This hoopla over Dick Durbin’s statement comparing our handling of the war in terms of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay is in a lot of ways just the same old gripe from the right. He compares our treatment of detainees with Nazi Gestapos, Soviet KGB and Pol Pot’s killers in Cambodia. And if you had no knowledge of what our government has done to innocent people in our war on terror, it would seem outrageous. Keep in mind though, that many innocent men were captured by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and handed over to us for cash rewards. Basically, we told a largely arbitrary group of thugs who we were only circumstantially allied with, that we’d give them cash in exchange for ‘terrorists’. So naturally they went out and ‘captured’ whoever was around, and promptly sold them to us. It’s in this way that our strategy made it possible for innocent men to be tortured for information that did not exist, hence Durbin’s comparison. The Gestapo and KGB sometimes used force with no reason, tortured innocent people they captured, and justified it all in the name of intelligence gathering and national security.
Our inability to do the job right, coupled with an unacceptable level of random aggression, has put us in this situation. The sad reality we now face is that there are likely more innocent men we’ve detained and tortured than there are actual terrorists we’ve successfully convicted. Consider the hundreds of wasted hours interrogating these people who never did anything, along with how much is known about the lack of Arabic and Farsi speaking interrogators and soldiers in general at the Pentagon’s disposal. An hour of their time is arguably the most valuable hour imaginable to our country right now, and this is how we’ve been spending those hours for the past four years. Interrogating Joe Blow who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Video is out there of American soldiers in Iraq searching a house for a suspect they had a picture of, and whether they were able to capture the suspect or not, detaining neighbors and whoever else was around. This policy of rounding up terror suspects with a butterfly net is what led to the overcrowding at Abu Gharib prison, and can be blamed in large part for the breakdowns that occurred. National Guard soldiers, who were not properly lead or trained for the mission, were saddled with hundreds of inmates who had no business being detained in the first place.
For a country that fueled its golden industrial age by maximizing production and quality through the power of ideas and ingenuity, we’re fighting this war on terror with an uncharacteristic level of incoherence. Our methods and the results they have produced thus far does not at all represent what we as Americans are capable of. More money flows out of our country into areas of the world that desperately need it than any other country on earth, and our past military support of nations that may not exist today if it weren’t for our efforts is a testament to America’s ability to do the right thing and lead by example. Millions of people worldwide recognize all of this whether we believe it or not, but when a fellow countryman returns home with stories of what our government did to them, all of that is erased. When their stories are told, the image we have of ourselves no longer translates, and the qualities I’ve described here are overshadowed by our leadership’s unapologetic and too often arbitrary use of force. It’s the aggression without just cause that prompts people to fear and despise us. It’s politics that convinces many of us that none of it matters.
On a national scale we take all the things valued so highly about the leaders who molded us throughout our lives, and decide that when it comes to our elected leaders, those qualities are no good. All of us know full well that the greatest leaders we come across in life are the ones who gave it to you straight. When you were wrong, they told you so, and refused to accept your natural inclinations to deny what you didn’t want to hear. While the inept leader makes excuses and pretends things are alright when they aren’t, the talented leader takes a bad situation and deals with it honestly. Nothing is gained by sugar coating something, in fact, things usually just get worse. We’ve all worked for or heard about a leader that ignored a problem until it finally grew large enough to sink the ship. Executives are going to jail for ignoring what they didn’t want to hear about their companies. Right now we’re living through a perfect example of this with President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld refusing to address problems with our methods in fighting the war on terror. The Abu Gharib scandal was a warning of what was wrong about our approach, but they’ve refused to acknowledge that a problem even exists.
So what would everyone have rather Durbin done? Say what he had to say in a way that made it easier for someone to shrug off? I think that’s the message here, and the lame complaint about aiding the enemy is merely a way to divert attention away from the problem. Some may say that by Durbin using such strong language, he allowed that to happen, but don’t forget that this is Washington DC we’re talking about here. The place where everything is rounded, softened and adapted for the sake of appearance, marketability and the next campaign for reelection. A city where personal convictions become ‘positions’, truth is what you make of it, and nobody listens. Thousands upon thousands of words are spoken every day in DC, and in the end only a snippet or two manage to make it through the gossip, hype and culture addiction currently plaguing American media. A story about our treatment of innocent detainees has as much of a chance of catching on as a (to borrow a line from Kurt Vonnegut) ‘sparrow fart in the middle of a tornado’.
