"It's over, Anakin. I have the high ground!" We all know how that ended. bleh

Anyway, I have to agree with getting rid of Rummy but why does it have to be on moral reasons? why not just the laws of the Geneva Convention?

I find it so bewildering that the American people can impeach a President over oral sex. But outting a CIA operative, going against the Geneva Human Rights convention, letting Henry Kissinger run free, going to war over cherry picked intelligence. Oh that's all fine and forgivable.

Yes, please.

Rummy, you're fired!

(someone let him know please?)

I wonder if a grass root pink slip campaign would send a signal.

Excellent idea, invaderSil! Let's start one!!!

I´m always happy to see that there are still these kind of people in the US.

Oorah! When I was a Marine, we were given instruction in the Geneva Convention. It was all very clear-- it was not to be violated in any case. No one ever told us that it could be violated because our enemy did not abide by it. No amount of evil on the part of our enemies removes our obligation to be Americans. Part of being Americans is to do our best to abide by the Law of Armed Conflict.

"Part of being Americans is to do our best to abide by the Law of Armed Conflict."

I know I do my part! Some middle-eastern-looking fellow in a BMW cut me off on my way to work this morning.
I let it pass.


(j/k TCA)

LOL, fletch

Just a couple of points for polite, intellectually honest discussion.

In a society, laws change all the time according to the will of the people. Why are the laws of war adopted 60 years ago immutable today? The General there in the video talks as if the convention is impossible to change, perfect and unamendable for the remainder of eternity. I think the GC is a good thing, but I don't want to go so far as to say it is more sacrosanct than any other law. Even the US Constitution (wish my country had a Constitution) can be amended, why not the GC?

On moral grounds, aren't there extreme circumstances in which torture is warranted? For example, you capture a terrorist involved in a nuclear plot... isn't any method moral in such a case? Is one to believe that it is really more moral to allow millions to die just to avoid inflicting some pain on the terror-plotter? I think there must be cases where any form of questioning is acceptable. Is sleep deprivation, slapping, loud music, etc. really torture? Shouldn't the definition of torture be limited to techniques that cause bodily harm?

I don't really know anything about Rumsfeld's handling of the DoD. I know Democrats hate him, and some Republicans too - I don't really have enough information to form an opinion. So I'm not defending Rumsfeld. Just questioning some of the reasoning in the clip and in some of the comments here.

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful responses... I'm really interested in how some of you come to some of your conclusions.

peretz pt 1:

Bush loves the extreme hypothetical of torturing Osama bin Laden as he is on the brink of nuking NYC. We all know that this a comic book fantasy and we love this fantasy in the same way we love it when Jack Bauer tortures the bad guys on 24 or Clint Eastwood shoots people in the face in Dirty Harry. It is pure good triumphing over unalloyed degenerate evil. In this limited hypothetical, I do believe that you can find torture to be moral in a purely utilitarian sense if only because it prevents more harm than it creates.

However, I would still want this behavior to be illegal. I want to live in a society where torture is considered aberrant and disgusting. Would you or I break this law in the bin Laden hypothetical? Absolutely. And then our behavior would be transparent, analyzed by a jury of our peers if necessary, and we would never be convicted (just like thieves weren't charged and convicted during Hurricane Katrina). Would you or I break the law if some Pakistani guy told us that the schlubby brown-skinned guy on the corner was aiming nukes at New York? Maybe we would be more deliberate and careful in our actions and investigate the matter further before we started waterboarding people.

peretz pt 2:

I believe that there is a far more common and realistic hypothetical out there in the wacky lawless (or "shock the conscience" standard) world of the Rumsfeld Archipelago. There is the recent case of Maher Arar.

This man was innocent. The Canadian intelligence was wrong and unreliable. He was tortured for little reason by a nation that supposedly embraced the Enlightenment long ago and supposedly hated Stalinism. And judging from what my colleagues have told me, there are many more people like him (cabdrivers, uneducated waterboys, people that rubbed Pakistanis the wrong way) than plotters like the evil bin Laden in the secret prisons and Guantanamo.

Of course, the other issue that attaches to your question is whether Congress really wants to make the United States the first civilized nation in modern times to specifically provide unbridled executive/monarchical discretion for what would properly and universally be seen as a transparent breach of the minimum, baseline standards for civilized treatment of prisoners established by Common Article 3. I hate the idea of removing the checks or oversight on any of the branches of the US Government, especially this venal and corrupt Executive Branch.

rickegee:

It's not an extreme hypothetical that only happens on 24 or other Hollywood productions. A live case in point is Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. He was, according to ABC's Brian Ross, waterboarded. He yielded and gave up realtime information that was used in stopping several concrete attacks inside the US. Hundreds of lives were saved. I don't see how refraining from strong interrogation, and even torture, would have been the moral choice in this case, and many others. If a captured terrorist has operational details of attacks, it seems to me that using whatever means necessary to extract the information and save lives is the clear moral imperative.

