Posted on 04/29/2009 5:24:51 PM PDT by mnehring
Niall Ferguson writes about Winston Churchill and torture in a LATimes op-ed today: (h/t: Andrew Sullivan)
As Winston Churchill insisted throughout the war, treating POWs well is wise, if only to increase the chances that your own men will be well treated if they too are captured. Even in World War II, there was in fact a high degree of reciprocity. The British treated Germans POWs well and were well treated by the Germans in return; the Germans treated Russian POWs abysmally and got their bloody deserts when the tables were turned.
This is a weak argument against the aggressive interrogation of terrorists. First, most WWII soldiers were conscripts, and few captured soldiers possessed any strategic knowledge that would be useful to the enemy. They had no choice but to participate in the war, and the harsh treatment they received was typically not aimed at obtaining intelligence–it was either brutality for brutality’s sake, or slave labor. By contrast, al-Qaeda members have not been conscripted into jihad. Nor are they volunteering to defend their homeland. Every terrorist has personally embraced an evil ideology that condones the murdering of civilians in the service of a twisted vision of Islam.
More importantly, there is very little reason to believe that our treatment of Islamic terrorists will have any impact whatsoever on how captured U.S. soldiers will be treated. These people committed the grisly murder of journalist Daniel Pearl long before the abuses of Abu Ghraib occurred. The occasional reference to Abu Ghraib or Gitmo in extremist missives seem to be entirely post-hoc rationalizations for tactics already deemed appropriate for use against infidels.
This does not in any way justify harsh treatment of captured terrorists as a form of retribution. Any aggressive interrogation methods must be effective at obtaining accurate information that will help prevent attacks and capture more terrorists–otherwise even the slightest discomfort caused to a prisoner must be considered immoral.
Dean Barnett, writing on Hugh Hewitt’s blog, says that disorientation and discomfort are much more productive than pain for obtaining accurate information. Barnett writes that “the undeniable consensus is that water-boarding is an extremely productive interrogation tool.” Without a doubt, water-boarding walks the very gray line between “coercive interrogation” and torture. (That line is so gray that activities which some people consider torture, other people would be willing to endure on national television in an attempt to win moderate amounts of money.) Nevertheless, I’d consider it an acceptable “method of last resort” for interrogating high-ranking terrorists who have information about planned attacks on civilians.
As Barnett writes, moral compromises are made in war. I would not condone aggressive interrogation of POWs in a conventional war. Such techniques are not justified to prevent attacks on military targets. But if harsh-but-not-injurious interrogation methods on terrorists can yield information that would save the lives of hundreds, thousands, or even more civilians, those actions are justified.
Amen brother. Think Nagasaki and Hiroshima. That saved the lives of close to a million American soldiers that an invasion of Japan would have cost..............
Okinawa would have been ‘disinhabited’, too. Folks tend to leave out the number of Japanese lives probably saved by forcing sudden capitulation.
This is BS concerning the NAZI’s, a group of captured soldiers were executed by being shot in the head after being sent one by one into a garden area of a German command center.
Something like 20 soldiers were executed that day.
Obama tonight, reiterated his views. All applauded and cheered! The MSM loved it when he dissed Cheney by implication and used Churchill. Can you imagine? He sent the bust of the WH Winnie back to Britain but quotes him. Yipe. The guy is a great tyrant.
Islamic terrorists are not soldiers and don’t follow any of the rules of war that were laid out in the Geneva convention. I would be against enhanced interrogation on a genuine soldier in a real war in order to gain intelligence. But these terrorists know about plans to attack innocent civilians. We executed German soldiers who dressed as American GIs in order to confuse American troop movements at the Battle of the Bulge. If we are bound by the Geneva convention with these Islamic terrorists, then we should be executing them.
Also I’m not so sure that Russkies would have been any kinder to Germans in WWII had the Germans served the Russkies tea and crumpets, or whatever German delicacies are. So a false “lesson” may have been taken.
To say nothing of the lives of tens of millions of Japanese.
This same admonition, directed toward the Islamists, would caution them to treat our people well when captured or kidnapped. I’m only guessing about this, but I think it would very likely fall on deaf ears.
The Death March Across German
Click on “POW Research” then click on “The Death March”
http://www.b24.net/index.html
Having returned the bust of Sir Winston Churchill to London, how soon will it be before The Dear Leader orders CNO to change the name of the USS Winston S. Churchill?
The One will probably minimize repainting costs by just replacing “inston S.” with “ard”.
This led to the execution of Americans dropped into Czechoslovakia by parachute, Canadians killed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division in Normandy in June 1944, and Norwegians attempting to land by boat.
POWs were entitled to escape under international law, but the Germans shot any escapees under the Kugel Erlass (bullet decree) which provided for the immediate execution of any flyers found on the ground.
Hitler called the Allied air forces “terror flyers” and Nazi party members lynched many. 50 RAF airmen who escaped from Silesia in 1944 and quickly recaptured were machine-gunned. Their names were posted as a warning to others. (immortalized in the film, "The Great Escape")
The repeat escapees, including famous POWs like Winston Churchill's nephew Giles Romilly and Royal Air Force ace Douglas Bader, were taken to Oflag IV-C at Colditz castle. The camp in Saxony saw many of the most outrageous escape schemes, including manufacturing German uniforms, tunneling, and dropping out of the windows to 100 feet below.
The castle was floodlit every night, despite the blackout. When the camp was liberated in 1945 the POWs were building a glider in the chapel roof.
Even though Germany signed the Geneva Convention for the humane treatment of prisoners, the Nazi ideology of racial purity and the thirst for vengeance led to millions of POWs dying in forced labor or shot by German ground forces.
France, Russia, Britain and the United States tried the commanders who ordered these deaths in courts set up after the war.
The total number of Allied soldiers killed by the Germans will never be known.
We’re on the same page. Ping to #15.
Note: this topic is from 4/29/2009. Thanks mnehring.
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