🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <190920061929542245%jmerk06@Invalid.earthlink.net>,
 "John�]� 
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 <jmerk06@Invalid.earthlink.net> wrote:

> Let's remember that you are blubbering, sputtering and grasping at 
> straws over nothing.

Let's remember just one interrogation technique only recently banned by 
the Bush Administration, and then only because of public outcry:

Waterboarding. Fiercely defended by the Executive Office as one of 
several "necessary" interrogation procedures that have foiled 
terrorists plots. 

Which plots? That's secret. 

How many plots? That's secret, too. 

Let's just say a lot.

Okay, one plot that we foiled by waterboarding is where the terrorists 
planned to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge. With a blowtorch. 

Damn those Islamo-fascists and their hand tools!

Okay, so how do we know that was *really* a terrorist plot? Sorry, 
that's a secret.

> Care to define it?  Has anyone in the administration at any time 
> asked for congressional authority to beat people, boil them in oil, 
> flog them, pull their fingernails out, or put them on a rack?

Sorry, that is secret. As Bush said, �I�m not going to talk about 
techniques. And, I�m not going explain to the enemy what we�re doing. 
All I�m telling you is that you�ve asked me whether or not we�re doing 
things to protect the American people, and I want the American people 
to know we are doing so.�

> Of course not.

Okay, then reassure me. You say it is so. Now have the President say 
it. Let's hear exactly what he and his interrogators HAVE done to 
extract information from these people held without charge or recourse. 
Let's hear it in detail, and let's find out exactly how effective it 
has been.

> Your childish argument is about whether we shold deprive them of 
> sleep or turn the air conditioner down. Wow; that's *real* torture.

Yeah, they have a name for it: "torture lite". Freezing prisoners, 
making prisoners stand upright for hours (a favorite punishment used on 
military recruits, but not for days or weeks on end), no sleep for days, 
and on and on. Torture Lite: an infinite variety of abuse that leaves 
few or no marks.

OOPS! I forgot. These aren't prisoners. They are detainees. "Unlawful 
combatants", although we don't need evidence that they were actually 
fighting or involved in combat in any way, shape or form.

> Please explain how we have "tortured" these islamic savages

I don't know about any savages. But as for the people we torture (who 
are not charged with any crime, remember):

I worked in a restaurant/food supple warehouse. There was a huge 
refrigerated section that held all the frozen food. They turned the A/C 
down _real_ low in there. The forklift drivers were limited to 15 
minute work sessions in that section. They wore heavy coats, gloves, 
knit hats, scarves over their mouths and insulated boots and trousers. 

When they emerged, thick frost would have already formed on their 
eyebrows, moustaches and beards. The ones who stayed too long literally 
had icicles hanging from their beards.

Now, imagine that you are naked, and the cold room measures 8 x 6 x 6 
feet; smaller than many closets. 

Imagine being locked inside as the room starts to cool. Imagine frost 
forming in your eyes, your nose, your lips, maybe even down your throat 
as you inhale the frigid air. In minutes, your skin turns blue. Your 
extremity flesh starts to harden as blood vessels freeze. Numbness 
gives way to incredible pain. 

Imagine begging to be let out as you shiver uncontrollably and the 
temperature drops further. Then, just as you are ready to lose 
consciousness, the door opens and two guards drag you out. You are 
questioned as you slowly recover. But you know nothing, and since you 
can't answer acceptably, they drag you back inside.

Now imagine that happening over and over and over again. Not for days. 
Not for weeks. But for MONTHS, maybe even YEARS. Some of the 
"detainees" have been held for more than four years. No charges. No 
representation. No chance to prove their innocence. 

Just torture. Yeah: REAL torture. Bonafide. Genuine. American. Torture.

> what the President is asking congressional permission to do.

Bush wants Congress to specify what his interrogators can and cannot 
do. 

This is totally opposed to the Geneva Convention, which-- after 
generations of warfare-- deliberately left the definition of torture as 
broad as possible because warfare showed that Man's cruelty knows no 
limits. It would be impossible to list every single means of torture 
imaginable to men who revel in such things.

Bush knows this. His advisors know it and so do the most bloodthirsty 
of his torturers. And now, you do, too. 

And don't get me started on the other part of Bush's plan: to immunize 
American torturers against criminal prosecution. 

We might as well throw the GC in the same Presidential trash can where 
he pissed on the Constitution, or as he calls it, "goddamned piece of 
paper".