Some readers were on target in saying I should have included Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in my recent column about apologies that were in order. Durbin rightly apologized Tuesday for his false and demeaning rhetoric on the Senate floor comparing U.S. soldiers’ mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to Soviet gulags, Nazis and Pol Pot.
His unfortunate choice of words, however, shouldn’t negate the larger valid point he was trying to make: That Americans shouldn’t countenance the torture techniques used at Guantanamo, or the Bush administration’s abandonment of the Geneva Conventions.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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28 Comments
I don’t know about calling it torture. I think people say that just to be politically aligned on the issue.
They are interrogation techniques used to extract vital information from an enemy who wishes to kill many Americans.
Nobody has died as a result. Nobody is getting their fingernails pulled out, electrocuted, cut, whipped, or beaten.
If they are made uncomfortable, then that’s too bad. If they defecate or pull their own hair out as a result, that is not being tortured, they are doing it to themselves. People do the same thing all the time in our own American prison system.
Our own prison system is no picnic, let alone a small prison like Gitmo. If you are going to look at Gitmo (just to be politically popular) for prisoner abuse, then look across the US in every jail and prison cell. You know it is not a pretty picture.
In America, we put murders to death for what they have done, and those prisoners in Gitmo are murderers.
Randy,
Please enlighten me with your journalistic skills of what Geneva conventions we are violating?
And when you can figure that out, please enlighten me on “your” definition of torture and what torture you think is being done to the prisoners at Guantanamo.
Until then I will consider your blog nothing more than the same typical liberal mistruths.
Turning the air-conditioning up and down (I am sorry, Randy) is not torture. Cutting off heads is, what? Oh, I think I see where you’re coming from. We shouldn’t sink to their level. We are somehow above all that. Right? I believe that to be a recipe for a losing strategy in the war on terror. Some folks see the images of those poor souls falling from the WTC and say, “Why do they hate us so? Maybe if we change enough they will like us and not try to hurt us anymore.” Others, feel outraged by the same photos. Put me in the camp of the latter. While you, Randy, are a member of the media and must therefore, as a matter of course, be well informed. I respect your opinion. However, there are a lot of people who prefer to allow Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, et al to spoon feed them current events, rather than do a little digging and reading themselves. This intellectual sloth turns people into sheep. It does a disservice to the fabric of our nation. And emboldens those who would like to see things like the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, trashed. Torture? C’mon man!
Joe, in regards to your “nobody died” comment…100 + detainees have died in our custody, not someone elses. Granted most of those happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, not Gitmo, but that does not mean that it doesn’t signify an issue that should be taken incredibly seriously.
Lee, as far as, cutting off heads being torture, yes some of the complaints are trivial. But lest we forget, we are “supposed” to be the GOOD guys! We are supposed to be above this type of behavior. We have a legal system that is supposed to assure people a fair and speedy trial….have any of the Gitmo detainees received a trial in the almost 4 yrs they have been held? NO. Two wrongs do not make a right – we have to treat detainees as well as we would want our prisoners treated. In Abu Ghraib it was found that a healthy number of the people in that prison were guilty of NOTHING!
It boils down to whether you want to be morally superior or just pretend to be.
So who’s propaganda are you going to believe? You have the White House saying that there is nothing wrong in Gitmo, but they also say that there Iraq is coming along swimmingly. Or you have sensationalized media screaming and yelling about some hints and clues that may have been fed their way. Truth is, nobody knows to what extent, if any, the “torture” is going to in Gitmo. A government which shoves the hearings on the Downing Street Memo, which if substantiated would clearly be an impeachable offense, into a basement. Or Media which made a national crisis over some chick getting cold feet and said that soldiers flushed the Koran down a toilet (anybody every try to flush a book down a toilet, it won’t fit without a lot of work).
The funny thing is, no matter which side of this issue you are on, it is highly important that we have both opinions repesented. If we didn’t have press watchdogs and freedom of speech, the government could easily mislead the people and abuse its power. On the other hand, without some kind of government to protect us both from internal and external conflicts, our nation would fall or be crushed. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and nobody is completely right, but thats what keeps this nation balanced and progressively moving forward.
