Middleground
: David Weinberger tries to find a middleground and I think he succeeds:
I am willing to admit that there are circumstances in which torture is permissible, just as I think sometimes we have to kill people. And I’m willing to admit that what we apparently put the Abu Ghraib prisoners through wasn’t nearly as bad as the torture that’s routine in many other countries.
Is the right willing to admit that: Torture should only be used in the direst of circumstances? Torture should never be a cause for the exulting shown in the photos? The people responsible for allowing the wholesale torture at Abu Ghraib need to be punished severely, quickly and publicly not only for the sake of justice but to try to limit some of the damage the practice has done to our war on terror?
Can we get even to that common ground? Can we as a nation say that we abhor torture, except in the rarest of cases? That we do not believe in the institutionalizing of torture? That we will fight it around the world? That we believe in the rule of law and that no one is above the law? That we believe in treating even our enemies with dignity? That we support the established international conventions for treating prisoners? That we are sorry about what went on at Abu Ghraib?
In a word: Yes.
Are the gleeful anti-Americans who are trying to make such great hay out of Abu Ghraib willing to admit that almost all of what went on there is not really “torture?”
That’s the operative question, as far as I’m concerned. The day we call putting hoods on naked men “torture” is the day we devalue the term beyond all usefulness.
Torture is: 1. a. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion. b. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
The American Heritage
Why is everyone trying to rationalize their way out of this box. “That wasn’t really torture.” “That wasn’t as bad as what Saddam did.” C’mon people. What’s being shown (and Rumsfeld acknolwedged that many more photos and videos exist showing even worse acts) is horrific, is wrong, and fully deserves the characterization as “torture.”
As artcle 17 of the 3rd Geneva Convention states:
“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”
Don’t do this. Don’t play semantic games. Being humiliated, being exposed, forced into sex positions in the nude–all of these things are anethema to the Muslim people.
These men would rather have been beaten.
These acts were done to break these men. No more, no less. If that’s not ‘torture’, then I don’t understand the purpose behind torture.
Whether you agree with the use of torture or not, don’t sit at home in your comfy chair looking in computer and defined what torture is for a people you don’t know, and will never face directly.
From the 1984 Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment:
The convention defines torture as
These soilders should be punished if for no other reason than the fact that they took pictures of it. You don’t take pictues. What were they thinking?
Maybe that is the whole problem with this whole thing. They just weren’t thinking.
This was made known back in January and no one paid any attention until their were pictures.
“As artcle 17 of the 3rd Geneva Convention states”
One problem with this, these are not prisoners of war so it does not apply
To anyone who argues that what happened to those Iraqi prisoners isn’t torture: I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t still have that opinion if armed authority figures had forced YOU to strip naked and put another man’s penis in your mouth while they took pictures of you.
Weinberger’s claims that conservatives condone torture, and he only rolls around in his fake self-examination routine in order to get off a few cheap shots.
Conservatives are telling the Left to get off its moral high horse on this issue not because we feel that it’s OK to whip-up on Arabs, but because we feel they’re overplaying their hand, again.
And yes, we wonder where all this new-found outrage was when Saddam was in charge, just as we wonder where their new-found reverence for Vietnam service was while the war was actually raging over there.
In the overall scheme of things, I’d rather be thought insensitive than hypocritical.
“And yes, we wonder where all this new-found outrage was when Saddam was in charge, just as we wonder where their new-found reverence for Vietnam service was while the war was actually raging over there.”
Just as much outrage then. But we didn’t enter this war because we felt horrible for the people Saddam was torturing.
And what does this have to do with Vietnam? Nope, re-read Jeff’s post, and David’s. No Vietnam.
Richard, do you have these unexplained connections between unrelated things, often? You might want to check that with a doctor.
Nowhere do I say that if our laws were broken (and courts will determine that) these men and women should not be punished. But semantics are not tricks. If words are twisted to change their meanings entirely, then we lose the ability to communicate.
For instance, to the commenter who mentions fellatio: millions of homosexuals perform that act every day. Are they being “tortured?” Not in any definitional sense of which I am aware.
“For instance, to the commenter who mentions fellatio: millions of homosexuals perform that act every day. Are they being “tortured?” Not in any definitional sense of which I am aware.”
Oh, so that’s why so many people try to prevent gay marriage and make being gay illegal–gays are doing these acts on each other against their will, and they are horrified by it, and want it all to stop.
But, Bill, thank you for that comment. Truly. I must repeat it elsewhere. It will become a classic. Believe me.
pics of merlin the wizard
A guy is being ‘tortured’ because he is being forced to wear some panties on his head?
