Gary --<br><br>So, what you're saying is that you concede that abuses took place; you concede that interrogation techniques like uninsulated 30 and 100 degree temperatures; you concede that the same guy responsible for Abu Ghraib was responsible for GTMO; you concede that any technique that did not produce pain "equivalent to death or organ failure" was approved for use on our GTMO detainees. And you claim that you don't support any of these things: that these things are torture.<br>
<br>And then, conceding that we did these things, you nonetheless bang the table and insist that our approach to interrogation didn't constitute torture. The most charitable interpretation of this is that you are merely incapable of drawing conclusion. However, having corresponded with you over the years, I've found that you have a genius for drawing incorrect and immoral conclusions. <br>
<br>What are the facts as you believe them to be? Did we waterboard? Did we
leave detainees shackled to the ceiling, stewing in their own shit? How
about week-long periods of sleep deprivation over years of detention?
Did we do that? Do you think this is consistent with our values? Do
you think we should be ordering US servicemen to do this sort of thing? Is that consistent with a duty to protect the honor of our servicemen and intelligenc officers?<br>-- ACS<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 1:32 PM, a <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:smith@turbonet.com" target="_blank">smith@turbonet.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial">You're absolutely right. As a work of pulp
fiction it's right up there with the Left Behind series and any of the vapid
crap produced by Dan Brown.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">By the numbers:</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">1. I have at no time tried to justify the abuses in the
FBI report to such as being chained with no access to food, water, or
toilet facilities.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">2. Exposing anyone to low temperatures to the point of
hypothermia (Although one wonders how many US soldiers were treated for the same
thing that night, no "torture" involved)</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">3. Sexual abuse of any description.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">Pretending that these are my expressed views and then
vigorously taking me to task for them is dishonest in the extreme and is exactly
the sort of thing I have come to expect from Mr. Schou. Playing fast and loose
with the truth has allways been a hallmark of his debate style and for him to
hold himself up as a paragon of moral righteousness is laughable. I believe that
he would do well to climb down off his rustled moral high horse and respond to
what I actually write not what he concocts in his fevered
imagination.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial">g</font></div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px;"><div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="background: rgb(228, 228, 228) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">
<b>From:</b>
<a title="kjajmix1@msn.com" href="mailto:kjajmix1@msn.com" target="_blank">keely emerinemix</a>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>To:</b> <a title="ophite@gmail.com" href="mailto:ophite@gmail.com" target="_blank">ophite@gmail.com</a> ; <a title="jampot@roadrunner.com" href="mailto:jampot@roadrunner.com" target="_blank">jampot@roadrunner.com</a> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Cc:</b> <a title="vision2020@moscow.com" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a> </div>
</div><div><div></div><div><div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, April 24, 2009 11:57
AM</div>
<div style="font-family: arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh"
Interrogations -As ye sow, so shall you</div>
<div><br></div>This is probably the finest post I've ever read on Vision
2020. <br><br>Thanks, Andreas. <br><br>Keely<br><a href="http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/</a><br><br><br><br><br>
<hr>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:31:27 -0700<br>From: <a href="mailto:ophite@gmail.com" target="_blank">ophite@gmail.com</a><br>To: <a href="mailto:jampot@roadrunner.com" target="_blank">jampot@roadrunner.com</a><br>CC: <a href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
Subject: Re:
[Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so shall you<br><br>Gary
--<br><br>From the FBI report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay under Geoffrey
Miller, the general later brought in to "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib: <br><br>"<font size="-1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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</font>"<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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. <br><br>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?<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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?<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>
<hr>
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