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

Joe Campbell philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Sat Apr 25 07:42:35 PDT 2009


It was hyperbole for comic effect. I think the point is clear enough.

Joe Campbell

On Apr 25, 2009, at 6:25 AM, "g. crabtree" <jampot at roadrunner.com>  
wrote:

> Where and when did I insist did I insist that the term "MUST be  
> stopped?"
>
> g
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Campbell" <philosopher.joe at gmail.com 
> >
> To: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "g. crabtree" <jampot at roadrunner.com>; <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 7:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so  
> shall you
>
>
>> The use of the term "teabagger" to refer to refer to G's  
>> homophobic  friends. This Gary has complained about. Torture, war,  
>> racist rants  are all OK but the use of "teabagger" MUST be  
>> stopped, when it is used  to refer to a group of folks who are so  
>> out of it that that didn't see  this label coming!
>> Joe Campbell
>> On Apr 24, 2009, at 8:08 AM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com>   
>> wrote:
>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>



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