Posted on 11/28/2005 8:26:03 AM PST by Millee
In a remarkable story published on Thanksgiving, The New York Times revealed that the Bush administration "decided to charge (suspected terrorist) Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior members of al-Qaida who had been subjected to harsh questioning . . ."
Harsh questioning - as in what most of us would describe as torture, or at least its close cousin.
One of the two al-Qaida honchos, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has in fact become the poster boy for "waterboarding," a technique of submerging a prisoner's face in water so he experiences the sensation of drowning. News reports have said Mohammed, the alleged architect of 9/11, was subjected to this treatment after his capture in early 2003.
Did the use of such rough techniques on al-Qaida leaders save America from an attempted terrorist attack by Padilla, as some defenders of the interrogation policies may well contend? We may never know, since the actual charges against Padilla are unrelated to the bombing plots described by Justice Department officials after his arrest three years ago. As far as we're concerned, however, the use of torture doesn't become acceptable just because someone may be able to point to valuable information obtained through its use.
It goes without saying that torture sometimes produces useful revelations. The more important question is whether the dangers of embracing physical coercion on prisoners outweigh the likely benefits. And we believe the answer to that is yes, they do.
Among those dangers: Torture makes prisoners talk, but in the process produces much unreliable, bogus information, too; torture dehumanizes both its victims and those who inflict it, and leads the latter down a slippery slope of moral corruption; and finally, torture provides the enemy with justification for tormenting our own captured men and women.
Given such risks, the brutalization of prisoners should be outlawed even for the likes of Mohammed. The Senate approved such a ban earlier this month (although with Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard dissenting). Now it's time for the House to follow suit.
To be fair, there is one situation in which most Americans would almost certainly support brutal interrogation tactics. It's known as the "ticking time bomb" scenario - when a terrorist is picked up just after a bomb is planted at an unknown location, threatening thousands of lives. In the current issue of The Weekly Standard, the syndicated columnist Charles Kraut- hammer points out that Israel uses coercion on terrorists under certain conditions. He details one case in which the torture of a Palestinian involved in kidnapping an Israeli corporal resulted in locating his whereabouts.
But of course Israel is the target of literally scores of terrorist attacks every year, so the possibility of capturing a terrorist who has, say, just dropped off a colleague who will detonate a bomb is real. The likelihood of that happening in the United States is remote - but if Congress wants to include a narrow exemption for a genuine ticking time bomb scenario, that's fine with us.
It so happens, however, that none of the controversial cases involving allegations of authorized abuse or torture of enemy combatants by U.S. personnel - of al-Qaida leaders and certain prisoners at Guantanamo - involves a ticking time bomb.
Those cases shock the conscience - and should be banned.
Wrong. They are combatants, not "persons" under the constitution.I see you ignored my reference to my previous post.
Bosnia. The crimes committed by German, and French Spanish "peacekeepers" . The Ivory coast. There are plenty of examples.
The world isn't this nice, rosy,happy place where everyone is sitting around holding hands singing Kum-bi-ya like you think it is. You need to wake up.
That is why while it is essential to fight terrorism- which is a very real threat- it is also essential to keep a close eye on the government's administration of this war. Once it cedes itself a power it is highly unlikely to ever remove that power.
Who gives the CIA worldwide jurisdiction? Why takes the CIA the right to escape US legislation by building prisons in Romania? There have been laws made, for well reasons. The most important is to prevent innocents from being punished, and the second is to show others that the western world is better than states like Iran.
Congress gave the POTUS the power to prosecute the WOT and the Iraq war when voted to authorize both campaigns. The Supreme Court has ruled the the executive branch has the authorization to detain these illegal combatants as long as necessary.
My personal opinion is that Padilla should be tried in Congress for Treason. Then execute him.
The very first TORTURE we must eliminate is putting women's panties on the heads of islomofascits.
Huh? What have German, French or Spanish peacekeepers done in Bosnia other than providing security, building infrastructure?
