waterboarding terrorists: out, airbombing innocent civilians: in
By American Girl in Italy on May 7, 2009 at 12:50 PM in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Bush/Cheney, Current Affairs, Keith Olbermann, Sara in Italy
The topic of torture and enhanced interrogation has been a hot topic in our country for quite a while. The opinions on what constitutes torture vastly differ, as we have seen in the comments section on this blog. The moral standards on what constitutes right and wrong for torture vastly differ, as they do on abortion and the death penalty.
Some writers on this blog are absolutely against any type of enhanced interrogation techniques and consider water boarding torture. Others not. But what I find utterly unbelievable is an argument in support of air raids, that kill hundreds of innocent civilians, by people who are against water boarding the mastermind of 9/11.
Ellis Henican just makes absolutely no sense to me with this argument. Waterboarding is a big moral failure, but air raids are ok?
U.S.-led airstrikes killed dozens of Afghans, including women and children, the Red Cross said on Wednesday, appearing to confirm an incident that could overshadow a meeting between U.S. and Afghan leaders.
Rohul Amin, governor of Western Farah province where the bombing took place during a battle on Monday and Tuesday, said he feared 100 civilians had been killed. Provincial police chief Abdul Ghafar Watandar said the death toll could be even higher.
Obama ordered these attacks, with the knowledge that innocent civilians could be killed, but the Left argues that Bush is basically a war criminal for water boarding a handful of terrorist suspects, in order to save American lives.
Keith Olbermann has led the charge for the left, screaming for the prosecution of Bush and Cheney for the waterboarding of KSM, a terrorist, and matermind responsible for the deaths of 3000 Americans.
Will KO call for the prosecution of Obama for the bombing and killing of hundreds of innocent women and children because he had a tip that there might be a terrorist living in the area?
“Mr Obama has increased the rate of drone attacks operated by the CIA after his predecessor George W Bush approved a previous escalation last summer.
The agency has carried out at least 16 Predator strikes in Pakistan in the first four months of this year, compared with 36 strikes in 2008, killing about 161 people since Mr Obama was inaugurated on Jan 20.”
I can’t wrap my head around this twisted logic. How is air raid bombing, killing hundreds of innocent people, more acceptable than water boarding a few terrorists in order to save hundreds/thousands of lives?
I can’t fathom the idea that ANYONE would condone air bombing and killing innocent people instead of using enhanced interrogation techniques on suspects, in order to find Taliban leaders, and uncover potential future terrorist plots. It just doesn’t register in my brain.
“Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation said the Obama administration decided to intensify the attacks in the hope they would reach the top of al-Qaeda quickly.”
I find it so much more humane to interrogate a few suspected terrorists, seeking information as to the location and plans of terrorist leaders, than to drop bombs from the air. Obama said, “America lost its ‘moral bearings’ over its torture of terrorist suspects.”
Obama said water boarding violated American ideals and was not appropriate even if it made getting information from suspected enemies easier. Pressed on whether that meant former President George W. Bush’s administration had sanctioned torture, Obama said:
“I believe that waterboarding was torture. And I think that … whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake.”
“We could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are,” he said. “In some cases it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.”
“Ultimately I will be judged as commander-in-chief on how safe I’m keeping the American people,” he said. “So I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe. But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are.”
Air raid bombings aren’t considered short cuts? Killings hundreds of innocent civilians doesn’t undermine who we are? How is killing innocent civilians going to make us safer, and make us a beacon in the world?
I’ve raised this example twice now. But, really, how is waterboarding a known detained terrorist like Khalid Sheik Mohammed (who confessed to cutting off Daniel Pearl’s head [with two knives after the first went dull], and to planning the 9/11 mass murder) at Guantanamo considered a war crime, while blowing up with a Predator drone suspected terrorists (and all those, including women and children, in their general vicinity) not?
The latter victims were not given habeas corpus, and Miranda rights, and there is a greater doubt about their guilt from 10,000 feet than is the case with the much studied psychopath KSM in Guantanamo. Most suspects would prefer to be water-boarded than vaporized? Ditto the Somali pirates, whose heads were blown off during their apparent attempts at negotiating extortion, again a bit more drastic than waterboarding. Would a future President Sanford or Giuliani be right to bring charges against those in the Obama administration who green lighted assassinations of suspected terrorists—something akin to the Phoenix program in Vietnam?
Allahpundit from Hot Air replied: It’s the Jon Stewart/Harry Truman dilemma again: When is it wrong to inflict suffering on captives in hopes of averting greater suffering later? Why do we need a Nuremberg for waterboarders but not one for drone operators who occasionally incinerate Pakistani families based on bad intel?
This post is not about what tactics are right or wrong in a war. This is about the sheer hypocritical partisan politicizing of a war.
Obama attacked Bush and Cheney and used the liberal anger over how they handled the war to win an election. He has even opened Bush and Cheney up to prosecution by releasing the memos.
But how can you be against one method of fighting a war (the waterboarding of three terrorists), but utilize another (drone air raid bombings) which kills innocent civilians? I just don’t see how you can, unless you are just playing politics.
I just don’t know how you can place more value in the life of one or two terrorists, than the lives of hundreds of civilians, American, Pakistani, or Afghani.
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Speaking of air raid bombing, why is no one reporting the bombing of the Kurds in northern Iraq by Iran???
I want my Hillary Damn it! The whole world has lost its mind!
And you are somehow suggesting that Hillary Clinton would NOT be pursuing war in Afghanistan? If so, call me right away. I have the money left for you.
Having said that, I suspect that we really need to figure out how to stop this bombing, stop our involvement in Afghanistan. Got any ideas? I sure as hell don’t.
Gug
And you are somehow suggesting that Hillary Clinton would NOT be pursuing war in Afghanistan? If so, call me right away. I have the money left for you.
Having said that, I suspect that we really need to figure out how to stop this bombing, stop our involvement in Afghanistan. Got any ideas? I sure as hell don’t. We sure were left on hell of a mess by the WORST President ever, weren’t we?
Gug
In past times we would send a million dollar cruise missile into those $10 tents. Now with drone technology, is costs us a lot less. But what else is new really? Why is either of these acceptable? Why is it o.k. to drone attack a sovereign nation which we have not formally declared war on? Right, wrong or somewhere in a gray area… at least the water board suspects were captured war detainees. These villagers… what are they to us anyway? Legally or morally, what are they to us?
Do you know how many innocent civilians–men, women, and children–were killed as a result of the secret air war during Bush’s war against Iraq?
So? We are talking about Obama. They are both bad thats the whole point of the article.
The article is making comparisons between the evils of the Bush and Obama administrations. If we’re going to do that, I don’t think we should be allowed to cherry-pick areas of comparisons just to make Obama look bad. We’ve got to look at the entire picture.
Obama is presently conducting two wars that Bush started but didn’t finish. Obama didn’t start those wars. Did anyone think both would magically stop on inauguration day?
Obama is not Bush. Obama did not methodically drum up support for the unnecessary invasion of a country halfway around the world that had not attacked us and lacked any capacity to do so. He did not instigate a pointless war that has cost 4,284 American lives, and left a confirmed 100,278 Iraqi civilians dead. He’s just stuck with them.
Nor did Obama make torture a policy of the United States government. He took steps to end that policy.
If you want to stop hearing about Bush from the Obama people, stop making the phony comparisons.
OK, let me ask you, too? What would you do? Serious question: Do you think that if we just left Afghanistan that the situation would cool down? Is there maybe some way that we can provide the support to Afghanistan in the form of some kind of “Marshall-like” Plan that would allow some form of democratic government to prevail?
I think Obama is making a mistake but I don’t have any plan to offer. In Iraq, I argued to just stop and let the Iraqis sort it out.
Keep in mind that our foreign policy in the middle east hasn’t changed since WW II. It has been and continues to be based on controlling the energy sources. I dread the US getting into the same quagmire that Soviet Russia was in with a MUCH longer supply line.
Col David Kilcullen has recently come out against the drone attacks and it is reported that BHO is considering ending them;
also “the Pakistan senate committee on national security has declared that the continuing of US drone attacks on Pakistani territory is a failure of the government’s foreign policy” and has expressed their concern that BHO has not already said he will stop the drone attacks.
Hopefully it will be very very very soon.
http://coincentral.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/coin-expert-david-kilcullens-testimony-to-the-house-armed-services-committee/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5279815/US-considers-halting-drone-attacks-on-Pakistan.html
http://blog.taragana.com/n/us-drone-attacks-failure-of-pak-governments-foreign-policy-23166/
AGI, thanks for saying what needs to be said. I have been having this same argument with many people. Also, torture is bad (where the person still lives), but Obama was ok letting the navy shoot pirates a few weeks ago. Shooting peopel is not equal to torture when it makes them dead, is that it? Where is the logic? Killing people, good, torturing people and keeping them alive, bad.
This does not compute with me.
I’m curious as to what Larry has to say about this.
Thank you AGII for this post. What you said is RIGHT ON! Hypocrisy comes to mind for alot of people.
I can’t stand Henican…turn the volume off when he comes off. One day O’Reilly was getting mad at him and said “oh torture my ass”…ass got bleeped out, I was crackin’ up.
