61% of Americans think torture is okay?

[AZ Jeff]

Today, it's the Muslim vermin overseas. Tomorrow, we'll torture the Muslim Arabs in our country. Then, we'll torture all terrorists. Especially the fanatical, right-wing gun-toting extremists. Guns equal terror! You have guns? Off you go!

Why do so many of you seem to have trouble distinguishing between actions carried out by US Gov. personnel OVERSEAS and in ARMED CONFLICT against ENEMY COMBATANTS and actions carried out by law enforcement INSIDE THE US against LEGAL OCCUPANTS (citizens & legal foreign visitors)?

There is a HUGE difference. The B.O.R. NEVER was meant to apply to enemy combatants. Quit trying to apply it.

 

[NineseveN]

Why do so many of you seem to have trouble distinguishing between actions carried out by US Gov. personnel OVERSEAS and in ARMED CONFLICT against ENEMY COMBATANTS and actions carried out by law enforcement INSIDE THE US against LEGAL OCCUPANTS (citizens & legal foreign visitors)?

There is a HUGE difference. The B.O.R. NEVER was meant to apply to enemy combatants. Quit trying to apply it.

 

[ArmedBear]

Why do so many of you seem to have trouble distinguishing between actions carried out by US Gov. personnel OVERSEAS and in ARMED CONFLICT against ENEMY COMBATANTS and actions carried out by law enforcement INSIDE THE US against LEGAL OCCUPANTS (citizens & legal foreign visitors)?

There is a HUGE difference. The B.O.R. NEVER was meant to apply to enemy combatants. Quit trying to apply it.

Really? We don't guarantee freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, protection from search and seizure, or the right to keep and bear arms, to our enemies in wartime?

What have we become?!?

 

[Werewolf]

I just waded through this entire thread and beside taking a deep breath when it ended two thoughts popped into my head:

The first was: Well there's an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back.

The other derived from the frustration concerning the issue this thread is all about: I thought it... just kill 'em all and let GOD sort it out!

But then I remembered that it's been reported of late that GOD has become quite annoyed with the sorting process (see link) and that one really shouldn't think like that. Don't know about you but GOD is one being I'd rather not have ANNOYED at me!

 

[goosegunner]

Historicaly things have gone wrong everythime someones enemy are untermench.

 

[RomanKnight]

Why do so many of you seem to have trouble distinguishing between actions carried out by US Gov. personnel OVERSEAS and in ARMED CONFLICT against ENEMY COMBATANTS and actions carried out by law enforcement INSIDE THE US against LEGAL OCCUPANTS (citizens & legal foreign visitors)?
There is a HUGE difference. The B.O.R. NEVER was meant to apply to enemy combatants. Quit trying to apply it.

'cause the same US gov, which controls both military and law enforement, domestic and foreign, has the power to declare anybody "enemy combatant". That's why. Any legal occupant/US citizen can be called such by .gov, then the God-given, US constitution-guaranteed rights no longer apply. Remember Pastor Niermoller's quote about Nazis? First, they went for the Jews, then for the Communists, then the Lutherans, and he never spoke up, since he was not one of them. Eventually, they came for him, and there was no one left to defend him. Those who do not learn from history, are condemned to repeat it -Santayana.

Preacherman, you hit the nail on the head.
There is strong pressure, from the White House and in Congress, to get rid of the Posse Comitatus Act. Wonder why?

 

[AZ Jeff]

'cause the same US gov, which controls both military and law enforement, domestic and foreign, has the power to declare anybody "enemy combatant". That's why. Any legal occupant/US citizen can be called such by .gov, then the God-given, US constitution-guaranteed rights no longer apply.

I don't buy that as very plausible, at least at this time. The Posse Comitatus act currently prevents that.

Now as far as the Justice Dept. holding persons for indefinite periods, and other similar WOT missteps, yes that's unacceptable.

