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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (5378)	11/16/2005 10:21:32 AM
From: Suma	Respond to of 543131

A third cost is losing the active support of our allies (such as they are) if they don't agree on our selective use of torture. Breaking the rules in a unilateral fashion pushes us deeper and deeper into unilateralism by default. So we end up with Samoa in the coalition of the willing and China telling Bush to take a hike when he criticizes their lack of democracy. This 3rd one is so meaningful to me. We have lost credibility on with the world on the war.... Now, we have issues of going around and preaching Democracy when we are a poor example of same... I don't think anything justifies some of the torture that we have implemented in our ferreting out information. I am a Cain believer on this. We sound like such hypocrites...

To: Dale Baker who wrote (5378)	11/16/2005 10:27:45 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543131

when they see the American government openly practicing torture. I don't see how you get "openly practicing torture" out of that piece. In it, torture is rare and punished.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (5378)	11/16/2005 1:13:27 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543131

Torture is already illegal. In case you didn't know that. It's a violation of the US Code for any US citizen or employee of the US government to torture anybody, whether inside or outside the US. So is what they call "rendition," handing a prisoner to another country for torture. The loopholes are "this isn't torture," which is the one Bush is publicly stating, and the one I've mentioned before, that, as Commander in Chief during war time, Bush is not necessarily bound by what Congress tells him to do. "This isn't torture" means that they're not causing death or massive organ failure. Beating legs to jelly with a truncheon is not torture because it doesn't usually kill or cause massive organ failure, for example. I agree with Senator Durbin, this is the type of thing we expect from a totalitarian state, not America. The counterargument, that we're not as bad as totalitarians because they have no issues with causing massive organ failure and death, is ludicrous. And ugly. See, Kholt, sometimes "ugly" is called for.