>     abandoned it because it produces bad intelligence. Indeed, if I
>     were just a little more cynical than I am, I'd say that that's
>     quite the point: we waterboarded KSM for information on the
>     nonexistent Iraq-al-Qaida connection, and Abu Zubaydah for
>     information on confabulated terrorist plots he had no reason to
>     know about.
>
>     You're wrong about the facts. You're wrong about the law. I could
>     go on about that, but I'd just be arguing with the tinny little
>     noises escaping from the echo chamber you pretend will replace
>     journalism. I'm waiting with bated breath to find out why you
>     think the FBI is infiltrated by ACORN or how George Soros is
>     dictating the legal conclusions of Republican appointees at Foggy
>     Bottom. That's just your intentional ignorance, plus arrogance,
>     tribalism, and smug self-satisfaction at your clever turns of
>     phrase. I can tolerate that.
>
>     What gets to me -- why I'm provoked to respond -- is that you're
>     willing, even eager, to sell out our country's honor in order to
>     soothe your rank cowardice. Or maybe it makes you feel like a real
>     man to hear that some punk Afghan teenager with an AK-47 was awake
>     for a week, stewing in his own shit, shackled to the floor.
>     Whatever the impulse is -- tribalism? sadism? fear? -- it's not
>     anything I recognize as American. What third-world tinpot
>     dictatorship did you grow up in that you think this is acceptable?
>
>     We consent to abide by certain principles. It's that common
>     consent that keeps our country from being a collection of
>     miscellaneous foreigners on someone else's land. I have
>     disagreements with conservatives about the metes and bounds of
>     those principles, sure. But here you are, disputing whether
>     America should have principles at all.
>
>     Americans, by which I mean FDR and Eisenhower, Reagan and JFK,
>     held off the Soviets and Nazi Germany, nations that both posed a
>     dire existential threat to our country, while banning torture,
>     expanding the protections of the Geneva Convention, and abandoning
>     the pretense that it's okay to attack civilian populations. These
>     are tempting tactics. Some of them work. Torture produces words
>     rather than silence. The Geneva Convention bans effective tactics
>     for making war. Killing civilians forces submission. We stepped
>     away from these things. We won. Twice. Over the two most
>     belligerent, technologically advanced, and staggeringly immoral
>     nations ever to exist, one armed with enough weapons to destroy
>     the world several times over.
>
>     But then 9/11 made you wet yourself. A crime of unimaginable scale
>     happened to people in New York City; people whom you don't even
>     accord the privilege of being called Americans. The crime was
>     carried out by guys carrying weapons you can buy at Home Depot.
>     Somehow, that uprooted your sense that America stands for
>     anything. But how deep were those roots, Gary, that fewer deaths
>     than those caused by the flu could pull them up?
>
>     Our soldiers make a commitment. They tell us they'll uphold the
>     Constitution. But there's a reciprocal side to that commtiment: we
>     tell them that they're the good guys; that they're not just
>     protecting American lives, but American values. That they're
>     fighting for liberty, mom, and apple pie. Because 9/11 made you
>     wet yourself, you're asking those soldiers to sit and play
>     Minesweeper while some dumb Afghan redneck shits his pants in
>     Arctic cold, chained to the ceiling of a lightless cell. If you
>     tell his President to tell our soldiers to do that, you've reneged
>     on our commitment to make our soldiers the good guys. Our moral
>     purpose doesn't come from who we are; it comes from what we do.
>
>     I don't know whether there's going to be a reckoning for the
>     people that authorized this. But you're the reason there should
>     be: to put the rudder straight and make people like you -- who
>     actively argues for torture -- too ashamed to speak up in public.
>     Anything you just said should be enough to make any decent person
>     drop their beer, walk out of the room, and go find another
>     locksmith. I'm looking forward to the day when it is.
>