Redstate

I read the graphic violence tag, but I still wasn't prepared for it this morning.

We can't let torture be redefined to include things that are clearly not torture. That is what the left is doing with McCain's help. We do not torture anybody. We do, however, use coersive interrogation techniques and should continue to do so. This might as well be called the Church Committee II.

isn't it really cruel to ask a man to stand with his arms outstretched.  And how about sleep deprivation,there are penty of insomniacs in America who'll tell you that's torture.  Although when I took basic training a tough little Jewish guy from the Bronx got on the wrong side of our platoon sergeant and for a full week, forced marches,PT, twelve hours in the field,the whole bit, he was allowed only one hour of sleep a night.  The men on fire watch were instructed to keep him awake, the late Susan Sontag shoild have known about that.  But then you can't treat a barbaric enemy the way you treat American soldiers, as the enlightened and humane realize.  I almost left out the one about the trainee who had his leg broken while undergoing interrogation training.  The amendment should keep the always fawned upon, smug and always grinning, McCain busy on the Sunday talk shows, a man needs his adulation.

Am I missing something here? How are we supposed to arrive at a conclusion if we don't really know what McCain is proposing? I guess this post assumes we've been following things closely which I have not in this case. Give a little more background on the issue please. We all agree that the terrorists are horrible people but we need a little more evidence to support your claims against McCain.

is the line drawn between torture and non-torture?  I see a lot of people making unequivocal statements that we do not torture without doing anything to actually justify that statement.    

McCain Amendment

An excerpt:

(a) IN GENERAL.--No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

More:

(d) CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT DEFINED.--In this section, the term "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.

when you start using the abhorrent actions of the terrorists to justify our treatment of them.

...and the rest of the world..."do as we say, not as we do?"  Are we to encourage the Iraqi's to form a democracy, with rights and privileges, and protections for minorities...and then ask them to please ignore the fact that we are unwilling ourselves to condemn the very acts which Saddam Hussein committed?

That is complete hypocrisy.

Let us assume for the moment (although Abu Ghraib and other evidence says otherwise) that we do nothing but treat prisoners "roughly."  That's fine.  Then...why not pass the McCain Amendment...better yet, a McCain BILL...to say to the world, "We do not torture our own citizens.  We will not torture anyone else."

John McCain is attempting to add to the appropriations process a provision that would prohibit the United States from doing to captured terrorists those things we are prohibited from doing to American citizens under the 5th, 8th, or 14th amendments to the United States Constitution.

That's absolutely right.  Our own Constitution - the principles that we codified and stand as a model to the rest of the world in terms of how a government should relate to the governed.  The Constitution is a beacon of freedom and democracy because it speaks of rights and freedoms endowed to ALL people - not just Americans - by their Creator.  Yet, what you are arguing is that we must cast aside these principles in the face of an enemy that has no army, no country, plots and plan and caves.  Are you that afraid of them?

Far more people are killed every year by criminals involved in narcotics than have ever been killed by a foreign terrorist.  Should we turn our backs on our own principles and start torturing them, too?  What would that get us, except of a lot of people who tell us what we want to hear in order to get the pain and suffering to stop?

The media has been trumpeting unproven stories for some time now that accuse the United States of torturing captured terrorists.

I suppose those photos from Abu Ghraib were created by Industrial Light and Magic.

Most of the so called "torture" is not torture. In fact, many of the techniques our military uses are designed to wear down the ideologically hardened terrorists who will not talk and have been trained to endure multiple forms of harassment and abuse.

Yes, this is true.  Most of the techniques are acceptable, and very effective because they work on psychology, not physiology.  But, I cannot believe that if someone forced you to simulate sodomy while naked and being photographed, or sicked big snarling dogs on you, or made you stand for hours in a a cold cell, naked, tied to a bed in an unnatural position, you would come out of the prison saying "hey, it was OK...they just treated me a little roughly..."  Heck, even I considered listening to John Kerry speak as "torture!"

But, that is besides the point.  What McCain is addressing is the fact that, yes, those activities did occur at Abu Ghraib.  And, yes, the world has seen them.  Now is the time to stand up for our own principles and clearly state "We do not condone this.  We will not do it."  The alternative is to remain in a hyprocritical state of denial and hypocrisy, allowing the rest of the world to conclude "hey, they probably do it - we should do it, too!"

It is not beneath the dignity of McCain's, or anyone's, office to suggest doing this.  It is beneath the dignity of our own nation to condone the torturing of human beings.  We fought a Revolutionary War, two World Wars, and a Cold War to preserve the rights, freedoms and ideals we beleve all of mankind has been endowed with.  Now is not the time to turn our backs on our own principles, not in the face of this enemy.  Not ever.

a number of reasons, notwithstanding the accusation that the chief reason McCain is sponsoring his legislation for 'favorable media attention.'

This is nasty, childish, and emblematic of everything that is wrong with the current GOP- the attitude that everyone we disagree with isn't merely wrong, but evil, self-serving, and filled with bad intentions.

This is not and should not be worthy of the front page at Red State.

I think you'll be surprised.

There is definitely a huge segment of the Right opposed to the interrogation techniques that the Bush Administration has allowed and fostered.

I'm not going to get involved in semantics.  Call it torture.  Call it interrogation.  Call it whatever.  Instead of just attaching a word to it, it would be more useful to actually examine the specific techniques and have a debate about those.

Anyway, those of us who are ashamed of the Administration for allowing this are not immune to the sound arguments of Krauthammer and Derbyshire and Glenn Reynolds on this.  And I don't think that giving full constitutional protections to the enemy is the way to go.  But the fact remains that the US, the most powerful country in the world that is trying to lead the world towards the light of freedom, can't be involved in this type of degrading behavior.  It just can't.  End of story.

I'm glad someone posted the actual language of the McCain Amendment.  It is clearly cause for concern.  Take, for example, the fact that it defines torture to include "cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth . . . Amendment to the Constitution."

Read the Fifth Amendment, and you will find it says nothing about "cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment."  But it does talk about the right to not incriminate oneself, the right to be indicted by a grand jury, etc.  And the courts have said that to protect the right not to incriminate yourself, the police have to give you a Miranda warning.  So, does that mean that we have to give terrorist detainees picked up overseas in a battle zone the same Miranda warnings and other rights that we give regular criminals in the US???  It doesn't say that explicitly, but why include the Fifth Amendment in the language of the statute, unless you are intend to extend Fifth Amendment rights to these detainees?  The same concern applies to the language in the proposed statute about the 14th Amendment.

My point is that the press is advertising this as merely a prohibition against torture, but once the courts get hold of this, they very well may extend more rights to illegal combatants than to legal prisoners of war.

Torture is already illegal.  Let's leave it at that.

Thanks.  I hadn't seen this before - I thought McCain's previous proposal was more specific.  This does seem like a bad idea (especially if it ends up creating any judicial remedies), although I do continue to believe that it's legitimate and proper for the legislature to set some rules and outer limits with regard to interrogation, among other things to make clear that some forms of coercive interrogation short of actual torture are proper and permitted with regard to unlawful combatants.

It is the knee-jerk apologists for torture who are contaminating the definition.

But kudos on managing to figure out that we're fighting bad people.

I don't necessarily agree with this particular proposal, but the attack on McCain here really goes too far.  McCain is a good man and a patriot.  Yes, he's a camera-hungry self-aggrandizer, but that's part of the job of politicians.  And yes, he's not the world's most loyal Republican.  But "charlatan" and "fool"?  C'mon.

And I'll add that McCain's amendment passed in the United States Senate 90-9. We're talking Kyoto-levels of agreement among our senators. I don't think any (small r) republican can rightly scoff at those numbers.

that some Conservative/Republicans are looking at this with a critical eye.  Kudos to John Cole and DaveGOP for their comments.

FTR, I don't believe that this administration is any different than any other administration when it comes to the treatment of prisoners, particularly non-citizen prisoners.   The only difference is that they feel the stakes are higher because of 9/11.  IMO, I think that any past administration, except the Carter administration, would be doing the same thing.

But that doesn't make it right.  IMO, rendition is no better than the US committing torture if we are sending someone to a country that we KNOW willingly tortures people.   Whether rendition is legal or not is completely irrelevant to me.  Immoral acts are immoral acts, regardless of what the law says.

Listening to Rice's speech yesterday I couldn't help but think to myself "It sounds like she's trying to rationalize how our actions are ok."  The fact that the Europeans nations may be complicit in rendition does not make it less immoral.  The fact that we are going through hoops to keep our actions "legal" doesn't make them less  immoral.

We as a nation should DEMAND more from our leaders because, someday, we will expect our leaders to try and prevent others nations from torturing people and, right now, we have absolutely no ability to do so.  It Pinochet was still in power we couldn't say one word about his torture ship today and, IMO, that is a terrible position for our nation.

One note to Blanton.  I felt this comment was especially craven....

Now, because he was a prisoner of war who was tortured, he has decided to take moral high ground on how the United States treats enemy terrorists, though the United States does not torture terrorists

Whatever your personal opinions of John McCain can we at least agree that he MIGHT have a personal problem with torture that has to do MORE with his experiences than with the current political climate?  Isn't it POSSIBLE that a guy who WAS tortured might actually OPPOSE it?

What they do shouldn't determine what we do.

That said, I still think McCain is harming the War on Terror here.  By pushing a show bill that changes nothing in fact, he shows weakness and sows mistrust, plus tarnishes the reputation of our armed  forces.

And no, being a former POW doesn't excuse that.

"a show bill that changes [little]" is precisely what we need. Let the will of the Republic be demonstrated as emphatically against torture; what must be done in moments of crisis, when an officer believes the fate of his country hangs in the balance, is another matter, and hardly an easy subject of legislation.

Because I believe the world would be a better place if everyone agreed with me, though I must admit that I've done next to nothing to make it so.  Oh, well.  As I wrote here, we have crossed the line in mistreatmenting detainees.  It's the wrong thing to do and it's unduly damaging us politically.  

Take 'em to Gitmo, put 'em before a competent military tribunal if need be, treat them humanely, interrogate them relentlessly, then either put them before a firing squad or let them rot in a jail cell for the rest of their lives.  Just because they've mistreated ours a lot doesn't mean we have the moral authority to mistreat them less than a lot.

FTR, I didn't support McCain when he ran in 2000 because I thought he had the wrong temperament for the job, and it was unclear to me that he really was a conservative.  Up until about a month ago, I was more closely aligned to Bush than McCain.  No more, because McCain is now closer to the conservative standard.

This post is entirely necessary. It should be read, and those video links shown, in every high school in America.

Don't you get it??? THE ONLY REASON THE TERRORISTS KILLED 3,000 PEOPLE ON 9/11 IS BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T YET KILL 3 MILLION!!! They are out there right now doing everything in their power to figure out ways to set off a nuclear weapon in one of our cities or release weaponized anthrax in our subway systems. If we have to do a few things that may offend your suburban sensibilities to get information on such events, THAT IS TOO DAMN BAD! Some of us don't apologize for wanting to live and are realistic enough to know that so-called torture is necessary in some circumstances in a war for survival. Hell, if torturing a terrorist's mother right in front of him might prevent my death and those of millions of my fellow Americans then sign me up for that duty!!

The scum who want to destroy us are at the bottom of the lowest gutter. It is impossible to reach them from the so-called "moral high ground."

singing McCain's graces, you find one opining that he is a self-serving, media-whore offensive?  Well, so much for the possibility of debate on the subject of John McCain.  I guess all debate is over, John Cole and the rest of the McCainiacs have bequethed McCain as the next leader of the Republican party.

I agree that we shouldn't be sending people to other countries for the purpose of having things done we wouldn't do ourselves.  But don't forget that rendition programs as a whole are just a facet of extradition; saying we won't turn anyone over isn't really an option either.

at Hannity's website.  They seem to be pretty fond of the breathless ALL CAPS shouting and I think you'll find more of your ilk over there.

that North Vietnam was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, don't you?

It did McCain and others a lot of good, eh?

I agree with Blanton. If there is one guy on Capitol Hill who should know better it's McCain.

this, feel free to do so.

But lay off the "ilk" b.s.

that we are harming the image of our military at all since MOST of the torture being discussed is being done by non-DoD employees.