Female Genital Mutilation is widespread in the Middle East. Funny they haven’t mentioned this torture.
Keith – these are prisoners of war! No one (including Rumsfeld himself) has said otherwise. This is not a statement of opinion, it is legal fact recognized internationally. (Recall, the prisoners in G-Bay are enemy combatants – but the Iraqi prisoner are, indeed, POWs) In fact, the Geneva Convention also applies for those held in prison by an “occupying force” for criminal acts. So anyone in prison for a criminal act is also afforded the same protections.
If I knew a doctor who could treat the inability to think abstractly, I’d give you a referral, Shelley, but as I don’t you’ll have to get your medicine from me.
The primary topic on the table is torture, and the secondary topic is our reaction to it. The opposing parties in the discussion are the Left and the Right; you and Weinberger are on the left. You’re expressing great outrage at the torture of Iraqi and non-Iraqi Al Qaeda at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at the hands of American men and women. This is a good sentiment on your part, and it almost makes you look like a decent and caring person, except — you never expressed a fraction of this outrage when Saddam’s people were conducting torture at the very same prison, which they did for decades. And if you want to tell me that you did, please indulge me with a little link or two.
Your reaction to this event is hypocritical, and if we’re willing to examine your recent history, we’ll find many more instances of hypocrisy in what you now choose to condemn and what you now choose to praise.
There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?
For instance, to the commenter who mentions fellatio: millions of homosexuals perform that act every day. Are they being “tortured?” Not in any definitional sense of which I am aware.
So Bill, if millions of people engage in sexual intercourse everyday, then how do you stand on the possibility of rape being a crime? I’m fascinated. Please elaborate at great length.
As noted elsewhere, I’d despair of finding a middle ground too, if I were starting from Noam Chomsky and his following on the left. Using Rush Limbaugh as a PosterBoy for the right is a pretty self-defeating (and lazy, IMO) commencement point.
Richard, I didn’t know you’ve been a fan of mine lo these three+ years of weblogging, to know, so well, what I have or have not written? I’m flattered. Honored really.
As for links, go ahead and search on Iraq at my weblog and look at posts pre-Iraq. The issue I had then, and still do, is that a war to free the people from tyranny, is a different type of war than one faught to supposedly protect onself. I was for a war to free the Iraq people, with full international support and according to international law. I was not for a unilateral war to look for so-called WMD.
Now returning to topic, if I didn’t condone Saddam’s behavior, why would I condone our own? To be honest, it sounds like President Bush rather agrees with me, then you. Isn’t that quaint how events can make such odd bedfellows?
So I can’t see the hypocrisy, unless you want to bring out a definition of it that contradicts my own understanding. Go ahead. I’ll wait….
And my dear Richard, you can strip me naked, put a bag over my head, eletrodes on my hands and force me to stand on a chair for hours, and I still will not admit to being a hypocrit.
Nor will I condone torture, by any people, in any circumstances. That you can bank on.
My pardon, I mean look for posts pre-Iraq invasion.
Dear, dear, dear. I am tired tonight.
It should be hypocrite.
Tsk.
And my dear Richard, you can strip me naked, put a bag over my head, eletrodes on my hands and force me to stand on a chair for hours…
Sounds like fun, but I’m a married man and my wife would probably object. But back to the debate…
Please post a link – just one – where you criticized Saddam for torturing people. Just one little link, that’s all I ask. Surely you can do that much for world peace.
I’m sure she would. No disrespect to the good missus.
Sigh, Richard. If you’re not willing to toodle on over and do a tiny search just to prove me wrong, then you must just be suffering from a deepset and hopefully non-fatal version of ennui, rather than any real interest.
And you know, I think I actually said things against Saddam when he killed the Kurds using chemical weapons. But that was pre-blog, more’s the pity.
And I remember getting into a debate about how Powell didn’t provide help to the Shiites when they asked for it, to ground Saddam’s helicopters, before Saddam killed thousands of them. But alas, that was pre-blog too.
In fact, I was not happy that George senior didn’t finish the job with Saddam years ago. Just because we were so afraid of the Iranians and another country being led by religious fundamentalists. Sigh, too bad, so sad.
But alas, no weblog then. Why, that was even pre-Dave Winer! And that’s old, old, old in blog terms. Practically out and out creaking around.
So, there you go sweetie. A lovely little ‘gotcha’ wrapped up just for you.
(And the sweetie is purely platonic — tell the missus no worries.)
