Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on torture http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic torture Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb The System Works Fri, 07 May 2004 08:24:11 +0100 <blockquote> White House aides said Bush had chastised Rumsfeld for failing to tell him about pictures of prisoner mistreatment. [Source: <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/05/06/bush_tries_to_calm_arabs/">Salon</a>] </blockquote> It's clear the torture system works and is in full swing (cf. <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=cia+contract+interrogators&btnG=Google+Search">CIA contract interrogators</a>).  Is this the cost of invading other countries?  That we have to have torture to get the intelligence we need to save our asses? Also I think that what has Bush so steamed is that Rumsfeld didn't tell him about the leak of the photos.  I didn't believe his mock "outrage" at all; This is a man who makes fun of people he has executed (see <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/12/13/bush.html">#1</a>, <a href="http://www.danm.us/writing/prison5.html">#2</a>, <a href="http://monkeyfist.com/articles/701">#3</a>) what does he care about Iraqi prisoners? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002196.html Break out the violins Sat, 08 May 2004 11:40:04 +0100 <blockquote><a href="http://www.theobviousblog.net/blog/archives/000506.html">Doh!</a>. We're functioning with peacetime constraints, with legal requirements, in a wartime situation in the Information Age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media,... Donald Rumsfeld  [<a href="http://www.theobviousblog.net/blog/">The Obvious?</a>] </blockquote> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002201.html We're down the slippery slope now Sat, 08 May 2004 18:47:20 +0100 <blockquote>In the commentator's calculations he balanced one guilty party killed against hundreds of innocent lives saved. However, that is not the right equation. For each such success, there are thousands who are tortured or murdered on the guess that they will reveal valuable information. More often than not, as history shows, they do not possess the information sought or do not have the power to do what the torturer wishes them to. [...] The central issue is this: once you turn to torture you have not started down the slippery slope to lawlessness, you have slid down and fallen off. Those living under a regime that uses torture have much to fear. They have no guarantee of due process, no presumption of innocence, no opportunity to present an opposing view to protect themselves. Their torturers believe they will find the justification for their work as the victim is being tortured. First the punishment, then the investigation, and later, the cover-up. Torturers will display dead bodies and tell us what the victims would have revealed, had they not unfortunately died first. Torturers without results will dismiss any suggestion that they have erred, all blame is on the victim: they were tough and didn't talk. Or the information "revealed" is too sensitive to discuss. There are many excuses, but no one can undo the suffering of the innocent. [...] This is no defense of the tactics of the terrorists, but it is an example of how lawlessness breeds lawlessness. Government A oppresses group B, group B-- being militarily inferior -- responds with terrorist tactics (they have no other means of fighting back); A cannot fight B with conventional armies and resorts to torture and other oppressive measures, justifying it by pointing to B's "illegitimate" use of terrorism (forgetting their own illegitimate oppression) and so forth. Oppression creates terrorism. Every injustice increases the legitimacy and fervor of the opposition (there is a lesson here these days for Israel). Without injustice, acts of terror are random and rare. Being unsystematic, they cannot be entirely prevented, but being rare, they are not a major threat either. [<a href="http://humane.sourceforge.net/published/torture.html">The Flawed Calculus of Torture - Jef Raskin</a>] </blockquote> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002202.html Worlds greatest democracy Thu, 10 Jun 2004 19:32:26 +0100 <blockquote>The text of the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/military_0604.pdf">White House legal finding</a> (PDF -- WSJ) that agreements against torture don't apply to the US. [<a href="http://jrobb.mindplex.org/">John Robb's Weblog</a>] </blockquote> That's the worlds greatest democracy for you folks! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002311.html Bringing the workings of government out into the open Wed, 28 Dec 2005 15:49:23 +0000 I've been disturbed by recent reports concerning the Bush administrations use of the tools of military intelligence against U.S. citizens, seemingly in violation of the constitution of that country. I'm not so much disturbed for Americans who seem not to care about the rising threat of a police state in their country as I am for what it says about what actions are permissable for the leaders of a modern, democratic, state in the name of security and how this can be overseen. I accept that I am in a minority: I am one of those people who are prepared to trade security for liberty. I am also one of those people who would prefer their government to stop interfering in the affairs of others. I am one of those people who believe that a more aggressive persuit of the latter policy would make the former more palatable. That I am in a minority of such believers makes me sad, especially since the majority don't actually seem to enjoy the state of paranoia that they will upon themselves. I recently wrote to my MP Siobhan McDonagh about the Blair governments involvement in extraordinary renditions. Unlike my previous inquiry about the DVLA selling my details, Siobhan seemed reticient to address the murkier side of her parties activities in government and I received no reply. I am not surprised. Still I am naive enough to believe that it should still be a matter of shame for an MP to put party loyalty ahead of conscience. Shame on you Siobhan. I believe my government is more than slightly involved in this, despite their denials. For those who think that a British government wouldn't stoop to this I hold up as precedent the actions of a previous government in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1669544,00.html">running the Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre</a>:<blockquote>Ministers were anxious that nobody should learn that CSDIC was running a number of similar prisons in Germany. There was also what the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Frank Pakenham, later to become Lord Longford, described as "the fact that we are alleged to have treated internees in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps". The army, meanwhile, said it was determined the Soviets should not discover "how we apprehended and treated their agents", not least because some would-be defectors might have second thoughts.Finally, there was the inevitable fall-out for Attlee's Labour government. As Hector McNeill, foreign minister, pointed out in a memo to Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary: "I doubt if I can put too strongly the parliamentary consequences of publicity. Whenever we have any allegations to make about the political police methods in Eastern European states it will be enough to call out in the House 'Bad Nenndorf', and no reply is left to us."</blockquote>Blairs government has allied itself with the Bush administration in so many areas, am I to believe that the use of torture is the exception? Torture, incarceration without right of trial, a neverending war on terror, increased use of military methods against civilians: this all leads in one direction. I don't like it. But what control do I have? I can vote for another government but I am reminded that I don't remember giving Blair's original government a mandate to invade other countries. It seems that voting for governments is a poor mechanism of control. And what about oversight? If, for the sake of argument, I agreed that a state should have the right to do some of these things, how should they be overseen? The current deny everything approach is unsatisfactory to me. Is there anywhere a proper debate about what should be permissable for the modern state? How about whether the modern state still has a right to exist? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00003117.html