Our country’s due process does not come into play here. The prisoners are war criminals, not U.S. citizens.
The people in Gitmo have recieved hearings under the military to verify if they warrent incarceration as an enemy combatant. Many have been sent back home as a result. The remaining were found to have done something or know something that results in further incarceration and interrogation. Just because opportunist lawyers are trying to get them tried in the civilan court system, so they can collect a paycheck, is uncalled for.
Yes! You can make an aurgument that some people have died under our custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The point I’m trying to make is that it cannot be made perfect, and this dangerous terrorism war is not all pink flowers and peace signs. You should have seen what we did to detainees during WWII. Everybody was doing something so bad it warrented the Geneva Conventions.
But when I look at this topic, I try to keep it in perspective, because when politics gets involve, it will be blown way out of proportion.
In perspective, if you think a hundred or so have died in our custody overseas, look at the 2 million people incarcerated presently in our own country and who have died in prison in our custody.
Off on a tangent here, but wasn’t Gitmo selected due to its special status of being in a “no man’s land” in the first place? I still hear arguments saying that it’s technically Cuban territory rented by the US long before Castro came in, and the US actually still set aside funds to cover for the rent though it can never be paid to Cuba, due to the embargo. Is there anyone who can clarify this question in a civil and reasonable way? It may help to figure if the US Constitution is the supreme law in that locality.
No country has ever released prisoners of war till the war is over. And we won’t try them either unless they commit crimes. Shooting at US on the battlefield is not a crime. Kidnapping, beheading civilians, etc. is a crime. ‘Typical Liberal Mistruths’ is a very kind way of describing Randys’ bilge.
1. Apologies, especially the Durbin kind — offered without an unequivocal retraction and only after it proved to be politically necessary — are vapid, useless, and ultimately self-serving. Al Jazeera has already gotten all the mileage it needs from Durbin’s original thoughtless remarks. You can bet they won’t report on his apology.
2. The epidemic of apologies and people clamoring for them could be avoided if people would just include their apologies in the original insult. Example: “Durbin is a jerk and I’m very sorry about it.”
3. The only sure way to stop the complaints about how jihadists are treated after capture is to not take any prisoners.
Here I actually agree with E. Ireland, though obviously not completely and nor for the same reasons. Durbin shouldn’t have apologized, because he wasn’t wrong: our behavior at Gitmo and Abu Gharib WAS worthy of the Gulags and the Lagers. Read the FBI report.
The right wing is great at making people apologize for speaking the truth, and I’m really pissed at Durbin for backing down to the Wingnuts and the Vichy Democrats like Daley who play along with this fascist administration. I’d like to see all of you tough-talking Wingnuts stand up under the abuse our government is dishing out. The only ‘Jerks’ in all of this are the ones like y’all with an appetite for torture.
Also, E. Ireland, I’m sorry to see that our earlier exchange is no longer posted so that I may follow up and rebut your undoubtedly entertaining but baseless assertations. It took me awhile to reach my destination here at the People’s Republic of Seattle. There will, I am sure, be other times.
But in the meantime, if Editorial Board folks are reading this, how about archiving the earlier comment threads, so that we who participate in the ongoing conversation can have a record of what transpires here? I suspect I’ll be tanging with a number of folks, and it would help to see what everyone had to say at the time.
Duh. Archives are on the left. Watch for comments, E. Ireland and other Wingnuts.
OK, comments are in on the earlier thread (On or around June 19). Read ‘em and seethe.
Trying to imagine Randy Schofield giving, say, Tom DeLay a pass because of his “unfortunate choice of words.” Can’t.
Senator Durbin did not equate actions of the US military with Nazis, Soviets, or the Khmer Rouge. What he did was reported on the words of an FBI agent on the conditions at Gitmo. He said that if we were to read the accounts of the conitions there without KNOWING the context we might SUSPECT that they were the conditions in a Nazi, Soviet, or Pol Pot facility. And I wholeheartedly agree.
The arguement that we need information from those interned at Gitmo is specious. Most of those interned there have been so for at least 2 years. Any information that they might have is not current and, if obtained under torture, probably not reliable.