Say what you want about Durbin’s leadership or choice of words, at least people are talking about it. Polls have been showing a decrease in the public’s faith in President Bush, and more than half say that Iraq was a mistake. This has created a shortfall in Army recruitment that puts more American soldiers at risk than anything Dick Durbin has to say. Our leaders have attempted to whitewash their failures by throwing Newsweek, low level soldiers and anyone else they can find under the bus, but behind each of these attempts to divert attention is another fire going ignored and growing by the day. A Medal of Freedom is awarded to George Tenet, Alberto Gonzalez and Condeleezza Rice are promoted, and John Bolton is nominated to represent our country as ambassador to the United Nations amidst reports that he harassed CIA personel who did not report what the administration wanted to hear. It’s a ‘head in the sand’ approach to leadership at a time when American’s wearing fatigues in 100 degree heat are solely bearing the American burden of our government’s incompetence. Perhaps Durbin felt he needed to pump up the volume for anyone to turn away from the latest ‘frail white hype’ to actually hear it. If so, he was successful. Those who would criticize Durbin for doing his job should remove their own heads from the sand and start demanding that the President actually focus on doing his. King George needs to grow thicker skin and turn into a President before it’s too late.
Durbin’s comments are pretty tame. The group having the fit over them is the same group that believes any comment disparaging the Administration is treasonous.
As a liberal who loves this country I would prefer that his observations be completely off the mark. Unfortunately, they are not.
Keep in mind though, that many innocent men were captured by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and handed over to us for cash rewards.
Now this is just ridiculous.
It’s in this way that our strategy made it possible for innocent men to be tortured for information that did not exist, hence Durbin’s comparison.
Durbin is a left wing wack job who equates terrorists with innocent Jews and amount word play will ever make that right. Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot were dictators who tried to exterminate a group of people. We, on the other hand, are hunting down criminals to prevent them from commiting more crimes and to break their crime sindicate.
Durbin hates America, he hates people who make selfless sacrafices and he hates personal responsibility. These terrorists are the one responsible for their imprisonment, no one else. Durbin is a throwback to a time when evil is good and America is bad. This guy is human garbage.
The sad reality we now face is that there are likely more innocent men we’ve detained and tortured than there are actual terrorists we’ve successfully convicted.
WHAT TORTURE????? No one was tortured!!!
It’s the aggression without just cause that prompts people to fear and despise us. It’s politics that convinces many of us that none of it matters.
It’s our ability to reach criminals just about anywhere in the world that makes people despise us and it’s frauds like Durbin that confuse people at home.
So what would everyone have rather Durbin done?
Not make jokes about the deaths of 40 million innocent people is a good start. Don’t compare Ann Frank to Osama Bin Laden like they suffered the same way. Osama is Hitler, Durbin is Goebels and the world is in danger again.
Say what you want about Durbin’s leadership or choice of words, at least people are talking about it.
Great, the public is in full debate over a subject that is completely false, very stupid iin general and detracts from what is really going on. People are talking about what an idiot Durbin is, or at least they should be.
Perhaps Durbin felt he needed to pump up the volume for anyone to turn away from the latest ‘frail white hype’ to actually hear it.Those who would criticize Durbin for doing his job should remove their own heads from the sand and start demanding that the President actually focus on doing his.
Our taxes are going to a person I would consider a traitor, but more likely is just a scumbag. No where in the job description does it say to make light of Nazi war crimes or equating putting underwear on someones head with systematic crimes against humanity. If only Durbin could have spent a year or two in an actual Nazi death camp maybe he wouldn’t think it was such a joke.
