GayPatriot

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Senate Considers “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Detainee Policy

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Sometimes fiction is not as strange as real life….

(2006-09-16) — The Senate Armed Services committee this week will consider a bill designed to break the impasse with the Bush administration over the interrogation of terrorist detainees.

The new approach, dubbed ‘Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell’ by supporters, would sidestep thorny questions about compliance with Geneva Convention Common Article III, and “get the Central Intelligence Agency out of the intrusive business of prying into people’s personal lives,” according to the text of the proposed measure.

Four Republican senators on the panel, who have worked to block the president’s request for greater authority to extract intelligence data from terror suspects, are said to be open to considering the new protocol which would also prevent the CIA or the military from violating the separation of church and state.

“A terrorist detainee’s role in Islam’s jihad against the west is an inherently religious topic,” said one unnamed senate aide, “I believe it’s one of the five pillars of Islam. Questions about another human’s religious beliefs are what the Geneva Conventions call ‘outrages upon human dignity’.”

Republican Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham and Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner have indicated they might support such a compromise measure, the source said, “especially if it would improve America’s image among the people who have committed their own lives to our destruction.”

“It would put the burden of moral responsibility on the enemy,” he said. “Ultimately, we believe it will win the hearts and minds of violent Muslim extremists so they will abandon their suicidal obsession with destroying the Great Satan and his minions.”

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Comments

  1. “It would put the burden of moral responsibility on the enemy,” he said. “Ultimately, we believe it will win the hearts and minds of violent Muslim extremists so they will abandon their suicidal obsession with destroying the Great Satan and his minions.”
    I really don’t know how otherwise intelligent people can say that they believe something like that.
    -paul-

  2. Just as a question for clarification; are there any uniformed-members of the US military in “enemy hands” at-present? As I remember, the last two were castrated, gutted like sheep, their corpses multilated AND left in the Sun booby-trapped. Some independent contractors and press-members have been “kidnapped” then killed or released/ramsomed; but is the prospect of a uniformed-trooper being “captured” and treated as a recognised POW a realistic operational-outcome in this asymetric GWOT? I just don’t see the “…but their captors will be war-criminal if they are abused” as being much of a safe-guard either-way.

    Or, does asymetric warfare require a return to “Roman” methods? Raise the “cost” of capture so high that the society that shields and supports the terrorists are unwilling to pay for the terrorists misdeeds. What if after the sight of US troopers dead and naked bodies being descecrated in Mogodishu heavy armor (yes we didn’t have any there, grrr….) sealed a radius of several-hundred meters and killed every man, woman, child, goat and dog withing the perimeter; and bulldozed the entire zone into a circular level-plain of barren dirt. And did so the next incident, and the next. Would the word get out that it pays to at-least attempt to follow the Laws of War when the Leviathan‘s pissed?

    Is there a point where being bound by the Law is pointless when dealing with outlaws? Laws are social-contracts and social-constructs with the implication that both/all sides are bound by them. The very term “outlaw” has it’s origins in their own actions placing them outside the bounds of the law…not that they were protected by the Law they broke. Traditionally, an outlaw could be slain out-of-hand, be denied hearth and fire…and even those who helped them be tried and punished. And before you say that doesn’t exist anymore…look at the rights forfeited by bail-skippers in the US ever day.

    While it is a noble ideal to protect our uniformed-troops, is an oversensitivity to hypothetical situation in the Future worth ham-stringing reasonable protective and defensive actions now? We unfortunately are in an era of asymetry, not reciprocity. And the likelihood is that will be the face of armed conflict for this century; not war with China, nor maybe even the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. It’s going to be Middle-eastern religious upheavals, tribalism, and regional warlords in Africa. And just maybe there’s no room left for the Golden Rule anymore?

  3. Good post, Bruce. Thanks.

    It’s interesting to me that some in Washington are concerned about the message we’ll send to the terrorists and their enablers if the US clarifies language regarding Geneva Convention articles. To them, sending the wrong message to terrorists and their enablers trumps protecting our citizens.

    But funny, isn’t it, when patriots take issue with WOT critics that the constant needling criticism of our WOT undermines American resolve and gives aid to our enemies… well, then it seems, the terrorists aren’t listening… they don’t care. Besides, if they are even listening, it could help teach them that we value open debate, we tolerate dissent even if it means our mission will be undercut, our interests defeated. Right.

    Hmmm. I’m inclined to speculate that McCain and Warner and Graham are trying to appear to future voters that they are moving toward the political center and this “issue” helps demonstrate that point. I can’t imagine it will be to any constructive purpose, though.

    It is lunacy to think American civil and judicial protections should be afforded international terrorists who routinely call for the slaughter of innocents. It is also lunacy to tolerate the kind of dissent from partisan actors when the lives of our troops and citizens maybe at risk.

  6. I think 20-30% of the people that are aggitated at W and downgrade his performance are right conservatives who wish we fought the war on terror with MORE vigor not less. McCain and his toadies are out in left field on this one. His hopes for running for Prez are toast.

  7. “Win the hearts and minds of violent muslim extremists”….did someone actually say that? That has to be one of the most naive comments anyone could make. It is precisely that kind of thinking that gave Neville Chamberlain his place in history..the man who made appeasement famous. We don’t need a repeat in the 21st C.

  9. Dale, with all due respect I think we do… it’s fun to keep the parody of a parodier alive. But thanks for the obvious “heads-up”.

    I doubt there’s a lot of fiction in Ott’s piece on the Pope’s consideration of sainting the prophet Muhhamad however… or covering TeddieK’s indignation of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s press for partisan advantage… or last year’s discovery of a link between AlGore’s 2000 Prez Campaign and donations from Osama bin Laden (with Love)… or Kerry’s announcement that he was opening up his naval war records for inspection… again… no, no he really means it this time… really.

  11. I don’t like the idea of using torture of any kind to get a confession. When we decided to fight back and depose the Taliban and Saddam (which I still support) I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition (“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition)! The question for me is whether torture is an effective tool to get accurate intel. I have seen no arguement or evidence that shows it to be a consistently effective way to aquire intel. People will say anything to make the pain stop. How many combatants are tortured who have no info to give. How many captives have been labeled as combatents who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? How many were simply defending their country against a foriegn invader, us? If Mexico or Canada (ha ha) took up arms against us and invaded, I don’t care what their reason, I would be among those fighting to defeat them. Worse off, how many of those who were tortured or killed at our hands were innocent after all? How many more Maher Arars are there out there?

    I very much understand the enemy in this conflict is much harder to identify since they don’t wear a uniform and don’t play by our civilized rules. We may even gain some good info now and again though severely coercive means. But we need to ask ourselves, what bit of humanity have we lost in the process? Our forgoing our own rules does not make victory in this thing any closer, and only hurts us in the end.

  14. I keep hearing from “experts” and bloggers that you don’t get accurate intel from torturing the enemy cause they’ll say anything to stop the pain. I don’t believe that. Then why would the CIA even come close to inconvieniencing a prisoner? I think some times it is valuable. They just might tell you things, accurate details that help intel piece together threats. I always had a question for righteous critics: If your wife, mother, sister were in danger…a bomb was known to be in a neighborhood but they didn’t know in what specific building. Would you like the authorities to inconvienience or “torture” a prisoner known to have information? If not….go tell your mom, wife and sister.

  16. Gene, I don’t know how what you posted is on topic but NDT’s response is incredibly ludicrous.
    Torture creates false confessions.
    Threat of torture is the same.
    If you know nothing and are being waterboarded, you will say you know everything. If you are threatened with dogs, you will say you know everything. It doesn’t mean you actually do.
    That is the great fallacy of this torture program bush wants.
    Further there are very few cases were the government “knows” the prisoner has any actual information.

  17. 401(k), you are intellectually bankrupt – again.

    First off, the threat of torture and torture itself are two different things.

    Secondly, the UK Guardian just released the list of “torture” that the US used to get valuable information to prevent another attack.

    It includes: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called “the attention grab” where a suspect’s shirt is forcefully seized; the “attention slap” or open-hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the “belly slap”; and sound and light manipulation.

    When I saw that list I thought: Where’s the torture? A belly slap? That’s torture? The attention slap? Real torturers like the Nazis, the NKVD and Hezbollah/Hamas/al-Qaeda would laugh themselves silly.

    The Guardian also said this: “The New York Times recently reported that Abu Zubaydah, the first al-Qaida member captured after the September 11 attacks, was kept in a freezing cell until he went blue, and later assailed with loud Red Hot Chili Peppers music.”

    Is turning a guy blue really so bad if getting those guys is the result? People certainly have been subjected to worse. Mr. Zubaydah ought to be happy he only turned blue. Under other regimes, he would have been thrust alive into a woodchopper or had his genitals electrocuted.

    And as for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Saturday Night Live” is still trying to book them, so they don’t qualify as torture unless you’re really a big band guy.

    So what do we have? Cold, rock music, grabbing the terrorists’ shirts, slapping the terrorists’ bellies. I must ask again: Where is the torture?

    Checkmate.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  18. Peter,
    All of that may or may not be true; I was not talking about anything of the sort.
    I said the following:
    Torture creates false confessions.
    That is why the bush program of waterboarding and secretly sending folks to countries like Syria is a waste of time.

    Further, the method you just described was perfected by the Soviets.
    You are now comparing US Soldiers to the torturers of the Gulag.
    I’ll bet you would have been outraged if a liberal did that.
    Congratulations.

  19. Nice try, 401(k). Unfortunately, that dog don’t hunt.

    It is obvious that you care more about the feelings of acknowledged perpetrators of evil than you do about your own countrymen. Therefore, you are irrelevent in this argument since you are a biased source.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  22. 401k #17, So did you tell your mom and sister you wouldn’t approve of waterboarding a terrorist to save their lives?
    In #17 you said waterboarding a terrorist who didn’t have info would gain nothing. But how bout if the terrorist knew something? You’re suggesting the prisoners we hold know nothing. I’m suggesting they know a lot. Which may be why the good guys have foiled 8 attacks on the USA since 9/11.

  25. Some of the techniques used to get information from terrorists was making em stay up late. Keeping the A/C really cold and making them listen to a speech by HRC. Uncomfortable but not exactly torture.

  26. keogh/lester sockpuppets awaya with “… bush program of waterboarding”? Please whatever flimsy proof you have that Bush or the Bush Administration supports waterboarding terrorists.

    This is why most Americans question the loyalities of the GayLeft. “A Bush program”? More like some partisan spin irresponsibly launched by the DailyKos or the DailyShow.

    The more you and your buds comprehend that you’re losing all in November, the shriller your talk becomes.

    Why do you insist on giving comfort and advanatge to the terrorists, keogh/lester? I don’t mean by opposing prudent, limited interrogation techniques… I mean by continuing to undercut and marginalize those responsible for protecting Americans?

    Do you hate America and Americans so much that your hatred blinds you so completely? (Shudder)