Quote from hapaboy:
Your post makes zero sense at all in the context of what we are discussing. I post something that describes the waterboarding of one of the Al Qaeda operatives as being effective, you counter with the above dribble.
Ron Paul's thoughts have no bearing on this discussion.
I can't tell you how hurt I am to be on your ignore list. Since you're firewalled against reason, it's actually a good thing.
Of what relevance is the effectiveness, or lack thereof? It would be highly effective of me to kill anyone who stood in the way of my material well being, for instance. Would you advocate that I do this?
Torture is a war crime. Arguments that terrorists have no rights don't stand in the way of this; while it is recognized that "illegal combatants", that is, people who don't wear uniforms to announce who they are in a situation of war, can be held outside of the normal judicial system and are not entitled to all of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, nowhere does anyone recognize a right to torture such people. So arguing that terrorists have no rights while true is beside the point: a nation that captures one still can't kill that person absent an imminent threat from that person without putting him through some sort of process of judgment ending in guilt, and under no circumstances whatsoever can a nation torture anyone it captures.
The argument that our soldiers were horribly mutilated is actually an illustration in favor of the ban against torture. Hillary Clinton, in her usual, shall we say flexible, way, tried to not have to explicitly say torture was wrong during the Presidential campaign. She was called on the carpet by a group of retired US generals, and after they read her the riot act, she recanted:
...from
The Hill, issue of Oct 5, 2007:
As senior Democrats vowed Thursday to obtain secret legal opinions that the Justice Department allegedly issued to sidestep limits on harsh interrogations, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) became the last Democratic candidate to endorse a liberal groupâs pledge against torture...Before last weekâs debate, Clinton had signaled support for what some dub the â24â torture exception, a reference to the popular TV drama: If a suspect was thought to have knowledge of an imminent threat against Americans, Clinton said, brutal interrogation would be necessary. The shift last week occurred after Clinton met with retired generals, the campaign told reporters afterward.
Of equal importance to what's being discussed here is this tidbit from this same article. The Hill, btw, is non-partisan, unlike the source for the OP's little rant, The Washington Times:
Undoubtedly the Bush administrationâs torture policy moved to the front burner of Democratic oversight efforts on Thursday, after The New York Times reported on alleged interrogation memos secretly issued by Justiceâs Office of Legal Counsel.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) immediately sought copies of the memos, and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said his chamber would follow. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a presidential candidate lagging behind Clinton and Obama, called for yanking the funding for the office that issued the secret opinions if they are not given to Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called for âa full investigation of what [former Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales and his minions did to undermine the will of Congress.â The Times alleged that as Congress took up a 2005 ban on âcruel, inhuman and degradingâ interrogations, Gonzales approved a secret memo exempting CIA techniques from that standard.
Durbin hinted that interrogation policy would be a flashpoint in the confirmation of Michael Mukasey, who was tapped to succeed Gonzales. Durbin said he asked Mukasey whether Congressâs 2005 ban should be the âlaw of the land,â adding that the nominee âdid not give me a clear answer.â Mukaseyâs hearings could begin as soon as Oct. 17.
So, if Dems were so complicit, why would they have been publicly expressing such outrage one and a half years ago????
But back to the more important question, for folks who think the future of this country is just a wee bit more important than whether this or that pol was complicit in Bush's war crimes:
What argument would the generals make to Hillary? That if we torture, our soldiers will be as well, in larger numbers than they presently are.
Our soldiers have been tortured numberless times by countless enemies. Prior to this cowardly generation, no prior generation of Americans thought that because we were tortured, we should too. In this as in so many other areas, this generation is, in numbers larger than its predecessors, a generation of swine.
Cowardly swine.