I posted the comment about the “torture” shown in the photos being comparable to fraternity hazing, but, that does not mean that I was not outraged by it. I was and am. It is torture and it is wrong. The point I was making was that the severity of the crime did not justify the severity of the “outrage”.
The “outrage” that I am talking about is the fake wailing and gnashing of the teeth coming from those that oppose what we are doing in Iraq. These people do not care about the prisoners in those photos, except for their propaganda value.
Exactly, David – it’s alligator tears and nothing more.
I feel like I’m fillig up Jeff’s comments, and hope he doesn’t mind.
David I appreciate the fact that you added the additional commentary about your point.
But what so many who seem to be pushing back at the outrage forget is that this is saving our butt in the Middle East.
There was a reason that both Bush and Rumsfeld have apologized for these photos, and been just as visibly outraged. The only hope we have to salvage something from this debacle is to express outrage to beat even the outrage being expressed in Arab countries.
If we don’t in this country cry out in one voice our disgust, we’ve just given every terrorist organization in ths world a terrific boost in the arm.
Something the ‘far right’ might want to chew on for a bit.
Shelley, my dear, you’re in the horns of a dilemma. You say there’s a big difference between an invasion for liberation and one for national security, premised on international law and whatnot, and then you trash Powell/Bush for not kicking Saddam’s ass in ’92. Excuse me, but that dog won’t hunt.
At a military level, war is war – you bomb, you invade, you shoot, you imprison – pretty standard stuff. The reasons for doing this – national security on one side and the liberation of suffering humanity on the other – aren’t necessarily at odds with each other. Most genocidal tyrants who’re willing to mass-slaughter their own people are willing to apply the same methods to others, so it’s really a matter of killing two birds with one stone.
There’s no excuse in international law for a humanitarian intervention, a violation of national sovereignty. The UN has never sanctioned the removal of a dictator unless he was threatening his neighbors. Bush I couldn’t depose Saddam in ’92 because he was victim of the international coalition that supported the expulsion of Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. That group expressly limited the mission the restoration of Kuwait’s sovereignty.
So if you want to overthrow a tyrant in order to liberate suffering humanity, you have to flout international law, just as we did in Kosovo and Bosnia. That’s how it works.
Conservative and muscular liberals who supported the liberation of Iraq have the compassion thing on their side, and those of you who supported the status quo are on slippery turf with your latter-day claims to caring about the poor suffering Iraqi people.
On the web, we can fact-check your ass.
The point I was making was that the severity of the crime did not justify the severity of the “outrage”.
Whose “outrage” are you talking about? There is a lot of “outrage” voiced in many ways in sundry circles around the world.
I just know that if I am ever tortured, please let my torturers be some Americans and not the people who imprisoned Daniel Pearl, or the people who tie prisoners up and then gut them alive and the prisoner dies as his guts hit the ground, or cutting off both legs and making prisoners run on the stumps till they drop dead, or raping women and then cutting their breasts off. That, my friends, is torture, and muslims do it all the time. Where is the outrage? When muslims want to play by the same rules as they demand of others, then I will have sympathy. If they have such aversion to nakedness, then why the hell do they rape and sodomoize female prisoners–remember the doctor in Gulf war 1? She was naked. She was humiliated. Did the muslims apologize? Let’s have the same rules for everyone.
I have no moral objection to the use of torture in the textbook cases of “ticking bombs”, where time is of the essence to save innocent lives. What worries me with even opening the door to torture is where do we draw the line on who and when we torture? Surely the events of the past week has shown that we can’t leave these decisions to most people: when in position of power over others in these extreme situations these things occur even when there are legal safeguards for the protection and treatment of prisoners. Imagine if torture is legalised, the excesses we would soon see. Further as a society do we want to carry that around with us? do we want to be corrupted, descending to levels we’re above, in this war?
Regarding those who have been decrying the outrage or making comparisons with other countries. It’s weasely. You don’t justify an obscene act by pointing out the bad behaviour of others (I notice that many of these people are also the ones who say we’re a moral nation – so either we’re more moral therefore comparisons with others are irrelevant or we’re not moral and we should be judged by the same standards).
Just wait until the other shoe drops and the video comes out… you’ll see what torture is. Rumsfeld tried to warn everyone today that the worst is yet to come out yet!
Just imagine taking over 5,000 images of torture, for fun, and making “screen savers” on your pc of the best shots. What Geneva convention?
