Of the Geneva Conventions, “Torture Bans,” and Murdered Soldiers
People on both sides of the aisle need to open their eyes
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Anti-war liberals | Torture | War — Comments (61) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Update: Streiff's "The Fallacy of Reciprocity," from Sept. '06, is a must-read on this topic, as well.
On May 12, near the Sunni stronghold of Yusufiya, Iraq (about 15 miles south of Baghdad), al Qaeda fighters ambushed a coalition patrol, killing four soldiers and abducting three, all from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (based at Fort Drum, New York).
Despite warnings from al Qaeda “not to look for the soldiers if [they] wanted them back alive,” American and Iraqi forces mobilized almost 4,000 troops to conduct a search for the missing men. The force spent much of the next weeks searching the area around Mahmoudiya, in the much-publicized “Triangle of Death.” Though they questioned over 450 people and detained 11 as a part of the probe, the soldiers were, unfortunately, not successfully recovered.
On the morning of Wednesday, May 23, Hassan al-Jibouri, an Iraqi boater, saw a body floating in the Euphrates River. It had “head wounds and whip marks on its back,” said al-Jibouri, who alerted police about the discovery. Before the day was over, the body had been identified as being one of the three missing soldiers, PFC Joe Anzack, a 20-year-old from California.
Two weeks later, on Monday, June 4, the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI), an al Qaeda front group within that nation, released a video in which they said that the other two American captives, SPC Alex Jimenez, 25, of Massachusetts, and PVT Byron Fouty, 19, of Michigan, had been killed in captivity. Repeatedly mocking the “American military’s inability to find the soldiers,” the video showed what appeared to be the two soldiers’ identification cards, as well as other personal items, as evidence.
This treatment of captive military combatants is, of course, squarely against the 1949 Geneva Conventions – the same rules of war which America is often accused, both by our foreign enemies and by domestic representatives of the “anti-war” movement, of violating. While the question of whether plainclothed foreign terrorists with no state or military affiliation, who are captured targeting civilians and purposely fighting amongst noncombatants, are entitled to the Conventions’ protections is, perhaps, still open for debate, there is no question that America’s soldiers, fighting in uniform, representing their country, and strictly adhering to the laws of armed conflict are officially protected by these agreements.
Read on . . .
Interestingly and predictably silent in the week since the ISI announced that it had murdered the remaining captives have been the “human rights” groups who seem to spend every day accusing the United States of phantom “torture,” war crimes, and various human rights violations, while largely ignoring the real crimes carried out by our enemies. Rather than even mention the killing of these American troops, or any other atrocities carried out on a daily basis by al Qaeda in Iraq (AQIZ), Amnesty International dedicated the front page of their website this last week to headlines decrying “secret CIA detention” facilities, and mourning “another death at Guantanamo after [an] apparent suicide.” The United Nations, always quick to condemn the acts of the US and Israel, had nothing whatsoever to say about this latest atrocity on the part of the Islamic terrorists against whom we are fighting in this war that former Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly called “illegal.” Instead, according to its website, the UN was busy “marking 40 years of occupation by Israel of the Palestinian Territory” and “asking students to join the fight against climate change.”
One notable exception to this trend was Human Rights Watch, which has in the past accused the US of “brutalizing Muslim suspects in the name of the war on terror.” Though their web site (predictably) featured such articles and statements as “The Guantanamo experiment has failed” and “The end of Bush’s kangaroo courts,” the “human rights” organization did, commendably, condemn the murder of the captive American troops. In an article entitled “Execution of Captive Soldiers Violates the Laws of War,” HRW’s Middle East director wrote that “Those claiming to hold the US soldiers captive must treat the men humanely,” and adding that, “if they have done otherwise, they have committed war crimes.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be HRW if it didn’t include an apparently unavoidable dig at the US. The article concludes with the statement, “Human Rights Watch has documented violations of the laws of war of all parties to the conflict, including insurgent groups, US forces and the Iraqi government forces.”