If these “enemy combatatants” are guilty of something, then let them be charged, adjudicated, and punished. If they are not guilty, well then likely they WILL become a danger by nature of their wrongful persecution, just as much of Iraq has.
Jay and CF, the Islamic militants got what they needed out of Durbin’s comments. That’s the real problem with what he said, and trying to explain it all away is just wrong. Terrorists trade on media exposure, and Durbin is paid to know better than to feed their propaganda. Our troops will take the brunt of his remarks.
Joseph,
Actually, the reason for the media firestorm is that the ADMINISTRATION didn’t want to take the brunt of Durbin’s remarks, which were factually true. This protest that media exposure ‘hurts the troops’ is nonsense. What ‘hurts the troops’ is sending them, underequipped and forced to rely on their own resources to stay alive, into a foreign war based on fixed intelligence.
Well said CF.
We have a world of enemies. George Bush wasn’t happy with that. Hell he feeds on it. How much easier it is to divert attention from domestic failure when you go out and create enemies. It reminds me of Orwell’s 1984.
CF, The media I was referring to are the Arab media. That’s where Durbin’s damage was done, and they likely reported only what helped the jihadist viewpoint. They love to report democrat dissention in America. It gives them hope, comfort, and a false sense of vindication.
I doubt that you will find many soldiers in any war eager to say they have all the weapons and armor they need. Complaints are normal. Losses in this war due to bad equipment, while always regrettable, are miniscule as compared to other wars. Kerry and others, for example, complained that their swift boats had no armor. They had to throw flack jackets over the side for some protection. Nothing new here.
Your “fixed” intelligence comment is merely a political position fanned by biased reporting, not a settled fact. Incompetent intelligence to be sure, but that’s another issue and Bush is trying to get that corrected.
Rimel, Your being reminded of Orwell’s book and actually living it are two different things. Try living in North Korea. Let us know how it compares.
Joseph,
When career diplomats in Britain write in highly confidential memos that the President had already made the decision to go to war and that ‘the facts were (sic) being fixed to support the policy,’ that gets my attention. Republicans will always insist that only God Himself, coming down out of the sky, would be sufficient to verify W’s dishonesty. ‘Fixed,’ Joseph, not ‘incompetent.’ ‘Fixed,’ ‘fixed,’ ‘fixed,’ ‘fixed.’ That means ‘faked,’ ‘molded,’ ’selectively chosen,’ all of which denote deliberate dishonesty.
It’s great, now, to see Republicans engaged in a semantic dispute about the meaning of ‘fixed;’ it should remind us all of the dispute over ‘is,’ for which Clinton was lambasted. And if, as you say, it isn’t a settled fact that Bush decided from the start to invade Iraq and to pursue whatever line of argument would get him there, I agree, it isn’t. Perhaps an investigation into the memo would determine this fact once and for all. But given Bush’s stonewalling and then political tampering with the 9-11 Comission, we may have to wait a while. How compelling does a memo have to be? In the absence of such an honest airing of the issues, I feel justified in reading the memo in a common sense way. ‘If it looks like a duck…’ etc.
Oh, and there was nothing wrong with the intelligence. Scott Ritter and Hans Blix both knew, and told us, in advance, that Iraq had no WMD. The Iraq disaster belongs to BUSH and to BUSH ALONE. An example of how they cherry picked intelligence is the aluminium tubes from Niger, which Condi the Liar attributed to the project of building centrifuges. Whatever argument they could spin, they did.
The fact that I’m right about this explains why Rove staged his little nervous hissy fit against liberals in NYC. The WH is trying to change the subject, and trying desparately. And it seems to have worked. They’re scared as hell of this memo, and that’s why Rove played his 9-11 / ‘Liberals are Cowards’ card, to rally the base to him and to give the press something to chatter about. And, as always, the Democrats responded pretty lamely, though better than at other times. But I do think it’s quite clear the WH is running scared, and that Rove gave his usual rhetoric which basically says that ‘Conservatives are strong men with large penises, Liberals are girly men with flip-floppers!’ Kind of a suspect argumentative approach for a closeted, repressed gay man such as Rove, but there you go.
