Speaking of Ms Beyerstein (whose site I visited to check the spelling of her name for my previous post), here’s how she reacts to the full text of the executive order on torture, posted by Raw Story:
In addition to banning torture and cruel and unusual interrogation techniques, the CIA is specifically prohibited from using a pair of additional techniques.
First, the order explicitly bans, "sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation, or using the individual as a human shield."
Second, Bush's order outlaws, "acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual."
The bill also makes clear who the CIA must apply these interrogation rules to: "a member or part of or supporting al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated organizations; and...likely to be in possession of information that...could assist in detecting, mitigating, or preventing terrorist attacks...[or]could assist in locating the senior leadership of al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces." [Raw Story]
That’s the good news.
However, the executive order also reaffirms the president’s determination that (suspected) members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not prisoners of war protected by the Geneva convention–even though the order states that the US is engaged in armed conflict with these organizations. The order also reasserts the president’s intention to interpret the Geneva Convention as he sees fit.
[my emphasis]
The question is, just what exactly is “good news” about banning interrogation techniques that take advantage of the bigotry, misogyny, and anti-semitism that lie at the heart of Islamism — particularly if such techniques are proving valuable in extracting information that protects a culture in which pluralism, universal rights, and individual freedom is being defended?
Or, more to the point, who is it that gets to decide what is or is not “intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual”?
If a religion casts Jews as sub-human and women as not having any authority beyond what kind of spice to add to the hummus, does that mean we are now considering it torture to live by our own moral and political standards when choosing who can and cannot engage with captives who believe such things? Is Ms Beyerstein willing, for instance, to concede that women interrogators charged with questioning enemy combatants wear the burkha or niqab? Or that they — and Jews — be restricted from such roles in deference to the bigotry and hatred of those being questioned?
Sorry, but I don’t see why we should celebrate our inability to play upon the weaknesses in someone’s authoritarian world-view — or to play upon their shame when it derives from super-patriarchal and anti-semitic teachings.
The idea of interrogation is to find techniques that work without causing long-term harm to the person being interrogated. But if we allow “shame” or “dishonor” to be defined along those lines, are we not surrendering our principles to the sensibilities of a fundamentalist religion whose teachings are completely at odds with universal human rights — the very principles we are hoping to spread?
How does giving credence to such principles — by way of validating them — help our cause?
Serious inquiry: does anybody know how, say, the Amish are treated if they are arrested and detained? How about Hasidim?
As to the second part of Ms Beyerstein’s comment, again, I find it difficult to understand why anyone would wish to grant Geneva Convention protections to stateless terrorists fighting under no flag, and wearing no uniform but an ideology of pan-Arabism and a stated desire to destroy the west and either convert or kill infidels — regardless of the SCOTUS ruling that forces us to engage in a one-sided treaty with Al Qaeda.
Of course, the easy fix would be for Congress to pass legislation explicitly denying Geneva protections to Al Qaeda terrorists — though I doubt this is on Reid’s radar.
Ironically, we are only holding prisoners for the purpose of trying to extract intelligence from them. So the solution to the problem of having to house terrorists (paid for at taxpayer expense) and treat them “humanely” in accordance with the Geneva Conventions (which disallows “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” — a description that depends for its force on who is determining what counts as an “outrage,” as well as what counts as “humiliating” and “degrading”) — is to either shoot them summarily as unarmed enemy combatants, or else engage in extraordinary rendition (which, you’ll recall, was once enthusiastically embraced by noted neocon Al Gore).
All of which raises the question: if we can’t interrogate terrorists in any meaningful way, track their money, triangulate and analyze their communications patterns, look in their mosques, use propaganda against them [note: sometimes the IOs go so deep and are so very very conspiratorial that only those who unabashedly count themselves among the true geniuses can ever sniff them out] — while simultaneously refusing to take their stated aims at face value — how in the world would the anti-war left or civil liberties absolutists have us fight and win a war against an enemy whose strategy, in the short term, is to take advantage of the very protections that we grant our citizens, so that in the long term they can do away with those freedoms altogether?
And now, as the Dems quietly voted to remove the John Doe provision from the homeland security bill — likely at the urging of trial lawyers — one is left wondering if they ever really wanted us to “win” a “war” at all.