But as far as US military personnel engaging US citizens (or legal visitors) on US soil, and treating them as enemy combatants, I don't see that happening until Posse Comitatus is suspended or overturned.

 

[NineseveN]

Remember Pastor Niermoller's quote about Nazis? First, they went for the Jews, then for the Communists, then the Lutherans, and he never spoke up, since he was not one of them. Eventually, they came for him, and there was no one left to defend him. Those who do not learn from history, are condemned to repeat it -Santayana.

Are you seriously equating the Muslim extremist terrorists with the Jews, Communists and Lutherans during Nazi Germany? Are you friggen kidding me? So we have to save the terrorists so that the government cannot come after us?

I understand your point, "don't give the government too much power as it can be used against us and not the enemy", but this quote is completely absurd in this context and does not apply.

I agree, I don't like the FedGov having too much power either, however; there are plenty of things that the military is legally authorized to do against enemy combatants that they could not do on US soil to US citizens. The FedGov can do a lot of those things, but the US Mil and the Federal agencies are not one in the same. I think you're confusing the Patriot Act with using torture in order to extract information.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Are you seriously equating the Muslim extremist terrorists with the Jews, Communists and Lutherans during Nazi Germany? Are you friggen kidding me? So we have to save the terrorists so that the government cannot come after us?

The problem is that, with the present administration, a "terrorist" is anyone they say is a terrorist. I guess I'm hoplessly mired in semantics, but I seem hamstrung by the ridiculous notion that in order to be a "combatant" (enemy or otherwise), one must be engaged in, you know ... combat. But our Government seems to take the attitude that they can just wave a magic wand, point to whomever they choose, and say "You're a terrorist."

That's wrong.

 

[Manedwolf]

Are you seriously equating the Muslim extremist terrorists with the Jews, Communists and Lutherans during Nazi Germany? Are you friggen kidding me? So we have to save the terrorists so that the government cannot come after us?

I understand your point, "don't give the government too much power as it can be used against us and not the enemy", but this quote is completely absurd in this context and does not apply.

I agree, I don't like the FedGov having too much power either, however; there are plenty of things that the military is legally authorized to do against enemy combatants that they could not do on US soil to US citizens. The FedGov can do a lot of those things, but the US Mil and the Federal agencies are not one in the same. I think you're confusing the Patriot Act with using torture in order to extract information.

One word. Waco.

 

[AZ Jeff]

One word. Waco.

And this example of yours has exactly WHAT to do with the US Military?

 

[Don Gwinn]

Just offhand, they provided armored vehicles and helicopters which were used to lay siege and attack the Davidians. Maybe that's the connection he's talking about.

Are you seriously equating the Muslim extremist terrorists with the Jews, Communists and Lutherans during Nazi Germany?

I understand your point, "don't give the government too much power as it can be used against us and not the enemy", but this quote is completely absurd in this context and does not apply.

Answered that one yourself, didn't you? He was not equating "the terrorists" with anyone at all. He's not talking about whether terrorists should be tortured; he's talking about whether anybody the U.S. government labels a terrorist should be tortured.

 

[ArmedBear]

Answered that one yourself, didn't you? He was not equating "the terrorists" with anyone at all. He's not talking about whether terrorists should be tortured; he's talking about whether anybody the U.S. government labels a terrorist should be tortured.

...which is a diversion from his original post, which cited a poll that showed that a majority of Americans could imagine a time when it would be okay to torture a terrorist, and condemned the nation for it.

The poll did not define "torture."

The poll did not define "terrorist."

The poll did not define the instances where it would be okay to "torture a terrorist."

All of these questions are interesting, and imporant, and I, personally, agree almost entirely with the anti-torture, libertarian posts here. But none of this addresses the issue actually raised by the poll or by this thread.

And I, too, can imagine a time when it would be justified. That's all. Nothing more. That's all the poll asked.

And we know damn well that a third or more of our country is pretty hard-core statist, so that shouldn't shock anyone.

