At the most extreme end of war the United States dropped not one, but two atomic bombs on Japan. Why? The most widely accepted answer is that it saved thousands, possibly tens of thousands of American (an important distinction) war casualties that surely would have been a reality in an invasion of Japan.

What does this have to do with torture you ask? It has nothing to do with torture and everything to do with the brutality of war. Nobody in their right mind desires to wage war against other human beings. But many evil minded dictators and despots throughout history have stepped outside, far outside, of their "right mind" to initiate war against those they felt like conquering in the name of their sick and twisted (another important distinction) ideology.

Therefore, it is completely understandable that some people, in their right mind, not wanting to wage war, can't understand the brutality of war regardless of the thoroughness of the explanation. On the other hand, and realistically, based on the brutality of war, some people can understand using brutal measures, torture in this case, to gain critical information from people who's implied and expressed intent is to kill otherwise peaceful people. And by gaining such information, it may mean reducing or ending the brutal loss of life that evil minds perpetrate, even while knowing full well that liars lie to protect their evil intents.

In the end, torture does not happen in a vacuum. When you ask the average "right minded" and peaceful person what they think about torture most are rightly repulsed by the thought. Unfortunately, as Americans and peaceful world citizens we cannot afford the luxury of allowing evil minded people with completely irrational intents to fly airplanes into our buildings while we invite them to the conference table and rationally ask them to stop acting that way. Torture doesn't seem rational by any standard until it is put in the context of the brutality initiated by evil minded people that cannot be reasoned with at any level.

Personally, I try to live my life everyday with love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfullness and self-control. But if someone wants to destroy my family, my friends and my peaceful way of life in order to establish their sick and twisted ideology, I will measure my response carefully, but it will be swift and brutal. That is the reality of war and dealing with wickedness in evil minded people whether I like or not. I'm glad we have warriors who are willing to make this psychological sacrifice so that I can rest in my recliner and enjoy the fruits of my labor in the greatest country in the history of the world, America!

While your opinion has some validity, you seem to ignore the very point of the article. Confessions under torture ARE NOT reliable. As such, they are simply exercises in human abuse by the very people who claim that the USA is the best country in the world.

It's the hypocrisy that gets most of us because the USA is BETTER than this. We just don't seem to have a leader who understands that.
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It is interesting to note that you didn't see S. Milosevic's death in a Netherlands prison, with no voice whatsoever as abusive. But then, could it be that you believe that an educated, Christian man who headed a country that hid our downed WWII pilots from Nazis is really whatever the media tells you? You see in that war, if I am not mistaken, the Muslims and Christians went to blows. And guess who we supported? And who is it that flew their planes into our towers a few years later? And who was in prison? Is freedom of speech limited to only what we will tolerate in the politically correct arena? What could he have said that caused a complete breakdown in communication with the outside world? No book deal, no massively publicized appeal, no write ups in newspapers. He just disappeared. So, before you decry how the President of our country hasn't done anything you can applaud, maybe you should study history a bit and recognize that your ideal is perhaps a bit tarnished. Sad to say, I believe that he probably loved America and its freedoms.

Milosevic was charged with crimes against humanity and was on trial when he died. The charges against him were public and was receiving his due process. He was held humanely with no hint of physical or psychological abuse.

Contrast this with the allegations of our "black sites"; captives are held in secret, with no legal charges against them, and subject to physical torture and psychological abuse.

That's a world of difference, and we should be ashamed.

Also, how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Bosnian Muslims? ZERO. Those that we supported and protected against Milosevic did not fly planes into our towers, you ignorant bozo. Those would be Saudis, primarily.

Your misplaced sympathy for Milosevic because he was an "educated, Christian man" is truly frightening.

Blue Danube 555, you are evil, but I will try to not hold your immoral vileness against all Christians.

LMoE

I addressed this point specifically by saying that liars lie. They are coached to lie and decieve. Your statement that confessions under torture are not reliable is not based on fact. I know full well that some confessions, possibly many confessions are full of lies and untruths, but some are not. There are very specific ways to verify information coming from enemy confessions. The fact is that many lives, military and civilian have been saved due to information gained from the torture of evil killers. Ask youself this, if they wanted peace why would they lie under interrogation and force extreme torture upon themselves? If they wanted peace why wouldn't they simply put down their guns and walk away? Because of their twisted ideology they want to kill us and conquer us at any cost. This isn't paranoia or war mongering this is the reality of their stated mission. They don't want peace with infidels. They want to cut off our heads, your and mine!