This treatment of captive American young men is not surprising to any who have been paying attention to the actions of these Islamic terrorists in recent years. Though many have blamed the US, and have gone so far as to call this type of behavior “blowback” earned by American actions, such atrocities really are a way of life for al Qaeda and others who have given their lives to brutality and terror. As LTC James Crider, the commander of the 1st Cavalry Squadron in Baghdad, recently told me, these terrorists cannot be appeased or negotiated with. Along with all of the westerners they can get their hands on, “they’ll kill all the Shi’a they can, and then they’ll kill all of the less-radical Sunni. And then, when there is nobody else left to kill, they’ll start killing each other.”
Despite this fact, though, many opponents of America and her foreign policy have claimed that the reason for this brutal treatment of our forces abroad is that we have not properly afforded Geneva Convention protections to captured terrorists. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have said that America’s treatment of detainees and “disastrous Iraq policy” have served as “a giant recruiting poster for terrorists,” and myriad liberal commentators and pundits have repeatedly made statements to the effect that, “as a reaction to [the US] policy of [supposedly torturing detainees,] there is now a good possibility that our soldiers will be tortured.”
That people can utter such statements shows a startling ignorance of the enemy which America is facing. The idea that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups would respond to more humane treatment of captives by American soldiers by treating those they capture more humanely is profoundly mistaken. Lest we forget, these are the same inhuman fanatics who – on camera – cut off the heads of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg, among many others; who routinely detonate themselves and their vehicles within crowds of civilians; and who hijacked American airliners full of fuel and passengers and flew them into skyscrapers. Likewise, these are the same sadistic inhuman fanatics who published manuals on real torture, including such methods as eyeball removal and using a power drill in strategic locations on the body, as well as other indescribably brutal acts.
Simply showing terrorists such as these more goodwill is a means of emboldening them, not of pacifying them; restricting our actions and operations will not cause them to reciprocate, but to increase theirs even more.
Lest we also forget, in January 2006, the United States Congress passed – and President Bush signed – Sen. John McCain’s “torture ban,” which was said to “prohibit the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any detainee in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.” Said McCain, “We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists.” This “message to the world” was clearly rejected by the terrorists we are facing in Iraq. Just six months after the “torture ban” was signed, two Army soldiers – Privates Kristian Menchaca and Tom Tucker – were abducted by AQIZ, and were brutally tortured and slaughtered. “Human rights” groups were equally silent at that time, as well, choosing to decry the mythically inhumane acts of the Bush administration, rather than to call attention to the actually inhumane acts of the a Qaeda terrorists.
The position that al Qaeda’s brutally inhuman treatment of civilians and captive soldiers alike is the result of anything whatsoever that the U.S. has done, or that any action on America’s part – be it legislatively, or by withdrawing forces from areas populated by hardline Islamists – will result in a positive change in terrorist behavior is one which is borne out of ignorance and denial.
Likewise, the position that the United States commits any acts whatsoever which could be construed to remotely resemble real “torture” in any way whatsoever is one borne out of ignorance and willful refusal to face reality. The fact that the word “torture” itself has been dumbed down so much that it is being used day in and day out to describe acts by the US which simply make those who would slaughter us slightly uncomfortable has, as Don Surber of The Belmont Club wrote recently, left us utterly impotent to describe the acts of al Qaeda and others, which until the word lost its meaning and power were known as torture themselves. Surber writes:
The problem with the word "torture" is that it has been so artfully corrupted by some commentators that we now find ourselves at a loss to describe the kinds of activities that the al-Qaeda interrogation manual graphically recommends. Now that the term "torture" has been put in one-to-one correspondence with such admittedly unpleasant activities as punching, sleep deprivation, a handkerchief pulled over one's face and loaded with water, searches by women upon sensitive Islamic men or the disrespectful handling of Korans – what on earth do we call gouging people's eyes out?
There are two answers to that question. The first is that we call that “torture,” as well, and equate such acts as gouging out a person’s eye, or drilling a hole in their arm with a power drill, with such “torture techniques” as those complained of by Mahjid Khan, a Gitmo detainee who had been charged by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with the mission of blowing up several gas stations in the Washington, D.C. area. Facing his Combatant Status Tribunal late last month, Mr. Khan complained of the “mental torture” he was suffering at the hands of his captors. This mental torture, according to his testimony, came as a result of being forced to endure “cheap unscented soap,” “noisy fans,” and half-inflated balls in the recreation yard that “hardly bounce.”
