Rudy's Not the Only One
More and more, the United States sees itself as the world's police. The Bush administration has taken this idea and run with it. Now, they're getting ready to pass the torch:
Asked at a community meeting here whether he considered waterboarding torture, Mr. Giuliani said: “It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.”
(Link Emphasis added.)
We have begun down a slippery slope. Somehow our politicians have gotten the idea that the US always has the moral high ground, by default. Guiliani, by his strong implication that US waterboarding is OK, but other people doing it is not, firmly establishes himself in this group. By their view, the US does not make mistakes, it can do no wrong. The problem, of course, is that people who are not willing to admit to mistakes, or even the possibility of mistake, will make many more mistakes, but never learn from them. They can never improve themselves.
The worst part, though, is that as citizens, many of us have become passive. We complain about politics, the war, the economy, schools, and everything else, but we don't take action. We all need to be responsible for what is done on our country's behalf, just as our country as a whole needs to be responsible to the rest of the world.
Quick poll:
- Can you name your congressional representatives?
- What parties do they belong to?
- Do you know how they vote?
- Do you generally agree or disagree with how they vote?
Keep tabs on your representatives, and to write them frequently.
At 5:11 PM on October 25, 2007, Chip Bennett said,
In what kind of a naive society do we find ourselves when we no longer believe legitimate interrogation tactics have a place against people who would have no such qualms in using such tactics - and worse?
Waterboarding is NOT torture. Turning up (or down) the Air Conditioning is not torture. Failing to serve certified-halal food is not torture.
It results in no broken bones. It results in no permanent emotional, psychological, or physical harm.
It DOES, however, result in foiled terror plot and saved lives.
At 5:56 PM on October 25, 2007, Tyler said,
I know we see this one from different sides, Chip, but I've got to say that if we're not willing to have our soldiers subjected to that kind of treatment (which is exactly what Rudy is saying), then we should not be using it ourselves. (Sounds like something Jesus said...)
Whether it's torture or not aside, there have been numerous reports and studies showing that interrogation situations that make the interrogatee feel as if his life is in danger or put give him extreme discomfort yield poor intelligence. People will say anything, as long as they think it'll make stop the "interrogation".
They try make it sound like it's just a windy day in the park, that the conditions are just a shade uncomfortable. The fact is we're depriving people of their freedom and subjecting them to painful, terrifying conditions, all without legal recourse. And this is on a regular basis, not just the 11th hour situations that the politicians love to drag out. Speaking of which, those "24 Season Finale" situations are absolutely ridiculous; the world only works that way in TV.
My point is that we need to start treating the world as equals. I'm not saying we should go communist or anything, I mean equal in status. They are just as human as we are, we all live on the same Earth. Just because they come from a different part of the world doesn't mean we can stack them up in naked-hooded-man piles and still expect to feel OK about ourselves.
At 7:27 PM on October 25, 2007, Brian Kiefer said,
Just be thankful you have a voting congressional representative. Those who reside in DC do not. As our license plate motto states, "Taxation Without Representation"
At 7:51 PM on October 25, 2007, Chip Bennett said,
Except, our interrogations of terrorists have led to very real - and very positive - outcomes: foiled terror plots (verified), high-level captures (see: KSM), etc.
The problems with "treating [them] as equals" under the belief that "they are just as human as we are", are:
1) They do not consider us to be equals. The consider us infidels, who must convert (submit), or be put to death. Their ideology leaves no other option.
2) Anyone who practices "honor killings" of innocent girls, barbarically saws off the heads of non-combatants, suicide-bombs crowds of innocent people, etc. are not human - or, at the very least, are inhumane and uncivilized, to a point beyond redemption.
People who neither practice nor believe in the basic tenets of a civilized society cannot be reasoned with, and can - and should - not be treated as "equals".
With respect to your first point, I have no problem if our soldiers are subjected to waterboarding. Much better that, than real torture. Besides, our soldiers are trained to undergo waterboarding.
At 2:18 PM on October 30, 2007, Tyler said,
There are also people like Sami al-Hajj who has been detained in Gitmo for close to 6 years now, without ever facing trial. There are a lot of accusations surrounding Sami. They may or may not be true, but there is absolutely no reason to hold him captive until someone can prove that he's guilty. That's what our justice system is built on, the presumption of innocence, for everyone. If we want to maintain (or regain) the respect of the rest of the world, we have to hold ourselves to that with everyone in our courts.
In 1947, the US sentenced a Japanese officer to 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding a US citizen. Seeing that human anatomy hasn't changed in the past 60 years, I think this still stands as a pretty good precedent of what we classify waterboarding as.
At 12:14 PM on November 4, 2007, Tyler said,
Some other thoughts on waterboarding: