Oh, the hubris of the King of the Hill, who can do no wrong, until of course someone comes along and smacks him down. We all learned this as kids but nation states with military and economic power (especially when led by chickenhawks) want to flex their muscles to intimidate the weaker ones. Empires do not last forever. But we do need umpires to enforce civilized rules. If democracy spreads by example, what kind of new democracies can be expected in the Middle East and elsewhere. Ye reap what ye sow.

When was the last time the USM were the good guys?

Here in BBC land there is absolutely no fucking news from Iraq.

We're fucked methinks.

Thank you!

Well put. Mark Bowden ("Black Hawk Down" fame) and others attempt to justify torture with the imminent threat argument: If there is a bomb going to go off, don't we have the moral right to torture information about it out of them? Obviously not, for both theoretical and practical reasons.
Theoretical: Why not torture a POW to find out if there is an enemy offensive in the making? This would protect our troops. Since we are in a continuous state of war, and the enemy is always making offensive operations against us, isn't it justifiable to torture all POWs at any time? Sounds kind of like Hanoi Hilton, doesn't it? What if the bad guys come up with the same idea? Where's John McCain when you need him?
Practical: If someone has enough intelligence information to pinpoint a specific malefactor with a specific plan for a terrorist action, then it is hardly likely that you'll be lucky enough to find the key guy in time with the information and be able to torture it out of him. One in a million chance. If they were torturing one-out-of-million detainees, then let's revisit the issue. Of course, if you are being tortured you tend to say anything to make it stop and many of the Guatanamo detainees were denounced by neighbors because of grudges, land-issues, rewards, etc (http://www.guantanamo.com/) but that is another issue.
This isn't even something that should be on the table in a functioning democracy. Kind of sad if you are a patriot, isn't it? Bottom-line: I don't want Lyndie Englund and her crew teaching my kid in pre-school regardless of her unit citations. Hope she's breaking big rocks into little ones for a long time.

they are terrorists not soldiers aligned with a nation and should be interrogated by any and all means to extract information...then put to the sword

Mike is obviously lost to rational thought but let me pose a few rhetorical questions.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Another question: "Who died and made you king?" How do you know they are terrorists? Are you like John McCain with his infamous "gay-dar" and just unerringly know? Or are you in the camp of "Kill them all and let God sort them out"?

Any number of wingnuts have become unscrewed from their lock washers and are at danger from flying right off the bolt. Mike is just a symptom of a contraption that is shaking itself into total collapse. (Or is expressing some deadpan irony that would be frightening in itself, you don't joke about this shit.)

In our terms he is obviously suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance. In his terms: "Wah, wah, wah, can't hear you!!"

First, I am not a Chickenhawk . . . having served in the military and in the middle east in 1991.

Secondly, The Geneva Convention doesn't recognize terrorists no matter how one spins it.

Finally, these guys don't need an "excuse' to torture our young men and women. They would gladly do it now regardless of how we act on the battlefield.

David;

So what you are saying is that the ends justify the means?

That's exactly what he is saying, you brilliant geniuses and lawyeres you. I mean, the fact taht this website is called the DEMOCRATic veteran is probably enough warning for those of us with clearer, leveler, and definetely more intelligent heads. However, if you want latin:Qui habet aures audiendi audiat-Verum et factum convertuntur,Vincere est totum-Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur. idiots...

Phil, too bad that "more intelligent head" didn't come with a spell-checker. Because while your Latin ability may be laudable your inability to spell simple English came ringing through with "lawyeres" "taht" "definetely" and lower case "latin" to say nothing of your neologism "leveler". "Me ineptum" though seems to hit the mark.

Try to bend your brilliant brain around this concept: "collective responsibility". Just because one Iraqi or Jordanian cuts off heads doesn't justify our torturing every brown faced person on the planet.

But thanks for letting your true views become manifest.

the geneva convention? we don't need no stinking geneva convention! we have the bible, and the bible loves torture! it's right there in duderottemy...."thou shalt torture false witnesses before me." look it up. i learned it in my divinity class at yale.

yay pickles!!!!
Veni vidi vice
u fuckin assholes.

Phil, it's pronounced "Waynee, weenie" and so is totally appropriate for you.

And as you suggest, I WILL try to have a nice day.

(and it's 'vici' = I conquered, not 'vice' - your Latinity is slipping big guy)

Here's what those liberal bastards at the ACLU said....no wait,it was those shrill liberals at The Army Times who wrote, "Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war.

Indeed, the damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole by the horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the notorious prison is incalculable.

But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons.

There is no excuse for the behavior displayed by soldiers in the now-infamous pictures and an even more damning report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. Every soldier involved should be ashamed.

But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.

The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.

In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world." - Published: May 17, 2004

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." ~Philip K. Dick

Suggested amendment to the Geneva Convention; for the next fifty years, whenever an american is tortured we get to send a chicken hawk wing-nut to take their place.

Bruce,
If you harbor, support, aid, feed, and provide any assistance to these savages you are a terrorist. An army cook may not know any information but he is still part of the army. They are not a conventional army and therefore deserve no quarter. Are troops will not be treated kindly if in their hands. They've alaready murdered and butchered civilians and deserve to be treated with no mercy. Extract information from them by all means and give them the coup de grace...the ACLU defends these people like they are freakin heroes...this is a military matter and they should be left to the militaries discretion....

Phil, Mike, you do remember that both the Army investigators and Red Cross discovered that a big chunk a'people at Abu Ghraib turned out to be innocent, right? And some of those innocent people got tortured. You're not for torturing innocent people, are you?

(sorry for the split post)

I particularly like Phil's whole "we're the realists" tack. Nice. I'm actually with you there, in the whole end justifies the means thing, but for one thing: we ain't getting an end. Israeli and British experts admit torture's not great for fact-gathering, and we're ticking off the locals -- making it HARDER to fight the insurgency -- and we're enraging every Muslim from Egypt to Pakistan.

So, practically speaking, no concrete strategic advantage traded for three huge strategic disadvantages. Way to go, you levle-headed wonder, you.

Mike, savages you say? Terrorists? We invade a country that had nothing to do with us and then wonder why they fight back. And you feel nothing for innocent people caught in the crossfire. Your lack of humanity and empathy for innocent people makes you the savage.

BTW, if you feel so strongly about this, why aren't you in Iraq?

Jesus the trolls came out in force on this thread.

OK trolls, was the bombing of the King David Hotel in Palestine a terror act?

Horses for courses...............

I'm not against torturing terrorists. The problem is making sure you've got the terrorists. What they did at Abu Ghraib was to torture people to find out whether they were terrorists.

I don't blame the soldiers for this. No matter how Bush tries to lay the blame at their feet, it's his responsibility.

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3. Webb wins
   
4. Huh?
   
5. Bunnypants in Bagdad
   
6. Outage
   
7. Filthy Lucre Watch
   
8. Playing the numbers
   
9. My letter to Countdown
   
10. Jefferson's Nigerian Scams