What torure? Right you are giving me a headache. Mistreatement of prisoners by the US has been well documented, and it has cost us the moral high ground. In addition torture does not appear to be very effective as we still don’t have Osama Bin Ladin in custody and the Insurgency still seems to be functioning just fine.
As someone who used to believe that America was the good guy I am saddened by by fact that America is now known for homosexual rape and torture. Conservatives are supposed to be the patriots but right now they seem to be apoligists and enablers.
Mistreatement of prisoners by the US has been well documented
What a few naer’ do wells, who have been prosecuted btw, is neither sanctioned by the US nor was it torture. Talk to someone from Asia, who was in WW2, who was in a concentration camp or from Serbia. There are plenty of other places in the world where people are actually tortured who can tell you that criminal in jail does not constitute torture.
In addition torture does not appear to be very effective as we still don’t have Osama Bin Ladin in custody and the Insurgency still seems to be functioning just fine.
We don’t have Osama because we can’t just send military units across any borders we want. There was an article recently about the CIA knowing the region Osama is in but out of respect for national borders we can’t just waltz up and take him.
The insurgency is in it’s death knell, it’s leaders are being captured or killed, it’s ranks are being culled and the borders are getting more secure so foreigners are having a tough time getting in. Also, the Iraqis are taking the fight to the insurgents now.
As someone who used to believe that America was the good guy
Stop listening to the liberals and see what is actually taking place and you’ll be happy again. The homosexual rape and torture is a fraud perpetuated by the democrats, just ignore the lies. Stop trying to get the French and Islam to like us, it will never happen, never.
Right – this is going around and around in the media, this attitude that nothing has happened, yet I’ve been reading about it for well over a year now. I’m going to look up one of them right now…
DIG IT!
We can’t pretend that all we’re talking about here is some ‘rough treatment’. Here was a man who was beaten to death in his LEGS. The doctor who performed the autopsy stated that it looked like his legs had been run over by a bus. He was chained with his arms above his head to the ceiling and left there. This cab driver never did anything. Neither did any of those detainees we’ve had to let go of once they filed for habeus corpus.
Who knows what happens to the detainees that end up getting renditioned to somewhere like Saudi Arabia?
Well so much for ‘you’re either with us or with the terrorists’ (Bush). If he is in Pakistan, I find it odd that we’d reward them with missles that can be used to launch a nuclear warhead for housing him.
Right, how do you feel about that?
Where is this written? Who’s reported this?
Torture is a fraud? If you haven’t clicked on it already, check out that link above.
i>We can’t pretend that all we’re talking about here is some ‘rough treatment’. Here was a man who was beaten to death in his LEGS. The doctor who performed the autopsy stated that it looked like his legs had been run over by a bus. He was chained with his arms above his head to the ceiling and left there. This cab driver never did anything. Neither did any of those detainees we’ve had to let go of once they filed for habeus corpus.
What is this from? Are you saying that American soldiers abducted a cab driver, strung him up and beat him to death for no reason?
Who knows what happens to the detainees that end up getting renditioned to somewhere like Saudi Arabia?
They probably go to a mosque and volunteer to go to Iraq or Palestine or where ever terrorism is active.
Well so much for ‘you’re either with us or with the terrorists’ (Bush). If he is in Pakistan, I find it odd that we’d reward them with missles that can be used to launch a nuclear warhead for housing him.
Right, how do you feel about that?
I’d feel better if these foreign countries would allow our military to wander the coutry side with complete abandon but I also understand that there are limits to friendship. I’ll let a friend borrow my car but sleeping with my wife is right out!!!
I also doubt Pakistan or where ever osama is hiding is giving him the royal treatment. Saddam was hiding in a shit hole and I figure osama is in a similar place. I can guarantee he’s not in the presidental suite at Peshawar Hilton.
The missles are like the planes, they have a short shelf life without mainenance and we control the maintenance. I’d sell them all I could and then buy the scrap back in 10 years for a song.
Where is this written? Who’s reported this?
