From the Washington Post:
The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition.”
“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution.
You can’t put someone on trial with evidence obtained this way and expect to deliver any form of real justice. This is why closing Gitmo is going to be harder than just shipping everyone somewhere else or letting them go home.
Yes, it is bad. At least we didn’t use the pantie torture like we did at Abu Ghraib. That would have really be beyond all civilized behavior. I guess we should have treated him in accordance with strict muslim rules of hospitality and merely decapitated him with a dull knife. Or better yet drop a wall on him like good muslims do to homosexuals. Surely either of those two activities would show the world how civilized we are. Maybe if we did that, people like Judy would be proud of her country for the first time in her life. *sniff*
Oh, Cannon, how in the world can you support torture? When Muslims do those things, they are WRONG. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I have always been proud of my country, and will continue to be, but wrong is wrong and right is right. Torture is wrong no matter who does it.
So, Cannon, you would like to be just as evil as our enemies? Well, yes, that would prove that we are the light of liberty in the world and the beacon of justice.
And I suppose you spend your lonely nights playing with your Jack Bauer “24” action figure.
Torture Judy? Torture? The things your side has defined as torture. Our guard dogs barking at them. TORTURE! Throwing fake menstrual blood on them? Torture! (Heck PETA throws fake blood on people and you praise them.) Playing loud music? (Greenpeace does that to scare away whales and you praise them.) Putting panties on their heads? (Heck people pay money for that treatment here in America, to each their own I guess…)
Your side has so valued down the term torture that it has no freaking meaning. You think that putting freaking panties on the heads of our captives is just as evil as they are? After all *that* is torture too, right? What the heck are you smoking? (But I guess it is the same as supporting a crucifix in urine as great art (Piss Christ) while engaging in a deafening silence against the awful cartoons of mohammad with a bomb turban. (how dare religion be attacked in that way?))
Heck Mustang looking at your banner I see that at the very least you are a supporter of the homosexual lifestyle. Guess what, we (those who support the war on terror) are doing more to support your free expression than you are willing to do. Muslims are killing homosexuals in the Mid East. (Stoning them to death.) Remember when the Iranian Thug-in-Chief dropped by for a little speech at Columbia? His claim? There are no homosexuals in Iran. Hey if we really did know of any we should tell him so they could be studied. Instead of protesting that, your colifestyle supporters are whining that despite all the contracts you can enter giving you the exact same benefits of marriage you won’t be happy until those evil christian churches are forced to “marry” you.
If the people we were fighting in the Mid East were Christians you and your ilk would be very supportive of it. Let me guess, you supported the Waco action back in 1993. Those religious freaks deserved having the government come down on them. After all it’s not like they killed anyone, they were breaking the law by having illegal guns. They needed the tanks brought against them! Muslims on the other hand are AOK! They behead people, but only those who deserve it! After all they are the Religion of Peace(tm).
There are only two ways this war on terror is going to end. 1) We beat them into submission ala Germany and Japan in WWII or 2) We withdraw all support from Israel and when that doesn’t work we sell arms to the muslims to attack Israel and when that doesn’t work we actively assist them in killing the joooooos and then put our women in sacks and adopt a total fundamentalist mohammadian (pigs be upon him) mindset. The very fundamentalist mindset which would subject you Mustang and you Judy to very real torture, not merely the playing of loud music.
You can come up with all the justifications you want, but when you adopt the same methods as your enemy, you become your enemy.
I define torture the way the Uniform Code of Military Justice does. What they did was torture.
It’s too bad — for you — that the laws and the Constitution get in the way of your sense of vengeance.
Vengeance? Vengeance? Have you looked in the mirror? “Bwahahaha in 5 days WE WILL HAVE THE POWER!!! We will send BU$HITLER TO THE HAGUE!!!” sentiments I am sure you agree with Bobby.
Let’s take a look at the Uniform Code of Military Justice Chapter 47 Section 1091
“(6) the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States and the applicable guidance and regulations of the United States Government prohibit the torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of foreign prisoners held in custody by the United States; …”
Please tell me what is cruel, inhuman, or degrading about enforced isolation. Please tell me what is cruel, inhuman, or degrading about the “torture” of flushing pages of the koran down a toilet. (The big fake (in that it never happened) torture story that newsweek put out a couple of years ago.)) Please tell me what is cruel, inhuman, or degrading about being guarded by female jailers. What about playing loud music short of the volume which causes hearing damage? What is cruel, inhuman, or degrading about that? (Unless, of course, it is Celine Dion on continuous loop… there, a reasonable person would agree, is torture.)
All of those items you and your ilk describe as torture. As I said, you have dumb down the term torture.