Christopher Hitchens, one of my personal heroes, has written a piece on waterboarding ( a technique that goes back to the Spanish Inquisition ). He did this from first hand experience ( yes he actually agreed to be tortured ). He concludes (surprise surprise) that it is in fact torture.
While watching the video of his torture, I find myself asking where the hell am I? Is this America, the land “with Liberty and Justice for all?” This administration’s complete and blatant lack of all morals is astonishing. It is never acceptable to torture and it is never acceptable to lock someone up without a trial. Not only are these things dangerous, but they are immoral in any sense of the word. They are dangerous because in the long term they will end our democracy.
I do not think that I am overstating this in the slightest.
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First of all interesting blog. Keep it up my friend.
Second, torture will not end democracy, well at least as we experience it in its current form. My prediction is we will enjoy the lap of luxury, fast food and unefficient transportation systems until we are long and gone. However, I have a bone to pick with the SEC, FTA, USDA, or any other 3 OR 4 letter government agency combo. What’s up with that anyway?)
Next, the appetizer wiki on waterboarding attempted but did not suceeed into the full course meal I had prepared myself for - the charted history of torture or executions carried out by US personnel during wartime without civil trial or military tribunal(UPDATE:or people shooting at the US military with IED, RPG, AK, or any other 2,3,4 letter abreviation with or without an organised army) This is a very complex discussion and deserves more attention than this text field will allow. Did I mentiin I am using my Treo phone for commenting? and they call this a qwerty keyboard. Well it does beat predictive text.
So now my thoughts in total perspective: desperate times call for desperate measures . Its so cliché. I know and I apologize.
An example, just ask any marine fighting in the Pacific during WWII. When Samuri wannabes thought it was a good idea to behead captured US soldiers, ok here it comes, after interrogation, after surrendering, and stick their heads on the bayonets of rifles pointing out of the ground, nobody cared. Why?
The enemy was scared shitless, that’s why. Coupled with the flamethrower, this created a powerful psycholgical force for the allies. Seriously, the Japanese soldiers, as well as isand inhabitants were setting themselves on fire, jumping off of cliffs after US victories. Subsequent occupation in these regions created fear the Japanese would have to deal with the wrath of the Americans after being captured. For the mostpart, there was no wrath. Even after the Bataan deathmarch, a beaten down imperialist soldier often enjoyed better conditions than provided by their own army.
The real blog should be understanding cultural dimensions of the combatants, how people deal with fear of loss of personal life, and not humiliation. Then methods should be applied to extract this time sensitive info from combatants with known ties to threats of national security, and apply pressure. The real mistke we have made is focusing on the latter and allowing jarheads to have camera phones in detention centers.
There is no court of law for this type of warfare. The UN SHOULD GET OFF OF ITS ASS and do something. But as history as shown, it takes some westerner to put theirs on the table and go get ‘em some!
Disclaimer: humor was attempted during this presentation.
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