The outrage today seems to be about a NYT article regarding secret Justice Department memos.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.
Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.
6 pages later they end with this:
“The problem is, once you’ve got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?” he asked.
Jules Crittenden responds:
Article neglects to mention we are fighting an enemy that considers powerdrills into kneecaps and videotaped beheading of captives business as usual. That in fact, we have yet to face an enemy in the modern era that observes anything approaching the standards we do. Germany, Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam, Iran, Iraq. Disorientation, isolation, beatings, starvation, summary executions, torture … of the bone-breaking, organ-smashing, electrocuting, bloody-drawing variety.
NYT creates the impression Bushzales completely blew off Congress, Supreme Court and it’s a torturepalooza out there. You need to get seven graphs in to learn that Bush admin ”has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques.” I’m looking forward to the follow-on article: How Osama packed the top ranks of al-Qaeda with toadies who interpreted the Koran to support flying passenger jets into office buildings and planting bombs in marketplaces.
Amusing thing here is this was also the "outrage" back in September of 2006, in which the same discussions from the same people were being had.
We also dealt with it on September 27th, after the Congress passed the controversial bill on detainee treatment and on Septemeber 29th, with Politics vs Public Safety and then again on October 5th, 2006.
Yet a new memo comes out and it starts all over again.
Since it has been done, discussed, argued and all the arguments are the same old, tired lines, this post is going to be about you, the reader.
Not the Government, if you want to comment about todays story, which is the same as September of last years big story, then click one of links above and feel free to comment.
THIS post is asking a few basic, personal questions.
How Far Would You Go To Save a Family Members Life?
I am truly curious as to the readers answers here.
The question to parents:
If you had your hands on a man or woman that has your child and had the stated intent of killing your child within hours, how far would you be willing to go to save your childs life?
How far would you go to make him tell you where your kid was before those hours ran out?
Do not try to distract, do not try to distort, do not say "but that is different", I already told you, if you want to talk about the government, go to one of the other links... I am asking about YOU and YOUR child and far YOU are willing to go to save their life.
For those that are not parents:
How far would you go to save your husband, wife, mother, father, sister or brother's life?
For once, I would like to see some answers. Instead of criticism, outrage and anger, I would like to see some ideas.
So many will screech and tell you what they would not do, so fine, we know what you would not do... what would you do though?
How far would you go to save a family members life?
I am truly curious.
[Update] Because of certain comments, especially ones that claim that harsh interrogation tactics "rarely" lead to reliable informations...lets deal with THAT up front and save people the embarrassment of even trying that argument:
From my comment back to those false claims:
interrogations overseas have yielded significant returns:
Many of these successes have come as a result of information gained during interrogations. The capture of al Qaeda leaders Ramzi Binalshibh in Pakistan, Omar al-Faruq in Indonesia, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in Kuwait and Muhammad al Darbi in Yemen were all partly the result of information gained during interrogations.
look it up...thats PUBLIC RECORD, so please, stick to the facts and do not make "claims" that harsh interrogation tactics to not glean information.
If you do not know who those people are, use the search engine.
Ramzi Binalshibh: is a citizen of Yemen and according to the United States, Germany, and several other countries, a key al-Qaeda member who helped in planning the September 11, 2001 attacks. Binalshibh was the first to be publicly identified as the "20th hijacker," of whom there were several individuals thought to have consecutively been tasked to fill out the single missing slot among the four terrorist teams.
Omar al-Faruq: was a Kuwaiti of Iraqi decent[2], and a senior al-Qaeda member. He was a liaison between al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorists in the Far East, particularly Jemaah Islamiyah. He was captured in Bogor, Indonesia in 2002 by Indonesian security agent who handed him over to the United States. Al-Faruq's capture was based on information derived from the capture of Abu Zubaydah
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri: Other aliases include Mullah Bilal, Mohammed Omar al-Harazi, and Abdul Rahman Hussein al-Nashari. He is alleged to be the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing and other terrorist attacks, who headed al-Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf states prior to his capture in November of 2002.
Just three examples to make my point.
We can discuss whether or not capturing them justified the methods used, but do not try to claim that the tactics themselves do not work.
Try to be honest about the public record of who we have already captured from information gleaned from interrogations.
[End Update]
Related: Wapo Article.
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