We have to stop using the military as a shield to deflect criticism.  I strongly support our military but our military, taken as a whole, acts on the will of our leaders.  If our leaders tell them to do bad things, they will do bad things(ie firebombing Dresden).

We should be holding our leadership to the fire on this.

I write:

This is nasty, childish, and emblematic of everything that is wrong with the current GOP- the attitude that everyone we disagree with isn't merely wrong, but evil, self-serving, and filled with bad intentions.

Fersboo responds:

I guess all debate is over, John Cole and the rest of the McCainiacs have bequethed McCain as the next leader of the Republican party.

Please note the time of death for Irony.

I don't like McCain, and will NEVER vote for him for one reason and one reason only- McCain/Feingold.  But look what you have done- because I think calling McCain a fool and attributing his sponsorship of legislation forbidding torture to base motivations is wrong, and because I say so, you simply assume bad faith on my part and claim I am a McCain supporter.

If your thinking is an example of the larger Republican party in 2008, I couldn't give two hoots in hell who the party leader is.  I will be voting Libertarian.

And really- the idea I am a 'McCainiac' is extremely amusing.

Do you think that the post I was responding to is typical fare for RS or is the type of post that fosters dialogue here?  It's the lack of that type of knee-jerk reactionary here at RS that IMHO makes this board so good.  I'll continue to call it like I see it with people like that who are either complete wingnuts or dems posing at republicans to act like complete morons.

of what ISN'T torture.  

Waterboarding is not torture.  The person being questioned is made to think they are being drowned.  There are a couple of ways to do it.  One (hence the name) is to strap the person to a board and lower them headfirst into water, pulling them out in time to be revived.  Another is to tie them to a chair, tilt their head back, wrap a towel around their nose and mouth and pour large quantities of water on the towel.

Sleep deprivation is not torture.  You keep the target awake for long periods of intense (verbal, no physical contact is necessary) questioning.  Let them nod off for a while.  Wake them and continue questioning.

Sensory deprivation is not torture.  Keep the target in a closed environment where they have no realization of night and day.  Alter their meal schedule.  Take away their clothing and furniture.

Humiliation is not torture.  Lots of ways to do this, none require physical violence.  Things like a Muslim being questioned by a woman.

These are quite effective (ask any SERE grad).  Torture, which is not as effective, inflicts pain in large doses.  Typically is a "contact sport" that uses objects like knives, pliers, dental drills, electrical outlets and the like.

"Torture methods" expect to extract information immediately, based on the target's desire to stop the pain.  The methods outlined above extract information over time because the target becomes disoriented and his ability to resist questioning by either lying or ignoring the question is reduced.

And, take it from an Arizona resident, McCain is an idiot.

a signed contract that absolves the government from liability of the soldier or Marine is killed or injured as a result of the training.

If we apply the McCain amendment to our forces, the military will have to stop SERE training.

Mccain is not as lilly white perfect as he and the media would paint him to be. There have been problems of his being in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time that make me suspicious . Start with his falling stinking drunk through his girlfriends screen door while still at the Academy, parking a plane in Pensacola Bay while undergoing flight training, the loose rocket on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, and hob-nobbing with "Chuckie" Keating, while Lincoln Savings, the bank "Chuckie" was busy looting while he was tete a' tete with the Arizona Senator, was being flushed down the economic toilet, there have been too many lapses of judgement, too many near misses that could occur just by chance. The only event that is above question is his being shot down over Hanoi and his POW status for five years. WJ Clinton is not the only human being who is teflon coated. Personally, I think his judgement is suspect.

I'm not against rendition per se.  I am against rendition for the SOLE purpose of sending them to a country that WILL torture the person.  The most glaring example of this was a Syrian born Canadian citizen who was apprehended, mistakenly, at JFK during a layover.  He was then sent to Syria and tortured, eventhough he was a Canadian citizen.  I just don't see how this is reasonable UNLESS you are looking to get the Syrians to do your dirty work for you.

Also note that extradition requires a legal process whereas rendition doesn't.

then.  I don't happen to like your ideas much and have a bias against you (that is, if you are the same John Cole as the Ballon Juice John Cole).  My initial reaction was that your dislike of the post was because it was against John McCain and how dare someone speak out against him or try to debate his merits, because you did (when I used to visit your site) use this tactic quite often on Ballon Juice.

This article supposed to be justifying?

Maybe that we shouldn't be giving Constitutional Rights to murdering, inhuman terrorists?

no one is suggesting that we behead detainees.  No one is suggesting that we toss people into industrial shredders.  No one is suggesting that we take a hammer to a detainee one bone at a time.

There are other methods (waterboarding, sensor deprivation, etc) that work better and cause no long term physical harm.  If they have nightmares later I really don't care.

Your argument is specious.

The part of the amendment that grants Constitutional protections to terrorists then?

I never mentioned the Geneva Conventions.  I don't really care what the GC's allow or disallow.  I was referring to what we, as Americans, should find acceptable.  And, IMO, I don't care if the terrorists are willing to cut the heads off of innocent people.  That doesn't give us license to torture suspected or even known suspects.  

Please note that OF COURSE I do care that innocent people are being murdered by the terrorists.  It is an abomination and I would have no problem with every person involved in such atrocities being summarily executed.  But I do not want our country to start lowering our standards of humanity.

Listening to Rice's speech yesterday I couldn't help but think to myself "It sounds like she's trying to rationalize how our actions are ok."  The fact that the Europeans nations may be complicit in rendition does not make it less immoral.  The fact that we are going through hoops to keep our actions "legal" doesn't make them less  immoral.

And the fact that you heard the Secretary's speech through your own filter doesn't mean she was "justifying" anything.  

Perhaps our actions have actually been consistent with US law and our international treaty obligations.  Couldn't be, though.

'Shenanigans!' on this post  :/

has been posting here longer than you. I'm pretty sure he's neither wingnut nor moby. A lot of people on the board tend to use all caps or !!!!. I don't like it but I don't see the purpose of telling them to leave because of their fondness for certain keys.

The point remains. You don't like what he has to say, knock yourself out telling him. Just be careful who you "ilk."

'...the interrogation techniques that the Bush Administration has allowed and fostered.'

Why not give us ome example of Bush-sponsored torture you've heard about. this is new to me

then you missed one of the reasons McCain has given for his amendment.

"Torture methods" expect to extract information immediately

That is not true.

Waterboarding is not torture.  The person being questioned is made to think they are being drowned.  There are a couple of ways to do it.  One (hence the name) is to strap the person to a board and lower them headfirst into water, pulling them out in time to be revived.

You think oxygen depravation like this is not torture?

What would you say if some person does the same to your wife, child or any other loved one?

It was a stupid romp by out of control prison guards who had the misfortune to have an idiot at the top of their chain of command (I'm referring to general who was demoted to col and retired).

The people involved in that incident were found out by the Army MONTHS before it became public knowledge, had been removed from duty and were charged without any help from the NYT.  They rightly belong in prison.  NOT because they tortured anybody, but because they are idiots and because they broke the detainment rules at AG.

Detainees, terrorists, are NOT entitled to "constitutional protection".  Would you have the military Mirandize every detainee?  Should we provide each one a lawyer?  How about a copy of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers?  Or the UCMJ?  

Spend your time worrying about Tookie Williams rights.  Like it or not, we are at war with these "people".

That's a good start and I agree with you in certain regards: sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and humiliation.  

Water boarding is more troubling to me.  I understand the techinque pretty well, but am curious why you say unequivocally that it is not torture.  What about water boarding removes it from the realm of torture?  IMHO it is the one technique that is commonly discussed that falls right around the line between torture and non-torture.  On the non-torture side, it doesn't carry the risk of death or serious physical harm (I suppose it could be bungled in which case it would).  On the torture side, it seems like a pretty horiffic interrogation technique since it is designed to induce the sensation of drowning and relies on the deprivation of oxygen, regardless of how controlled the interrogation set-up is.  I tend to think that it falls on the side of torture, but do recognize that it is a debatable point.

Torture, which is not as effective, inflicts pain in large doses.

I would disagree with the limitations you place on the definition of torture.  I think there are techniques that would constitute torture that do not inflict physical pain in large doses (I know I added the physical qualifier, but it seemed to be what you were getting at).  For example, an interrogator could use electric shocks at very low doses (not lethal and not enough to inflict pain in large doses) in order to induce fear of larger doses of pain.  I would say that that falls on the side of torture, yet doesn't involve the infliction of pain in large doses.

I'm probably rambling at this point, but, at the end of the day, this question is so difficult because there is no brightline test to determine what is and is not torture.  I applaud McCain for trying to formulate some type of standard.  Although I do think that the formulation he offered is a tad wacky with its references to the 5th and 14th Amendment.

"Torture methods" expect to extract information immediately, based on the target's desire to stop the pain.

But don't you think that there are interrogation methods that are not designed to extract information immediately that would constitute torture?  What about placing prisoners in sewage pits ala Rambo II?  

that my biases affect how I hear things.

However, didn't I explicitly say that whether our actions are legal or not is irrelevant?  

here.

I've been waterboarded and I'm really sure at least one other person on this list has been waterboarded.

What should I do?

didn't realize that he'd been here for a while.  His post just struck me wrong.

It doesn't matter what I would think.  If the guys who beheaded Nick Berg were hold my family, I wouldn't stop at waterboarding.  

And no, oxygen deprivation is not torture.  It's not fun, but it's not torture.  Unless of course Teddy Kennedy straps you in the passenger seat of his car and drives you into the bay.

Not taking this the next step to poll the posters here to see if J4 is actually guilty of shenanigans, but I dont want to threadjack quite yet  :)

but it seems to me that it is justifying the status quo in regards to our policies regarding interrogation techinques partly based on the brutality of the enemy.  My point is that the way we treat prisoners should never be determined by how those prisoners would or do treat us.

If we were talking about whether or not to extend constitutional protections to terrorists, the merit of any such argument should not be resolved based on their actions towards us.

And you do not think its torture?

anyone was suggesting that we adopt their techinques.  The problem is that far too often in discussions regarding torture, I see the barbarity of our enemies used as a justification for the techniques we use against them (waterboarding, etc.) and a justification to prevent enacting more stringent limitations on interrogation techniques.  Our ideals and morals should direct our determination of what are acceptable interrogation techinques, not the barbarity of our enemies.

than I am about fixing a very politically damaging situation for us.  

The Fifth Amendment has been construed to prevent the State from coercing a confession out of you, and using that coerced confession as evidence against you at trial.

The Constitution is a beacon of freedom and democracy because it speaks of rights and freedoms endowed to ALL people - not just Americans - by their Creator.

You are referring to the Declaration of Independence.  The Declaration is a philospohical document that seeks to justify the Colonies' breaking away from England.  The Constitution is a structural document that pretty much confines itself to the operation of the government of the United States of America for the benefit of citizens of the United States, not the world.

Terrorists should not be automatically granted rights and privileges under the Constitution.  Americans get these rights because they are American citizens, not by virtue of their humanity.

Are we to encourage the Iraqi's to form a democracy, with rights and privileges, and protections for minorities...and then ask them to please ignore the fact that we are unwilling ourselves to condemn the very acts which Saddam Hussein committed?

I didn't know we were running plastic shredders and gang-rape rooms. Thanks for the heads up.

That is complete hypocrisy.

It would be, if your underlying premises were correct.

Let us assume for the moment (although Abu Ghraib and other evidence says otherwise) that we do nothing but treat prisoners "roughly."  That's fine.  Then...why not pass the McCain Amendment...better yet, a McCain BILL...to say to the world, "We do not torture our own citizens.  We will not torture anyone else."

There are a thousand other meaningless wastes of time we could undertake, that wouldn't suggest that we feel that our military needs to be reminded of basic manners.

That's absolutely right.  Our own Constitution - the principles that we codified and stand as a model to the rest of the world in terms of how a government should relate to the governed.  The Constitution is a beacon of freedom and democracy because it speaks of rights and freedoms endowed to ALL people - not just Americans - by their Creator.  Yet, what you are arguing is that we must cast aside these principles in the face of an enemy that has no army, no country, plots and plan and caves.  Are you that afraid of them?

You may have just won today's Idiocy Prize. The Constitution is for citizens of the United States (and resident aliens). Should combatants captured on the battlefield be able to assert their Miranda rights, or go free?

