Yes. Right on National Television, Diane Sawyer asked the guy what they could and couldn’t do. Apparently, some convention held at the Hague says what is acceptable torture and what isn’t. Bamboo shoots under the finger nails is not, sleep deprivation and temperature changes in the room are.
They’ll get something out of him. And sure enough in a couple weeks we will have a new terror warning…
Urban Ranger said:
Yeah and the other side did play the game. First with WTC then with Daniel Pearl. That was televised. Whats your point.
CNN is reporting that sleep deprivation is the primary means being used to ‘loosen’ him up. However, he is in an undisclosed location, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing him on Larry King Live or a Barbara Walters special anytime soon.
Gyan mentioned due process. I personally don’t give an airborne rodents buttocks about his due process. The only due process the perpetrators of the 9/11/2001 attack have are the due process to have a RPG shoved up their rectums and fired. He is not an American citizen and he was not captured on American soil. He is an enemy combatant and should be treated as such. His rights are shaped by the Geneva Convention (which we theoretically are following), not by US law.
Here’s a pretty frank Washington Post article on the “Stress and Duress” techniques being used against Al-Quada and Taleban operatives in Bagram, where Mohammed is almost certainly being held. Not exactly pleasant, but not the rubber hose treatment either. Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch is “deeply concerned.”
The point is that if we do it, it legitimizes torture and removes our right to claim that the other side are bad people for doing it. If that sounds like an academic point, it isn’t, especially if we’re planning on using it as an excuse for military action.
“According to one official who has been directly involved in rendering captives into foreign hands, the understanding is, “We don’t kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them.” Some countries are known to use mind-altering drugs such as sodium pentathol, said other officials involved in the process.”
Holy fuck. It’s happening, and I’m sure it’s happening worse than this article says, and the article sounds pretty bad to me.
Absolutely, Dinsdale. We HAD the high ground, Bush gave it up. We can’t claim to be the shining city on the hill as Reagan used to call it all the while stooping to the level of banana republics.
Yeah, I know. I keep hoping there’s a maximum depth to which the US will sink in the moral quagmire of international relations, but I don’t foresee us reaching it any time soon.
I don’t think we’re strapping alligator clips to his genitals and hooking him up to a car battery, but I’m sure there’s a lot of disorientation and sleep deprivation going on. Stuff that will not leave any lasting scars, but enough to loosen him up and make him talk.
Anyone else think Jack Bauer can go in there and get the information we need in about five minutes?
Zebra, I saw a political cartoon today that had Khalid Shaikh Mohammed being forced to watch Married by America. I would certainly call that cruel and unusual, but if he is indeed one of the masterminds on 9/11/2001 (and I’ve no reason to believe he isn’t), I’m all for it. Perhaps, as a break, we could throw in the entire run of Joe Millionaire and a few others - no breaks, no commercials, just straight beginning to end.
Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It is what he would expect, don’t you think? Those are the harsh realitys in his “lifestyle”. I would like to think that all means of intelligence gathering forms are being put to optimum use, and if he is subjected to a little discomfort, well, too damn bad. I also hope that his mental breaking point is somewhat lower than his physical one, and he talks before he dies.
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
I find it terribly amusing that we are discussing torture of a man who was directly involved with the WTC atrocity. And for those who feel putting the words “Moral High Ground” in this discussion is an appropriate thing. Rewind a little and remember who started this. GWB junior didn’t start it, and neither did his father for that matter. This battle has been waged for a long time, and a little sleep deprivation or whatever, is childs play compared to if we did nothing about the problem, and left it up to the turtle heads leading some of the nations involved…
I share PunditLisa’s concern for my own state of moral degeneration…There is some tiny part of me that wants to beat him senseless with the telephone on my desk cursing his ill-gotten parents… Even though that is so far from the moral high ground that I don’t think I could find my way back. That’s the part of me I am very glad is not in charge of meting out justice in this country.
If he really does know relevant details regarding future attacks on anyone or anything, how can we justify not doing our very best to get that information out of him? I’m not sure how the effectiveness of an information gathering technique corresponds to its brutality, but I am very concerned about the “right” we do/do not have to get information from prisoners.
We compromise prisoner’s civil rights by doing anything at all coercive so the question is “to what point is that acceptable?” Right now, I think the line should be drawn between torture as punishment and torture as “information retrieval.” -Ooh do I get points for a nice euphamism??