[Vision2020] Jennifer Harbury: "Truth, Torture and the American Way."

[Ted Moffett]

Only for those who suggest I might reason in the absurd manner you described
to justify torture.  You will be forced to read Norman Rosten's "Guernica"
repeatedly, endlessly, with no sleep, till you collapse in pacifistic
exhaustion, after which Joan Baez's reading of this poem, with musical
accompaniment, from the album "Baptism," will be set on endless repetition.
There is no escape!

Guernica
by Norman Rosten

In Guernica the dead children
Were laid out in order upon the sidewalk,
In their white starched dresses,
In their pitiful white dresses.
On their foreheads and breasts
Are the little holes where death came in
As thunder, while they were playing
Their important summer games.
Do not weep for them, *madre*.
They are gone forever, the little ones,
Straight to heaven to the saints,
and God will fill the bullet-holes with candy.
------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_(Joan_Baez_album)
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 4/27/09, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:
>
> Are you suggesting, Ted, that . . .
>
> Because the US has utilized torture since Vietnam (a claim that I believe
> to be fact based on scenarios explained to me by friends while in the
> Army), that it is OK to apply torture tactics today?
>
> One torture tactic explained to me:  A Handful of NVA or VC POWs would be
> taken to an altitude of a few thousand feet in a Huey.  At that time they
> would be interrogated.  If there were no response, or if the interrogator
> did not like the response, the POW was tossed from the helicopter.
> Usually, by the fourth or fifth POW, the POWs were more than willing to
> provide answers to the interrogator.  Whether or not the answers were
> truthful is open for debate.  But, we all know how Vietnam turned out.
>
> Bottom Line:  Torture is torture and is simply WRONG!
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> > http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=6228&SectionName=
> >
> > http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?
> ProgramId=6228&SectionName=&PlayMedia=No
> >
> > C-Cpan 2 tonight presented a lecture and question and answer session
> > featuring Jennifer Harbury, regarding her book "Truth, Torture, and the
> > American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in
> Torture."
> > Her presentation was the most informed, well reasoned and passionate
> > offering on this issue that I have ever experienced.  She made clear the
> > fact that torture as a tactic of the US military or US intelligence
> > operatives (CIA et. al.) has been utilized during and since the Vietnam
> War,
> > in Central America, and as we know, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is thus
> not
> > a new development in the War on Terror since 9/11.
> >
> > I'm not sure her lecture and presentation will be run again on C-Span,
> but
> > it should be...
> >
> > Ted Moffett
> >
>
>
>
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