Far more people are killed every year by criminals involved in narcotics than have ever been killed by a foreign terrorist.  Should we turn our backs on our own principles and start torturing them, too?  What would that get us, except of a lot of people who tell us what we want to hear in order to get the pain and suffering to stop?

You might want to actually learn something about torture before you mouth off. Morally odious though it might be, it has a long track record of success.

I suppose those photos from Abu Ghraib were created by Industrial Light and Magic.

No, but the accompanying stories could have come out of the director of Triumph of the Will.

Yes, this is true.  Most of the techniques are acceptable, and very effective because they work on psychology, not physiology.  But, I cannot believe that if someone forced you to simulate sodomy while naked and being photographed, or sicked big snarling dogs on you, or made you stand for hours in a a cold cell, naked, tied to a bed in an unnatural position, you would come out of the prison saying "hey, it was OK...they just treated me a little roughly..."  Heck, even I considered listening to John Kerry speak as "torture!"

Actually, if he had ever studied torture, historically, he wouldn't. This stuff is a freaking joke by comparison.

What McCain is addressing is the fact that, yes, those activities did occur at Abu Ghraib.  And, yes, the world has seen them.  Now is the time to stand up for our own principles and clearly state "We do not condone this.  We will not do it."  The alternative is to remain in a hyprocritical state of denial and hypocrisy, allowing the rest of the world to conclude "hey, they probably do it - we should do it, too!"

No, he's saying, I'm running for President in 2008. This will cost me little political capital, and I'll get even better write-ups in the Times. I've sacrificed the First Amendment for my career, why not take a shot at some other core principles, too?

It is beneath the dignity of our own nation to condone the torturing of human beings.  We fought a Revolutionary War, two World Wars, and a Cold War to preserve the rights, freedoms and ideals we beleve all of mankind has been endowed with.  Now is not the time to turn our backs on our own principles, not in the face of this enemy.  Not ever.

What inanity. We do not and have not condoned torture; we've tortured, but that's different. But, given your complete lack of historical knowledge, this sort of pointless bombast shouldn't surprise.

Any light to go with that heat?

A true measure of a person is how they act under stress. If we say we stand for liberty and democracy and higher but revert to such barbarism the second pressure is applied then what we say means nothing.

torture (or anything else) based upon what the terrorists do.

What I do see, in post #6, is not doing anything to anyone that would violate the Constitution. We have laws that prohibit TRUE torture techniques.

This amendment is is bad law plain and simple.

The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then -- no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just one person to whom he could transfer his punishment -- one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over.

'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!'

He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the rats. He was still strapped in the chair, but he had fallen through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars -- always away, away, away from the rats. He was light years distant, but O'Brien was still standing at his side. There was still the cold touch of wire against his cheek. But through the darkness that enveloped him he heard another metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and not open.

that the people waterboarding you would let you die?

No, I do not consider waterboarding torture, and for the reason you list.

You don't like my overly broad definitions of torture (my phrase not yours), and I don't either.  My problem when it comes to outlawing torture is exactly one of definition.  A look at the McCain Amendment provides constitutional protection for the target.  Do we have to provide lawyers for detainees on a battlefield before we question them?

Where does this stop?  The problem is simple, Congress and the defense bar will be involved in this issue up to their eyeballs.  It is a no-win situation for our intel people.  First, they will be not allowed to question detainees in ways that the Phoenix police would not be allowed to question me because we've given them "rights".  Next, we will not be allowed to ship detainees to countries that aren't as squeamish because the CIA will leak the operation and all hell will break loose in the NYT.  Then, if we get actionable intel from someone by a method that is disapproved after the fact, will we charge the intel officer with murder because the resulting action ended in the deaths of terrorists using information illegally obtained?

Before you laugh this scenario off, please recall the Army Col who took a detainee out into the prison yard, threw him down on the ground and fired a shot over his head.  Then he told him "the next round is in your head".  The detainee gave up information on a planned attack, it was interdicted and the terrorists were killed.  The Col was forced to retire.

.....what about Abu Ghraib? Please don't try to claim that it was a few rogue soldiers at the bottom. You think Lindy England packed all the dog leashes herself prior to going to Iraq, or purchased them there? How big do the lines have to be before you read between them? Sy Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who reported on Abu Ghraib first (and whom I'm certain that you would not have believed ANYTHING had happened unless the pictures had been produced), claims there was child rape going on at Abu Ghraib. Is that not torture? Given the sick green faces of Congress members emerging from the room where they saw the STILL-CLASSIFIED photos, do you think that just maybe what they saw may have been torture? McCain has surely seen video evidence of torture, that's why he is against it.

You seem to also muddle the picture between using torture to find out information (and every ex-CIA agent I've heard on the radio claims that torture is not the best way to get information), and using it just to inflict pain on those who would inflict it on us. The problem is that not everyone we've held in Abu Ghraib and other places is in fact a terrorist (as you absolutely imply in your diary entry). Thus we become no better than our enemies when we partake in these activities. To prosper as a nation, I believe we do in fact need to be better than our enemies.

in particular I survived, had a moderately successful military career, a family, and have 0% VA disability.

So no, I don't think it's torture.

I lasted about 5 seconds longer than Uncle Jimbo.

Damned uncomfortable for sure. Even knowing you aren't going to be killed. I can't even imagine what it would be like knowing the people doing it were perfectly willing to ice you. But it was how I also learned that no matter how much crap you talk you can be broken, broken quickly, and broken for good.

you disagree that there is a perception out there that we torture people?  Despite the facts of Abu Ghraib, people saw the photos, and were left with a certain perception.  If we fail to condemn torture, then that perception will be reinforced, will it not?  And the harm in that is twofold: we look like hypocrites and our enemies will feel even more justified in torturing captured Americans.

And, here's another example of the perception and the damage done by Abu Ghraib, and why we must work to rectify the problem:

Nowhere in the McCain amendment does it guarantee Constitutional freedoms or rights.  It prohibits torture, plain and simple.

there were people in government using the terrorists' actions to justify interrogation techniques.  I have seen such justifications quite often in debate such as this.

We have laws that prohibit TRUE torture techniques.

I'm not an expert on the underlying laws, but given what I've read about the administration's approach to the torture question, they have issued legal interpretations in the past (which I believe have now been repealed) that eviscerated those laws.  The previous definition of torture advanced by the administration (i.e. organ failure, impairment of bodily functions or death) exempts many interrogation techniques that could properly described as torture.

I think that there are problems with McCain's bill, although not ones that are insurmountable.  The basic problem in all of this law is how to define torture.  The administration took at a very limited approach to that definition.  McCain takes a different definitional approach that looks to the constitution, which I agree is incredibly problematic given the breadth of liberties and rights protected by the cited amendments (btw, if you really follow the rabbit-hole, the hypotheticals will get far more absurd than the Miranda one outlined above, particularly when you factor in the guarantees of the 14th Amendment).

or that the battlefield comes to you.

There is simply no rational comparison to the "barbarity of our enemies" and anything that is being suggested as "torture".  The whole argument is so abstract as to be laughable.  If the lives of our military, and eventually civilians, didn't depend on it.

Most (if not) all of what you say means nothing.

anywhere in comment #16.  Here's something you did say:

We as a nation should DEMAND more from our leaders because, someday, we will expect our leaders to try and prevent others nations from torturing people and, right now, we have absolutely no ability to do so.

Why?  Because we are engaging in torture?  My point in responding to #16 was, what if we aren't?

This whole discussion is about the legality of our actions.  If what we are doing vis a vis rendition and detention is legal, and "any past Administration, except the Carter Administration, would be doing the same thing," then it's awful hard to claim that the Bush Administration has no moral authority to protect others from actual torture.  Declaring the legality of our actions irrelevant is a nice way to get around this problem, though.

.... are incapable of grasping big ideas.

We are at war with an enemy who has said explicitly that they want to kill millions of us. Pete Pace said it very well the other day -- Hitler told us in Mein Kampf what he wanted to do. There should have been no reason to disbelieve him. Most sane people would agree today that we should have taken that threat a lot more seriously, a lot earlier.

Don't forget to tell Nancy Pelosi to check her makeup for the thirty third time before sending her out to that press conference this afternoon. And by the way, don't expect to be taken seriously with a screen name like that.

is those who wish to justify our actions by comparing them to the terrorists, who I feel are the lowest form of life on the planet.  

more than we disagree.

We disagree on water-boarding, but I understand your position.

We agree that the problems is a definitional one.  

Do we have to provide lawyers for detainees on a battlefield before we question them?

Even more absurd would be whether withholding rights guaranteed by substantive due process would constitute torture.  Think about the can of worms that could open up.

I'm running out to lunch or I'd write more in response to what you wrote.

when she's standing there lying.

Hell, if torturing a terrorist's mother right in front of him might prevent my death and those of millions of my fellow Americans then sign me up for that duty!!

In case you haven't heard, the United States does not torture.

and therein is the interesting part.

If it were torture we wouldn't be doing it to ourselves.

And to those who say it doesn't work. I call BS. Even when you know they won't kill you. Even when you have every incentive to show what kind of a tough guy you are because you know they can't remove body parts, you talk because you know if they cross check your info and it doesn't match what they know you're going through it again.

hence the Geneva Convention, technically, didn't apply, which is why we (and the North Vietnamese) used plenty of things that aren't allowed, shotguns, for one, napalm and agent orange for others.

Not arguing either side, just pointing out a fact.

The only one I would disagree with is waterboarding.  Suffocating someone is an example of physical torture.

if we don't inflict the damage on ourselves through this ridiculous amendment, I just don't see what "political damage" is done to us. Has someone threatened to sever diplomatic relations with us? Or are we worried they won't like us?

I'm really serious. We shouldn't be running an opinion poll on what other nations think about this.

Even knowing you aren't going to be killed.

That difference in knowing is probably that thin-thin line between torture and non-torture.

...no matter how much crap you talk you can be broken, broken quickly, and broken for good.

That is very, very true.

(a) IN GENERAL.--No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

Does McCain understand that this clearly prohibits children from suffering thru public High School?

I'd say that adds up to a losing score for you.

Small minds are incapable of grasping big ideas.

Pretty weak opening

We are at war with an enemy who has said explicitly that they want to kill millions of us.

So their goals should dictate how we treat them?

Don't forget to tell Nancy Pelosi to check her makeup for the thirty third time before sending her out to that press conference this afternoon.

Speaking of small minds.  The good ole Lefty McLiberal ad hominem attack really falls flat.  Although I do commend you on the Nancy Pelosi angle, that's a new one.

And by the way, don't expect to be taken seriously with a screen name like that.

I must have really struck a nerve if you're having to resort to making fun of me for my screenname.  If people choose to disregard what I say because of my screenname, I don't really give a toss because that's says a lot more about them than it does about me.  FTR, I chose the screenname because the scene from the Simpsons from which it comes never fails to have me rolling on the floor in laughter.

However, I believe that the perception is far from the reality of the situation.  It's been blown out of all proportion by the major media outlets and by the national Democratic Party in their effort to get Bush.

Please note that the AG situation was addressed and dealt with by the Army with no help from either the NYT or Congress.  AG, with respect to the torture issue, is a strawman.

With respect to "our enemies feel[ing] even more justified in torturing captured Americans", that is simply a foolish argument.  Our enemies do not need any justification.  In case you hadn't noticed, they don't feel constrained now.  Spend your effort trying to get the Mullahs to issue something that says it's not in the best interest of Islam to behead captured CIVILIANS, or drag the bodies of contractors thru the streets, hang them from a bridge and burn their bodies.  Get that done and we can discuss whether or not waterboarding is torture.

With respect to McCain not granting constitutional rights, I suspect that if it's passed you will see a round federal court filings on behalf of John Does captured on a battlefield like you've never seen.  This is a full employment act for the criminal defense bar.

Does anyone actually read posts before responding?  Please go back and read what I actually wrote before responding.  I have never compared our interrogation techniques to the barbarity of our enemies.

Julius Caesar divorced his second wife with the terse comment "Caesar's wife must be above reproach". Now, the poor lady hadn't really done anything wrong herself, but she was hanging out with the wild party set in old Rome (while Caesar himself was away) and Caesar's enemies were using her friends' scandals as political fodder against Caesar himself, so after one outrage from this clique too many he gave the lady her walking papers.

