[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 20:18:10 -0700
>>Instead of definitions of torture, look at its
consequences.
I cited one consequence. Khalid Sheik Mohammed talked. Many of his statements were
corroborated and included in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Eric, you're misreading what I wrote. I am talking about the consequences for the US. How
will this affect American society?
Look at how it has affected you. You talk about torture as if it was some sort of spa
therapy. "It works!" What's the next step? Torture the homosexuals?
Ask yourself why the US would want to use torture on a handful of al-Qaeda? Because it
often works, or it works often enough to make it potentially useful.
No, it doesn't work. In the case of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, you say it works, because... the
White House said so. There's no objective verification of this. None of those statements can
be used in any court.
A number of military people have talked about the results of torture: it's
useless.
Bush recently said that the US has stopped hundreds of plots. This turned out to be two
plots, and those turned out to be just guys talking. None of that was enough to bring an
indictment, much less a conviction.
Your statement that, "The US now has several thousand CIA and military persons who have
learned how to torture" is factually untrue. Only a small number of people are certified
for harsh interrogation techniques.
Was anyone at Abu Ghraib "certified"? The place was an out-of-control dungeon. You can read
accounts of what was happening. There was no effort to get information. They were just
beating up the prisoners for the hell of it.
How many US military were involved at Abu Ghraib? This went on for at least two years. The
soliders were rotated in and out. It's not just a few soldiers. Hundreds participated in
this.
And that was just one prison. There are reports of other prisons and camps.
And then there's Guantanamo, where the prisoners have been abused for four years now.
Hundreds of soldiers have been involved.
There's the prisons in Afghanistan.
And there's the secret CIA and US military prisons.
The rest, if caught, get the slammer.
Nonsense. Only a few soldiers were punished because it became a scandal and they were
sacrificed. But senior US military officers and none of the CIA officers have been punished.
This goes all the way to the top: Rumsfeld, certainly, and very likely Bush and Cheney. None
of them will ever be punished for this.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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