So, with respect to Durbin, you all went after him BECAUSE HE WAS RIGHT, and to DISTRACT ATTENTION FROM THE MESS YOU’VE CREATED. Pisses me off to no end that he apologized, if for no other reason than it discredits him and makes the Republicans look right. Look, Joseph, our PR in Iraq is in the toilet, and it’s our own fault. Between Abu Gharib, the assault on Fallujah, and the harsh and difficult daily lives of millions of Iraqis, things are so tainted that all the spin in the world won’t make a bit of difference. Nothing Durbin says or doesn’t say can compare with what the Iraqis know in their own daily experience.
With respect to the underequipping of troops, ‘nothing new here?’ Well, except the Administration’s politicizing of whether or not one ’supports the troops,’ which, as we all know, means ‘obeys George’s orders.’ When an Admininstration beats up on its political enemies using the troops, it’s really sad when they turn around and treat these troops like, well, like s**t. I’m referring here not only to their under-equipping in the field, which is egregious–no flak jackets or sandbags, insufficient vehicle armor–but to the problems many, many vets have encountered with the VA upon returning home. It’s instructive that the Administration cuts VA funding and closes hospitals, in the midst of a war. When your whole argument is that you support your troops and the other guy doesn’t, this invites a higher standard of judgment.
Answer me this question, Joseph: why hasn’t W attended any solider’s funeral?
It’s pathetic the way the Bush haters dredge up old, discredited reports that didn’t get any traction the first time around and recycle them later with “new evidence” and even more hype and indignation. Still more pathetic is the way ignorant, leftist reporters treat this kind of old trash like news.
Besides, the British have been roundly criticized because their intelligence community was as incompetent as ours; but now we hear that their vaunted intelligence corps has magically surmised the precise moment when Bush decided to attack Iraq. Sure.
The Downing Street memo deserves nothing more than a big “So what.” The legitimate reasons for deposing Saddam existed as far back as his first genocidal attack on his own people, and were internationally justified as far back as 1990, when he attacked Kuwait. It matters not at all when Bush decided Saddam had to go.
Bush has, indeed, attended soldiers’ funerals. Just because you and all the hate-Bush websites don’t know about it is your problem. Whether he has attended a funeral for a soldier who died under his command, I don’t know; but you didn’t ask that.
Most importantly, your question highlights the ignorant bleatings of the hate-Bush crowd. Obviously, if Bush attended the funeral of a soldier killed in the War On Terror, the loony left would make an ugly circus out of what should be a private family gathering. Bush is too much of a gentleman for that. In asking such a dumb question, you reveal yourself to be hopelessly naïve.
How many Bay of Pigs funerals did Kennedy attend? How many Vietnam funerals did Kennedy or Johnson attend? How many funerals from the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory deaths or the downtown Belgrade and Chinese embassy bombings did Clinton attend? The truth is, you clearly don’t give a damn about soldiers and civilians that died at the hands of those stupid democrats or you would have asked these questions, yourself; but you didn’t; which means that you don’t care about casualties or deaths at all, except as you can use them for cheap political advantage against a Republican. You show yourself to be nothing but a cynical, partisan hack.
CF, You and your empty rants do not deserve any more of my time. I will not be responding to you any more until you show some mental maturity.
Of course, you will now declare victory — in the typical loony left fashion.
Joseph,
The best documentary evidence I’ve found suggests that I was half wrong, half right. On one occasion, April 3, 2003, Bush met and mourned with the families of fallen Marines. On no occasion has he offered a eulogy honoring the dead. The link is here:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=271680
However, I’ll take my lumps. Half wrong is wrong. In posing the question, I did not have any such distinction in mind, and thus I was mistaken. Bush has, on one occasion, met directly with the families of soldiers killed in his war. I’m not holding my breath waiting for a second occasion.
Interestingly, you leave some clues of having searched the Web for this same evidence, but having come up empty. Your aside regarding ‘whether he has attended a funeral for a soldier who died under his command’ appears to refer to the story in the WaPo from 9/8/03. If you could use the Web to make this point, you must also have discovered, as I did, that there just isn’t much hard evidence out there. But rather than admit that you couldn’t find the evidence I found, you simply counter-assert that yes, Bush HAS attended funerals, he has too! If, in this case, your memory was simply better than mine or you got lucky, who can tell. So, score Joseph one point.