The US is in a similar position to Caesar's. We are the world's most powerful nation (as he was Rome's most powerful politician and general) but we are not all powerful. And we have lots of rivals, and some outright enemies, who will stop at nothing, no matter how unfair, to drag us down. Therefore, like Caesar's wife, the USA must be above reproach to an extent that, say, France or Russia need not be.

The McCain Amendment serves the same purpose as the divorce of Pompeia. Maybe we haven't done very much all that wrong, but that's irrelevant: the world thinks we have, so it's time to make a public show or repentance and house-cleaning. The legislation itself is, at worst, harmless: it simply directs the military to obey its own rules. But even if we have to have a few high visibility trials of persons great and small who are guilty (truly guilty) of malfeasance, so much the better. The enemy gains nothing from that, while we gain, potentially, in the respect of the world and hence the ability to realize our ends, and that is not a trivial matter: as Caesar knew, Auctoritas is ultimately grounded in Dignitas, power is founded only upon the willingness of others to respect the powerful. The Emperor With No Clothes, the General With The Wife Running Amok, the Nation That Can't Control Rule Its Own Military are not people the world will want in control.

Waterboarding is not suffocation.

Perhaps those misunderstanding Waterboarding should endure it before criticizing it. You don't know what you are talking about... and you are talking about it!

to go down that path.

That difference in knowing is probably that thin-thin line between torture and non-torture.

You get snatched out of your bed in the dead of the night, get duct tape wrapped around your eyes, ears, mouth and bundled off to a prison camp. Was that torture?

If the other guy being afraid of being killed is your standard for torture I don't see how you prosecute a war.

....when in doubt, attack the messenger, right?

The Constitution is for citizens of the United States (and resident aliens). Should combatants captured on the battlefield be able to assert their Miranda rights, or go free?

So, no one has basic human rights other than United States citizens?  That's foolish.  It's also a straw man.  Show me where in the McCain Amendment that it says that non-citizens can claim Miranda rights.  The point is to prohibit certain treatment of detainees.

You might want to actually learn something about torture before you mouth off. Morally odious though it might be, it has a long track record of success.

You're kidding, right? Unless you consider al Libi's recanted claims a success!

You might also want to have your own head shoved underwater repeatedly - you might find that you are willing to tell your captors you are the Queen of Spain if they want you to.

What inanity. We do not and have not condoned torture; we've tortured, but that's different. But, given your complete lack of historical knowledge, this sort of pointless bombast shouldn't surprise.

I didn't know you were a history professor.  Let me tell you what I really am: I am a person that has deeply held personal beliefs and principles.  I believe that in this country we rightly decided that our government should not torture people.  I also believe in what the Declaration of Independence says - that each of us are endowed with unalienable rights.  I also believe that if we truly intend to be a moral nation, a nation that is a beacon for the rest of the world, than we should stand by those principles - pronounce them loudly to the world.

You can call this bluster all you want (and I'm sure you will, as you have indicated a preference for personal attacks than for rational debate).

When stories of alleged American torture come out people look at the United States with less legitimacy.  I'm not talking about the French and Germans who, regardless of recent political bickering, are ultimately US allies with people that generally support the US, if not this administration.  

I'm referring to the citizens of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and many others.  These are the people we are trying to convince.  And by showing, at least in their eyes, that we are no different than their local tyrants we lose legitimacy.  

is always the wrong road to take. If I am beating my wife I doubt that the fact my neighbor has murdered his is any kind of defense, morally or legally.

Does that mean that the French don't like us anymore.  Or the Sudanese?  Or the North Koreans?

Perhaps we should have a debate and a vote in the UN to find all the countries that don't approve and where our actions have done "political damage".  Then, we should cut off all foreign aid to and restrict immigration from those countries.  Then they would have less to be upset about.

Gimme a break...

If the other guy being afraid of being killed is your standard for torture I don't see how you prosecute a war.

You don't.  And that's the whole underlying premise of this foolish argument.  Foolish argument being defined as the McCain Amendment.

The violation under the 5th Amendment, though, is the use of the statement at a criminal trial.  Lots of things can be "coercion" for 5th Amendment purposes, that are nowhere close to torture.

For example, suppose the police are absolutely confident that a particular person kidnapped a child (e.g. they have videotaped evidence, eyewitness evidence, and the child's blood stains on the suspect's clothes).  But suppose that they believe the kidnapper has the child locked in a location, and the child will die if they don't coerce the location of the child from the suspect.

Isn't it true that the police can choose to "coerce" a statement out of the suspect (by, for example, denying him an attorney, badgering him, lying to him, threatening him, etc.)  These tactics would constitute coercion for Fifth Amendment purposes.  The Fifth Amendment would prohibit the use of the statement at trial (along with any "fruit of the poisonous tree").  If the police choose to use these methods, they understand that they will forfeit the right to use the evidence at trial, but they may choose to do so in order to save the kidnapped child's life.

That's what our men and women overseas are doing.  They are using coercive means (that do not amount to torture) to try to save lives.  But if we refer to the 5th Amendment for the definition of what coercion is, then we will either (a) at worst, severely limit what legitimate means they can use to conduct interrogations, or (b) at best, create a legal minefield, with federal judges second-guessing what is "acceptable" coercion for illegal enemy combatants.

Torture is already illegal.  Let's leave it at that.

I don't happen to like your ideas much and have a bias against you (that is, if you are the same John Cole as the Ballon Juice John Cole).  My initial reaction was that your dislike of the post was because it was against John McCain and how dare someone speak out against him or try to debate his merits, because you did (when I used to visit your site) use this tactic quite often on Ballon Juice.

Yes, I am that John Cole, and thanks for the laugh.  I appreciate the skill it took to level another insult, beg for forgiveness, AND continue to misunderstand my feelings regarding McCain, all in one comment.

No small effort, that.

The enemy gains nothing from that, while we gain, potentially, in the respect of the world

That and a $3 gift certificate will get you a nice Starbuck's coffee.

...in my haste, I didn't refer to the Declaration.

Thank you! :)

Sorry to quote you out of sequence:

Far more people are killed every year by criminals involved in narcotics than have ever been killed by a foreign terrorist.

This fact is living on borrowed time.  As soon as one of these lunatics gets access to nuclear material, toxic gas, or bioweapons, they'll be able to kill wholesale.  This is the age of "force imbalance".

Just for the record, how many people do the terrorist have to kill each year before it's ok in your book to "play rough" with them?

Yet, what you are arguing is that we must cast aside these principles in the face of an enemy that has no army, no country, plots and plan and caves.

It is precisely because we are dealing with a new kind of war that we need to adjust our thinking on these people.  

These are not honorable warriors who had the bad luck to be conscripted into service for an enemy government.  They are all volunteers, sworn to a cause that is antithetical to all that the constitution stands for, who hide behind a civilian population, and who intentionally target such high-value militarty targets as schools, wedding parties and soft-drink stands.  Even under the Geneva convention, those actions would warrant a firing squad.

What's more, we can't defeat this enemy by military means; we can't force a surrender and expect it to mean anything, as we have in past wars.  We need to destroy this enemy's internal organization, and that means we need intel.

Should we turn our backs on our own principles and start torturing them, too?  What would that get us, except of a lot of people who tell us what we want to hear in order to get the pain and suffering to stop?

I can tell you're too intelligent not to have noticed the difference between techniques like "invasion of space by female" and "family members inserted into plastic shredder feet first", so I can only conclude that you're intentionally pettifogging.  No one is advocating torture (yet), we're talking about not hobbling our own people from using psychological and cultural weaknesses to wear down the will to resist.  We're not trying to extract a confession to witchcraft screamed out in pain, we're after actionable data.

And in the extreme situation, if it was 30 minutes till that suitcase nuke was set to go off and I had in hand one (1) terrorist and one (1) razor blade, my ideal solution would probably not include getting the terrorist a public defender.

The fact of the matter is that we're dealing with an enemy who values the act of killing more than he values life (even his own) and has a beleif system that justifies any act that advances killing for the cause (and no, I'm not adressing all of Islam, just the nutbags who strap on bomb vests).  We're not going to get information out of these people unless we take off the gloves.

I'm sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but I don't think your sensibilites are going to stop that suitcase nuke from going off.

We're talking Kyoto-levels of agreement among our senators.

You mean when they refused to ratify it under Clinton? Or now when it would get a whole lot of votes? I don't put a whole lot of stock in how the Senate votes one way or another. There is political calculation in every vote.

interrogate them relentlessly

This is what the debate is about. Interrogation techniques are being redefined as torture. That is my problem with this amendment. If this becomes law and someone is interrogated relentlessly, someone might be going to prison, and it won't be the terrorist.

That if information has to be extracted (in a ticking bomb type of situation for example), that they will do what they have to do, even if that means ignoring the law. That is great. Then they can go to prison for their service. Way to support the troops.

Just for the record, how many people do the terrorist have to kill each year before it's ok in your book to "play rough" with them?

How many people do you think international terrorists actually kill each year? In 2003, a total of 625 people (including 35 Americans) were killed in international terrorist incidents across the globe.  In 2002, the number was 725.

Meanwhile, in 2003, 17,013 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes in the United States alone.

17,013!

Do you also realize that you are more likely to be killed each year by accidental choking, or falling of a ladder, than by the hands of an international terrorist?

What's more, we can't defeat this enemy by military means; we can't force a surrender and expect it to mean anything, as we have in past wars.  We need to destroy this enemy's internal organization, and that means we need intel.

I would love to see some measures of how torture, or even extreme measures of interrogation, have provided better intelligence than we would have gotten by other means.

What I am suggesting is that it should be the policy of the United State to condemn torture, and prevent its occurrence.  Simple as that.

The fact of the matter is that we're dealing with an enemy who values the act of killing more than he values life (even his own) and has a beleif system that justifies any act that advances killing for the cause (and no, I'm not adressing all of Islam, just the nutbags who strap on bomb vests).  We're not going to get information out of these people unless we take off the gloves.

I'm sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but I don't think your sensibilites are going to stop that suitcase nuke from going off.

And here is where the logic of torture when it comes to dealing with terrorists falls apart: if a person is so dedicated to their cause that they would be willing to blow themselves up, why would torture be any more effective in "breaking them down?"

That makes no sense.  We are with a different type of enemy.  Are you willing to race them down to the moral gutter in an attempt to defeat them?

The United States has to take these Arab nations out for an ice cream cone? The United States does not torture period. If the Arab nation consider the tactics used by the US to obtain information as torture they will never be convinced otherwise. And as for convincing or winning the hearts and minds "they'll like us when we win!" comes to mind it's already happening in nations like Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia and others taking a more democratic direction. And for the first time ever there is serious debate in the region about the harmful effects of Islamic extremism.  

I'm kind of lurking on this post, but well said.  1) it's not the really the military that is the target of all this and 2) the military, within certain bounds, will do what we the people tell it do.  

I don't care what the terrorists have done, want to do, or will do in regards to how we govern our own affairs.  We are Americans and we hold ourselves to a very high standard, or at least we should.  It isn't about what the rest of the world thinks (although it doesn't hurt to make friends) it's about our own national moral fiber.

It isn't the Arab nations that consider it torture.

It is the anti-war and human rights activists in Berkely and London that consider what we do torture. And there is no convincing them. Supposedly we are conducting a nuclear war against civilians in Iraq and using chemical weapons on them as well. There is nothing to be gained in trying to adhere to their distorted view of reality.

Clarification is an order.

That difference in knowing and not knowing in advance whether you are going to be die while your head is submerged in water is probably that thin-thin line between torture and non-torture.

much of a clarification. Your standard remains inflicting fear of death on the subject.

I should have stated from the outset that anyone who would enjoy participating in torture is a sick, twisted individual. I believe that, absolutely. But there are some unpleasant things in life that are necessary. On rare occasion, some extraordinarily unpleasant things.

People, people we are at war with an irreconcilable enemy. They want to wipe us off the map. They have a philosophy and culture that is totally incompatible with our own. Against an enemy that has clearly stated their desire to terminate us, prancing around at the UN and whining about unpleasant tactics that may save an American city are not helpful. In fact, such hand wringing literally brings joy and hope to the blackened hearts of our enemy.

I have nothing but respect for John McCain. I profoundly disagree with him on this issue however. Unilaterally disarming to garner favorable editorials from our left wing media is not in our national interest.

We ignore at our extreme peril the apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists with WMD. We have history, logic, and reason as our guides. And we have emotion as our obstacle.