The second answer is that which Mr. Surber posits. He says:
Answer: we call it nothing. My fearless prediction is that not a single human rights organization will seriously take the matter up. There will be no demonstrations against these barbaric practices, often inflicted upon Muslims by other Muslims, in any of the capitals of the world. Not a single committee in the United Nations will be convened nor will any functionary in the European Union lose so much as a night's sleep over it. The word for these activities -- whatever we choose to call it -- will not be spoken.
The second part of Mr. Surber’s answer, though, which must be supplied here, is this: regardless of what we decide to call such practices, the US will be blamed for their being carried out. No matter what America does, and irregardless of the fact that we hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior than any other nation in existence, there will be those who see the US as the greatest evil in the world, and as the source of all the world’s malcontents, criminals, and problems.
We need to understand that it does not matter how much we change our ways of doing business, or how much the hands of our military and other terrorist-fighting organizations are tied in the name of not provoking our enemies further. Those we are fighting in the Global War on Terror are not cut from the same cloth as the militaries against whom we have done battle in the past. They follow no rules but their own, and, rather than being reciprocated, no good deed we perform – and no concession we make – will go unpunished.
The United States formally banned “torture” last year in the foolishly naïve hope that doing so would cause our enemies to be less brutal when our own citizens were captured. If last year’s case of Kristian Menchaca and Tom Tucker, and this year’s case of Joe Anzack, Alex Jimenez, and Byron Fouty, do not cause us to open our eyes to the fallacy inherent in such belief, then we really are in such great denial about the enemy that we are facing in the GWOT that we have little, if any, hope of prevailing.
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Of the Geneva Conventions, “Torture Bans,” and Murdered Soldiers 61 Comments (0 topical, 61 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
what's the net military cost of this "torture ban"? What benefits could we hope to gain had we not declared it?
Just curious how much of a "concession" you think it is.
...which falsely - and dangerously - believes that promises of good treatment, or actual concessions, on our part will engender a positive response, rather than being seen (and treated) as signs of weakness.
of a crime we did not commit. By passing a law saying "we don't torture", the implication is that there was some doubt of that being our policy before.
And the President could not oppose the "no torture" bill without appearing to support torture.
In the end, it's a PR win for the terrorists, and even more so for the anti-war left.
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Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
... at least according to the signing statement.
Bush... Cheney... Sun Myung Moon... smells like a triumvirate to me.
--this is a comment on the impotence of the Legislature to actually stop the Imperial President Doctrine, where a president cannot break any law.
Does the silence of Amnesty International and the UN reference the treatment of our troops anger you? Bother you? Cross your mind at all?
Just wondering...
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
I think AI ought to put out a statement like HRW did. I suspect that they'll include the kidnappings and killings of our troops in their reporting on the overall violence.
If you'd care to educate yourself about their coverage of the conflict, this would be a good place to start. Any implication that they've been unwilling to cover, or criticize, the perpetrators of ethnic violence and terrorism is a false one.
The "silence" of the UN is a bogus issue, because whether the matter comes before the UN is up to us. We got a whole new Human Rights Council, mainly because of our own demands, and though we refused to take a seat on it, we said we'd work through our allies (the UK, etc.) to bring up our concerns. If we want a resolution condemning the treatment of our troops, well, we should go get one.
Honestly, though, whether this-or-that organization is biased has little relevance to my prior questions. If most people believe we've committed torture, well, it's not because of big bad Amnesty International. We've got political problems that blaming a messenger won't solve.
Still curious about whether Jeff's military contacts agree with him that forswearing torture is a sign of weakness.
have been following the antics of Amnesty International and their inability to condemn atrocities by the islamofascists.
and why adherence to the Geneva Conventions is meaningless
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
Any implication that they've been unwilling to cover, or criticize, the perpetrators of ethnic violence and terrorism is a false one.
Ah, so Jeff and I are saying that AI/HRW, etc...aren't speaking up when ethnic violence and terrorism occurs, are we?
