[Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so shall you
Paul Rumelhart
godshatter at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 25 06:57:00 PDT 2009
I have to admit I'm curious whether or not you'll find Andreas' sources
credible: the 800th MP brigade, the FBI, and the US Department of
Justice Office of Legal Counsel, among others.
Paul
g. crabtree wrote:
> Didn't you read the sentence? I chose to use the word "think" instead
> of "know" because, unlike Mr. Schou, I realize that there's a
> difference between the two. I base my opinion on reports from
> accountable members of the former administration who have actual names
> and faces, not anonymous sources, wack job web sites, Al Jazeera, or
> the hysterical, foam flecked rants of Keith Olbermann.
>
> g
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Sunil Ramalingam <mailto:sunilramalingam at hotmail.com>
> *Cc:* vision 2020 <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, April 24, 2009 6:13 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so
> shall you
>
> Gary,
>
> You say, "What I have said and what I do think is that harsh
> interrogation methods can sometimes be necessary and can produce
> useful information. This does not give you license to infer
> anything else."
>
> How do you know this? Have you participated or observed these
> interrogations? Or are you relying on someone else's account?
> What makes that account so credible?
>
> For argument's sake if your first statement is correct, what's
> your point? Are you saying such interrogations should be used?
> If they cross the line into torture, should they still be used?
> How often? By whom?
>
> Sunil
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From: jampot at roadrunner.com
> To: ophite at gmail.com; smith at turbonet.com
> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:13:38 -0700
> CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so
> shall you
>
> With your very first sentence you once again mischaracterize what
> it was I said. I did not concede that the things you mention took
> place. Just because you've read something in the huffington post
> and/or the new york times and regurgitate it here doesn't make it
> a verified fact. You don't know for certain, you were not there,
> you are electing to take someone at there word. Show me evidence
> and I'll concede that those events occurred and not before.
>
> What I did say was that I did not at any time defend or encourage
> those sorts of measures. Period. Your overused technique for
> taking what someone actually says and determining what they
> /really /mean and what they r/eally/ think is tedious and annoying.
>
> What I have said and what I do think is that harsh interrogation
> methods can sometimes be necessary and can produce useful
> information. This does not give you license to infer anything else.
>
> But Lord knows you almost certainly will.
>
> g
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Andreas Schou <mailto:ophite at gmail.com>
> *To:* a <mailto:smith at turbonet.com>
> *Cc:* keely emerinemix <mailto:kjajmix1 at msn.com> ;
> jampot at roadrunner.com <mailto:jampot at roadrunner.com> ;
> vision2020 at moscow.com <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, April 24, 2009 3:17 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow,
> so shall you
>
> Gary --
>
> So, what you're saying is that you concede that abuses took
> place; you concede that interrogation techniques like
> uninsulated 30 and 100 degree temperatures; you concede that
> the same guy responsible for Abu Ghraib was responsible for
> GTMO; you concede that any technique that did not produce pain
> "equivalent to death or organ failure" was approved for use on
> our GTMO detainees. And you claim that you don't support any
> of these things: that these things are torture.
>
> And then, conceding that we did these things, you nonetheless
> bang the table and insist that our approach to interrogation
> didn't constitute torture. The most charitable interpretation
> of this is that you are merely incapable of drawing
> conclusion. However, having corresponded with you over the
> years, I've found that you have a genius for drawing incorrect
> and immoral conclusions.
>
> What are the facts as you believe them to be? Did we
> waterboard? Did we leave detainees shackled to the ceiling,
> stewing in their own shit? How about week-long periods of
> sleep deprivation over years of detention? Did we do that? Do
> you think this is consistent with our values? Do you think we
> should be ordering US servicemen to do this sort of thing? Is
> that consistent with a duty to protect the honor of our
> servicemen and intelligenc officers?
> -- ACS
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 1:32 PM, a <smith at turbonet.com
> <mailto:smith at turbonet.com>> wrote:
>
> You're absolutely right. As a work of pulp fiction it's
> right up there with the Left Behind series and any of the
> vapid crap produced by Dan Brown.
>
> By the numbers:
>
> 1. I have at no time tried to justify the abuses in the
> FBI report to such as being chained with no access to
> food, water, or toilet facilities.
>
> 2. Exposing anyone to low temperatures to the point of
> hypothermia (Although one wonders how many US soldiers
> were treated for the same thing that night, no "torture"
> involved)
>
> 3. Sexual abuse of any description.
>
> Pretending that these are my expressed views and then
> vigorously taking me to task for them is dishonest in the
> extreme and is exactly the sort of thing I have come to
> expect from Mr. Schou. Playing fast and loose with the
> truth has allways been a hallmark of his debate style and
> for him to hold himself up as a paragon of moral
> righteousness is laughable. I believe that he would do
> well to climb down off his rustled moral high horse and
> respond to what I actually write not what he concocts in
> his fevered imagination.
>
> g
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* keely emerinemix <mailto:kjajmix1 at msn.com>
> *To:* ophite at gmail.com <mailto:ophite at gmail.com> ;
> jampot at roadrunner.com <mailto:jampot at roadrunner.com>
> *Cc:* vision2020 at moscow.com
> <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, April 24, 2009 11:57 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As
> ye sow, so shall you
>
> This is probably the finest post I've ever read on
> Vision 2020.
>
> Thanks, Andreas.