It seems that being captured and detained by infidels is an affront to their Islamism. Now what?
As we have learned this morning, Turtle Dreams has developed an extensive array of techniques designed to gently coax the subject out of their shell. Halal food pellets and a basking lamp placed in a naturalesque setting could go a long way towards an interrogation regime Lindsay could get behind I think. It’s not too late to get some grant money into this year’s budget.
Jeff, let them keep their “dignity.” We can work ’em over on other fronts.
It seems as if – and this should appeal to the trial attorneys out there, all we have to do is get each Jihadi captive to sign a “bodily harm” release form.
This suggestion springs from a serious question: if a Jihadi does not value his life, as the self-ascribed label itself implies, hasn’t he effectively released his captors from liability for his “bodily harm?”
Getting them to sign should be easy. If the Dem’s “Daly machine” could get educated Jewish widows in West Palm to admit to voting for Pat Buchannon in 2000, then it should be an easy task to get a suicidal jihadi to, with his right hand on the Koran, sign a binding release form.
After all, pain is transitory, and martyrdom is “desireable.” Right? Or not…a release-of-liability form would force the Jihadi’s to put their money where their mouths are.
“one is left wondering if they ever really wanted us to “win†a “war†at all.”
Many of them would not be willing to admit we are involved in a war to begin with.
“if we can’t interrogate terrorists in any meaningful way, track their money, triangulate and analyze their communications patterns, look in their mosques, use propaganda against them  while simultaneously refusing to take their stated aims at face value  how in the world would the anti-war left or civil liberties absolutists have us fight and win a war …?”
It is quite apparent that they are more concerned with short term electoral gains that with the long term security of the country.
As with the pandering types of social programs they advocate, they take the easy way. Fight poverty by redistributing wealth. Carry water for their special interests. Fight racism by maintaining racial division. This is just a standard tactic, writ large, with much larger consequences than the standard wasted tax dollars.
Um, I’m pretty sure they’d just prefer that we, you know, just didn’t.
The Dems really do have audacity, primarily due to the fact that the media will not call them on it. The vote to have no more prisoners at Gitmo, and also vote to not have them sent to our soil. Coupled with their vehement opposition to having the prisioners sent to other countries, which went without their opposition when it was the policy of Clinton, one can only conclude that they either want the terrorists released, or killed. Their moral indignation over what they consider torture, a Koran in a toilet, can only lead you to believe that execution is not a viable alternative for them, which leaves releasing them back onto the battlefield, for our men and women in uniform to deal with, except those men and women in uniform with be strategically redeployed to Okinawa to guard against the wave of terrorist Lexus’ being unleashed on the world.
It is just like the Dems that so strongly supported a policy of regime change in 1998, and claimed, along with the rest of the world that Iraq had WMD prior to the war, and then simply do an about face, and proceed forward with nary a word from the media, who allows them to run with their narrative without criticism.
It would be funny, were it not dangerous.
Jeff – Is there any reason that the ReCaptcha TW box does not appear on Mobile PW. I have the Blazer browser by Palm, and wondered if the problems were from my end, or that this feature did not translate over to Mobile PW.
Not sure. Will have to get my wife to check. But we’re on our way out the door for the rest of the evening, so it’ll have to be later.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Might as well take a break, what with Cpn Ed’s Harry Potter liveblogging sucking up all the oxygen. With video!
Now I know why al Qaeda hasn’t carried out a major op here since 9-11 – they’re waiting on us to finish our self-hobbling before picking up the ball and running again. It’s getting clearer that no one in power is even remotely serious about this war.
TW: appeared Reichstag…is Keith Ellison on the other end of this fucking TW generator??
I love the way the leftoids pretend that disallowing POW status for combatants captured out of uniform is some new rule that Bush made up.
Not wearing a uniform (or some other “insignia recognizable at a distance”) has equated to spy or pirate status for a long, long, time — even before the Geneva Conventions were formally ratified. Such combatants can legally be executed out of hand, with no trial of any sort.
Also, the Geneva Conventions explicitly FORBID putting POWs on trial. So much for the other leftoid screeching point about “putting them on trial if they’re guilty”.
Unlawful combatant -> No right a formal trial.
