Posted on 10/22/2001 5:31:47 PM PDT by Grut
What in God’s name is wrong with all you people who suddenly think using torture to extract information from Arab detainees isn’t just OK, but kinda neat? Don’t you understand that our government is no less prone to occupying every niche available to it today than it was on September 10th? Give them the go-ahead on this and how long do you think it’ll be before YOUR goolies are hooked up to the electrodes? Hint: how long did it take to find out RICO isn’t just for Italians anymore?
This crap about Arabs aren’t citizens so the Constitution doesn’t protect them: their rights come from their being human, not from the Constitution. So do ours. If you really think citizenship affects what rights you have then you have just renounced the whole idea of natural law.
Even legally, there is nothing that I can think of in the Constitution that allows the government to act toward non-citizens much differently than it acts towards citizens except for relatively minor matters like residency and voting rights: certainly, there is nothing which lets it torture them. And remember, the government has only the powers the Constitution explicitly gives it.
OK...OK...(deep breath) I know everybody wants blood and anybody’s will do, but this immediate human response is flat wrong. We are not barbarians, which doesn’t mean we don’t have our barbaric impulses. But it is wrong to give in to them and cut off Achmed’s nose to spite Hassan’s face. Achmed is responsible for Achmed; Hassan for Hassan; is that so hard to understand?
Now, I have posted replies to other articles saying these things; more often than not, the responses (especially from those who should drink less and start later) have called my masculinity into question or suggested my indifference to American deaths. So far as the latter is concerned, more than a million Americans have died in the last 200 years to preserve the Constitution and it seems to me that queer-for-torture Freepers are the ones who are indifferent to their deaths. As for my masculinity - arrggh! forget it, it’s too childish a taunt to respond to.
Someone is bound to ask: if my wife were at grave risk, and I could eliminate that risk by torturing someone, would I? Damn right I would. But I would do it knowing that I would be charged, and tried, and very likely convicted for my actions. There is all the difference in the world between that and the sort of free pass so many Freepers suddenly seem inclined to give the federal government.
Scenario: threat of nuclear bomb on US city. Possible co-conspirator in custody and won't talk. Tomorrow is the BIG day. Whay would you do?
Yup. Reno in a teddy for 24 hours.
-Madame Lafarge, Marquis de Sade
You're right of course...and very witty that part about Achmed's nose and Hassan's face...I must confess to some barbaric impulses of my own (to which anyone who's read my posts since 911 can attest). I'd cut 100 ft of garden hose into 3 ft lengths before I got a grip.
Torture doesn't work as any interagator will tell you. You will only hear what you want to hear.
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