Nice try, but I think I'll bypass your strawman and return to the argument we ARE making. You know, the one you seem to be dancing away from...that AI and the rest of the world humanitarian elite can't seem to be bothered---or don't seem to care---when American soldiers are tortured.
The "silence" of the UN is a bogus issue, because whether the matter comes before the UN is up to us.
But, why should the US have to ask the world community to express its outrage? How about a little freaking gratitude, or sympathy, or simple human compassion from the world elite, to go along with all the criticism?
If most people believe we've committed torture, well, it's not because of big bad Amnesty International. We've got political problems that blaming a messenger won't solve.
Oh, please. "most people" believe we've committed torture because of internal American political problems? You don't think that media hype, jihadhi propaganda and paranoia have anything to do with it?
marc, seeing as you're (b) not quite bothered by but (c) are a bit aware of AI's indifference to the plight of our soldiers, would you mind explaining a bit further how we Americans SHOULD react to break world elite silence on the torture of our soldiers? (Hint: if your suggestion includes the following phrases: "show contrition", "express regret", "go cap in hand," "go on bended knee," "show humility,"---then you might not want to bother.)
So far, I'm utterly unimpressed with your contributions to the debate here. Did you come here to lecture us? If so, did you think we'd simply sit here and take it?
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
If they know we can't do anything to them, then why would they ever tell us anything useful? What is the point of ever putting even one of our soldiers in harms way to capture a combatant as opposed to just killing them dead.
I think the laws of war are antiquated, just like our counterinsurgency doctrine was out of tolerance. This is a new enemy that doesn't fit into the neat and tidy category of enemy combatant. As opposed to treating us like the bad guys, lets focus our attention on the whacko radical islamists that want to cut all of our throats and blow up nuclear weapons on our soil. Maybe we can develop and end all be all truth serum that makes them talk. Until that day, I agree with Jeff. It is a sign of weakness and they will exploit that weakness every chance they get.
It would be interesting to check islamist websites around the time we signed that treaty and see what commentary was made about us. Any one speak Arabic and have a password to their sites?
... would you rather get a bullet hole, or be in a cushy american prison?
also... ever heard of Stockholm Syndrom?
... the geneva conventions were signed well before the internet existed.
Syndrom
what, are you e.e. cummings or something?
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
I believe it is more of a belief in the goodness of mankind. We should not put ourselves in the position of corrupting our own souls unless it is a requirement to save other lives. When saving innocent lives is the result, then almost everything changes.
Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."
On the question of what the "torture ban" cost us, with its trivializing concept of what constitutes torture, that trivialization is itself a major cost. For the enemy's propaganda purposes, the U.S. Congress conceded moral equivalence between stressful interrogation by Americans and real torture by Al Qaeda.
marc cited Amnesty International as evidence that critics of the U.S. are being even handed; but that's the twisted concept of "even handed" where terrorists blow torching a prisoner's face get the same (if that much) degree of criticism as an American interrogator pouring water over a prisoner's face.
Let's see, they gouge out eyes, cut off heads, drill through people's arms and we declare a torture-- ban because some of our guys dunked a terrorist's head in water and others put underwear on some al-qaeda heads. Ridiculous!
Many more of us will have to die before we have the will and constitution to fight this war properly. I suspect we would see a strong correlation between Senators who voted for a torture ban and senators who are voting to give amnesty to illegals. Ironic?
What will the high-and-mighty human rights elite think when we Americans decide that that stream of water cascading all over us is actually NOT rain? That we're being peed on by people who claim for themselves the privledge of insulting and condemning us, while demanding we protect them and keep the world free for them to travel safely at the same time?
What will they do when we decide that it's not worth the trouble anymore? When we look around and realize that our long-range bombers and missiles can touch worldwide hotspots just as precisely as our underappreciated soldiers can?
And, what will they do when we get sick and tired of the whining and the ocmplaining and the insults and the etc etc etc...
What will they do then?
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
"Let's see, they gouge out eyes, cut off heads, drill through people's arms and we declare a torture-- ban because some of our guys dunked a terrorist's head in water and others put underwear on some al-qaeda heads. Ridiculous!"