It’s starting to filter through the news now but I’ve been hearing this from family and friends who were over there for a while. There’s a saying that goes something like the liberal media would rather report 1 dead Amercian over 100 dead terrorists. We see about 5% of the good and 90% of the bad over there but what can you do?
This whole idea about the media started during Vietnam as a way to keep the political faith. Fox News and CNN both make plenty of money and can go over there and find the stories their audience wants to hear. Saying they don’t do it because of a ‘liberal media’ is weak. Republicans have money too and at the head of a lot of corporations that own these media outlets are many Republicans.
Torture is a fraud? If you haven’t clicked on it already, check out that link above.
I know we disagree on this issue but I am highly suspicious of stuff like this from the NYT, especially since they are using the story to sell merchandise. It’s pretty sick to write a brutal story just to sell the photos, and the teaser, the different packages you can buy like they are school photos.
Anyway, even if this story was accurate the people responsible are being charged. Saddam and osama aren’t innocent because some soldiers mistreated some prisoners. If this is true it has no real bearing on the war on terror at all and no bearing on Bush as president.
See, that’s a story that nobody covered but the Times. It was a two part article in subsequent days and the information was taken from actual military documents and interviews with the guards. What happened was, this kid had been given a car for his birthday and decided to use it as a cab to make some money. He was driving some people across town and came close to a military facility. They took them all in, and he specifically was beaten, interrogated and left chained in his cell to the ceiling by his arms. While in that position, interrogators would come in and give him knee shots, which eventually led to his death. The soldiers who had done this were commended and sent to Abu Gharib, before the scandal of course…so their role in changing the tone around there was more than likely significant.
This kid had nothing to do with anything, no information. But this is the type of story that the New York Times has the money to cover…you’ll notice that several writers collaborated on the story. Like all the stories of it’s kind, the Pentagon had a look at it before they printed it. It’s all true, but not covered anywhere else. Why? That’s the million dollar question.
This case has caused a lot of the push by the Afghan leader to take over security in the country, because the investigation was just put on hold for no reason and only picked back up when they complained loud enough. When the Afghan leader came to the US, I think you’ll remember that the headlines had him wanting to take over security…this is largely the reason…and the political move was to talk about poppies, and that became the focal point.
C’mon…they end up as corpuses in the ground. Why would we hand over a terrorist to another country? They can’t charge him, so they do it another way.
Right, our making money off of these people by selling them arms has a lot to do with why we’re in this situation to begin with. When we sold weapons to both the Iranians and the Iraqis during their war we inherited some very bad karma. We can’t trust Pakistan. To call them ‘friends’ is very shady. The CIA says he’s in Pakistan…operatives who were in Afghanistan from day one. He could be in the Bahamas for all I know, but Saddam was in country when we invaded and with his assets frozen, he couldn’t have gone far…hence the hole we found him in. Osama on the other hand, he has financeers. It’s a cash operation. The money flows in ways we can’t track. The cash buys arms that are handed to terrorists for them to use in Iraq. How do you think they get their bombs and rifles?
This whole idea about the media started during Vietnam as a way to keep the political faith. Fox News and CNN both make plenty of money and can go over there and find the stories their audience wants to hear. Saying they don’t do it because of a ‘liberal media’ is weak. Republicans have money too and at the head of a lot of corporations that own these media outlets are many Republicans.
Right – this is one of the stories I was telling you about…what magazine broke the Enron story? It was Fortune or Forbes, I saw the female reporter who covered it, but they can’t just publish lies. These reporters work for months and sometimes years even, collecting verifiable information from interviews they have tape or transcription from and official documents. Nobody’s doubting a story about a corporate scandal or the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, etc. This story was sourced largely from documents that were provided by the government. They file a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, and the documents are provided. They then hit up the names in the documents for interviews and write the story.
Every fact in that Times story is true. If a single thing was wrong in there, it would be all over the media. Look at the heat that Newsweek got. When there’s something to criticize or something that’s inaccurate, the media that put it out pays heavily for it. You know that Bill O’Reiley for one has a blood lust for the Times. Don’t you think that if they had this wrong, someone would have pointed it out?
