I think some of what he have done crossed well over the line of making prisoners feel uncomfortable. Not that I sympathize with terrorists but there are some rules of civilization we are supposed to live by. Pressure and coerce them for information that may prevent future terrorist acts? -- fine. Waterboarding and hooking prisoners to electrodes? -- no. Khalid Mohammed (sp.?), who recently "confessed" to everything under the sun, probably can't spell cat any more.

We are in agreement that way too much blame was pushed down to low level soldiers and away from the higher-ups who ordered how interrogations should be done. Even when it was only group behavior getting out of hand, as I believe a lot of the stuff at Abu Ghraib was, someone in a position of control should have put a stop to it. And if they didn't know, they should have.


>The current definition in its purest form suggests that anything done which makes you feel uncomfortable could be defined as torture. I don't agree with that. (I've posted that before here) It's like a huge pendulum swinging in the opposite direction now and there will be much less information gathered via humint sources because of the recent situation. That doesn't mean that what ocurred at those locations was not illegal and was not torture, but just that not all of it was. The real problem is with oversight and control of national guard and reserve units (down to the lowest level) in the time of war.
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>>I am embarrassed about it, even if that isn't the perfect word. We just have different views here. Is this entirely new? OK, maybe it isn't. History will judge that as well. I do believe the degree and the unapologetic nature of it are new for us.
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>>Why do you italicize 'torture'? Are you suggesting the stuff we have been doing at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, among other places we may not even know about yet, is not torture?
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>>>Be embarrassed then Mike. The type of 'torture' described during Bush's tenure has been ocurring since the early 80s that I know of. It is not a new thing to our country. (In most cases, I don't actually consider it 'torture' but a few of the situations do fall into torture in my opinion). Even WORSE has happened in foreign countries under the umbrella of the U.S. The difference is that in the past, those who knew of it were not allowed to speak of it and the public had no idea. Sending U.S. prisoners to lockup in foreign countries has been ocurring since the 70s. Often, U.S. handlers would 'hand over' the prisoner to a friendly country (under international agreement) and let them get the information which would then be shared with us. It has ocurred under ALL Presidents. Worse, I can imagine the treatment of any prisoner with knowledge of Nick Berg's assassins in the hands of any interrogator I knew...
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>>>>>>It really is true that you can torture anything out of someone. The problem is that they really do say whatever it is they think you want to hear and alot of mumbo jumbo too. You can get anyone to confess to anything. That's the problem with it. Not to mention the real issue: it's not humane.
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>>>>>True, it isn't humane, but neither is war. These are strategies to be employed after humanity has left the room. As for the confessions, I would use this to garner intel, not confessions. The intel can be checked for validity and if it is false, you could torture the guy in front of others while telling them why!
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>>>>Unless I am hopelessly naive, the U.S. has not stooped to torture on this scale until now. It hardly makes me proud to be an American that we have adopted the tactics of barbarians. Our President has explicitly said we don't need to be too concerned about the Geneva Conventions. Don't we claim to be better than that? I know you don't agree, it's Bush Uber Alles for you, but this will be remembered as a shameful period in our nation's history. And I don't mean that in a Republican vs. Democrat way at all. I would be just as embarrassed if Bush were a Democrat.