Arar was not innocent of being in the country illegally, hence he was deported according to civil procedures. I'm not sure what makes his stories about being tortured credible. Seems to me like he's just got an axe to grind and is enjoying his 15 minutes.

You didn't really address the question on why the GC should be immutable, or I didn't understand you to answer it. My basic premise is this: Between two countries that are fighting according to these laws of war, by all means the laws of war should be followed. But when fighting against a country that doesn't observe the same laws or against terrorists that don't clearly represent any country whatsoever, how is it that the GC applies in the first place?

In days of yesteryear, people had duels according to certain rules. For example, the duelers would pick from identical weapons, stand back-to-back, walk 20 paces, turn and fire. If one dueler attempts to observe the rules while the other clearly does not (tries to turn to fire at 2 paces, for instance), what value are the rules? If the one insists on dueling according to these rules while the other refuses the rules, the "honorable" one in this case is just being stupid.

Of course torture should be considered aberrant and disgusting in society. But we're not talking about "in society," we're talking about outside of society. Indeed, we are talking about what actions are moral in combating those who wish to destroy society altogether.

peretz pt 1:

I would never go so far as to say the GC is immutable or perfect. Laws rarely are. But your premise, as extended, has the effect of completely removing the moral underpinnings of civil society. If I accept your premise that the rules/laws do not apply when you are dealing with those who are lawless, then I must accept and trust the idea that you know for an absolute certainty that everyone that you round up and torture will be "lawless."

Let us say that police brutality is disgusting and unacceptable, but when you are dealing with criminals, then it is OK because criminals do not follow the law. We can also say that using chemical and biological weapons is wrong, but if someone like Saddam has them and is going to use them against our troops, then we can drop chemical amnd biological weapons on all of the people of Baghdad so equal footing in the duel is restored.

peretz pt 2:

Your path combined with the inherent secrecy of Cheney Administration can only lead to totalitarianism. Your premise and the practice of this Administration depends on my accepting without proof that you know exactly who all of the bad people are. In the cases of SKM and OBL, this is a very simple calculus. However, I contend that you must keep the baseline protections such as the GC even for "unlawful combatants" because there always are those who will be falsely accused, actually innocent, or truly void of any actionable intelligence. And the Bush Administration has shown no great competence in developing reliable intelligence, building nations, or even building solid cases against many of the detainees.

Arar was only guilty of being in the country without papers. For that, a Canadian citizen was deliberately deported not to Canada but to a prison in Syria, an enemy country, a known terrorist haven, and a known human rights offender. You may blame ABC or CBS all you want, but it is a disgraceful series of events. I pray that you are never in the US without the appropriate documentation if the reasoned response from the US government will be to send you to a prison in Syria or the Sudan rather than back to Israel.

Lets face it: the Bush administration has no respect for any rules; no matter who/how/when they are formed. For example: Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Geneva Convention, US Constitution etc. Never mind the agreements they avoided signing in the first place: Kyoto Climate Control and the International War Crimes Court - no suprise there then!

I think the Bush Administration is fine with rules so long as they can contextualize the rule to the point of absolute meaninglessness.

Case in point: Torture defined as that which "shocks the conscience" and subsequently defended by Rove, Bush, and company as a "clear" standard. Shocks whose conscience? Dick Cheney's? the Abu Ghraib wahoos? My conscience? Noam Chomsky's?

peretz:

Your argument reminds me of the French colonel's speech in The Battle of Algiers. If anyone has not seen that movie, drop the Sift and go get it.

Why are tools like these two wanting to coddle those who torture and kill NONcombatants such as journalists and humanitarian aid workers; an enemy who boobytraps the dead bodies of American troops with explosives?

Moral high ground? We're not fighting a war against even semi-civilized soldiers of a legitimate nation.

islamofacists are subhumans who use their own women and children as bullet shields and homicide bombers. Do you think THEY give a damn about 'rules of war?'

This enemy can't be reasoned with and they are part of no country's armed forces. The GC does not apply here.

mecca delenda est.

"Mecca must be destroyed." Great.

qm, you only missed the original Crusades by 10 or so centuries.
Pity that.

In the intervening 1000 years, God died and we're alone.
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=6721

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