Has Congress said anything about people being arrested outside Afghanistan or Iraq? Has Congress said anythíng about torture used on these prisoners??
What have they done? Run human sex slave rings, rape, torture, extortion. Murder. It's one of those things under UN investgation. I guess you don't read much.
Indonesia, same thing. Ivory coast, same thing.
Since Dec 23, 2002
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Hi, I´m a young German Conservative, living right now in Hamburg. I don´t join those, who think of the US as the "arrogant world police" - and I´m here to prove you, that we haven´t forgotten what the US has done for us!! Here are still many people who know what the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan or the Iron Curtain were... thank you America. The old picture showing these allied soldiers with a German one says "His Comrades - Our allies!" I usually keep my policy here on FR of "not interfering in US domestic policy".
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Just helping us out on the "torture" issue, are you?
I'd like our enemy to think that we DO whatever is necessary to get information and save US lives.
It doesn't apply.
What "doesn't apply"? (For the record, the post I referred you to was number 19.)
It's nice that you think they're "animals," but if you really have solid evidence that applies specifically to our prisoners, you'd be doing us a tremendous national service by turning it over to the government instead of frothing at the mouth here on Free Republic.
As I've already stated, the entire U.S. government is agreed that the executive branch can hold prisoners indefinitely without trial (and so forth) as long as it has established through the usual due-process channels that the prisoners really are enemy combatants. And the idea that the U.S. Constitution doesn't restrain our government's actions with respect to any non-citizens is frankly just plain stupid.
Living in the shadow of the Oil-for-Food controversy is another major United Nations scandal that may cause untold damage to the world body’s already declining reputation. U.N. peacekeepers and civilian officials from the U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo stand accused of major human rights violations. At least 150 allegations have been made against the Mission’s personnel.[1] The allegations involve rape and forced prostitution of women and young girls across the country, including inside a refugee camp in the town of Bunia, in northeastern Congo. The victims are defenseless refugees, many of them children, who have already been brutalized and terrorized by years of war and who looked to the U.N. for safety and protection.
UN PEACEKEEPERS EXEMPTED FROM WAR CRIMES PROSECUTION FOR ANOTHER YEAR
The ICC was inaugurated in early March in The Hague with the swearing in of its 18 judges, and will have jurisdiction over the most serious crimes, including war crimes, genocide, mass murder, rape, torture, and, once defined, the crime of aggression. The Rome Statute entered into force 1 July 2002, and the Court's authority will cover only crimes committed after that date. The Statute, signed by nearly 140 States and ratified by 90, gives the court jurisdiction over individuals no matter the nationality of the accused.
UN 'peacekeeping troops involved are French, German, Spanish, and others. If you take the time to google, you will find the specifics in all the countries I named.
Torture is not permitted under current law/regs. But the MSM continues to mis-characterize everything we do as torture. To hell with the MSM propagandists. They're going to get us all killed.
Is the torture allegation a domestic affair? I don´t think so. CIA prisons are said to be in Poland and Romania, and CIA planes have landed even in Germany. So we do have an interest in that.
The McCain amendment bans "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any prisoner by any agent of the United States. This could be interpreted to ban almost anything. The most important reason to defeat this is that any interrogation, even the most benign, will be hung up in legal maneuvers by those seeking the defeat of the US (among which I include Democrats).
I´m a German officer of the Reserves. Don´t tell me that my comrades are criminals. They aren´t. Germany hasn´t even been to Congo.
I guess blown up busses, restaraunts , motar attacks on towns, blowing up people to bits in general isn't enough 'evidence' for you of what these animals do.
I have no problem with "the idea that the U.S. Constitution doesn't restrain our government's actions with respect to any non-citizens" in a time of war. It's a war, not a political debate.
If you want to win a war, you have to fight to win it.
You can either stand with the nation and help fight to win, or go join the other side if you want to "froth at the mouth here on FR defending their 'rights".
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