With respect to the Downing Street Memos, they’re real, relevant, and Bush is scared to death of them. Bush had already decided to go to war, but acted as if he hadn’t, and presented a dishonest rationale for the war. You attempt to discredit them by assocation: British intelligence on Iraq was flawed, therefore the memos can’t be trusted. Well, Joseph, there’s a difference between reporting what an allied government said in a joint meeting, and speculating about whether a hostile government is hiding weapons. Your next tactic is to overstate their claim to make it sound ridiculous: “we hear that their vaunted intelligence corps has magically surmised the precise moment when Bush decided to attack Iraq.” Um, no. All they say is that, after meeting with Bush, it’s clear that a certain policy has been chosen and is being pursued. They claim no prescience. They report on what the authors witnessed: that a decision had been made to invade Iraq, and that ‘the facts were being fixed to fit the policy.’ Simple as that, Joseph. Whatever story worked, that’s the story they would use.
You then say “The Downing Street memo deserves nothing more than a big “So what.” The legitimate reasons for deposing Saddam existed as far back as his first genocidal attack on his own people, and were internationally justified as far back as 1990, when he attacked Kuwait. It matters not at all when Bush decided Saddam had to go.” Oh, really? Then why go to the trouble of making it look like the decision HAD NOT been made? Why lie about your intentions? And, in fact, even Bush doesn’t agree with you; he’s still claiming that no decision to invade preceded his visit to the U.N. The further point here is the floating justification you have now extended back to 1990. Bush justified the 2003 invasion by the claim that Iraq was involved in WMD production. It is dishonest to do as Bush does when he provides lots of retroactive justifications: Saddam is an evil man; allies of Al Quaeda; Midest democracy, etc. If they are good enough now, they should have been good enough at the time.
In prefacing your discussion of the memos, you tacitly acknowledge that, for your purposes, factuality and honesty are beside the point. You say “It’s pathetic the way the Bush haters dredge up old, discredited reports that didn’t get any traction the first time around and recycle them later with “new evidence” and even more hype and indignation.” ‘Discredited’ is not ‘disproven’ or ‘refuted,’ Joseph. All you’ve said is that such initial reports were objected to by someone, not that they were proven false. You go even further when the standard of validity descends to “get[ting] traction the first time around.” So, just because something doesn’t play in the media, it isn’t valid? I can think of an innocuous ‘third-rate burglary’ that didn’t get a lot of ‘traction’ the first time around, but damned if it didn’t turn out to have enough legs for a REAL impeachment. As,I believe, the Downing Street Memos could and should.
Finally, as Wingnuts always do when they have no arguments, Joseph attacks my character. He accuses me of being (gasp!) ‘uncaring,’ presumably the cue for a Democrat like me to excuse himself and perform ritual seppeku. Joseph says, “the truth is, you clearly don’t give a damn about soldiers and civilians that died at the hands of those stupid democrats (Kenneday, Johnson, Clinton) or you would have asked these questions, yourself; but you didn’t; which means that you don’t care about casualties or deaths at all, except as you can use them for cheap political advantage against a Republican. You show yourself to be nothing but a cynical, partisan hack.” So, failing to ask why Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton didn’t attend such funerals, while asking why George didn’t, makes me a partisan hack? Well, Joseph, I’m 37. Kennedy was dead five years before I was born, and Johnson was out of office before I was a year old. But for the record, I deplore the U.S.’s fighting of the Vietnam War, under two Democrats and one Republican, and had I been old enough, would doubtlessly have found lots of occasion to hold them accountable for whatever funerals both men did or did not attend, and for the massive, massive, massive number of deaths they directly and indirectly caused. I do remember, at age 5, seeing the Newsweek cover with the Vietnamese mother holding her dead child, and feeling shock and revulsion. With Clinton, as the above link shows, he attended a number of commemorative events. As for my not holding him accountable for civilian deaths, bullshit. I opposed the Iraq embargo of the 1990’s, since it led to the starvation deaths of many, many, Iraqi civilians, particularly children. Civilan deaths in Mogadishu and Bosnia? Here it’s fuzzier, since I supported the Bosnian conflict: I felt it was just, legal, and had the will of the international community behind it. Obviously, death happens in war, and it’s unfortunate. Sometimes, there’s no way around it.
