“Like it or not it come down to the numbers.”

It comes down to one number: zero.

For eight years we have been a nation devoid of a moral compass. Condoning or practicing torture makes us nothing else but terrorists. As a nation we must decide whether we are willing to live in peril, whether we are willing to absorb punches from an opponent, or whether we are going to gamble that our use of torture might be able to prevent a tragedy.

The answer to me is crystal clear: we must accept risk to be able to walk through history with our heads held high, proud of our country and proud of our standing in the world community.

We now have a president who is trying to restore our self-esteem and dignity. I am proud of a United States that will stand up and say, “This is the right thing to do. We will protect our citizens consistent with our tenets and beliefs, but we will not bend our moral standards for any reason.”

Thanks Obama for being cautious when it comes to prosecuting proud criminals, on a soapbox

Let’s say Cheney and three other thugs were actually going to jail proudly claiming that they were being jailed for protecting America from a terror attack for seven years and now that Obama gave suspects some civil liberty rights we are destined to be attacked again, and al Qaeda is strong enough to cooperate with this ploy. Then George Bush is sobbingly hauled off the prison, crying that he had no idea what was going on.

Let’s say instead that there is a South African type, Truth Commission, where Cheney etc. can only be jailed for what he leaves out and all the Cold War dirt gets revealed.

Then Cheney is sued by the relatives of the three Pentagon employees who died because he secretly ordered the 9/11 planes heading toward Washington DC not to be shot down, the way the relatives of O. J. Simpson keep suing Simpson.

Following every war we got our Civil Liberties back until the Cold War followed in the heals of World War II. Now there is another chance but bin Laden is in the way.

I think Cheney proudly declaring he is being jailed for preserving America from another attack is something we need to avoid.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog2419
RichardKanePA

There are plenty of countries that don’t have a terror problem.

Why?

Because they mind their own business.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we are the cause of our own ills.

There can be “no” torture under any circumstances…period! Per Title 18, Part I, chapter 118, section 2441 of the U.S. Code passed as of January 3, 2007 states so clearly and is also in accord with international law concerning the same. I’ll provide the link so people can read the law of the land which is in agreement with international standards directly.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002441—-000-.html

There can be no ifs, ands, or buts concerning this issue and violaters at all levels “need” to be prosecuted for such infractions of the law. The Israeli state relentlessly hunts down war criminals that were involved in the holocaust. Torture on an individual basis or on groups of people is a reenactment of holocaust style attrocities and cannot be tolerated!

What apologists for torture seem to forget that if you allow your government or any other to do so on this planet then they will use torture against their very own citizens when the need arises. In an age where the word “terrorist” seems to trigger everyone to wet their undies, most seem eager to torture terrorists guilty or not so they can get back to “safe shopping”…no?!

Carl Nemo **==

By the way Bush withdrew US troops from sacred Saudi soil in 2003, the presence of which bin Laden felt was the ultimate insult on Islam. After which bin Laden had to worry about another terror attack leading to an adrenaline rich US ending up sending troops back into Saudi Arabia. So the ability of the US to get intelligence suffers from false assumptions. See, http://capitolhillblue.com/blog/2419

*

I guess that I and others are avoiding answering Hal Brown’s question. Yes, if I was in control and actually believed that torturing someone would get vital information I would do it. But if the information was from a child such Khalid Mohammed’s 7 and 9-year-old children tortured into telling where he was hiding, or the torture of or a witness who told of a terror attack planned with only vague details so al Qaeda wouldn’t know he told, I’m not really sure what I would do. But again as related to the badest of the bad, I know you can’t torture someone who enjoys playing the choking game. I would probably be wasting my time trying to get any good information from Moussaoui

By the way, I hope people reread “terror attack may be imminent”,
http://capitolhillblue.com/node/15268

RichardKanePA

Wow Richard! I realize you said you were answering based on Hal Brown’s contrived situation, but you as most, including him, seem to forget the fact there can be no torture period, predicated on existing statutes. There can be no sophistry concerning the splitting of hairs concerning even contrived situations.

Now to say you would do so on an individual basis should cause you some self shame good buddy!

Think, just think! How would you like to be tortured by someone like yourself when you know you have no vital information to provide, but this self-perceived good citizen; ie., “YOU”, think you have the right to extract information via such evil methods.

That’s why this nation is going down the tubes. We’ve become a nation of scofflaws from the highest to lowest levels of our government and the populace as a whole. We no longer seemingly know right from wrong or even have a sense of decency. : |

Carl Nemo **==

So to misquote Carl Nemo, “Those of us who were willing to torture could have ended up in some ways as bad as George Bush”.

All over the Internet and newspapers many are preaching never use torture vs this is a subject we shouldn’t be willing to admit in public. At Capitol Hill Blue we are actually discussing the issue. Perhaps if there was discussion instead of preaching on other sites, people who oppose of torture in all cases won’t be talking to themselves,
http://capitolhillblue.com/node/15268
RichardKanePA

Otherwise I would have said that we knew with 100% certainty that the prisoner had vital information and that nothing but torture would get him to reveal the information.

One of the tenets of our legal system is based on Blackstone’s Formulation (see Wikipedia) from the 1760′s in England, which itself goes back to Abraham in the Bible.

You’re all aware of it even if, like me, you’d have to look it up to learn the name:

"better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

http://phillyimc.org/en/torture-debate-over-it-and-tv-show-24

RichardKanePA

The what-ifs sound academic but I think some are helpful.

So here’s another one.

Let’s say we had a hard core terrorist who we knew was privy to information that was vital to stop a terror attack and no amount of water boarding, infliction of pain and threats of death would get him to reveal it.

Suppose that we had his pregnant wife and four little children in custody.

Would it be acceptable to chop their fingers off, or even kill them one at a time hoping that he’d talk to stop us?

Not to be overly dramatic, what if this person knew the location of a huge dirty bomb set to go off in "24 Hours"?  Might you authorize this?

We don’t have to ask what Hitler, Mao Ze-Dong, Pol Pot, Stalin would have done (we know the Gestapo did these kinds of things) and what Osama bin Laden would endorse because human life is cheap to them.

What would Dick Cheney do?

Okay, ready for the final exam?

What would Jesus do?

Even though I’m not a Christian I have my own answer to this one.