Torture

[TheRuleofThree]

Our government did it - our administration signed off on it - we paid for it.

Thoughts on this? I'm surprised at the eerie sort of shock and silence I've noticed everywhere around this issue - everyone seems to be in various states of shock, outrage, confusion and sadness, even those who started reading and discussing it years ago.

[Ars Sycro]

Re: Torture

Besides the actual memos being released, what part of this is new? We've known about this for years...

[dredgfan001]

Re: Torture

"we all pay for it one way or another" ~ bleubird

[noclevername]

Re: Torture

I am neither shocked nor surprise.

[TheRuleofThree]

Re: Torture

Besides the actual memos being released, what part of this is new? We've known about this for years...

None of it is new - but all of it is actionable.

[Gnomad]

Re: Torture

Did I miss something? I mean, I assumed we tortured prisoners, but was there some new development? Sorry, I have very little time for TV or newspapers lately, so I'm pretty unaware of what's going on in the world at the moment. If someone could point me in the right direction, that would be awesome.

[BuddyGoodness]

Re: Torture

I have not heard anyone show anything but indifference to it.

[TheRuleofThree]

Re: Torture

Did I miss something? I mean, I assumed we tortured prisoners, but was there some new development? Sorry, I have very little time for TV or newspapers lately, so I'm pretty unaware of what's going on in the world at the moment. If someone could point me in the right direction, that would be awesome.

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htm

A long story short - while I have no doubt our country has performed countless illegal acts without our knowing since its inception, this recent discussion is over something unprecedented: the executive branch seeking out legal cover for a program of torture that is almost identical to the interrogation procedures of the Nazis, Japanese, and others that we've prosecuted and executed people for in the past 100 years. As early as mid 2002, the Administration was discussing and approving a program of "enhanced interrogation techniques" that included waterboarding, sleep deprivation for days and weeks, limited food and hygiene rations stress positions, being slammed against a wall, and more.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/22/condoleezza-rice-cheney-a_n_190340.html

Worse, we didn't just start arresting people and torturing them because we knew they posed a threat. We've done this on record to hundreds of detainees, some of which died and more of which are missing entirely, destroyed the evidence in some cases, and even destroyed dissenting opinion from people in the administration and justice department that actually warned against proceeding.

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/21/the_olc_torture_memos_thoughts_from_a_dissenter

But most importantly - and unfortunately, most tragically - is that you can draw a direct line between these techniques and what happened to us in Iraq.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html

We tortured many of these men with the specific intent to extract confessions of links to al-Qaeda - links that didn't exist in the first place. The reason why torture is so destructive isn't just what it does to people, it's that it doesn't even extract truthful evidence in many cases. Imagine being sleep deprived and food deprived and stuck in a stress position for days on end. Imagine being someone terrified of stinging insects, being locked in a box with your worst fear. I think it's fair to say that whatever comes out of your mouth is highly likely to be untrue and a wild lie to appease the torturer, a hallucination, or both.

That's a basic overview - we now have all of this official internal correspondence on public record, and the question is what happens next. My hope is a full commission that releases everything - the timeline, the legal opinions, who asked for what, the result, and an analysis, so we can have an honest public discourse on why this is horrible and should never be a part of our policy. Prosecutions would be nice, but we'll see about all that.

So much for long story short... sorry.

[Gnomad]

Re: Torture

Son of a bitch... you know, everyone has their doubts in their government sometimes... Americans very often, I can't speak for everyone else... but deep down you think it might not be so bad... and then shit like this comes out and it just infuriates you.

[SimpatiK]

Re: Torture

We need more torture.