As a conservative, how can you not be comfortable with giving the government the right to torture people? Coupling this with the ability to strip Americans of their rights as citizens by labelling them enemy combatants, there is nothing keeping the government from grabbing you in the middle of the night on a charge of alleged terrorism, sending you to a detainee camp oversees, and torturing you until you admit to the offense. This isn't Soviet Russia, this the freakin' United States of America. So we might like to think that the government wouldn't do this, but there is nothing legally stopping them at this point. And if, as you say, "We don't torture" then surely there is no point in banning torture.

Question:  Was what happened at Abu Ghirab illegal when it transpired?

Question:  Does this amendment do anything except attempt to make the Full Nelson I put my little brother in every time I see him, and everything worse, illegal?

Question:  If our policy before was "We do not torture, we do not condone torture nor those who perform it", what is it about this amendment that, in your opinion, restores our legitimacy in the eyes of the world?  Or decreases the potential of another isolated incident?

John McCain, former POW and possible presidential candidate, upon hearing about scattered allegations of detainee abuse, grabs the bully pulpit and declares to the world "Not only do we not torture, because it is already illegal under international law, not condoned by administration policy, and contrary to standing orders in the Army Field Manual, but we are going to pass another law to make it REALLY against the law."

And you are going to argue that this was something other than a stunt to gain publicity and public confidence in his bid for the POTUS nomination?  Please.

A sane, and rational, piece of legislation would have called for the administration to vigourously pursue the prosecution of those who are found in violation of existing US policy on detainee treatment.  We already do this, so let's put it in writing, the hand wringers on both sides can be placated, and we carry on about our business.  No more, no less.  Anything more than that is a rebuke to the President, the administration's policies, and more importantly, every competent and honorable man and woman in the US Military.

I'm not a McCain fan or a basher, I'm just a guy who thinks that political stunts like this pertaining to the country at a time of war are not helpful in any way.

Waterboarding is not torture.  BTDT.  Sleep deprivation, standing with your arms extended, being held in a cube not big enough to lay down or stand up in, bright lights, none of that is torture.  

I don't justify those means by looking at what our enemy does to us.  Solely because our societies standards of treatment for murderers and thugs has changed over the last 50 years does not mean the standards by which you successfully prosecute a war have.  

I think my biggest gripe with this is it takes away from what the terrorists, in the back of their mind, think could happen.  While some may waver about being caught performing some horrible act for fear that they may be skinned alive, we have people back home calling for the humane treatment of individuals who perform beheadings, fly planes into buildings, and send brainwashed females on suicide bombing missions.  I don't advocate torture; I advocate letting those guys wonder about whether or not they are going to get shipped off to some secret CIA prison never to be heard of again if they screw up.  They know that no matter what they do, it has been unequivocally stated we will not torture.  The picture that comes to mind is an interrogation room with a bright light shining in the face of some terrorist who just placed a back pack nuke in NYC.  

"Tell me where it is, or else."

"Or else what, you are going to take away my dinner?"

...when in doubt, attack the messenger, right?

When the messenger has nothing but inanity to add, I say, Why not?

So, no one has basic human rights other than United States citizens?

Compare:

No one but United States Citizens and resident aliens should be afforded the protections of the Constitution of the United States

with:

no one has basic human rights other than United States citizens

Your assignment is to figure out the difference. Good luck. You'll need it.

You're kidding, right? Unless you consider al Libi's recanted claims a success!

I'm not kidding, but that's because I actually spent time researching this, and I didn't limit my studies to selective case studies in this conflict that support my political position. Historically, torture, by itself, is at best an iffy tool for the extraction of information. When coupled with other intelligence sources, and once a pattern of negative reinforcement for bad information is established, it's remarkably useful.

This explains why, just to take an obvious point, torture has been used so often and so consistently for, oh, fifty centuries or so.

You might also want to have your own head shoved underwater repeatedly - you might find that you are willing to tell your captors you are the Queen of Spain if they want you to.

The silly part is that this is the worst strawmen you idiots have. No one's trying to get me to confess to things they don't really want. They're trying to get me to divulge useful information, that can be cross-checked against other sources of info. If I tell them what they want to hear and it doesn't check against other sources, I'll be hurt.

I know, you think all torturers are loony Nazis of dubious sexual preference. Historically, they're terribly rational people who want information.

Again, this is why "reading" is such a useful tool.

I didn't know you were a history professor.

Nah, I'm just literate. I find that it helps.

Let me tell you what I really am: I am a person that has deeply held personal beliefs and principles.

Good for you. Let me dredge up $.50 to PayPal you so you can get a Coke with that.

I believe that in this country we rightly decided that our government should not torture people.

Actually, we decided that we would constrain the use of cruel and unusual punishment against American citizens and resident aliens. Note the difference.

I also believe in what the Declaration of Independence says - that each of us are endowed with unalienable rights.

Joining me in my crusade against abortion? No, of course not. Some humans have more inalienable rights than others.

I also believe that if we truly intend to be a moral nation, a nation that is a beacon for the rest of the world, than we should stand by those principles - pronounce them loudly to the world.

Wow. Moving statement. I'm all for that too. I don't see how suggesting that our troops are moral monsters in the absence of legislation helps that, but you can go your own way.

You can call this bluster all you want (and I'm sure you will, as you have indicated a preference for personal attacks than for rational debate).

As soon as you put forth an argument, I'll be happy to debate. It's kinda hard to argue with so much preening hot air, though.

I think there is some middle ground for this amendment. It is precisely McCain's "no compromise" attitude that makes me want to hold my nose in his virtual presence.

I wrote my Georgia Senators after hearing the PBS News piece "Senators debate McCain amendment", asking them to support the position articulated by Senator Bond. (Their replies unfortunately didn't deal with the nuances he suggests).

Bond's position can be summarized as follows:

The US does not torture and the US policy does not condone it. The military should conform to the handbook in ALL cases. Those codes and conventions do not necessarily apply to other branches of government like the CIA. Giving this particular enemy a handbook outlining the specifics on how they will be treated in all cases is too detrimental to our national security to be worth the perceived benefits.

I assume this is also the WH position.

If the issue is important to you, tell 'em about it. http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

...by your over-inflated sense of superiority and wisdom.

To which I now bow my head, as this discussion has devolved beyond the point of rational reply.

Enjoy your torture policy!  I hope it works out for ya!

at Moe's tavern- it was hilarious.

How many people do you think international terrorists actually kill each year? In 2003, a total of 625 people (including 35 Americans) were killed in international terrorist incidents across the globe.  In 2002, the number was 725.

Meanwhile, in 2003, 17,013 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes in the United States alone.

17,013!

Do you also realize that you are more likely to be killed each year by accidental choking, or falling of a ladder, than by the hands of an international terrorist?

This is just sheer "intellectual" BS.  If you don't like the alcohol related deaths join MADD or something

So what that 17,000 people died in alcohol related accidents. What the h*ll does this have to do with anything. Your measure of whether it's right to fight against some external tyranny is whether there are more free citizens killed engaged in living their lives every day? The Japanese didn't kill very many of us at Pearl Harbor, probably a lot less that killed falling off ladders. So we shouldn't have gone after them tooth and nail?

ONE American killed by a terrorist is one too many and well worthy of hunting them down and killing them any way we can. The left sees life as just one big popularity contest; if they like us everything will be fine. While it would be nice if they like us, I frankly don't care whether they do or not as long as they leave us alone. And if we have to instill the fear of death and destruction in them to gain that, so be it.

Since this is causing so much confusion lets break it down in a cases study.

The comment is SPECIFICALLY about waterboarding.

Being drowned by people you believe would kill you

vs

Being drowned by people you know will not kill you

One is torture.

The other one is training.

That difference in knowing is probably that thin-thin line between torture and non-torture.

Does it explain it to you? :)

...the right's position?  if we have to instill the fear of death and destruction in them to gain that, so be it.

If you want to be the ideology of the right to be

..if those numbers don't support your argument, but they are definitely not BS.  It's the truth.  

But, hey, if you really want the right in the country to stand for "death and destruction," then you're welcome to it.

But I doubt that will play well in the next election.  No, people have started to figure out that "kill 'em all...guns blazing" is not a suitable policy for a civilized Western nation.  That is why the "pro-torture," "pro-war" crowd is not in the minority according to all of the polling.

Instead of "popularity" or "killing," perhaps a real solution would be to discuss things calmly, and come to a rational solution.

Surely, you cannot be opposed to that.

e

1. The "torture" at Abu Grahib occured on one shift on one one day by one group of guards. I don't know or care where England got the dog leash but I'll put money that she didn't get it in a package from the CO along with orders to saddle up and abuse the Iraqis.
   
2. Sy Hersh is a blowhard who most emphatically did NOT produce the first report on Abu Grahib --- he merely picked up an a US Army report of the incident that was already months old by the time Hersh "broke" the story. The photos didn't come out right away because the Army was in the midst of a criminal investigation into what happened and they were needed as evidence. And when the photos did come out it was not because of some principled, high morality. They came out because someone didn't like the idea that the Army was going to punish some bad apples. They came out because someone figured that if they embarrased the country enough they'd lay off their relative.
   
3. Sy Hersh claims that there was child rape going on and everyone else denied it but Sy Hersh must be right because after all he's Sy Hersh. The day that Sy Hersh has anything nice to say about the US military or the United States will be the day the ice skating concession opens in H*ll.
   
4. For every "ex-CIA agent you've heard on the radio" (now there's high credibility sources) there is another 'expert' who will tell you that properly applied torture does in fact work to extract information. If the guy knows nothing he'll tell you anything he thinks you want to hear. If he does know something he'll tell it to you to get you to stop. The challenge is not getting the information, it's figuring out what is real and what isn't. That being said, putting someone in fear of their life is NOT the same as torture.
   
5. To prosper as a nation we need to survive as a nation.

....that we have seen everything. You do understand that there is plenty of still classified photos from Abu Ghraib that is almost certainly torture?

The bottom level folks were only sent to court after the problem became public. They are scapegoats. Period.

Why do you think our enemies and rivals play up the torture tales so much if the respect of the world is not a valuable asset? Precisely because by blackening our name they deprive of us something very, very worthwhile, else why bother?

Think of it in terms of personal life. I assume you are a person of good repute, deservedly so. Do you imagine it would be a matter of no consequence if you became known publicly instead as a liar, a drunk, a child-abuser and a braggart?

that isn't the subject.

You get snatched out of your bed in the dead of the night, get duct tape wrapped around your eyes, ears, mouth and bundled off to a prison camp. Was that torture?

If the other guy being afraid of being killed is your standard for torture I don't see how you prosecute a war.

This is the question on the table?

If you are going to extend the definition of torture to include mere fear of death we might as well start buy stock in companies that make burquas.

As I am told repeatedly here we don't want to "embolden" the terrorists.  

On a more serious note, we fighting a political war in which we must convince Muslims, and specifically Arabs, that we are NOT the same as the typical dictator in the area and we do NOT want to attack their religion.  

This isn't about pleasing the governments of Egypt, Lebanon, etc.  It is about being able to say with certainty that the US, and the West by implication, has something to offer beyond what they are accusomted to.  We do this by showing our integrity and belief in humanity.  We do NOT do this by dancing on the edges of torturs and inhumane treatment.  

Whether this is called torture or basketweaving the truth of the matter is that we are committing human rights violations.  And before you tell me that terrorists have no human rights lets not forget that many innocent people are grabbed up in this process, which Rice admitted to this week.  Perhaps some of you are comfortable with breaking a few eggs but I am not.  

this is why I don't think it matters.

During the heyday of the foreigner-kidnap industry in Lebanon how many US citizens were kidnapped? How many Soviets? The answer to the Soviet question is exactly 1.

Why? Because the Kremlin unleashed the KGB on Hezbollah and stray body parts started arriving at various addresses in Beirut and the Beka'a Valley.

Do you imagine it would be a matter of no consequence if you became known publicly instead as a liar, a drunk, a child-abuser and a braggart?

It rather depends upon who is saying this and whether their opinion means anything. Right now, we're getting wrapped around the axle in our concern that we be fondly regarded by a collection of Third World kleptocracies. I, for one, don't care what they think.

I did not advocate that as an ideology.