POW -> Illegal to put them on trial.
They’re actually damned lucky to get off with the military tribunal thing.
I’d be a lot more concerned about the putative “rights” of Taliban/Al Qaeda prisoners if they afforded the same concern to our soldiers. The last enemy we faced that gave even token acknowledgement to the Geneva Conventions was Nazi Germany. That says rather a lot about the caliber of foe we’ve faced in the last 60 years, doesn’t it?
Goldstein,
Who registered as “mythusmage” and have they ever signed in or even commented on this site?
Spys, what leftist beliefs AREN’T contradictory?
The left is simply catching up to maroons like Warren Christopher, reliably reported to have asked a SFODA officer if they could just shoot Iranian hostage-takes in the leg instead of killing them.
If you have to ask…
TW: overlaid Credit (how does it know?)
“Second, Bush’s order outlaws, “acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual.â€Â
Does this mean we can no longer wave American flags at war protestors?
“one is left wondering if they ever really wanted us to “win†a “war†at all.”
Of course not! We’re only supposed to “Win” the “Peace”! Like, Duh!
Of course we could, actually, just look at the US Code, find the crime that these miscreants, by and large, at Guantanamo are part of, charge them with said crimes, hold their trials and convict as necessary. That does mean actually utilizing the US Code and realizing that there is a section of law that deals with those attacking the commerce of the US, the High Seas and the extension of the laws of the high seas into common, international airspace. What that does not get you is civil crimes, so they do not get tried in Federal court. They go to a different Court described in the Constitution and mentioned for these crimes: Admiralty Court. This gets rid of the whole GC concept, as these are well defined crimes against Nations, war crimes and the US treats the organizations involved in same as single entities: join the organization, then the same crimes are yours for joining such an organization.
Unfortunately we have a myopic elite political system that dares not call crimes for what they are, specify going after those that commit such crimes and then prosecuting them in the proper venue. Mind you these individuals may *also* be: terrorists and illegal combatants waging illegitimate warfare against the Nation. But their organizations have been engaged in activities that have other crimes far more suitable to the current US Code and designated punishment and no statute of limitations. Nice 19th century law that the common man can understand… thus far too direct for the PC era of hair splitting, loopholes and wanting those determined to kill us to get a great opportunity to do so.
In other words: suicidal.
But then standing up for ‘international law’ means applying the laws to the defined crimes. Those that don’t wish to do that are seeking international chaos and the destruction of Nations. How sad that their rights and freedoms depend on the Nation State system. Perhaps they can put forth why international law, that is codified and on the books, should not be applied? But that does require thought and not a knee-jerk reaction and actually supplying the means and methodology to uphold international law.
And actually judging people by their actions.
That requires ‘bias’ in favor of one’s Nation State, so as to have a Nation State, so you may enjoy your rights and freedoms, so that those that threaten them will be put away for crimes that would threaten all of that. And it would have the great and good benefit of clearing out Guantanamo… of course a new ‘SuperMax’ would have to be built someplace. Perhaps we can rent an island from some nice Nation in the Pacific or get an extension to the one in Cuba.
To begin an understanding of the “new” Left within the Democratic Party and where they may come from, I highly recommend reading the interview with Norman Geras in “Marxism, the Holocaust and September ll” in the Journal of Analytic Socialism’s online content from Vol. 6 vol. 3, 2002, at the following url: http://mail.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/imprints/normangerasinterview.html Fascinating. For years I have tried to understand what happened to this country’s liberals. They are still there, of course, but we are really talking about the “Left” and if you read Geras, you begin to get an inkling of what these tinfoil hatted leftist loons actually think! Amazing!! All need to read it so that we can begin to identify these people for who and what they are not as the Democratic Left. We can then begin to see how to overcome them, if at all.
I think we should just outsource the interrogation work. Bring in a team of hard-pipin’ Israelis to go medieval on their fanatical asses.
TW: tickling object (which, of course, would be a completely different way to go about extracting information)
I have yet to see one rational or even logical explanation of why this provision was stripped from the legislation, and as we all suspected, the MSM is not calling them on it. Well done.
The closest explanation to rational was that this immunity is not given to everyone, and by argument, should be extended to anybody that reports any type of suspicious behavior.
little strike entire leave black