US Tortures Man Tortured by Al Qaeda
More reasons why the power to imprison people should not be given solely to the executive branch. What will it take to wake us up?
More reasons why the power to imprison people should not be given solely to the executive branch. What will it take to wake us up?
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:19 am
yeah, I think they just maybe crossed the line with this guy (and the others listed). Point of clarification though: Is causing the \’prisoner\’ stress from dogs, positioning and sleep deprivation considered torture? I\’m thinking about this in terms of someone who is actually being imprisoned for something with more substantial evidence. In the case of us having prisoners, though we have no right to cause them harm/torture them, where are the lines we shouldn\’t cross in gathering information from them? Just looking at the facts related in the story, is this an example of torture or merely an aggressive interrogation technique?
But yeah, that guy should never have been arrested. The anti-terrorist branch of the US needs to chill out. Just because somebody\’s cousin\’s brother\’s friend knows this guy that may or may not have heard about some terrorist activity, it doesn\’t give us the right to arrest them or do anything else. We have the right to protect ourselves, not counter-protect ourselves by arresting everyone that we suspect may have dealings with terrorists… sigh.
Good post Ray.
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:35 am
Mike - to be honest, I’m surprised that you responded that way. It’s one thing to arrest somebody illegally and hold them without trial. It seems that we’re in agreement there. But what surprises me is that you seem willing to play games with the definition of torture. If our intelligence strategy consists of arresting people on rumor and then scaring or hurting them until they say something, how can we really consider that to be useful intelligence? That prisoners confess to crimes they never commited under duress is well documented.
A second question that is never asked is if somebody treated our prisoners under these new “not really torture” definitions, would we consider it torture?
October 25th, 2006 at 11:28 am
If Orwell wrote about it, does that make it torture?
I tend to think “yes.”
October 26th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Ray,
I just posing the question. As I said in the post, I\’m pretty ignorant about it. I talked to Erik about it. And I don\’t know if we came to a concensus on what torture is. But yes, you\’re right. I wouldn\’t want it done to me. And no, it doesn\’t seem like it really gets you the information you want if you\’re just looking for a scape-goat. But again, just a question. You used the word \”torture\” while the article you sited did not. I was merely questioning the discrepancy. Please don\’t think that I agree with any methods used by our gov\’t or any gov\’t to obtain info, but I\’m not saying I disagree either. Rather, I\’m trying to form an opinion. I\’m pretty ignorant about stuff of this nature.