Why is this ridiculous? Western civilization and terrorist extremists are totally and completely different - why would you expect or wish that they act in the same way? The fact that we are trying to shut down this terrorist movement does not mean that we should become them. One rule for us, another rule for them? You bet! Because we are NOT them!
Because there is a fundamental difference between gouging out someone's eyes and providing him with unscented soap. There is absolutely no equivalence between the two in any part of the world.
So, yes, I find it ridiculous that the Left (including both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) sees absolutely no difference in kind or degree in:
[1] preventing someone from sleeping in order to temporarily disorient him enough to reveal where innocents are being held and mistreated in order to rescue them ...
[2] the use of a blowtorch on a person's face for no other reason than "punishment."
How can you rationally consider both to be the same thing? Why does it not already occur to you that we are already different from them?
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
My point is not to say that the techniques used by the US are comparable to the techniques used by terrorists - yes, a blowtorch to the face is worse than sleep deprivation, that goes without saying.
My point is that when you reach a "this form of torture is worse than that form of torture" argument, you're in a very dangerous place, at the top of a VERY slippery slope. And while the benefits of torture in terms of intelligence gathering are debateable, at best, I would argue that stating loudly and boldly that the US does not engage in torture of any kind is not a bad thing to do, both in moral and PR terms.
To respond to your final paragraph, I would have thought it clear that I already understand that we are different to them - and fundamentally so. But fear can change things, and assuming that we could not become like "them" seems very short-sighted.
... this form of torture is worse than that form of torture ...
Nobody is arguing that because, unlike Bush Derangement Syndrome suffering Lefties, and this definitely includes the folks at Amnesty International, none of us here accept that placing a pair of panties on a person's head can, in all seriousness, be called "torture."
But that is precisely what you, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the New York Times, etc. have done here. The Left has somehow managed to place unscented soap(!) and soggy cornflakes, on the same continuum as drilling through a persons feet, blow-torching faces and eye gouging.
I would argue that stating loudly and boldly that the US does not engage in torture of any kind is not a bad thing to do, both in moral and PR terms.
And what benefit has it brought the United States?
It is still repeated daily that the US routinely engages in "torture" by not just insane Left-Wing organizations, but the American Press (I repeat myself) and members of Congress.
All this based on the word of people with no mark of torture on them, in excellent health and who we all know have been instructed to level allegations of torture whenever they're caught. What's worse is that when we investigate further, we discover that the extent of the "torture" is a belly slap, or the presence of female within his field of vision.
What McCain's short-sighted bit of legislation did was ultimately place anyone who conducts an interrogation that is no tougher than a tea party in severe legal jeopardy. Worse, it gave credence to the ridiculous idea that cold coffee and smashing toes with a hammer are on the same plane of behavior - which you obviously believe.
Worse still was that it gave credence to the charges by idiots, who would never believe otherwise no matter how many bills are passed by Congress, the world over that the United States engages in torture as a matter of course.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
"none of us here accept that placing a pair of panties on a person's head can, in all seriousness, be called "torture.""
This is not what I am saying either - I would, however, class anything which involves the deliberate infliction of pain or psychological terror (ie. waterboarding) as torture. This is perhaps something on which we will simply have to agree to differ, but by my definition there seems ample evidence that the US has engaged in "torture", and I believe that stating that this is abhorent to US values is a good move. Not because it will stop terrorist organisations from torturing, but because it is the moral high ground, and I see no reason to concede that.
Waterboarding is different in degree or kind from blow-torches on faces. Solitary confinement is substantially different from drilling holes in people's feet. Military physical training (which sometimes includes waterboarding and, often, sleep deprivation) inflicts huge amounts of pain and fatigue on a person - that does not make anyone of these things the equivalent of torture.
What these are in the context of interrogation, are methods of applying primarily psychological pressure on people to crack and provide needed information to save the lives of innocents. There is this strange faith among anti-interrogation activists (Amnesty International, Democratic politicians, you, etc.) that just nicely asking a hardened psycho/sociopath where the bomb is, or where the child is buried alive would yield answers as readily as means that involve coercion.
This is not true. What is even less true is the notion that methods like sleep deprivation never ever yield useful information. Why do you think they're used? Because American interrogators are naturally sadistic and are only trying to have fun? Even McCain, at some point, stopped preening for Bill Keller long enough to acknowledge that physical torture (of the smashing hammers on toes kind - which I and practically all of us here categorically oppose) do actually yield results and may be necessary in situations where lives are at risk and time is of the essence.
The fact of the matter now is that McCain and his friends have already conceded the high ground. By entertaining Amnesty Internaltional's claims that all coercive interrogation techniques are the equivalent or on the same continuum as torture, we have already lost the high ground in the eyes of far too many. It was a tacit acceptance of Amnesty & Co's allegations of torture at America as being true. And now, we have the New York Times tsking at the Bush Administration because Gitmo inmates are being subjected to soccer balls that "don't bounce" and having a woman in the same room.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
Waterboarding does not hurt and does not cause physical damage. It does scare the hell out of people.
If 'psychological terror' is torture, then when we send our soldiers into the line of fire to save an innocent population, we are torturing them, because only fools wouldn't be scared. They're just brave and determined enough to overcome their fear.
If fear of death is a good way to cause terrorists to reveal their plans to us, then we are morally wrong to abstain, as people will die for our false sense of superiority.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
People will say anything under torture, agree to anything.
There are more effective ways of obtaining information while leaving the psyche intact.
There are more effective ways of obtaining information while leaving the psyche intact.
So there are ways of getting information out of recalcitrant suspects that involve no psychological pressure?
Good. Please name, describe and explain them.
PS: I believe the person you're responding was making a point about fear.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
The fact that we are trying to shut down this terrorist movement does not mean that we should become them.
So if "some of our guys dunked a terrorist's head in water and others put underwear on some al-qaeda heads" that means we've "become the same" as the barbarians drilling through people's hands and gouging their eyes out?
One rule for us, another rule for them? You bet!
I agree. Their rule is it's ok to blow torch and power drill their prisoners. I'm glad that we have different rules forbidding that treatment. But according to you, if our rules sometimes allow dunking in water that's the same as their rule - I'll bet you would change your mind real quick if you had to choose which of those treatments you would undergo.
>Likewise, these are the same sadistic inhuman fanatics who >published manuals on real torture, including such methods as >eyeball removal and using a power drill in strategic locations >on the body, as well as other indescribably brutal acts.
Professional torture leaves no marks, so that the person can be returned "unharmed". Simply because the CIA is a bit more professional does not mean that they are not torturing people.
Professional torture leaves no marks, so that the person can be returned "unharmed". Simply because the CIA is a bit more professional does not mean that they are not torturing people.
Because under this logic, there is no way anyone can disprove an accusation of torture. People like you (you strike me as someone who's a "Truther") would simply dismiss the fact that there are no marks or signs of torture on the person as an attribute of the professionalism of the "torturer."
In other words, it's a matter of faith for you, isn't it? You desperately want to believe ... therefore you do.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
McCain's legislation and his vacuous grandstanding was the final straw for me. It forever showed me the man is utterly unfit for elective office of any kind, and utterly unfit to be Secty of Defense.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
IMO it's really all a question of "Are you an intellectual or a realist?"
Intellectuals seem to think that every difference can be talked out and resolved without resorting to war.
Me? I'm a realist, it's simple for me to understand that while America is an evolved society that having endured the horrors that were the second world war and having an overwhelming desire to spare civilian populations the devastation that was nessasary to achieve victory over the governments that brought that conflagration upon the world, we agreed to the Geneva Accords to spare innocents in future conflicts.
It's also simple for me to understand that at the time the Geneva Accords were drafted, an enemy such as America faces today in Iraq and elsewhere was unimagined.
I'm all for rules that spare innocent civilians lives and ensure the proper treatment of POW's so long as both sides practice and adhere to those rules.
America demostrates that we are an evolved society in our treatment of detainee's in this war on terrorism in that every person held at Gitmo enjoys being able to still draw breath today while our troops and civilians that have been taken captive by AQ do not.
