Are likely to come back to haunt President Bush? Since we can't read them (yet), we can't say whether they sanction "torture" (and that's a category apparently more difficult to define than to condemn), or "robust" interrogation policies. Right? Right.
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Comments
Ha! If there's any justice, Bush, Rumsfelt and about a hundred US dept of defence oficials will face war crimes trials. What are the chances of that? Wouldn't hold my breath.
I would agree with that. Just as sod all happens the soldiers that are caught shooting innocent civilains in war zones never face any real justice.
Memo Schmemo.
The same old people will hate Bush in the same old way using the same tired arguments, regardless of what the memos say, or what else they can drag up to crucify him for. A president who is as hated as Bush can expect to hear such continual, constant threats from this group or that group, this paper or that paper, this memo or that memo... until he is out of office.
That may be so but does that mean you wouldn't be at all disturbed to learn that Mr Bush ordered the CIA to go around the globe "disappearing" people and spriting them off to be tortured? Isn't this the kind of thing honest Americans prefer to do by proxy?
Bernard- Yes, I'd be disturbed about that. But at the same time I think the nature of war is that there's a different set of rules, and sometimes what we would do within the principals of a peaceful, orderly society is different than what we'd find ourselves forced to do on the battlefield.
For example, waterboarding is a technique whereby water is poured over the face of a bound subject, simulating drowning and making them believe their death is imminent. Not a nice thing, by any means - especially when one reads the details. But this wartime tool of interrogation can provoke the subject to give up information that can ultimately save hundreds, thousands, of lives. Sometimes we don't have a choice of good and bad outcomes; our choice is merely between degrees of bad. I would submit to you that techniques such as waterboarding - horrible as they are - may be justifiable sometimes and that, sitting as we are in comfortable surroundings with coffee and our friendly internet connection, we're simply inadequately equipped to understand why our military would need to resort to such measures at times.
This is a complicated subject, and of course very controversial. But remember that the people wanting to hunt Bush on the CIA memo are the same people who hunted him on the wiretapping program which ultimately provided much of the information that led to an extremely serious being foiled in Britain on August 10th.
As bad as that water-drowing-simulation thing sounds, is it any worse than killing your enemy - which is typically the main aim in war?
SG
There you go ... a defence of waterboarding! Go on John, give us your defence of needles under the nails? Bizzare. The only justification for torture is to extract useful information. Military experts say its unreliable in that respect. end of debate surely.
Don- Where are you getting your information?
Maybe you needed this