Comments on: The Company We Keep (Guest Voice)

By: shaun

shaun — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:48:12 +0000

Mr. Winship:

Thank you for being one of the too few voices to speak out forcefully on torture.

By: Information » Dissident Vietnamese monk dies in Vietnam

Information » Dissident Vietnamese monk dies in Vietnam — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:24:48 +0000

[...] The Company We Keep (Guest Voice)The burners of witches and the medieval masters of thumbscrews and Iron Maidens, the interrogators of the Spanish inquisition, the North Vietnamese soldiers who beat John McCain and his fellow American prisoners of war into false … [...]

By: JSpencer

JSpencer — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 05:26:43 +0000

Neocon, your greater point about the irrationality of war is a valid one, but as a basis for excusing torture it fails, especially when you try to characterize torture as little more than making someone “uncomfortable”. I have zero doubt you would change your tune 180 degrees if your acquaintanceship was more direct. It's easy to tune out empathy when you're at a comfortable remove.

By: Mike_P

Mike_P — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:56:12 +0000

Now, what do we say to the “interrogators” the next time our troops are captured by enemies? We no longer have the moral standing to protest that treatment of our own men and women. Why do the Bush Administration and the defenders of US torture techniques “hate our troops?”

Torture produces unreliable information. Perhaps there's a kernel of truth in the ill gained confessions, perhaps not. McCain himself has said he lied to his torturers to get them to stop. I certainly would. So would the average Gitmo detainee, I'd bet. How many false leads have we followed – wasting money, time and human resources chasing lies? And we still have no proof any actionable info has come from the torture we committed, just vague assurances from those with the most to lose should the opposite be true. But we do know for a fact we are now increasingly unable to try those detainees because the “evidence” against them was obtained through torture.

My nation has joined the Khmer Rouge, the Soviet Union, the North Vietnamese, the Imperial Japanese, the North Koreans, the Third Reich and the Red Chinese in torturing its prisoners. Many of the perpetrators of those nations' torture regimes were sentenced to death and executed for the war crime of torture – by us.

But they're all so 20th century. America – the New Face of Torture in the 21st century!

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:15:18 +0000

After giving the matter a great deal of thought and doing a fair amount of reading the subject, this is the conclusion I have reached: Yes Mohommad Atta and the other instigators of the 9/11 plot deserved to be tortured. However, we do not deserve the debasement that comes from being a nation that tortures. It is to easy to descend from we will only torture in a ticking time-bomb situation to a nation where torture becomes routine. When it is combined with contempt for habis corpus, it becomes merely a way to lash out against Arabs, whether they had anything to do with terrorism or not. I am convinced that God is even now as we speak rendering judgement on suicide bombers. We are not God and should not be taking on his/her role.

By: runasim

runasim — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:29:07 +0000

Aside from corrupting our government and destroying the credibility, and thus effectiveness, of the US internationally, the worst effect of the torture policy has been the corruption of American minds and souls.

The apologists and defenders of torture abandon the basic principle that there is such a thing as right vs wrong. While I'm not a purist, I recognize at every step that a moral compass can't be abandoned or we become no more than beasts in the jungle.
The moral corruption has become so bad, that not even a pragmatic argument -torture doesn't work- can penetrate the wall of denial and apologia.

It is, indeed, .remarkable how similar the arguments in defense of torture are to the arguments used to burn witches or 'explain' the need for the methods of the Spanish Inquisition.

After several centuries of progress in leaving the mental Dark Ages, the trajectory in the US was reversed by the Bush adninistration,.
We need to get back on the trajectory to enlightened thinking,to save ourselves.
Twisted, morally corrupt excuses just won't do.

By: Neocon

Neocon — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:44:02 +0000

Its okay to kill them but not make them uncomforable while extracting information.

This is just such a bizarre concept for me to rationalize. Its okay to bomb, kill, maim and destroy people and property but its not okay to capture these people and deprive them of sleep.

People that we just tried to KILL but failed so then we take them prisoner and in the course of those events we try to get them to tell us what they know.

Killing is okay.

Making them uncomfortable is not.

Killing is acceptable means of conducting yourself on the battlefield because its kill or be killed and yet the people that we kill........would torture our people to no end before killing them.

So the entire process of war is irrational. Kill them but if you fail to kill them then give them their habeus corpus rights and try them. For what? Doing what we are doing? Fighting a war? Why are they criminals and we are not?

Wars are ugly business. I just don't understand either side of the mentality of fighting one. Kill but be nice. Death with honor......bullshit.......death is death. There is no honor in dieing. Only Death.