Friday, June 17, 2005
Durbin--Part Deux
Senator Durbin keeps digging. (We'll let him). There is little coverage of it in the mainstream media but great posts on the blogs. Here's a good junction post from Michelle Malkin. On the other hand the most popular lefty site, Daily Kos, says Durbin is speaking the truth. Scroll down to "The latest moronic Right-Wing smear attack" from June 15. One more take.
Durbin says that if you heard the FBI report about interrogation, including turning the air conditioning up and then off and playing rap music loudly, you would think it was the Nazis, etc. No we wouldn't. There are the obvious anachronisms. (Nazis and rap music--get real) but the real kicker is that the interrogation technique is way too tame. Go rent The Grey Zone, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, and The Killing Fields; and then read again Durbin's recounting of the "horror" (according to him) in Guantanamo Bay. There simply is no comparison; and that Durbin holds onto it, like a Bulldog a bone, is the best evidence there is that he has no judgment.
Durbin says that if you heard the FBI report about interrogation, including turning the air conditioning up and then off and playing rap music loudly, you would think it was the Nazis, etc. No we wouldn't. There are the obvious anachronisms. (Nazis and rap music--get real) but the real kicker is that the interrogation technique is way too tame. Go rent The Grey Zone, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, and The Killing Fields; and then read again Durbin's recounting of the "horror" (according to him) in Guantanamo Bay. There simply is no comparison; and that Durbin holds onto it, like a Bulldog a bone, is the best evidence there is that he has no judgment.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:19 AM 
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Thanks for the link to what Durbin said, which ended "On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot[over 100 degrees], but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."
About a year ago, Atlantic Monthly had a great article on the use of 'interrogation techniques' and raised the very valid very contentious question, how do you balance the need to extract vital information from a prisoner (and so potentially save lieves, win wars) with a moral obligation not to abuse him? I have been reading Fredrick Douglass' autobiography recently, and the treatment of GB prisoners does pale beside his description of slaves' treatment. nonetheless, it is clear that the prisoners at GB are being abused, i.e. are being treated in a way that we would not expect regular felons to be treated, and a democracy like ours should be raising questions about the justification of such abuse. To suggest that the raising of such questions aids and abets the enemy is shameless propoganda. perhaps the treatment of that detainee was justified - perhaps even valuable information was gleaned as a result. But to raise the question, examine the reasonable doubt, is what a decent democracy should do - surely that doesn't earn the examiner the epithet "unhinged".
About a year ago, Atlantic Monthly had a great article on the use of 'interrogation techniques' and raised the very valid very contentious question, how do you balance the need to extract vital information from a prisoner (and so potentially save lieves, win wars) with a moral obligation not to abuse him? I have been reading Fredrick Douglass' autobiography recently, and the treatment of GB prisoners does pale beside his description of slaves' treatment. nonetheless, it is clear that the prisoners at GB are being abused, i.e. are being treated in a way that we would not expect regular felons to be treated, and a democracy like ours should be raising questions about the justification of such abuse. To suggest that the raising of such questions aids and abets the enemy is shameless propoganda. perhaps the treatment of that detainee was justified - perhaps even valuable information was gleaned as a result. But to raise the question, examine the reasonable doubt, is what a decent democracy should do - surely that doesn't earn the examiner the epithet "unhinged".
You can tell, at times, that you were not a child in America. Maroon is what Buggs Bunny calls morons. I wouldn't mind Durbin holding a closed door session to investigate prisoner abuse at any of our prisons. That is good government. Bad government is airing dirty linen (here just a grass stain or two) so that the enemy in time of war can use it as a propaganda tool. I also despair at Durbin's lacking the historical knowledge and judgment to know that Guantanamo is nothing like Auswitz or Birkenau--for comparison's sake, they aren't even on the same planet--as well as the lack of jusgment to make such hysterical and inapporpriate comparisons. I'll post more on this in a few days, working title "Fighting to Win"
I did think the Atlantic article on interrogation was terrific. In our justice system we don't let confessions which are the product of torture into evidence at trial because they are unreliable. We don't know if the guy being tortured confessed because it was true or he just wanted them to stop the pain. If you were cutting off my fingers with bolt cutters one by one I would tell you anything I could think of to make you stop--that would be my only concern, making you stop, not the truth. I personally find the stuff Durbin describes so incredibly mild as to be innocuous in context, which is, trying to get reliable information from a terrorist. I don't think I'm alone in that belief.
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I did think the Atlantic article on interrogation was terrific. In our justice system we don't let confessions which are the product of torture into evidence at trial because they are unreliable. We don't know if the guy being tortured confessed because it was true or he just wanted them to stop the pain. If you were cutting off my fingers with bolt cutters one by one I would tell you anything I could think of to make you stop--that would be my only concern, making you stop, not the truth. I personally find the stuff Durbin describes so incredibly mild as to be innocuous in context, which is, trying to get reliable information from a terrorist. I don't think I'm alone in that belief.
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