I did say that if they will not leave us alone then I personally do not have any problem with hunting them down and killing as many as necessary to get them to leave us alone. I submit that Joe and Jane Sixpack would prefer that we be left alone to live our lives in peace. But if we can't have that then we need to act to stop the bad guys.

I submit that if the bad guys are successful in setting off one or more chemical or biological weapons somewhere, or blowing up a series of shopping malls in middle America your precious polling numbers will come out significantly different and very quickly.

I am not oppose to discussing things calmly, however I am not the one who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center or blew up trains in Madrid or set off bombs on the Underground or slaughtered children in a school in Beslan or ... I think you will find it is they who are not interested in discussion.

Stop attributing to the opposition some moral characteristics they do not possess.

I think this is about saying to all those so inclined: there is nothing we won't do to stop you.

Are you assuming that the US Military is continually willing to cover up?  Since you are quick to point out that the "bottom level folks" are scapegoats please provide documentation.  Aso, what do you base your comment about those folks being tried only after the problem became public?  Assumption of motives?  Facts?  If it's facts, please provide them.

If you can't provide something other that rantings, please go back to a study of the Bush Administration's involvement in 9/11.  It better fits your thought patterns.

...I invite you to speculate what may actually be in the still classified documentation from Abu Ghraib. If you think it's more naked pyramids then you're not being true to yourself.

Typical of those such as yourself to vilify Sy Hersh for reporting the truth. Much as the person who started this nonsense treats McCain as evil. Good to see sensible conservatives speaking up against this tripe rather than doing the knee-jerk condemnation of those who step out of line.

guards' conduct, or torture techniques at AG were performed as a matter of established US policy?  

You seem to suggest that numerous acts of torture were officially sanctioned at AG by a specific US policy on torture.

Am I in error?  

Perhaps you are simply suggesting that numerous immoral crimes (other than torture) against persons were officially sanctioned.

Was any US soldier charged with child rape, as you seem to intimate?  Who?

The real question is:  Whatever did occur at AG; are you suggesting that it was somehow positively sanctioned by a US policy of some sort?

As I am sure strief will agree with, everybody I know who's experienced waterboarding (me too), knowing beforehand makes no difference when you can no longer breathe anything but water.

Your "thin line" exercise is a fools errand.

Why? Because the Kremlin unleashed the KGB on Hezbollah and stray body parts started arriving at various addresses in Beirut and the Beka'a Valley.

Well certainly the best way to quell dissent is to kill all the dissenters.  Sadly this option isn't really available to us, since we actually respect human rights.  

I completely agree that I don't care what those "Third World kleptocracies" think.  I do, however, care what the people of these countries think because they are the engine that ultimately fuels terrorism.

I would offer up the example of the IRA and Lord Mountbatten.  The IRA were causing all sorts of havoc in N. Ireland for a numbers of years and starting to gain significant political muscle because of it.  Republican Irish were beginning to think that they could win and the Orange Irish were getting more and more discouraged especially as English support for Northern Ireland was beginning to wane.  

But then the IRA made a major blunder.  They chose to attack the very popular, and largely powerless, Lord Mountbatten was assasinated.  Virtually overnight the tide turned for the IRA.  After that attack the IRA were emasculated for nearly 10 years.

Popular support is necessary for terrorists to succeed.  Convince the people that we are a better choice than the terrorists and we will defeat the terrorists.

did you experience the joy of SERE school?

Whether rendition is legal or not is completely irrelevant to me.  Immoral acts are immoral acts, regardless of what the law says.

Listening to Rice's speech yesterday I couldn't help but think to myself "It sounds like she's trying to rationalize how our actions are ok."  The fact that the Europeans nations may be complicit in rendition does not make it less immoral.  The fact that we are going through hoops to keep our actions "legal" doesn't make them less  immoral.

Harkening back to a past conversation hawk, this is a case in point. You are clearly assuming the moral high ground here. I think you would agree and it is the main basis of your argument. You have a fine sense of moral truth here which gives you a vantage point from which to critisize Rice, et al. However, when others, particular conservatives on this site stake out moral high ground, there is much talk about the relativity of moral values. Then you lead us directly into "rationalizing" them or the notion that the asserted moral view is really just a personal opinion.

Can you reconcile this into a consistent position for me? Perhaps I have misunderstood you and you really do believe that it is possible for an individual to occupy the moral high ground.

there ARE things we won't do to stop them.  We won't start intentionally killing women and children.  We won't start randomly murdering people.  We won't resort to full scale torture to achieve our objectives.  The terrorists know this.  

The dicussion is specifically about waterboarding.

Well certainly the best way to quell dissent is to kill all the dissenters.  Sadly this option isn't really available to us, since we actually respect human rights.  

Dissenters? Is that the lefty codeword for the guys who tortured Bill Buckley to death? Funny. I thought they were terrorists or at least criminals.

I do, however, care what the people of these countries think because they are the engine that ultimately fuels terrorism.

You're claiming that the public opinion of the US in various Third World counties fuels terrorism? Got a "fer instance" here?

But then the IRA made a major blunder.  They chose to attack the very popular, and largely powerless, Lord Mountbatten was assasinated.  Virtually overnight the tide turned for the IRA.  After that attack the IRA were emasculated for nearly 10 years.

Good analogy, wrong war. This is the analogy of the 9-11 attacks. Torturing, or the forcible wearing of women's panties on the the heads of, terrorists in a part of the world where torture and extrajudicial executions are a way of life is not going to have an impact.

follow the thread. It isn't.

I may add is a reason why Soviet citizens could travel unscathed through most of the Third World while Western citizens lived in fear of kidnapping.

The fact that we are willing to hamstring ourselves, when historically we are perfectly capable of killing women and children (Dresden, Tokyo, Phillipine Insurrection, Indian Wars) if need be, will not serve to either save lives or win allies in the long run.

The fact that most of the world doesn't really believe that we have the WILL necessary to win does not make us strong.

about being a Democrat.

You are extrapolating the because (a) you got to see a published Army report of reprehensible (and punishable) criminal conduct at Abu Grahib; (b) there are unpublished i.e. classified, documents regarding the same facility at the same time; ipso facto the unpublished documents are more of the same as (a) and must be even worst because they won't let you see them.

I said that Sy Hersh did not "break" the story, and despite his claims, he didn't; the "story" is based on a published Army report from several months prior to his story. I said Sy Hersh offers no proof of child rape other than his opinion and he didn't, yet you would have us take his unsubstantiated claims as absolute truth over the denials of others.

I am as entitled to my opinion of Mr. Hersh's lack of veracity as you are entitled to your belief in his integrity. I do not believe the man because on far too many occasions he has been caught in exaggaration if not outright falsehood.

reddstaty, this is now the third thread on which you have posted some variant of the CONDI LIED! theme.  

Are you trying to tell us something?

Since US foreign policy is the collective will of the American people I, as an American citizen, have a say in what it is.  I personally believe that violating a person's human right and/or torture is immoral.  I believe that we should strive to never do it.  As such I am attempting to convince those that may disagree with me.  Notice I am not suggesting that we should impose this standard on others?  This is a standard I believe we, as Americans, should adhere to.  

Of course this is my personal view, which is why I make so much use of the first person.  

We all have a moral code.  The previous discussion  we had was about absolute morality which I think this discussion does a fine job of showing isn't, at the very least, not universally followed.

Dissenters? Is that the lefty codeword for the guys who tortured Bill Buckley to death? Funny. I thought they were terrorists or at least criminals.

The problem isn't killing the terrorists.  The problem is not killing the NON-terrorists.  The Soviets had little interest in respecting the rights of the unfortunate people that were at the wrong place at the wrong time.  They were just bumps in the road, a policy they have largely followed in Chechnya.

You're claiming that the public opinion of the US in various Third World counties fuels terrorism? Got a "fer instance" here?

You're kidding, right?

Torturing, or the forcible wearing of women's panties on the the heads of, terrorists in a part of the world where torture and extrajudicial executions are a way of life is not going to have an impact

As I said if we act the exact same way that the kleptocrats do, why should the people of the Middle East think we are any different?  

1. I don't see the problem.
   
2. No, got an instance of someone turning to terrorism because of their dislike of the US. Usually that whole radical islam, caliphate, sharia, thing is involved first with hatred of the Great Satan a distinct secondary concern.
   
3. Why do I care. Face it. Those regimes maintain power that way and they LIVE with those people. The idea that we can't cow them using the same tactics when we don't live with them is just counterintuitive.

There is no such thing as a sanitary war! Innocent people are going to be inconvenienced by being questioned and possibly detained. But human rights violations? I don't think so! The only people saying this are the enemy combatants, terrorist, and there sympathizers.

I more than most here don't mind breaking a few eggs if were talking about the tactics used at present to retrieve information. Comparing the standard excepted idea of torture that goes around the world and the tactics used by the US is ridiculous. Not even close!  

So you would have us become the modern day Romans?  Someone harms an American citizen and what?  We start wiping out cities?  

Did you ever consider the possibility that one of the main reasons why Russian citizens could walk without fear in the Middle East was because the terrorists of the time knew that kidnapping Russian citizens would achieve nothing?  Not only would the Russians not negotiate, they wouldn't even respond.

Why is it that the terrorists in Afghanistan in the 80s and Chechnya in the 90s and today are willing to  committ terrorism against the Russians?  Certainly you don't think that the Russians are a kinder gentler government when it comes to Chechnya do you?

This isn't about have the will to win.  It's about  knowing which battles to fight.

I understand to have been 'rigorous'.

I suffered the 'quick course' at the JFK Center at Ft. Bragg in the mid 1960s - before Nick Rowe institutionalized it (mercifully); and was made to whine and snivel in a crash course with the 5th SFGA in RVN.

I was once held for the better part of a month as a hostage by a small band of Khmer Rouge.  From what I've heard, that was a better experience than the SERE course.

Looks, from some of your postings, that you have had the pleasure.

True?

in 2-75 I had to go through the course at JFK... but later than the 1960s and after Rowe.

If you don't think that we have committed human rights violations of various people in the Middle East there isn't much point in continuing this discussion.

You guys have this annoying penchant for accusing anyone who isn't in lockstep with you on this matter to be terrorist sympathizers.  I can assure you that have absolutely no sympathy for terrorists and would have no problem with each and every one of them being executed.

Once again, I do not wish to begin comparisons between America's respect for human rights and China's or North Korea's or Angola's.  I hold our nation to a vastly higher standard.

Your clarification certainly helps me understand why you are justitifed in arguing that your moral viewpoint should be adopted through the democratic process. And when you say moral, I'll try to remember to substitute personal opinion.

Immoral acts are immoral acts, regardless of what the law says.

Since US foreign policy is the collective will of the American people...

.

Your clarification still leaves me a little puzzled as to how you can so unequivocally separate the moral from the legal or policy of the US representative government.

I could still use some help on that point. Please be patient with me... I am handicapped by a different cognitive framework.

Going down the comment tree (quoting out parts but surely you can see the comments yourself)

masb27:

You think oxygen depravation like this [waterboarding] is not torture?

streiff: I've been waterboarded and I'm really sure at least one other person on this list has been waterboarded

masb27: And you do not think its torture?

streiff: Well, in my case in particular I survived, had a moderately successful military career, a family, and have 0% VA disability.

So no, I don't think it's torture.

Damned uncomfortable for sure. Even knowing you aren't going to be killed. I can't even imagine what it would be like knowing the people doing it were perfectly willing to ice you.

masb27: That difference in knowing is probably that thin-thin line between torture and non-torture.

Then you started talking about getting snatched up in comment

#88

Where is the original discussion was on SPECIFICALLY about waterboarding and whether and when its torture.

So I reiterate: There is quite a difference between being waterboarded as a training exercise (though surely it is definately a tough, tough experience) and waterboarding a detainee who believes he would get drowned by his captors.

I may be bloggyhorse riding, though I think that term applies only if I'm inserting something completely off-topic in every comment I post, whereas my three posts were in response to someone else mentioning Condi.  

Are you trying to tell us something?

Other than the obvious, just that as the only person currently in the administration that I have taken a class from and whom I have had more than one face to face conversation with, it just seemed more personal.

Hats off to you, streiff.

I simply can not guess how I might have conducted myself under those circumstances.

My personal wiring diagram does not permit me to even consider capture. It has nothing to do with heroics.

Just fear.