The definition of torture shouldn’t become a partisan football kicked and tossed back and forth to serve the agenda of which political party is in power. Bashing Mr. Bush(43)on one front is baseless if the same bashers turn a blind eye to what their party in power does.
Politics aside, my personal view is as long as team USA is accomplishing what is in the best interests of the United States of America, then no harm–no foul, so maybe the focus shouldn’t be so much on a Democratic or Republican administration as much as on what’s in our best interests as a whole in this unpredictable world.
So America can do absolutely anything in the world as long as it is furthering its own interests? There have been a lot of groups throughout time who have thought that way. History does not look kindly on them.
Where’s the evidence that these drone attacks are helpful to U.S. interests? We seem to be accomplishing very little, except killing and maiming innocent civilians, and inflaming an already troubled area. I’m always curious about how many young Pakistanis make the decision to join “Jihad Against the West” as a result of our actions . . . and I’m sure these attacks are a great recruiting tool for the Taliban there.
Obama changed U.S. policy on “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Fine. But I feel his releasing of the CIA memos, opening the door for possible investigation/prosecution, and authorizing the release of further photographs is nothing but partisan politics on steroids.
OMG…please tell me you’re just posting this to get a rise, like ACORN workers disguised an going to Tea Parties to cause a problem.
Do anything in the same of security?
Yes, Hussein made that argument too as he was gassing his own citizens.
s/b in the Name, not same
“my personal view is as long as team USA is accomplishing what is in the best interests of the United States of America, then no harm–no foul”
Al, the United States is not a team. But if it were, you’d be on the opposing side.
Torture is immediate and hands-on; the gruesome details are up-close and personal. The torturer’s humanity is directly brutalized.
Bombing is much more abstract–the pretty little poofs of smoke far below . . . at least until you see close-up pictures of the results . . .
The other day when torture was discussed here, in a live chat, I stated that, President Truman dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, populated with non-combatant civilians, for reasons other than as an offset against future military casualties if the war continued. I was soundly castigated as being a revisionist. At that time, I ‘cited’ a Pulitzer Prize winning historian whose name and work escaped me; I promised to provide these cites. Here is an interview with the man, Professor John Dower, MIT.
http://www.aasianst.org/EAA/DowerInterview.pdf
Thanks for that,jbjd.
On the off chance that any of the troglodytes which comprise the noquarter reader base follow the link you’ve provided, that is.
I have doubts.
Bravo AGI. Spot on.
And this is not the first time Obama has ordered the attacks, but the loss of innocent life is getting larger on each episode.
We are not at war with Afghanistan, yet our presidenot is ordering attaks on innocent civilians.
Should we be surprised after standing on that podium declaring he would “bomb Pakistan”.
But still, these poor innocent civilians, literally, like Maqbulla Naseem who is just so happy to finally be able to go to school, even though she is being ridiculed by her fellow citizens because she is so poor, living in poor conditions, will be the first ones to suffer more.
Now, you just picture this bombing and killing happening to someone like what we see in this toucching post Naif Sag Tan wrote.
video from Al Jazeera
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2009/04/01/hold-for-correction-hold-the-troops-send-money-to-afghanistan-instead/
Obama’s improved torture techniques. Hmmm……bet we’ll all be safer. hahahahaha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSe38dzJYkY
Watching this Obama crowd in action, on a daily basis since Iowa, is the worst form of torture known to man.
He can do it because (in case you have not noticed), NO ONE REPORTS ON THE DRONE ATTACKS! Are they headlines in the newspapers? No. Are they the lead in on the news? No. Is Murtha calling them murders calling for trials for all of them? No. That is the difference. Obama does not give a shit over torture, or killing women and children. Hell he campaigned for his cousin who later attacked and killed christians hacking them to pieces. It is just the front of his supporters he is keeping up. The sheeple will get what they deserve. Me, I am getting ready to take over when it is all done.
i.m ready to help you.
All of these questions about torture, air raids, war itself are a sticky wicket. How far are we willing to go to defend ourselves? Who is the enemy? Do the tactics work? What is the achieveable goal?
With torture? I do not buy into it. There is credible evidence that it does not/has not worked, that the ticking time-bomb analogy is bogus as a debating point, and that the deliberate nature of torture corrupts and coarsen’s any ligitimate argument we might have going in. Waterboarding is gross enough; rape by instrumentality makes my skin crawl.
These drone operations and subsequent civilian casualties, whether intended or not [and I don't think they're purposeful] beg the question of the achieveable goal. I don’t see that we’ve gained anything, except creating fear and damage, in a country where the leaders on the ground need to do the necessary fighting. I understand that nearly a 1/2 million civilians are leaving the Swat Valley now, that the peace agreement between the Pakistani govt and the Taliban has been tossed out. So, it looks like the dogfight between the real parties involved is going to start.
