Is torturing war prisoners a betrayal of U.S. values?

[maddezmom]

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Is torturing war prisoners a betrayal of U.S. values?

By DAVID HORSEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL CARTOONIST

James Inhofe, the Oklahoma senator from the Neanderthal wing of the Republican Party, may still believe that the only practitioners of degradation and torture in the U.S. military were seven isolated misfits at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. However, stories suggesting something much different continue to pile up:


Three Iraqi employees of Reuters and one NBC staffer, also an Iraqi, were detained by U.S. forces in January. They claim they were beaten and humiliated in various ways. After three days, they were released without charges.


The former commander at the Guantanamo prison camp, Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, says he was relieved of his duties because the Pentagon believed he was too soft on the prisoners. His insistence on humane treatment did not please interrogators who wanted to use harsher methods.


Thursday, NBC News reported allegations that, at several secret detention facilities in Iraq operated by Delta Force commandos, torture of prisoners is routine and robust.


Sgt. Samuel Provance, a member of an intelligence battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib, told ABC News the use of torture was not limited to a few renegade MPs. The Army is trying to cover up the fact that abuses are widespread, he said.
~snip~
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/saturdayspin/174464_bq22.html

[stellanoir]

1. screw so called "American values". . .

When porn makes more dough than any other domestic industry, how can we possibly profess to represent the "moral high ground."

These abuses are fundamentally inhumane.

[indepat]

11. When a war seen as illegal by most of the world is being waged,

such war is also surely viewed as unnecessary, unjust, immoral, and inhumane, even in the absence of inhumane treatment of prisoners: would not this inhumane treatment just be frosting on the cakes of those who took this nation to war and icing on the cakes of those media and other talking heads who shilled for pre-emptive war, including those shills of the religious right (are you listening Jerry, and do you often ponder just what just desserts might be in store for you?)?

[Sinistrous]

2. Yes. It is somewhere on the list headed by

waging aggressive war with the intent of gaining hegemony over another sovereign state.

I think you will find that bush has shredded and composted nearly the entire set of positive American values. The crimes of the BFEE defy language.

[atreides1]

3. I Have Always Wondered

What the Hell are US/American Values. I'm an American, but I know what I value is not the same thing that Bush and his crowd value.

Can anyone give me a definiton of these so-called American Values, and who do they apply to.

[Briar]

4. Suppose

in November the American people answer yes, torture is a means justified by their end. They can do it easily, by returning Bush.

What will that tell the world about "American values"?

[Martin Eden]

5. Exactly.

Endorsing Bush with another four years would send the message to the world that the American people endorse torture and all the other abhorrent policies of his administration.

If you can't convince your fellow Americans of this from the perspective of morals and values, maybe they'll understand it from the perspective of real world pragmatism. Sure, torture may be justified in rare "ticking time bomb" circumstances, but the torture policy implemented by the Bushies has been tremendously counterproductive in terms of fighting terrorism and has done real damage to our national interests.

It will be very difficult to reclaim America's former standing in the world, and impossible if Bush wins in November.

[Barrett808]

6. My letter to Mr. Horsey

Dear Mr. Horsey,

Re your Buring Question for today ("Is torturing war prisoners a betrayal of U.S. values?") I ask, "Which US values do you mean?" Given the atrocious history of US interventions in, for example, Latin America, defining what we mean by "US values" is a difficult exercise. Consider these three examples (which are by no means aberrations):

Battalion 316 (Honduras)
Atlacatl Battalion (El Salvador)
Operation Condor (South America)

In each case, US-trained death squads (euphemistically, "paramilitaries") were deployed to destabilize (or support) regimes that displeased (or pleased) the administration. Under US sponsorship and direction, these state-sponsored terrorists prosecuted campaigns of torture (El Aguacate air base) and mass murder (El Mozote massacre) against small nations.

From these and many other cases, it would be easy to conclude that torture, mass murder, and war crimes are very much in the spirit of US values. State terror on this scale would not be possible without the associated US values of official denial and secrecy, enabled by a docile and incurious citizenry. John Negroponte, who is suspected by many of complicity with war crimes in Honduras, has been designated by Bush to head the new "embassy" in Baghdad; we can be forgiven for thinking that these unspoken US values will continue to guide policy.

Is torturing war prisoners a betrayal of U.S. values? The long and horrifying history of US interventions clearly tells us, "Not at all." Is torture a betrayal of the values of civilized people, as codified by the Geneva Conventions and international human rights laws? Of course. To this, Bush himself has expressed the traditional US values of arrogance and contempt for law: "International law? I'd better call my lawyer."

Barrett808

[Barrett808]

8. Horsey ran my LTE

http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com.edgesuite.net/saturdayspin/175473_bqweb29.html

Regarding your Burning Question ("Is torturing war prisoners a betrayal of U.S. values?") I ask, "Which U.S. values do you mean?" Given the atrocious history of U.S. interventions in, for example, Latin America, defining what we mean by "U.S. values" is a difficult exercise. Consider these three examples (which are by no means aberrations):

Battalion 316 (Honduras)

Atlacatl Battalion (El Salvador)

Operation Condor (South America)

In each case, US-trained death squads (euphemistically, "paramilitaries") were deployed to destabilize (or support) regimes that displeased (or pleased) the administration. Under US sponsorship and direction, these state-sponsored terrorists prosecuted campaigns of torture (El Aguacate air base) and mass murder (El Mozote massacre) against small nations.

From these and many other cases, it would be easy to conclude that torture, mass murder, and war crimes are very much in the spirit of US values. State terror on this scale would not be possible without the associated US values of official denial and secrecy, enabled by a docile and incurious citizenry. John Negroponte, who is suspected by many of complicity with war crimes in Honduras, has been designated by Bush to head the new "embassy" in Baghdad; we can be forgiven for thinking that these unspoken US values will continue to guide policy.

Is torturing war prisoners a betrayal of U.S. values? The long and horrifying history of US interventions clearly tells us, "Not at all." Is torture a betrayal of the values of civilized people, as codified by the Geneva Conventions and international human rights laws? Of course. To this, Bush himself has expressed the traditional US values of arrogance and contempt for law: "International law? I'd better call my lawyer."

[maddezmom]

9. great letter, congrats

:)

[myopic4141]

7. Moral relativism

To adhere to Inhofe's stanch, one must believe that Inhofe and those of his ilk believe in moral relativism rather than good an evil. After all, stating that our atrocities are not as bad as Sadam Hussein's raises the difference to the lesser of two evils. His statement says as much about his depth of religious faith as it says about anything else. He is a religious man; but, not a person of faith.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

10. Is it? I dont think it is....we are pretty brutal.

There is alot of self-delusion in this country that we are "nice guys", when in reality we are pretty brutal.