But regarding your allegation that I’m some sort of Karl Rove/George Bush type-sociopath, I care enough about military and civilian deaths that I’ve tried to do my part to stop this stupid, destructive, futile war. I protested the first Iraq war. I didn’t protest the Afghan invasion and deposing of the Taliban. In 2003, I was worried enough about the imminent war that I spent my Spring Break protesting, being run through police gauntlets, facing down Wingnut bullies like yourself, and giving up time needed for meeting project deadlines to a cause I thought, and still think, matters more than anything. I’ve got friends over in Iraq, Joseph. I want them to come home. Two of my son’s uncles are on active duty over there, and I want them to come home, too. So, when you say, WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING ME, Joseph, that I only care about the death of human beings for the sake of ‘cheap political advantage,’ who’s the one that needs to show some ‘mental maturity?’
When I’m wrong, I admit it, as I did above. When I’m right, I stand my ground, as I am now. I leave it to our readers to judge the victor here, Joseph.
CF wins
Sorry, JR, your buddy CF is just a pathetic sociopath who gets his kicks from angry and futile demonstrations, screwball interpretations of plain facts, and endless rants of self-justification. Your not so bad at it yourself from what I’ve read. That seems to be a common condition among the loony left. I feel sorry for CF’s son and his uncles. Yours, too.
CF, joseph nailed you and you don’t even know it. He even called your parting shot before you muffed it. Your cute little evasion at the end was exactly what he expected. Unfortunately, your angry left compatriot, JR, blew your cover. Twice, as usual. He reminds me of the dog, Satchel, in the “Get Fuzzy” cartoon; but actually Satchel is smarter.
My doubled comment is at least on purpose.
Sorry, JR, your buddy CF is just a pathetic sociopath who gets his kicks from angry and futile demonstrations, screwball interpretations of plain facts, and endless rants of self-justification. Your not so bad at it yourself from what I’ve read. That seems to be a common condition among the loony left. I feel sorry for CF’s son and his uncles. Yours, too.
CF, joseph nailed you and you don’t even know it. He even called your parting shot before you muffed it. Your cute little evasion at the end was exactly what he expected. Unfortunately, your angry left compatriot, JR, blew your cover. Twice, as usual. He reminds me of the dog, Satchel, in the “Get Fuzzy” cartoon; but actually Satchel is smarter.
My doubled comment is at least on purpose.
Tricia T,
The ‘angry left’ meme seems to be a bit of a crutch for you, Tricia. Turn down the radio so Rush isn’t bloviating in your ear while you’re trying to write, and maybe you’ll have an original thought.
With respect to calling me a ’sociopath,’ I’m glad my posts taught you a new name you could use. Hopefully, we can indirectly educate you into something like a critical awareness of the media spectacle orchestrated by the Bush administration. But since you’ve obviously drunk the Right Wing Kool-Aid, and because your cheerleader-level arguments lack any substantive issues, I’m not holding out any hope.
‘Screwball interpretations of plain facts?’ Boy, coming from someone defending the Right, could that BE more ironic? I’m not going to catalogue the litany of lies/misdirections of the administration, to avoid turning this into an ‘endless’ post. If you want details, ask.
As for your last point, how did Joseph ‘call my parting shot?’ I didn’t declare victory, Tricia, even when he said I would. What “didn’t I realize?”
When people attack me, Tricia, I fight back. I truly DON’T CARE, at all, what you think of me. This is a political forum, and my job here is to say what I have to say. You haven’t offered a single substantive argument; all you’ve done is act as a Right Wing cheerleader from the sidelines. Well, time to get in the game, girl.
My sincere apologies to Satchel. The comparison was unkind.
CF, If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand the answer. Argue with it, perhaps; but understand it, no.