The story they published about the private company that charters the flights that ‘rendition’ detainees across the world is a good case study on this point I’m trying to make here. They sent it to the CIA before going to the presses. If a mistake is in there following that step, they can still get slammed for publishing a mistake – Newsweek sent their story to the Pentagon prior to running with it and they still got burned.
The reputation of the Times in terms of what the right bashes it for is what they choose to run on their front page, and the opinion section. That’s it. In terms of the stories they run, getting facts wrong is not tollerated. And that’s why when O’Reiley is going off on the topic, he’s saying the same things over and over. He complains about the headlines they ran during Abu Gharib…not the facts contained within the stories, but the choice of headlines. That’s because the facts are the facts, and they can all be backed up.
Ok, now the posts are showing up backwards, the article for the 22nd has no reply box, dogs and cats living together. Witness the end times!!!
Sorry right, I was toying around with the comments setup and didn’t restore it to normal when I was done. Should work now.
Cats and dogs – living together – mass hysteria!!!!
I think I used that line in one of my first articles here…When I get some time…after the kids head off to college, I’ll take a look.
peaks around
Is it okay for me to talk here chris? will a burning lawn ornament show up for me?
and how do I post articles?
Sorry about the moderation – my phone line was bugging out today so I couldn’t get online. Your comments were in the queue. The first one I moderate to keep the spam from going straight up. Your comments should go straight through now. If not, shoot me an email at [email protected] and I’ll figure out what’s wrong.
And again, welcome to the site!
Right:
This is from your fellow conservative Andrew Sullivan:
HAVE THEY ADMITTED TORTURE? A U.N. source has claimed that the Bush administration has acknowledged the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq:
The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They are no longer trying to duck this, and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,” the Committee member told AFP. “They they will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark.”
UN sources said it was the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities. The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.
Signatories of the convention are expected to submit to scrutiny of their implementation of the 1984 convention and to provide information to the Committee. The document from Washington will not be formally made public until the hearings. “They haven’t avoided anything in their answers, whether concerning prisoners in Iraq, in Afghanistan or Guantanamo, and other accusations of mistreatment and of torture,” the Committee member said. “They said it was a question of isolated cases, that there was nothing systematic and that the guilty were in the process of being punished.”
Again, the notion that the administration did nothing to encourage or allow such practices. Then why did the CIA demand memos providing legal cover for their violation of US law? And why did the president create a loop-hole for “military necessity”? I have no way of independently confirming this U.N. source, so the news story has to be treated with some skepticism. But the evidence for serious violations of basic moral codes and U.S. law is mounting.
“They said it was a question of isolated cases, that there was nothing systematic and that the guilty were in the process of being punished.”
I whole heartedly agree.
What about this part:
“Again, the notion that the administration did nothing to encourage or allow such practices. Then why did the CIA demand memos providing legal cover for their violation of US law? And why did the president create a loop-hole for “military necessity”? I have no way of independently confirming this U.N. source, so the news story has to be treated with some skepticism. But the evidence for serious violations of basic moral codes and U.S. law is mounting. ”
What makes this signifigant is that for the first time people are starting to admit that torture is wrong. Now I wish the administration would stop trying to blame soldgers and take responsiblity for their actions. The fact that this stuff is happening is at least evidence of a command bread down and probably worse.
We all have to settle in with the grim reality that most instances of torture, nobody will ever find out about. This bird flew away a long time ago already. Outside pressure, like the Italian response to our CIA kidnapping a suspect on their streets…
There’s something going on with our relations abroad where suspects in the 9/11 attacks, and one in the Madrid incident are going to be let go soon if our government doesn’t make certain detainees available for interviews. This is where our game is going to be exposed, in the rest of the world.
The ones who survive and get let go will tell their stories, but with rendition being like it is, there’s 95% or more that we have no idea about. My article that asks questions about our processes…how we run this system, was largely dismissed or ignored in places I posted it, but many of the questions could clear a lot of this up.
where else do you post?