>
> Keely
> http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:31:27 -0700
> From: ophite at gmail.com <mailto:ophite at gmail.com>
> To: jampot at roadrunner.com <mailto:jampot at roadrunner.com>
> CC: vision2020 at moscow.com <mailto:vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As
> ye sow, so shall you
>
> Gary --
>
> From the FBI report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay under
> Geoffrey Miller, the general later brought in to
> "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib:
>
> "on several occasions, witness ("W") saw detainees
> ("ds") in interrogation rooms chained hand and foot in
> fetal position to floor w/no chair/ food/water; most
> urinated or defecated on selves, and were left there
> 18, 24 hrs or more. Once, the air conditioning was so
> low that the barefoot d was shaking with cold. Another
> time, it was off so the unventilated room was over 100
> degrees, d was almost unconscious on floor with a pile
> of hair next to him (he had apparently been pulling it
> out throughout the night). Another time, it was
> sweltering hot and loud rap music played - d's hand
> and foot was chained and he was in a fetal position on
> the floor. Upon inquiry, W was told that interrogators
> [military contractors] ordered this treatment. Took
> place in Delta Camp"
>
> The report goes on to substantiate that more than one
> detainee (d) was brought into the infirmary with
> hypothermia after an interrogation session. Detainees
> pissing and shitting all over themselves. Being
> sexually assaulted by female guards. Forced to stay
> awake for longer than the human body can stand. Being
> partially drowned. Being stuck in a coffin with what
> you're told are scorpions.
>
> These are not conditions you will find any Hilton
> other than the Hanoi. They are not on the continuum of
> acceptable behaviors any more than a knife is on the
> continuum of 'comfortable objects' because, like a
> knife, it's also an object. These are techniques we
> reverse-engineered from North Korean torture
> techniques in order to create SERE, and then
> reverse-reverse engineered in order to create GTMO and
> the "black sites." This is despite the fact that we --
> as in, our country -- prosecuted Japanese soldiers for
> waterboarding, and even Israel, no friend of
> terrorists, has abandoned it because it produces bad
> intelligence. Indeed, if I were just a little more
> cynical than I am, I'd say that that's quite the
> point: we waterboarded KSM for information on the
> nonexistent Iraq-al-Qaida connection, and Abu Zubaydah
> for information on confabulated terrorist plots he had
> no reason to know about.
>
> You're wrong about the facts. You're wrong about the
> law. I could go on about that, but I'd just be arguing
> with the tinny little noises escaping from the echo
> chamber you pretend will replace journalism. I'm
> waiting with bated breath to find out why you think
> the FBI is infiltrated by ACORN or how George Soros is
> dictating the legal conclusions of Republican
> appointees at Foggy Bottom. That's just your
> intentional ignorance, plus arrogance, tribalism, and
> smug self-satisfaction at your clever turns of phrase.
> I can tolerate that.
>
> What gets to me -- why I'm provoked to respond -- is
> that you're willing, even eager, to sell out our
> country's honor in order to soothe your rank
> cowardice. Or maybe it makes you feel like a real man
> to hear that some punk Afghan teenager with an AK-47
> was awake for a week, stewing in his own shit,
> shackled to the floor. Whatever the impulse is --
> tribalism? sadism? fear? -- it's not anything I
> recognize as American. What third-world tinpot
> dictatorship did you grow up in that you think this is
> acceptable?
>
> We consent to abide by certain principles. It's that
> common consent that keeps our country from being a
> collection of miscellaneous foreigners on someone
> else's land. I have disagreements with conservatives
> about the metes and bounds of those principles, sure.
> But here you are, disputing whether America should
> have principles at all.
>
> Americans, by which I mean FDR and Eisenhower, Reagan
> and JFK, held off the Soviets and Nazi Germany,
> nations that both posed a dire existential threat to
> our country, while banning torture, expanding the
> protections of the Geneva Convention, and abandoning
> the pretense that it's okay to attack civilian
> populations. These are tempting tactics. Some of them
> work. Torture produces words rather than silence. The
> Geneva Convention bans effective tactics for making
> war. Killing civilians forces submission. We stepped
> away from these things. We won. Twice. Over the two
> most belligerent, technologically advanced, and
> staggeringly immoral nations ever to exist, one armed
> with enough weapons to destroy the world several times
> over.
>
> But then 9/11 made you wet yourself. A crime of
> unimaginable scale happened to people in New York
> City; people whom you don't even accord the privilege
> of being called Americans. The crime was carried out
> by guys carrying weapons you can buy at Home Depot.
> Somehow, that uprooted your sense that America stands
> for anything. But how deep were those roots, Gary,
> that fewer deaths than those caused by the flu could
> pull them up?
>
> Our soldiers make a commitment. They tell us they'll
> uphold the Constitution. But there's a reciprocal side
> to that commtiment: we tell them that they're the good
> guys; that they're not just protecting American lives,
> but American values. That they're fighting for
> liberty, mom, and apple pie. Because 9/11 made you wet
> yourself, you're asking those soldiers to sit and play
> Minesweeper while some dumb Afghan redneck shits his
> pants in Arctic cold, chained to the ceiling of a
> lightless cell. If you tell his President to tell our
> soldiers to do that, you've reneged on our commitment
> to make our soldiers the good guys. Our moral purpose
> doesn't come from who we are; it comes from what we do.
>
> I don't know whether there's going to be a reckoning
> for the people that authorized this. But you're the
> reason there should be: to put the rudder straight and
> make people like you -- who actively argues for
> torture -- too ashamed to speak up in public. Anything
> you just said should be enough to make any decent
> person drop their beer, walk out of the room, and go
> find another locksmith. I'm looking forward to the day
> when it is.
>
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