Does the Pakistani Government have a right to attack these strongholds? Absolutely. And a lot of people are going to get killed, up close and personal and probably horrifically.
So, I don’t see how you bunch these things together. Each is specific with specific moral decisions required. I’m against torture on basic principle; I’m not convinced it works nor is necessary. I’m against the drone attacks because we’re killing senselessly with no achieveable goal. But I’m on the Pakistani Government’s side, a sovereign nation, to defend itself against those who would destroy it.
Inconsistent? Perhaps. But I never said I was pacifist. They’re the ones who get trampled as they’re throwing flowers.
“But I’m on the Pakistani Government’s side, a sovereign nation, to defend itself against those who would destroy it.”
Isn’t that EXACTLY what Bush was trying to do, by water boarding terrorists? trying to gain info that would save american lives from those who want to destroy our way of life and prevent future attacks?
Bush water boarded terrorist suspects and was called a war criminal.
obama orders drone attacks, killing innocent civilians, and Ellis Henican made, in my opinion, a STUPID argument in defense of drone attacks, while condeming water boarding.
They are both utilized, with the same objectives.
One leaves the terrorist alive, and unharmed, but wet.
the other leaves innocent men, women and children dead.
personally, i would find it much more humane to waterboard a few suspected terrorists, in hopes of discovering the locations of taliban leaders, and future plots, than performing air raid bomb drops because of a tip.
AGI, I have no warm, fuzzy feelings for terrorists. My objection to torture has more to do with who we are [or are suppose to be], not who the terrorists are. And there isn’t any credible evidence to indicate that torture works. You add in testimony from the likes of John McCain [who was nearly tortured to death] and Larry [who has experience in the field] and I just don’t see the defense of torture making any sense. Plus, finding out that there were cases worse than waterboarding completely turns me off. There are some behaviors that are beyond defense. Rape by instrumentality is one of them.
I’m not convinced that torture made us safer. Anymore that I was ever convinced that invading Iraq made sense. All Shock and Awe did was destroy the global goodwill and sympathy that we genuinely had on 9/12/01 and make us look like a bunch of cowboys.
In my mind what’s happening in Pakistan has no bearing on what GW did. We lost 3000 people on 9/11, killed by crazed, religious zealots, most of whom came from Saudi Arabia. Months after the attack, we invade Iraq under false pretenses, and get bogged down in a God awful mess.
As far as I’m concerned, Bush and his Neo-con buddies followed the same mantra as the Dems: never let a good crisis go to waste. Iraq wasn’t threatening our national sovereignty. Our own fear, confusion and anger have done that admirably.
I don’t agree with the drone attacks because they don’t seem to have any purpose, beyond killing indiscrimately. But I think it’s an entirely separate issue from the torture question.
So, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
the terrorists they waterboarded were al queda, and the mastermind of 9/11.
I am against torture.
my issue is with one party (dems/obama) screaming about waterboarding terrorists, but then turn around and air bomb civilians, and then try to spin it and justify it.
invasion of iraq is a seperate issue. they weren’t using enhanced interrogation techniques on Iraqis in search of WMDs (as far as i know).
They were using the techniques to defend americans against those who would destroy it.
I noticed in Larry’s thread you wrote that you were surprised that the left is staying virtually silent on this issue. THAT is what my post is about. The hypocrisy – not whether one or the other is correct. But the politicization of the tactics used, and the *outrage* launched by the left at Bush, but the silence towards Obama. (And obama’s hypocrisy as well)
I don’t think we are really that much in disagreement.
“I’m not convinced that torture made us safer. Anymore that I was ever convinced that invading Iraq made sense”
And I’m sure you know that air bombing and killing hundreds of civilians is MOST definitely not making us safer.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30618973/
Personally, I would prefer neither method was used. But, if I had to choose, I would prefer waterboarding a handful of suspected terrorists in hopes of gaining crucial info, over air raids.
“I don’t agree with the drone attacks because they don’t seem to have any purpose, beyond killing indiscrimately. But I think it’s an entirely separate issue from the torture question.”
They are both tactics of war, used for the same outcome. Some consider one a-ok, and the other, a war crime. That to me, does not make sense.
But thanks for the debate! :O)
AGI
Best post I have read this year. Clear and head-on.
thanks easten! ;O)
Afghan death toll rising, may be 200.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/7/headlines#1
I e-mailed both of my Senators, Levin, and Stabinaw, and asked them what the difference was between waterbording and drone attacks. And might Obarky be brought up on charges of torture at a later date. I wanted to let them know that we were watching what was going on and not liking it a bit. Great post.
i would love to see what they reply.
and thanks! :O)