Offtopic: Chris, the main forum for ‘Debate the Issues!’ has moved to a new site. May I ask you to change the link url to this new site? Also, I would like you to continue to post some of your writings on the new forum. Thanks! Sorry for getting offtopic!
http://s9.invisionfree.com/Debatetheissues/index.php
I was listrning to Rush Limbaugh during the Abi Graib scandal And I was amazed that he was justifying what went on there. Not only is torture just wrong but many of the people being held there were not even guilty of anything.
Once America lost the moral high ground in Iraq the war was lost. Especially once the reason for being there became that we were there to make it better. I don’t see how torture ever makes things better.
The war on terror seems to be leading to the moral bancruptcy of America, 10 years ago we were a country that condemmed torture now we are a country that condones and participates in it.
Jaaman – that’s updated. Thanks for posting the new location.
Rush has gone way over the line with the ‘Club Gitmo’ gear for sale on his website. These people have turned us into the USSR. We can’t claim the moral high ground and have anyone else in the world believe in it. So what if the ‘anything goes’ portion of the right-wing is comfortable with all this, if it’s only them who believe, that doesn’t go very far.
If you go to Google and click on groups, type in ‘deadissue.com’, then sort by date – those groups on use.net I go to daily. Then every once in a while I’ll post an article to the Randi Rhodes foroum, and the Jerry Springer foroum. I’ve got links to those on the front page. Also, Shaddow of Diogones and Debate the Issues.
Thx for the info Always trying to find interesting we sites.
Since 2000 the US has lost so much, we are not the economic power that we were in the 90s, not the milatary power either. I think it was Krugman or Friedman who said that the US used to export hope and we export fear.
Check out this one I was just hipped to:
http://www.modernamerica.blogspot.com/
We should be purchasing foreign bonds, not selling our own.
Might be time to learn chinees, as they are going to own everything pretty soon.
Mandarin Chinese is about the most difficult language to learn – – – – all symbols, I had friends who did it, but was baffled by it.
There’s still time, but politics has to give way to the flag at some point.
I have a hard enough time with english, I guess when the Chiness take over I will have to sneak across the border to get a job.
I’ve read things about Indian companies who are training the Chinese to speak english, so 10 years down the road, they’ll also be an outsourcing option for customer service work. Fascinating stuff.
The interpretation is rightly doomsday to a point, but besides the loss of money, the threat really goes no further than that. Since the Unocal story broke, I’ve read some stuff on blogs where people are panicing…pondering Chinese attack in a military sense, which would never happen.
They’re just like us, just like the majority of people in the world. They want to live a happy life, raise a family, make money and leave the world in better shape than how they found it. Criticism of their culture is typically based on an American perspective, which wouldn’t be what it is – say – fifty years ago. We’ve had a head start, that’s for sure.
Chris I think you are on to something, when you say they just want to live a happy life… I think that is true of most people but a few people are convinced that everyone is out to get them and look where we wind-up.
The culture of fear permeates everything to such a degree that it colors every decision.
I described this in one of my first posts ever on this site:
http://deadissue.com/archives/2004/09/02/celebrating-murder/
I was driving to the store the other night and Michael Savage was talking about his dog on the radio…he went on to say that the Chinese aren’t allowed to have pets, and that’s how it happens. It starts with the lunatics and builds from there.
It’s important for those who hope to exploit our ignorance to perpetuate this perception of a Nazi-like society, and the USSR should serve as a lesson to all of us about how full of shit our government can be. Cheney and Rumsfeld engaged in several lies over a number of years from the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and it cost us billions of dollars on sci-fi toys we’re still wasting money on today.
several lies over a number of years from the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations
I couldn’t help but notice you failed to mention the master of lies, Bill Clinton, the incompetant Jimmy Carter and “back down from tiny little Cuba” JFK.
DI: several lies over a number of years from the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations
RT: I couldn’t help but notice you failed to mention the master of lies, Bill Clinton, the incompetant Jimmy Carter and “back down from tiny little Cuba” JFK.
Rumsfeld and Cheney didn’t serve in the Clinton, Carter or JFK administrations.