Commenter JG is correct, Many, many more American and other innocent lives will be lost to the brutality of Islamists before we realize that the only way to deal with a 7th century mindset is to strip away the veneer of civilization and give Islamic terrorists what they give others; Brutal deaths.
We can get our morality back after we defeat once and for all Islamic fundamentalism.
To be sure, "War is bad for flowers and other living things" as the saying from the Vietnam era went, but some wars must be fought and this is one of them.
Intellectuals need to stop the hand wringing about surviving and get on with the business of doing so, the life they save may be their own.
"You never need a firearm,until you need it BADLY!"
"...at the time the Geneva Accords were drafted, an enemy such as America faces today in Iraq and elsewhere was unimagined."
The 1949 Geneva Convention (the Geneva Accords had to do with Vietnam in 1954) was passed in the wake of Auschwitz and the Bataan Death March. I don't think anything was left "unimagined" after World War II.
I note that of all the Republican presidential candidates, the only one who opposes "enhanced interrogation techniques" (a Nazi coinage, btw), is the only one who has experienced torture personally. (The only one to face combat? somebody?)
War is hell, and torture happens during wartime. But neither torture nor "enhanced interrogation techniques" should be our official policy, for the reasons set forth by General Petraeus. I'm willing to stand with our commander of forces in Iraq on this one.
Because the Nazis operated concentration camps . . . the Geneva Conventions were written with knowledge of asymmetrical warfare, mediacentric battle strategies, and all aspects of modern war? I'm missing something here.
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NARF
Must we yell about intellectuals again? I'm sure this just reinforces stereotypes.
Let's try using -real- terminology, instead of demonizing people.
The argument, as it always comes down to, is between Idealists and Realists.
*nods*
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).
And now I'm off to do a little torture myself. (Have noisy fan in office.)
We are often lectured by sundry groups opposed to our policy in Iraq they are not quiescent. With that I would agree, for they actively support action which negatively impact the well being of our soldiers, and as pointed out, anyone else opposing them. The inability to comprehend or recognize a dangerous, lasting impact of such contra intellectual practices magnifies an absolute difference between liberal and conservatives mindsets in dealing with such issues. Look at the different approaches based even on such currently innocuous forums such as recent Presidential debates. The absolute chasms in approaches are acutely identifiable.
Factually and historically these actions signal a “de facto amnesty to affiliated groups and begets nothing but a continuation or increase in their own inhuman acts. Who would believe, on any level, people committing such atrocities would adhere to any rule of law or accepted social more? Therein lays the initial problem; that we identify ourselves as having any culpability in the basis for their actions. This is where policy and articulation of our alleged sins and digressions lends credence and support to those opposed to our comprehensive efforts. They wield such responses as if representative of some meaningful action. Yet they are nothing but an artful distraction, meant to suit parochial purpose and political worldview. In the process that helps no one, since those sitting in opposition to such diabolical behavior helped craft the very text no being used against us as a political tool. Was that the purpose of creating rules and standards? Certainly I have to believe it was not and some higher purpose was the intent.
I think every night about Jimenez and Fouty, out there all alone. They must know their fellow soldiers will never stop searching. They also know Geneva Conventions and such also have absolutely no meaning and complaints about “deflated basketballs are nowhere in their future. Beyond surviving, I wonder what they think about our political will and how that might affect their state of mind. What if they cross a border? Will politics have a role in where, how hard or how long the search goes on? All issues they need not worry about, but unfortunately due to the specious moral equivalence efforts of many, they may.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report
I'm suspicious that they didn't release video of their death or their mangled bodies, as that has been the MO until now. We pray for these guys every day, because I'm very worried that they are being tortured even now.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
Short answer no since obviously, ISI is far from being trusted on any issue.
Long answer; there are several views one could take on this. Did we get/are we too close and therefore they were killed and bodies hidden; evermore to be used as a taunt? Or do they want to try and take the search down a notch, stretching it out with disinformation while they find a suitable propaganda purpose/bargain?