I made up my mind early on in the business that I did not have the courage to commit suicide to avoid capture; but if capture was imminent I would do something (anything) to make 'them' kill me rather than take me POW.

Wow!  What a flashback this exchange prompted.

reiterate that I agree that there is a difference but you are apparently setting fear of death as the standard for torture which, in the context of war and people trying to kill you, just doesn't make sense.

Of course it makes a difference. The mindset of going into the procedure is different.

The difference is about the same as sparing in martial arts with a tough opponent in a ring and defending yourself against a street thug.

There are rules of conduct in the first case and none in the second.

the question for you are we in the ring or are we in a street fight

And when you say moral, I'll try to remember to substitute personal opinion

Well isn't ALL morality just personal opinion?  What we percieve as universal morality is simple those aspects of morality that everyone agrees upon.

Your clarification still leaves me a little puzzled as to how you can so unequivocally separate the moral from the legal or policy of the US representative government.

Well because morality, the law, and policy all serve different masters.

Morality is a code of our personal beliefs.  Our laws are a code of restrictions placed on each member of society.  Our policies are the actions taken by our government to advance our people.  

Although each interacts with the other they can also act with complete indifference to one another.

At one point it was legal to own slaves.  Did that make it moral?  At one point our country had a policy of eradicating or removing Native American tribes.  Was that moral?  

Too often people will allow their own morality to be trumped by their emotions, usually their sense of greed or fear.  Sometimes we need to get back on the path of being morally true to ourselves.

Its in context of our prisons. Drowing the enemy in a river in hand to hand combat during the battle is not the same as doing it to prisoners.

setting fear of death as the standard for torture

For this particular torture (waterboarding) yes.

As for definitions on other specific tenchinques for the purposes of this discussion:

My opinion on the decision which is torture along the lines of Justice Potter Stewart  take on defining pornography:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . ."

I'd have to say we are in both.

When defining our take on torture who should it apply to? Every person who is labeled to be terrorist? Or every person is proven to be one?

Life is rarely (though occasionally) black and white.

but you can see it might be a lot less than helpful in combat.

you are the idiot and charlatan here

our existing laws and rules restricting the military have been watered down, re-interpreted, or flat out ignored by the civilians in the department of defense, the CIA, and the white house, leading to, yes, torture in our prisons, both those acknowledged and secret, of detainees, both terrorist and innocent.

"rough treatment" barely begins to describe the planned and systemic misconduct that has resulted in the deaths of perhaps 80-100 prisoners in american custody from their mistreatment.

your links to graphic violence are entirely irrelevant, no moreso than would be an attempt to deny jeffrey dahmer the use of the court system by showing photos of his victims. moreover, what escapes your evidently limited grasp is that the vast majority of our prisoners in iraq are not terrorists enaged in gruesome beheadings but are civilians gathered in random sweeps. to add insult to their extensive and grievous injuries, these prisoners are held for months without being charged with a crime of any sort, and their families are not told of their whereabouts. does this sound like acceptable conduct to you?

your post is by far the most reprehensible i've seen on this site. you're no american that i know.

easy. This is not a law enforcement action and we have to be willing to say we'll accept mistakes as the cost of doing business and so long as the actors err on the side of protecting American lives and interests we'll hold them harmless.

he means they will not be prosecuted

or does he need to spell it out for you with crayons?

But only one.

Calling another commenter an "idiot and charlatan" is a fast ticket out of here. See, e.g., Posting Rules.

This would, in other words, be your one warning.

congratulations

If it hadn't come before the warning.

Give me a reason.

in the amendment would have been useful.

"B-b-b-but Senator McCain said it was alright" is a pretty weak defense.

and advocating torture are acceptable?

interesting

that you can't read.

I thought Thomas had nailed you for sure. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found he hadn't.

Off you go, little person, to The Pile™

Saint John McCain is not a poster here. Compare and contrast.

I'm sure many things interest you. Shiny objects, for example. I'd urge you to move past your interests and consider whether you wish to continue posting here.

I understand your point. But I believe we still should have rules of conduct and what is acceptable and what is not when it comes prisoners and interrogations.

Rules of actual combat I believe to be different from rules of treating prisoners.

In any case, we are deep in the gray area of a balancing act between our belief about human rights and our own safety.

Thank you for the time in this discussion. I will say it has been quiet enlightening in understanding the opposing point of view (much better then slogan chanting on bothe sides).

See #172

with a misunderstanding.

I understand your point. But I believe we still should have rules of conduct and what is acceptable and what is not when it comes prisoners and interrogations.

Rules of actual combat I believe to be different from rules of treating prisoners.

I'm all in favor of the proper treatment of prisoners, I just think there are a very small number of guys who fall into your hands where there needs to be a different set of rules.

Please, follow the posting rules and don't name call and make personal attacks.

"Little persons" everywhere will be hurt by your insensitivity.

Great how someone got banned for redirecting the diarist's own words back at him.

and I'll bet you like this a lot, too.

Which is why something "like" the Geneva Convention needs to be defined for this kind of instances (not necessarily internationally).

We cannot just be defining everyone left and right enemy combatants. Padilla case comes to mind. We have enough laws in this country to deal with our own citizens accused of things without sticking them in military jails with no access to lawyers or a judge.

You say: "Immoral acts are immoral acts, regardless of what the law says."

I try to understand what you mean. You give me an explanation which I take as meaning morality has something to do with the "policy" and "collective will of the American people." I think you correct my mistake. Thanks

So how do I interpret your statement above? Paraphase your meaning:

"Acts which I and some people like me don't like are acts which I and some people like me don't like, regardless of what the law says.... And I am trying to get you all to agree with me to make the policy be what I and my ilk belive in."

Fair enough, but not very convincing when you take away the language that seemed to give your position the moral high ground. Your apparent factual statement above really isn't factual at all. There are no objective immoral acts you are referring to. Its just a personal preference for a different policy with no grander moral justification at all. If this is what you mean, I just wish you wouldn't call the policies immoral and just stick to convincing me why I shouldn't like them either. Otherwise it just seems like you are using moral language when it suits your polemic and challenging it when it doesn't.

But perhaps I've missed your point altogether and you may yet get it through my thick skull. Can you give me a better paraphrase for your comment (without the moral language confusion)?

I didn't mean to accuse or brand you personally as a terrorist sympathizer if you took it that way I apologize! And I do respect your opinion, just don't share it!

I'm not naïve enough to think there are absolutely no human rights violations being committed. What I can say is that it's not our policy to do so nor is our policy to torture. I believe this particular bill is window-dressing, it narrows and defines procedures not currently employed by our military anyway.

"I hold our nation to a vastly higher standard"

I know you do. This statement is always the argument I hear when talking about this issue (for good reason) we should hold ourselves to a higher standard. I hope that will doing so we don't leave ourselves open to attack or passed-by, by those that don't!    

Army Colonel event.

let streif and I waterboard you.  I promise that we will not kill you.  You won't come anywhere near death.

You will also tell me anything I want to know.

With respect to your "street thug" comment, would you be really careful to follow the "ring" rules if faced with assult that street thug?  If you aren't sure and you're anywhere near Phoenix or San Diego, I can set that scenario up for you as well.

links and background

there is no source.  I've drawn my conclusion based on a long history of watching Congress pass fuzzy laws and watching lawyers attempt use the courts to expand the scope of said law.

(a) and must be even worst because they won't let you see them.

No, I believe they are even worse because when various Congress-critters came out of the room after viewing them, and SAID they were worse. Were they lying? Sorry, but this tired administration TP just isn't washing with me.

at first reading I read AG as attorney general, heheh. What I am suggesting is that it is highly unusual for army grunts to spontaneously do this kind of thing, and if they did I feel that they would figure out ways to do it that didn't involve the inconvenience of procuring dogs and dog leashes.

if you come out the other end changed into something evil. Suppose that by torturing a perfectly and completly innocent child you could prevent a nuclear detonation in NYC. Would you do it?

But really the bitter irony of this whole ugly mess is that we are no where near being in a situation where we desperate to even be asking that question. Nothing the terrorists could do could come close to threatening our existence or even our power as a nation.

few people I find less trustworthy than Hersh; unfortunately most Congresscritters are in that category.

Oh really

I sure will sleep well tonight knowing that we are not as bad as finatical terrorists.

Our ideals stop at the border?

If that's supposed to be the case, excuse me for expecting more from this country.

First off, you need to go back and read the Amendment before stating "John McCain is attempting to add to the appropriations process a provision that would prohibit the United States from doing to captured terrorists those things we are prohibited from doing to American citizens under the 5th, 8th, or 14th amendments to the United States Constitution."

If McCain's amendment's goal is to reaffirm that the United States doesn't practice things it says it already doesn't do:

No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.

It's simple, it's cut and dry and it's not what your saying it is.  It's simply stating that the DOD will play by the rules already layed out in the US Army Field Manual which I think most reasonable people can agree with.  It's not coddling the terrorists or accusing the military of torture.  It's simply trying eliminate the grey area of "what are we allowed to do/what are we doing" that is going on now.

We are not them. We do not torture. And we should have no need to hide what it is that we do do.  

I'd love to hear what it is that isn't allowed under the Army Field Manual that isn't torture that you feel we need to be able to do.

I totally didn't get the "Army Col" part.

With respect to Col West (thanks for the link streiff), I saw him on a morning show after his "plea deal" was finalized.  I had heard that his men would follow him into hell without being asked twice.  Based on the interview I would guess that is correct.  All I could say about him after the interview was, "he shoulda been a Marine." (We're a Marine family, red, blue and gold run deep.)

West is the kind of brigade commander the Army (and the military in general) needs.  He was forced to retire for nothing short of political correctness.  It goes beyond a shame, it's criminal on the part of the Army.

I wish Col West a peaceful retirement with his lovely wife and family.

there did not seem to be much spontaniety at AG.

The larger point is that whatever did occur there,  was NOT done either as a matter of policy, or under positive sanction by Army leadership. Nor was there any coverup.

Did it slip your mind that Army authorities were the first to uncover those activities AND bring them under investigation?

Also, individuals you refer to as 'Army grunts' were not the turn-key cage-rattlers at AG.

It is extremely unlikely that an Army combat infantryman would toy with a defenseless enemy completely under control: Dog Leashes or no dog leashes.  Convenient or not.

They have other, more important things to do.

"Animal House"?

If so you have a real idea about the level of spontaneity of Army "grunts."

You see, having chased down, clubbed and eaten an armadillo, participated in scorpion fights, and all manner of other nefarious activities this is what irritates me. I feel safe in guessing you've never served in the military and your smugness in stating what soldiers will and will not do is just grating. I'm not pulling a reverse chickenhawk here, but, my man, you really don't have any idea of what goes on in troop units.

If you add to the natural drift towards mayhem where the average age is about 19-20, a weak chain of command, lax supervision, boredom, and a night shift how anyone can't imagine Abu Ghraib is just beyond me.

We can deconstruct morality to render it completely useless.  By doing this we would never be able to bring morality into a discussion since morality is ALWAYS on the individual's personal opinion of what morality is.  

You seem to be trying to create a false dichotomy.  Either we accept that there is an absolute morality      or we must discard morality as a gauge of right and wrong completely.   But we do not need to do either.  We can accept that an absolute morality is merely possible AND accept that our own morality is a worthwile gauge of right and wrong.  

more spontaneous or creative than a bunch of 18-21 year old enlisted men away from home.  During his four year hitch in the Marine Corps my son (a SpOps door kicker) was strictly forbidden to discuss two things with his mom.

1. What he did for a living.
   
   
2. What he did off duty when there were other Marines, foreign women or alcohol involved.

There was one force that kept he and his guys from going "over the line" (don't ask).  It was his 1stSgt.  They knew that facing Diaz would be an end of life event.  I once asked Josh if he would assult the gates of hell if so ordered.  "I'd follow 1stSgt ANYWHERE."  It is a strong chain-of-command that keeps people in line and moving (eventually) in the right direction.  A complete breakdown of the coc at AG was the problem, starting at the top with the former General.

congrats

don't stop at the border, that's part of the reason we're in Iraq.  That bit about spreading democracy and all.

But the rights and protections granted to us, American citizens, do stop at the border.  Or at least they should.  Terrorists do not deserve any of the rights and privileges granted to American citizens under our Constitution.  Period.