 

[AZ Jeff]

The problem is that, with the present administration, a "terrorist" is anyone they say is a terrorist. I guess I'm hoplessly mired in semantics, but I seem hamstrung by the ridiculous notion that in order to be a "combatant" (enemy or otherwise), one must be engaged in, you know ... combat. But our Government seems to take the attitude that they can just wave a magic wand, point to whomever they choose, and say "You're a terrorist."

That's wrong.

I agree with you to a point. Persons inside the US (citizens and foreigners here legally) should be entitled to all the protections of the BOR. That means that the .gov should not be able to declare a person in those geographic domains a "terrorist", suspend the BOR, and torture him.

On the other hand, persons OUTSIDE the US, especially those in a COMBAT ZONE, should NOT be allowed these priveledges.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

There are no touchy feelings. I don't worry about <enemies>. I worry about a .gov, especially a fed.gov, having the power to declare anybody, including American citizens, a "terrorist", for whom customary rights and protections do not apply. This is the slippery slope: once spiralling downwards, there's no turning back. Today, we -or the fed.gov- want to torture Muslim terrorists. Tomorrow, they'll call some other people/race/religion terrorists. Next week, they'll start talking -wait, they've been doing that since OKC in 95- about domestic terrorists, and how to protect us from them. Think of Hillary &the Brady bunch jumping on the bandwagon, and calling all civilian gun owners terrorists. Guns are terror. You own guns, you become a terrorist in the eyes of a .gov with the power to torture you. It's not that big of a stretch, and it's been done in other totalitarian dictatorships. It's much more difficult to keep a .gov from abusing its powers, than to preven it from aquiring those powers in the first place. US history is a perfect example of how a .gov intended to be very limited and restraint has grown into a monster who regulates everyone and everything. BTW, ragheads don't have an absolute monopoly on "having no compunction about killing as many innocent men, women and children as it takes".

Roman, isn't it amazing how few people seem to share the values that Americans used to acquire in school and from their families? It's really frightening. You can see how something similar must have happened in Germany in the 1920s and '30s. I never thought it would happen here, though. Patriotism is now measured, in the view of many Americans, based on your level of support for the government having the power to declare certain individuals (i.e., those the government has labelled as terror suspects or enemy combatants) less than human, and therefore deserving less than human rights. Blows me away.

 

[NineseveN]

The problem is that, with the present administration, a "terrorist" is anyone they say is a terrorist. I guess I'm hoplessly mired in semantics, but I seem hamstrung by the ridiculous notion that in order to be a "combatant" (enemy or otherwise), one must be engaged in, you know ... combat. But our Government seems to take the attitude that they can just wave a magic wand, point to whomever they choose, and say "You're a terrorist."

That's wrong.

One has nothing to do with the other. Whether or not the US military should be able to torture foreign enemy combatants in order to extract intelligence and the fact that our government has the power and may abuse it into doing the same to United States Citizens are not related. You cannot force a rule or restrict something based on whether or not you fear that someone may abuse it. That is the exact same logic the anti’s use against us. They’re afraid of the criminals getting guns and misusing them to commit crime and hurt innocents so they feel justified in trying to take our guns away so that we don’t become criminals or so that criminals cannot get their guns from use and commit such crimes.

It is not impossible to hold the following opinions:

1. The US military should be able to engage in some techniques that others would label as torture against foreign enemy combatants in order to extract very important intelligence.

2. The US government should never, under any circumstance, engage in or be complacent with torture or any mechanism that may be construed as torture (read, cruel and unusual) against a United States citizen. All rights guaranteed in the US Constitution apply, even to citizens of this country that are accused of terrorism.