It is time to leave the torture-apologists to their own little fantasies comparing apples and oranges. Why don’t you just stop comparing American soldiers to terrorists. They are soldiers and terrorists are terrorists. To compare/contrast soldiers’ behavior to terrorists’ behavior is a terrible disservice to the hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women serving our country. Why don’t you instead praise the soldiers who had the courage to bring these disgusting, dishonorable acts to light.
Torture produces information of dubious value. The victim will say anything to make it stop. It only kills or maims the victim. It enflames, enrages and incites the populace. It is also repugnant to Americans.
Frat party hazing is still abuse. It is condemned on campus. The participants are all volunteers. When it happens at the threat of death, it is worse.
I see good coming from this incident as it did from My Lai. The Army learned, adapted, adopted and changed.
The ME is getting a great lesson in the way democracies can handle scandal. They are seeing that acts can be brought forth, to the highest level, and persons held accountable.
They are also seeing the crimes and response in contrast to what happened under Saddam and still happens in Syria, Iran, Egypt etc.
They are also seeing that the US and the ME have a common value in the rights of prisoners. This could lead to something wonderful, altho it may take a while.
I think Ebb Tide is right. We’ve heard of cases of prisoners allegedly being forced to masturbate, or simulate masturbation, in the mouths of other male prisoners (Jeff, sorry for the graphic post but this is precisely when we must not use euphemisms). And from the way Rumsfeld spoke today the worst is yet to come.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/
jesus christ. Check out what’s still to come.
Jeff Jarvis: a rare case
I am sorry to report that this situation is now rapidly turning into a wall-to-wall nightmare in discobobulated news media coverage. I feel sorry for readers who do not have blogs.
The problem starts with the phenom of ‘pack journalism’ where large numbers of the media, op-ed writers, editorial columns and other media yentas all put in their two cents dictating to us from their bully-pulpits how we should feel about the Abu Ghraib situation.
This results in the Authorized and Officially Sanctioned American Spectrum of Opinion from A to B.
What if you are concerned about Female Genital Mutilation, for example, and you suspect that many of the guys in these prison pix wearing panties on their heads may have savagely ripped out certain womenly body parts with a rusty bottle or can opener, hmmm???
Well, nuts to you! Your issue doesn’t count now; it’s just chopped liver. So, go hold your breath until you turn blue and eat worms.
When this used to happen, I sometimes felt like screaming. Now, I can express myself by posting an entry in a blog. Go try to send a Letter to the Editor, an op-ed submission or something similar– it’s very iffy. This is a big country of 250 million, and the odds are against you.
It’s a problem!
Oh, for Christ’s sake.
There simply is no middle ground on this.
And, besides — “information” gained by torture is notoriously crappy.
You arrest me, but I don’t know anything. You torture me and I make up stories about my neighbor. My neighbor doesn’t know anything, but… ad infinitum.
According to the Taqueba report, it’s estimated that more than 60% of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib are innocent of any crime. Many have had release orders for months, but have been shuffled around between prisons, where their processing starts all over again. The remaining 40% are mostly common criminals.
Does anyone know who decided (and when) to convert this notorious prison to Coalition use?
I’ve been there and I’ve done that, it was about 30 years ago now, but the memories linger on, I was invited to a fraternity party, and we played twister in the nude and the guys put the girls undees on their heads, and we had a real fun time. These guards, just wanted to show these poor guys, a goodtime. They just wanted to bring some joy into their lives, I mean after all these guys have been living under Saddam and his boys, the sultans of dungeon masters. Why should Saddam have had all the fun?
There are no levels of torture. Torture is torture. We can’t have a grading system. It’s humiliating, degrading, horrifying and isn’t acceptable. This isn’t a left, right or center issue. It’s unanimous. We, as humane people, reject this kind of treatment of anyone.
There will always be idiots on the fringe waiting to exploit issues. Rall compared us to the SS minus the gas chambers. Idiot! Various news stations compared this to My Lai. Idiots!
Any attempt to draw a parallel between murder and torture should be flat out rejected. The pregnant Israeli women and her 4 children were murdered. The men who were hung from a bridge and burned were murdered. You can’t compare murder to torture. You will only wind up lowering the bar of humanity.
We are supposed to be outraged at this. This handful of jerks tarnished all of us. We need an investigation. We need to make sure they are prosecuted along with anyone else who had a hand in it. We need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. At the same time we need to call the idiots on the fringe who are exploiting this, idiots.
