About a month ago we published this piece:
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Many thanks to Cookie Jill from Skippy’s (y/sctp) bit of the outback for this:
if waterboarding isn't torture... according to the wall street journal and bushco, why then was waterboarding one of the "tortures" cited in convicting the japanese for war crimes committed during ww2?so...is waterboarding torture?
interestingly, the united states has long since answered that question. following the end of the second world war we prosecuted a number of japanese military and civilian officials for war crimes. including the torture of captured allied personnel. at one of those trials, united states v. sawada, here’s how captain chase nielsen, a crew member in the 1942 doolittle raid on japan, described his treatment, when he was captured,
It’s worth reading the rest.
We suppose if you’re a Republican legal precedent only counts when you want it to.
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We received a reply to this article today, from a poster who bills himself as
“wondering why u people are in America” and emailed in from Fayetteville Technical Community College, in North Carolina, apparently through a Yahoo email account claimed by “Captain America.”
It’s a thought-provoking comment, and we include it here, in its own separate post, because it raises issues that deserve to be examined in full, and not merely as a month-old postscript to an article.
You people that don't agree with the way we are getting information out of the people that killed over 3000 Americans at one time , need to go tell this crap to the kids of the men and women that burnt or jumped or were just left at the top of a tower to die that this is not right and i don't know you think being 100 floors up in the air and a plane with 300 passengers on it flew into the building you are in and it is just a matter of time before you die and never see your family again i thinkl thats a little like torture too dont you. Now take all this crap and stick it were the sun ain't jack____!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The above was carefully cut and pasted from the original comment posted on this site.
We’re a bit at a loss as to how to respond. Yes, it’s shameful and true, we’re caught short on wordage. We bet Sister Mary Ignatius is spinning like a chicken on a spit right about now.
Comments
Lurch, will you keep us updated? I'm on the edge of my seat! ;-)
Have a good weekend, the penutlimate before the country shudders back in the right direction?
Thanks for the good wishes, WK, I hope you have a good weekend too.
Lurch,
column by Richard Reeves.
Lurch.
I would like to respond to this guy.
So-called "Captain America" ...
My friend lost his brother on 9/11.
He is an Army veteran and has been - until recently - a life long Republican.
He thinks the war in Iraq is idiotic - and has thought so from the start.
He thinks George Bush is an idiot.
He thinks that Rumsfeld is one of the biggest idiots to ever walk the face of the earth.
He understands that acting on the impulse for revenge does not equal, nor does it enhance, national security.
He understands that MISPLACED revenge actually HARMS national security because it multiplies our enemies and fills them with maniacal hatred - and leaves real vulnerabilities unadressed.
Having been a soldier - he understands that one should look to the real world for facts and reality - and not TV shows or "Hollywood-type tough guy Army movies" for an education about torture.
This is from the Washington Post (1/12/2005)
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"Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."
Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."
Worse, you'll have the other side effects of torture. It "endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity."
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You position yourself as a guy who is on the side of the 9/11 victims - but the loved one of an actual 9/11 victim strongly disagrees with you. Are you going to tell him to "shove it" somewhere, too?
Military professionals trained in interrogation disagree with you. Are you going to tell them to "shove it" somewhere, too?
I was there that day. I saw everything you spoke about. I understand your rage - more than you can imagine. I think your heart is in the right place on this. But your mind is stuck on uncontrolled and ineffective rage - which will get you and this nation nothing.
Almost everything the Bush Administration has done since 9/11 has been done to exploit that rage you feel in return for your vote. Meanwhile - your vote has got you nothing in terms of enhanced national security.
Nothing.
You need to tell Bush and the rest of the GOP that aided and abetted in this exploitation of your rage to shove up THEIR #SS.
You can start by voting out the GOP on Nov. 7th.
And before you vote - "C.A." - you really need to check out this little dose of reality ...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/24/151337/66
You could have told him:
Our Countries fathers believed in appropiate punnishment. Your father believed in the same. When we use our courts to punish criminals, do we go after the wrong person? When we use the Military should we do the same.
Our parents set us up to be the best country available to live in. Should we hide as frightened children in the closet. Or should we present the ideal of justice to the world, which Bush should have tried to do.
Is mistreatment of a prisioner justified, our parents didnt think so. They set up camps, gave them food, showed them a "better" way of life, which they took the example of latter in the reconstruction of europe and the far east.
Those who torture are not acting in the way of Christ.
Did he preach waterboard, or bamboo?
Or did he say give on to Cesear? and turn the other cheek?
Those who use death for politics are ghouls.
Just as those who exploit the dead for profit.
The people of 9-11 were killed not by the military, but by people who were trained by operatives that were trained by our government. Just think of the howl world wide, if he had been caught. Since then he has become the hero of the oppressed.
Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and comments. We're still not quite sure how to respond to "wondering why u people..etc" and his comments.
We're still considering sending him a dictionary and good grammar book for Christmas.
Lurch, w/ five years on the other side of the wire at Pope, my guess your Cumberland County Commentator is an 18 or 19 year old kid in the Army who's had a diet of B.S. for the whole nine months he's been in the service. Bet he loves to run Bragg Blvd on Saturday nights wearing a "Killer by day, Lover by night" T-shirt and may have already claimed his first STD. I'd like to say he'll learn as he matures, but his grammar suggests that, sadly, he may not.
Hi Lurch,
1st, the official death toll on 9-11 was 2,550.
2nd, this is illogical. The people we are torturing have nothing to do with 9-11. Sadly, this administration drew that false connection early on, and the public has not kept up with their backpedaling.
Thanks for commenting, Jim. We all appreciate every comment from readers.
You know, and we know, that "Captain America" is wrong. You can lead a horse, etc.
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