Though, I can honestly see a real legitimate reason for the current administration to want to keep suspected terrorists out of the courts. There are enough anti-American lawyers and even judges that might just want to give this country a slap in the mouth by allowing a suspected terrorists to go free, or establish some sort of case law that severely hinders the prosecution of all terrorists. And upon seeing that, the fence-sitting Johnny-Jihad’s already in this country may be emboldened and well, this time it might not only be a couple of thousand dead. This may or may not be one of the reasons the current administration is doing what they are doing, I don’t know and cannot claim to, but it’s why I feel better knowing these roaches will never see themselves on Court TV and the cover of Time magazine.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Again, Camp David, I'm sorry to disagree, but I believe you're completely wrong on this.

Think about this. You're brought up as an American, believing in our system of laws, rights, values, etc. You enter our armed forces, voluntarily, to defend your country and what you believe in. You're then told to act in a way that completely ignores all those laws, rights and values in which you believe, and are furthermore told that this is justified because those upon whom you're inflicting torture are "not us" - that makes it OK.

Sorry, but this is a moral disconnect that's simply impossible. What's to stop that serviceman coming back and doing the same things to other Americans? After all, we've taught him that it's OK under certain circumstances - so what's to prevent him redefining the circumstances, to decide for himself when it's OK and when it's not?

If something is wrong, it's universally wrong - otherwise it's not "wrong" as such, but dependent upon circumstances. The same goes for something that's "right". If it's not a universal condition, it can't form part of a moral or ethical code of conduct, as no law or rule of behavior can be made conditional upon it. To say that torture is OK under certain circumstances, or against certain individuals, begs the question of precisely who defines the circumstances or selects the individuals, and what criteria are used in the definition and/or selection. If someone can designate a given circumstance or individual today, someone else can designate a different circumstance or individual tomorrow, and all pretence at a rule of law or a Constitutional mandate is lost - there is no longer an absolute authority. (And note that this completely ignores questions of religious morality - that's a whole other field, which is too explosive for this thread and this forum.)

We cannot claim to be a moral and/or ethical society if we make morality and/or ethics subject to circumstances. They either apply universally, or they're not moral or ethical standards at all - just opinions.

Preacherman, you said it better than I could have.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Anyone want to talk pragmatism? You know, how torture is ok if it saves some civilian lives? Well, let's see. How many people have terrorists killed worldwide in the history of the planet? A few thousand, perhaps? Let's be generous, and say a million people.

Now how about governments willing to use "terrorist tactics"? They've murdered at least 170 million innocent civilians in the last 105 years alone.

Terrorists are small potatoes. Peanuts. Negligible. Not worth worrying about - especially compared to the historic consequences of letting a government loose with the authority to abduct, torture, and murder.

+1

 

[NineseveN]

Answered that one yourself, didn't you? He was not equating "the terrorists" with anyone at all. He's not talking about whether terrorists should be tortured; he's talking about whether anybody the U.S. government labels a terrorist should be tortured.

He used a very specific example, and if he's not talking about terrorists abroad, but in actuality, talking about US citizens, then who are the Jews, Communists and Lutherans? Is there currently any religious group or race that is being prosecuted in this country? Muslims? Really, the US government is partaking in genocide against Muslims? Well, that's great to know.

In order for an example like his to apply, you have to have a coincidence.

I.e.
My friend Joe in China had his duck got taken away because the cops said ducks are dangerous. They're taking ducks away and killing them. Remember that the next time you walk your dog down Holywood and Vine.

This is just as bad of an example as his was, it proved nothing because one situation had nothing to do with the other.

In all seriousness, it was just a bad example, that's all. He could have made his point without it.

 

[FeebMaster]

Roman, isn't it amazing at how few people seem to share the values that Americans used to acquire in school and from their families? It's really frightening. You can see how something similar happened in Germany in the 1920s and '30s. I never thought it would happen here, though. Patriotism is now dependent on whether you support the government's power to declare individuals less than human, and therefore deserving less than human rights. Blows me away.

Americans never acquired those values in school. At least not government run schools.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Americans never acquired those values in school. At least not government run schools.