The fact is, only the enemy knows what the enemy is planning to do to brutally kill those they want to conquer and subjugate to their will. Only the enemy can tell us what those plans are and only force will extract that information. If you don't believe that you are naive in the ways of war. This doesn't make you bad, just naive. Remember, war is the context here, not peace. We tried peace and they flew planes into our buildings killing moms, dads, brothers, sisters etc. going to work. They don't want peace they want war and they have clearly stated this fact repeatedly.

The most reasonable answer is that peaceful people don't like torture and we certainly aren't prepared in our psyche to deal with the images it conjures up in our mind. But the fact remains that war is brutal, and we must win, because we are better than this and we must defeat evil to prove it. This does not make us like them, it is an unfortunate reality of which the genesis is our measured response to defeating wickedness and evil. Because we are better than this, it is worth defending by force if necessary. I wish it wasn't true.

gTurner you are the same as all those masses in history who tolerate completely monstrous behavior by saying "oh..we are just fighting evil with evil. We will stop when they stop". Guess what? They will NEVER stop. So you are admitting that we will never stop being evil either. And you accept that willingly, to be endlessly evil. Who 'started it" doesn't matter if there is no end to evil. The result is having two evil sides forever invading and torturing. And that's the future you want for the USA.

So, you finally noticed there are mean people in the world who would like to kill you and torture your family. About time. Unfortunately you are locked into a childish response...you want to go to their lands kill them and torture their families. And you wonder why people accuse you of being an immoral monster.

Self-defense means drawing a line in the sand and saying to attackers, "you will not cross this line and hurt my people". Unfortunately, people like you enjoy crossing the lines of other people refusing to grant them the safety you demand for yourself and loved ones. Please explain to me how an Iraqi family will EVER, EVER forgive you for killing and torturing their loved ones. Would you forgive them if it happened to you?

Even when fighting a real war against the Nazis, torture was illegal. I don't know of any documented cases of Americans torturing Germans, but if there are, they were certainly against the geneva conventions, and America would not have stood for such behavior. Torture is not part of the battlefield, but part of a detention system.

The point that torture is not a very effective means to get information has been well established.

Anyone, anyone who supports the use of torture forfeits their right to call themselves an American.

jwschmidt you are wrong.

The point is not that torture is unreliable. Seems like you are saying if it WAS reliable it would be fine to do it. Please understand that means you are accepting that torture of our own soldiers or domestic criminals or even those suspected of crime is a good thing.

The simple fact is that the USA or any other nation will NOT disappear just because they don't engage in torture. Most nations in the world do not condone torture and they are not being destroyed. Why does the USA condone torture, exactly?

Hi, gturner. Morality is murky and subjective, and given the right hypothetical, most people would probably find some situation where they would torture someone to save their own child, etc. I feel that such situations are too rare to justify torture as a policy, and you don't. Fair enough.

So let's keep this on a practical level. Would you agree that articles on Abu Graib, torture, extraordinary renditions or black prisons help jihadist recruiting while simultaneously hurting U.S. military recruiting? If so, and if we're serious about defeating the jihadist movement, should we curb freedom of the press, or rethink our interrogation tactics?

Also, assuming the article is accurate in its depiction of an environment designed to induce learned helplessness, do you believe this is the best method for obtaining reliable intelligence?