All right. If that is your your melody line, then I can harmonize with you. Its kind of like what some others on the site have referred to as the still small voice or our moral apparatus or our moral compass. And as we subject it to doubt and if it holds up collectively, we gain confidence that it is approaching a possible abstract absolute. And with that attitude you gain a respect that grants you access to shaping my views and the burden of a trust.

I've often wondered the basis from which the left derives human rights. And that is a big part of the argument in your posts. For you, is it the same kind basis as morality? Rights are reflected in laws made by elected officials who hopefully represent the collective values and morality of the governed? Inalienable rights come from ????

With all that said I offer a bit of argument here. Our laws in many cases are based on our current collective view of morality. Policies in a representative government are also to some extent reflections of the collective values. So with law and policy in her sails Condi has some moral heft even though she really could be engaging in moral equivocation or rationalization (based on some common sense of morality that we all share). Enter McCain. If something's immoral, then the law and policy needs to be changed to snyc up to what's moral. So, whether Condi is rationalizing morality or not is an open question with the burden of proof on her challengers. I am glad you are in here debating it and I'll try not to distract you any more because it appears you are still scaling a difficult cliff. So feel free to leave off the middle question to a later time.

And thanks for you patience with me.

Driving a dusenhalf through the car wash.

Loading up the dusenhalf with troops and parking on the front row of the drive in.

Coming too on a road in the middle of nowhere with no shirt or shoes in the middle of winter with no idea how you got there and finding a parked car to go to sleep in.

Picking fights with MPs.

If that is all it said then I personally wouldn't have much problem with it. Sen. Bond, who didn't vote for it would apparently agree with it too. He has some complaints though. Check his position out at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec05/torture_11-08.html

When they stop attacking our ideals and laws and constitution...

When they share and support our ideals...

Then we can afford to give them the protection of our ideals. Giving them the protections of the very ideals they wish to destroy is an advantage they don't deserve and we can't afford to give. That's the Bye Bye Ideals strategy.

The French seem to believe that ideals are the magic which conquers all opposition. See Steinlight's analysis at http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/frenchriotstranscript.html

for a good example of how/why that strategy fails.  

Wouldn't it be great if our ideals conquered all. No more wars. Unforunately reality has a way of popping our bubbles. I want the kingdom of God as much as you do, but until then it still seems like we have to apply force to protect ourselves against attacks which use force. When force is put down, then we will spread our ideals and entertain others ideals civilly. We really are trying to be generous in Iraq, but these murderers keep trying to destroy our efforts. They reject our ideals and would exterminate them. And of course, there is the broader jihadist movement that wants to subjugate the world for allah. It is a fight for the survival of what we value most deeply.  

I think you expect too much. IMO, your expectation leads to the defeat of the ideals you and I value so much.

It is a relief to know that 61 percent of Americans and even the majority of FRENCH citizens (yes, caps are justified here) agree that torture is appropriate in rare instances. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10345320/

Phew. Glad there remains some intestinal fortitude among our fellow citizens.

people identifying themselves as atheists make up something like less than one percent of the country, so i think we can say with fairly high confidence "the same basis you use."

obviously it's the conclusions made from this that (only sometimes) end up differing.

only if you are interested, do you want to take on 'inalienable rights'? That is those not deriving from laws in the democracy. would you say most of liberals are with jefferson and derive them from the creator? Else what if at all?

I've wondered about this in the context of a "woman's right to choose" or others in what seems to me to be the list of rights extending our bill of rights.

Email me if you like.

I really have nothing to disagree with regarding your first paragraph.  That seems to be the way I see it.

As to your seond paragraph I would say that the Left  derives their sense of personal morality the same way that the Right does.   We develop our morality as we grow and based on our life experiences.  When it's all said and done I suspect that most people on  both sides of the aisle have almost identical concepts of morality, at least in larger terms.  The difference is in the margins.  

As to your third point I would offer this.  Most people here would probably consider abortion immoral.  However abortion is legal.  Does that make it more or less immoral in the eyes who oppose it?  

In my opinion Condi Rice was putting into words a policy that I find abhorrent.   To begin with I find that we are NEVER justified in violating the rights of anyone.  Secondly I find it even more offensive that the current administration seems to know this and is actively looking at ways to JUSTIFY violating people's rights.  Truth be told it is the latter point that really bothers me. Probably every administraton in our history has actively volated the human rights of some group.  But at least they were shamefaced when caught.  This admnistration seems almost proud of it.  That bothers me.

...why I don't approve of government-sanctioned torture, no matter how evil the enemy:

1.  Governments are and have historically been a threat to the freedoms of individuals.  A government endowed with the power to torture will inevitably use torture in ways that are beyond the scope of its original intention.
   
2.  Even if our government's use of torture does increase our security (an open question), it will have done so at too great a cost.  Some principles are more important than security.  Have we forgotten that this is the country of "give me liberty or give me death"?

or a 1993 WTC redux with properly placed conventional bombs that would cause one tower to fall into the other

or any stoppable plot that would kill any number of people, I dont know, say  a million

Patrick Henry volunteered HIS life to protect our liberty

He didnt agree to out the physical comfort of a sabateur above the lives of OTHERS he was sworn to protect.

You do realize that we did torture pows in WWII and do and will in wars of survival in the future no matter what is on paper. You understand that fact?

But since you only object to Govt SANCTIONED torture, I guess you have no objection to freelance torture?

And you understand that the principles we agree upon in our domestic tranquility apply only here to WE THE PEOPLE

but not to OTHER PEOPLES that would destroy that tranquility?

WE ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS FIRST, NOT WORLD CITIZENS WHICH HAS NO MEANING ANYWAY.

For our principles, TO HAVE ANY MEANING, the nation must repel outside forces that would cause us to cease to exist.

Making a blanket statement of your willingness for 300,000 million americans to die or for all of our people to be conquered and oppressed by a brutal dictator, all so your conscience is clear and you can FEEL morally superior to the people that keep your head from being chopped off as we speak

not only doesnt make you a moral giant, but rather on the contrary exhibits an extreme detached  trifling unseriousness

NO CIVILIZED MORAL PRINCIPLE releives men from their duty to protect the nation.

even if you would gladly die that bin laden suffer no pain

your "principles" are obtuse

when you say NEVER

My second paragraph may have been a little bit of a curve ball in that I was asking not about morals but human rights. Your answer refers to morals. Maybe its all the same to you but I just wanted to make sure.

"As to your third point I would offer this.  Most people here would probably consider abortion immoral.  However abortion is legal.  Does that make it more or less immoral in the eyes who oppose it? "

No, it doesn't make it more moral in their eyes but it gives them a sort of burden of proof; the burden to change the law to reflect their morality. They can't issue the kind of sanctions that are normally applied to immoral behavior. Its a disconnect but the burden is on them to prove the case. And their claims about 'baby killers' etc., whether true or not, aren't broadly granted the moral high ground. It is all muted in argument.

"In my opinion Condi Rice was putting into words a policy that I find abhorrent."

I'm just suggesting your moral position has the same kind of burden and climb to reach the moral high ground.  

" To begin with I find that we are NEVER justified in violating the rights of anyone.  Secondly I find it even more offensive that the current administration seems to know this and is actively looking at ways to JUSTIFY violating people's rights.  Truth be told it is the latter point that really bothers me."

Like you, I am very bothered when people do what they know to be wrong and then try to justify it. Hypocrisy and deceit turn me cold and hard. So I can sympathize with your gut reaction.

I can't say authoratatively that the admin. does not share your view of rights (there is that word again). However, I do tend to project my own values and views on Bush&Co because they seem to me to share them. And I don't currently think their policy is wrong, so it doesn't trigger that cold hard outrage. But to demonstrate/prove that it is wrong we have to get into this idea about NEVER violating anybody's rights. What rights? Where do they come from? Who do they apply to? How does our policy violate them? That's the burden I've been applying as I read the posts.

My second paragraph may have been a little bit of a curve ball in that I was asking not about morals but human rights

Human rights are, IMO, a standard for treating other  people.  They are guided by our morality. Since most of us here have been raised with a Judeo-Christian ethic we generally believe that we should treat our fellow man with decency and compassion. As to what that means specifically I guess it would falls under the the "we know what is a human right violation when we see it".

No, it doesn't make it more moral in their eyes but it gives them a sort of burden of proof; the burden to change the law to reflect their morality.

Agree.  Thus I am spending my time on a Republican  advocacy blog trying to convince others.  

And their claims about 'baby killers' etc., whether true or not, aren't broadly granted the moral high ground. It is all muted in argument.

Well you know notice that I am not reverting to hyperbole regarding this matter.  While I personally find torture/rights violation to be immoral I do understand why this administration is doing it.  

However, I do tend to project my own values and views on Bush&Co because they seem to me to share them. And I don't currently think their policy is wrong, so it doesn't trigger that cold hard outrage.

That's reasonable although I hope that you support  the policy based on your principles and not because of party affiliation, which I suspect some do.   That isn't an insinuation of any sort, btw.    I just think that most of us have a tendency to give "our" guys a little more wiggle room than the opposition.

But to demonstrate/prove that it is wrong we have to get into this idea about NEVER violating anybody's rights. What rights? Where do they come from? Who do they apply to? How does our policy violate them? That's the burden I've been applying as I read the posts.

While it is certainly not easy to define what constitutes a violation of a person's human rights I do think we all agree on SOME rights that are inviolate.  I think we would nearly all agree that  castrating someone would be a violation of their rights*.  So the question becomes what IS and what is NOT a violation.  This is where the water gets murky.  As a rule of thumb I would say that if we are doing something to a suspected terrorist that we wouldn't do to a suspected murderer here in America then we are probably crossing the line of what is and what is not a human rights violation.  I'm not referring acts that are deemed illegal but generally acceptable.  I'm referring more to acts that, when you read about them in the newspaper, you generally find unacceptable.

* - I realize that once we get into a crime and punishment discussion we accept that some people have forfeited some of their human rights.  For the sake of this argument let's assume that we are not dealing with convicted criminals but rather SUSPECTED criminals.  

"...plenty of still classified photos from Abu Ghraib that is almost certainly torture..."

You're sitting there looking at your buddy's boring beach vacation pictures--nothing but endless repeats of sandcastles, kids and seashells--because you know that there HAS TO BE a picture of his hot wife in a bikini...there just HAS TO BE ONE in there.

I generally agree with most of what you said. BTW, I'd similarly like to visit some Dem. Blogs so I am open to your recommendations.

As to the argument...

"So the question becomes what IS and what is NOT a violation. This is where the water gets murky"  

Agreed but it still seems murky to me after reading your analysis.

"As a rule of thumb I would say that if we are doing something (generally unacceptable as opposed to illegal) to a suspected terrorist that we wouldn't do to a suspected murderer here in America then we are probably crossing the line of what is and what is not a human rights violation."

This doesn't have any persuasive effect on me. Why not? Hmm... First our laws are generally a reflection of our morals in this regard, so if you want me to go farther than laws you have to convince me why the laws are not moral enough. Second, our laws give a lot of rights to suspects and even convicts, but their extension has limits, which I don't think include those who are at war with us. We deal with warriors who seek to destroy the very laws and values that would protect them. Subscribers to Geneva make agreements to guarantee each other certain rights. We have signed certain treaties obligating us to guarantee certain things. What we do above and beyond that is grace not obligation (although McCain's Amendment may the limits). That leeway gives us a strategic opportunity to develop a policy that balances our fundamental interest of self-protection with our general desire to be kind and gracious. We are balancing competing values and in the politically charged media amplified environment, that point seems a bit lost in the noise. In my opinion, there is no equivalence between our current policy and that of our enemies (or even most non-western, non-democratic governments). We put people who violate our (much stricter) sense of decency on trial. We sometimes make mistakes but we try to correct them as possible. None of our laws our policies get it right all the time. They have to balance competing values. So our policies seem about right to me. I could agree that for the military we may need to draw a little brighter line by sticking to the field manual across the board. If that is all McCain wanted, I could go along with him, because perhaps a blurry line may be leading to too many mistakes in the context of the field of battle. But to handcuff the government across the board is too much for me; fails to appropriately balance the competing values. I am not for blanket extension of the protection of our values to those who will use this protection to seek to destroy our values.

So, you've now you've got the skinny on how to go about convincing me.

Particularly since Syria is a hostile government.