There are many levels of torture–personally, I’d prefer the kind that humiliates as opposed to the kind that culminates in a machete removing my head, my fingers or my tongue. To say all torture is equal is assinine. Hazing is not torture–unless we hold these murdering freaks at a higher morality than the rest of mankind. I personally do not give a damn what pisses off a muslim. When they have clerics standing in their pulpits of hate purveying and order their terrorists to take US female soldiers as sex slaves because allah condones it or that they should cut off the penises of Americans and British, then I have little respect for a bunch of people who whine like hell when they feel humiliated. If we fight a politicaly correct war we will lose, because the enemy has no morals where we are concerned. We are trash infidels.
Hey, what about those photos of the prisoners? They’re saying that it’s especially embarrassing for Arab men to lay on the floor naked with a dog collar and leash. I guess for American males, treatment like this from women is expected. Talk about henpecked!
Yeah, and they made screensavers from the photos too. Hey, I can rememeber when Betty Grable was the most popular pinup!
Hey, and how about that Lynnde England? When she gets out of the service she could open up shop in New York and do all that stuff for $150 an hour…and that’s more than I pay my analyst!
Yeah, and now for you guys we’ll bring out Gloria Loring and Brooke Shields. I wouldn’t mind being tortured by them!
Yeah, hey Bob, we really miss you at times like these. That’s what we really need behind the slide show of these photos– background music of The Doors with ‘This is the End, My Friend’ and the soundtrack from Apocalyse Now. Where is Ann Margaret now that we really need her? I’ll bet she could torture real good along with the rest of them.
I watched last night’s Newsnight (the Brit version of Nightline). Every day I check to see what subjects they’re going to cover. They had a panel discussion about the photos-as-icons. On the panel (not announced a priori!) appeared Christopher Hitchens, a broad named Showalter I have never seen before, and a man named ??? not sure because I was half-asleep… maybe Robinson?
He was remarkable for mentioning Janet Jackson’s boob incident and connecting it to some of the current stir about these “lurid” photos. [How about those scare quotes, huh?!] God bless him for having an opinion that was not just straight outta the box. I should go back and get their identities again. It was a pretty good mix. Sometimes you have to wonder how the Beeb comes up with these people, but their choices are often somewhat better than American TV which features the same tiresome cliched appointees over and over again… strictly a snooze.
OK, folks, you can go back to flagellating yourselves now.
I don’t give a rat’s ass what the Muslim world thinks of us, they already hate and despise us and will continue to do so until we convince them to do elsewise.
What I am concerned with is the total failure of discipline. A group of prisoners being posed for a picture could have very easily grabbed the dumb broad and held her hostage. Taking pictures could have subjected guards to home front pressure. I suspect that the guards, also guards in civilian life, were expected to bring professionalism in with them just as MPs who are cops in civilian life bring along their professionalism. Bad guess? Yes. Reasonable assumption? Yes. Going to be changed? Yes indeed.
Federal oversight of National Guard units will increase and “Political” generals will be examined more closely before they get their stars.
Hey, button, how about that Ann Margaret? Talk about flashing boobs, one time I saw Bing walking naked in public…well, never mind.
You know, I don’t get turned on by a naked breasts anymore…maybe it was because I WASN’T a bottle baby. Speaking of bottle babies, how about that Dean Martin? His idea of torture is a day without booze.
Walter Wallis sez:
“I suspect that the guards, also guards in civilian life, were expected to bring professionalism in with them just as MPs who are cops in civilian life bring along their professionalism. Bad guess? Yes.”
My fesr is that they *do* reflect the “professional standards” of America’s prisons.
I believe that I would rather be in a prison that is controlled by American soldiers. Than by Sadam himself. Those prisoners would know the true meaning of torture if Sadam was in charge of them.
True enough our troops have made some foolish mistakes that will be very costly to our country but torture is knowing your head is about to be cut off not being picked on by a buch immature troops. Our soldiers are definately in the wrong here and should indeed be in some sort of trouble but they are not evil people. They just need to think before they act next time before they make more stupid mistakes that wil affect our country.
I believe that I would rather be in a prison that is controlled by American soldiers. Than by Sadam himself. Those prisoners would know the true meaning of torture if Sadam was in charge of them.
True enough our troops have made some foolish mistakes that will be very costly to our country but torture is knowing your head is about to be cut off not being picked on by a buch immature troops. Our soldiers are definately in the wrong here and should indeed be in some sort of trouble but they are not evil people. They just need to think before they act next time before they make more stupid mistakes that wil affect our country.
Buy http://www.i-directv.net this it is a wonderful addition to anyones home entertainment system.
Get http://WWW.IDEBTCONSOLIDATION.ORG the debt relief you are searching for here!
http://WWW.E-CREDIT-CARD-DEBT.COM