The absence of a video indicating any bodily status leads me to hold out hope they are alive. Furthermore, the release of their ID cards rankled my curiosity; why do that? Plus, why was the other PFC. separated if they were all killed. Again, a desperate post-murder attempts to garner additional propaganda value or distractive maneuver? Overall, too many questions for me to give up hope.
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report
Short answer "yes".
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"
Contributor to The Minority Report
This is purely selfish of me I can not take another NPR expose - by the same people -of Torture and the horrfic treatment of Islamist prisonoers at GitMo, but need my 'Talk of Nation' fix when I'm jonesing for Studs Terkle memories of Fol artists. There must be a better way.
I recommend that we give detainees 24 hours of taped Ramsey Clark lectures on 'Humanity as He Sees It' looped with Larry the Cable Guy reading from the Koran.
Remember they are America's guests.
Pat Hickey
Removing limbs and eyeballs is torture done by rank amateurs.
Professionals do not leave any lasting sign, so that people can be returned "unharmed".
Just because American torturers are more professional, does not mean that they have not tortured people.
"I'm right, but I have no proof because the fact that there is no proof is proof I'm right!"
Run like Reagan!
The target audience of a "torture ban" is not our enemies. Nobody with a brain harbors any delusions that anything we do will persuade our enemies to comply with the Geneva conventions or any other conventions of humanity.
The real target of persuasion is the rest of the Muslim world. As McCain understands, this is a battle of ideologies. The only way to persuade the majority of muslims that our ideology is superior to the radical Islamists is to consistently demonstrate that we are better, through our behavior and policies. When we make stupid mistakes like Abu Ghraib, we give their propagandists more ammunition to say "see, they are just as bad." Having unclear policies and laws makes it that much easier for them to make the argument.
The outcry about "tying the hands of the military" is a red herring. There are no senior military officers calling for a repeal of the torture ban. That is because GEN Petraeus and other senior officers know that in counterinsurgency the real fight is for the support of the population. It's all about "legitimacy", and mistreatment of detainees doesn't build legitimacy.
I'm a currently serving special operations officer, in Iraq right now, and I've never heard a single one of my fellow soldiers complain about our hands being tied. We understand our duty and we understand the need to follow rigid rules when it comes to such things. Everyone here knows that in the absence of rules, chaos ensues. We don't get worked up about the fact that the enemy doesn't follow any rules of morality, because we already knew that. Doesn't change how we act. We're the good guys.
"If all men were just, there would be no need of valor."
- Agesilaus
When Sen. McCain put forward that amendment, he implicitly said to all our critics "You're right. We're torturing people, and I'm here to stop it."
That was one of the biggest pieces of propaganda for UBL that he ever could have asked for.
Run like Reagan!
...would rarely question you on such matters. However, while I had a similar experience to you when in Iraq as a Special Operator, in terms of having freedom of action, the experience I had when embedded with a conventional unit a couple months ago was quite the opposite. The number one battlefield complaint was an overly restrictive ROE and a constant, frustrating feeling of having their hands tied (not with regard to torture, but simply with regard to being able to fight the enemy which was picking them off one by one).
I would be frustrated too. But I personally don't think ROE is the root of the problem. It stems more from poor operational concepts that leave our troops exposed, vulnerable, and unable to take the initiative. As a former professional soldier, you may have noted that the enemy initiates the great majority of engagements, while we pile on layers of armor to protect ourselves. That is indicative of a serious problem. But that is another discussion. Anyhow, as you point out, ROE is a separate issue from detainee policy.
Now if you want to talk about frustrating, let's talk about "Catch and Release!"
"If all men were just, there would be no need of valor."
- Agesilaus
Google Waterboarding and you will find info such as this.
http://lawofwar.org/what's_new.htm
about the US backed War Crime Trials. If you feel torture is OK then what was done to our POWs in WW2, Korea & Nam was also OK according to your concept of civilized behavior. And the Khymer Rouge were just misunderstood.
http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2006/09/this_is_what_wa.php
If you don't have the courage and integrity to post using your real identity you obviously don't deserve to be listened to or takes seriously.
unfortunately it cant be said enough.
I would just note that AQ in any of incarnations is not a signatory nor covered by the Geneva Conventions. The only people that assert it is, are those with an anti American agenda.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777