I think that, at one time, what you call government schools did in fact impart American values. I certainly learned from a lot of good teachers back in the 60s and 70s that our nation was founded on a belief in inalienable human rights that governments must be made to respect in their acts and laws, and that the alternative was to be like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. I'm sorry that wasn't your experience, but at least most of us learned this in the good old days, if not from school, then certainly from our parents.

My father, who is in his middle seventies now, was in a conversation with a Bush supporter a couple of months ago, and when the other guy was dismissing as unimportant the problems associated with torturing terror suspects for information, my father paused, then thoughtfully observed that it seemed to him that the kind of thing that had always made him particularly proud to be an American was that only the bad guys, not Americans, did things like that. We were the good guys, and were damned proud of it. He seemed perplexed that someone who he had always thought was pro-American held a view to the contrary. I was glad to see that my father's old timy American values have not faded in the current mad rush to get all the inconvenient laws out of the way of our government.

 

[jsalcedo]

Whatever happened to Americans being morally superior to their enemies.

We need to not lose ourselves in a delusional nationalism that excuses physical torture, political prisons, and using the term "terrorist" to excuse
denial of human rights.

America needs to wake up and regain the strong moral ground on these issues
because I fear we can easily become as evil as the terrorists we are fighting against.

As a side note:

All of the supposed Christians here need to carefully think about their postion
regarding the torture of our enemies.

 

[NineseveN]

Whatever happened to Americans being morally superior to their enemies.

We never really were, we just like the feeling we get when we delude ourselves into thinking that. While we were, "better" in a lot of ways, this moral superiority was self-proclaimed and really not a result of anything that actualy happened. We tried to do the right thing, and that was honorable; that did not mean that everything we did was righteous or that we held the moral high ground. All those things we'd like to think only the enemy does are things that we have done when we were sure no one was looking. That's just life, not impeaching the greatness of this nation, that's just the cold, hard reality of warfare. Nobody wins a war with a clean uniform.

 

[ArmedBear]

We never really were, we just like the feeling we get when we delude ourselves into thinking that. While we were, "better" in a lot of ways, this moral superiority was self-proclaimed and really not a result of anything that actualy happened. We tried to do the right thing, and that was honorable; that did not mean that everything we did was righteous or that we held the moral high ground. All those things we'd like to think only the enemy does are things that we have done when we were sure no one was looking. That's just life, not impeaching the greatness of this nation, that's just the cold, hard reality of warfare. Nobody wins a war with a clean uniform.

Right.

It's important not to call on a mythical past, but rather to call for what is right. If you think it's the best thing to claim the moral high ground, who cares if we're reclaiming it?

In WW II, we had the moral high ground, because we weren't killing Jews or raping Koreans, not because we were perfect.

In the Civil War, both sides had POW camps that would have made Ho Chi Minh proud. The Reconstruction was ugly, but before that, of course slavery was even uglier.

Let's CLAIM the moral high ground. The dead past can bury its dead.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

We never really were, we just like the feeling we get when we delude ourselves into thinking that. While we were, "better" in a lot of ways, this moral superiority was self-proclaimed and really not a result of anything that actualy happened. We tried to do the right thing, and that was honorable; that did not mean that everything we did was righteous or that we held the moral high ground. All those things we'd like to think only the enemy does are things that we have done when we were sure no one was looking. That's just life, not impeaching the greatness of this nation, that's just the cold, hard reality of warfare. Nobody wins a war with a clean uniform.

Sure. What Lincoln did to the South was unforgivable. He even imprisoned Northerners, without due process, just for disagreeing with him. But at least history has judged him as someone who illegitimately assumed dictatorial powers, i.e., he was not acting properly under our system of government. But I don't think that even a monster like Lincoln stooped to torturing captured Confederates for information. He starved them to death, but that's an atrocity somewhat inferior to torture, and more importantly it was done despite our safeguards, not because we decided as a nation to abandon those safeguards.