Cheers, Widespread

bsharporflat, you don't know me and your assessment that I am just like all those masses in history who tolerate completely monstrous behaviour isn't supported by the facts lived out in my life everyday. jwshmidt, I did not define torture as using any depraved action that can be dreamed up with wanton disregard of humanity. Sleep deprevation, food deprevation, extreme noise, light, music and various types of stress all can be used effectively to gain compliance from evil minded killers. Evil is a fact. The fact that we choose to fight evil with force does not make us evil like the blood thirsty killers as bsharporflat implies. With this line of thinking bsharporflat would indict police and security forces around the globe that use deadly force to fight evil people. It seems as if bsharporflat and jwschmidt want to project hateful monikers and edicts on me for choosing to use the measured force of acceptible torture (not evil and depraved torture, there is a difference) against our enemies. Both of you clearly cannot make a distinction between good people using force and bad people being evil killers. Instead of engaging your minds you simply want to declare that using force is evil. The proof of the wickedness of our enemy is clearly seen in their depraved killing of innocent civilians. And both of you want to make Americans who use force against them out to be just like them. This rationale is not sustainable because it is not supported by the facts of history. It is a logical fallacy concocted by weak minded people. We are a good nation that protects freedom and liberty and force must be used in times of war to defeat evil. Let me remind you bsharporflat that our use of force stopped, that's right, stopped (you said evil never stops) the evil of Hitler in World War II by using force. Good people have stopped many evil intentions by using force across the span of human history. And jwschmidt, in case you didn't know, there are extreme measures for interrogation that I consider torture that don't make us evil or depraved, some of which I mentioned above. God forbid we ever had to fight these senseless killers on American soil because I can see both of you wanting to talk the enemy to death with your high ideals when you should be loading a gun to fight them back and protect those you love. A high price was paid by my ancestors in America since the Revolutionary war to give you the right to your liberal (and dangerous) thoughts. If you don't have the intestinal fortitude to defend our country with force when we are attacked stay out of the way and let those who need to fight do their job. Remember, the only thing necessary for evil to prosper is that good men do nothing.

Widespread, I appreciate your civil tone. Morality is not subjective or murky when we have the luxury of living in times of peace. I simply apply the following nine standards to my daily life; love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. I am not perfect by any means, but striving towards a clear, objective morality is my daily goal and these undeniable truths help me immensly. But we're not talking about peace here, we are talking about war, brutal, horrifying, deadly war. Morality can be murky and subjective in war for those of us who stand on the outside of the battlefield and look in with our 24 hour news channel replete with every talking head under the sun who wants to put their own spin of morality on war. So to make a clear distinction, torture is not only rare in times of peace but there is no need for it. But for our warriors on the battlefield (not standing in the garden center at Wal-mart like you and me) torture that is measured is necessary. Let me define torture; sleep deprivation, food deprivation, extreme noise, light, music, stress and yes learned helplessness are all perfectly acceptable in war. Not wanton disregard for humanity, reckless depravity or physical torture with medieval instruments and power tools. Don't be confused, this is not what I'm advocating. Abu-Graib was at the worst, de-humanizing and humiliating. I saw nothing at Abu-Graib that employed medieval instruments and power tools. Unlike the methods the evil killers use against our captured soldiers. Making an evil, sensless killer stand on a bucket with his underwear on his head is acceptible torture in war. Having a vicious dog bark in their face to stress evil killers into confession is acceptible torture in war. It doesn't matter how many we have to torture in this manner to get one or two to give up intelligence information, even if it is one thread at a time. The one or two are enough. Here's a thought experiment for you. If the enemy knows that we will make them strip their clothes off and lay in a pile with other men and this is reprehensible to them why don't they just tell us what we want to know early in the interrogation? Because THEY WANT TO KILL US! They want to destroy us, cut off the head of the infidel and conquer the world to establish a caliphate for their primitive and oppressive form of Islam. Does it create more jihadists when we torture them, yes it does. Because in Wahabism (radical Islam) they do not live their lives by the nine principles that define my morality love, joy, peace, patience etc. They are schooled in a perverse mindset that has one purpose, destroy the infidel and conquer the world by the SWORD! This is what Osama bin Laden has been preaching for 20 years in case you didn't know. The fact that we fight back does create more jihadists in the short term (5-10-15 years, who knows) because this is what they have been taught to do. It is their duty to fight the infidel. They want a fight. They don't want peace. They don't fight because we torture them, that is propoganda. They fight because they are evil killers with one thing on their mind, killing you and me. But they are only human beings, and human beings grow weary of the struggle against a determined world force. A force that says we will fight and not give up (Winston Churchill). A force that says Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, no, no, no, never, never never... ever! At some point (10-15 years) mark my words, we will have much fewer troops in Iraq and the region will become normalized. And the good people of that country will thank us for sticking with them to fight evil even if some of the bad guys had to stand on a bucket and wear their underwear on their heads for two days while a dog barked in their face without ceasing in front of a pile of their naked comrades.

I'm not sure you answered my questions.

1. Such treatment of detainees will probably come to light through the free press (by leaks from dissenters, etc.). Such media coverage certainly helps jihadist recruiting and probably hurts our military recruiting. So should we a) curb freedom of the press, or b) amend our behavior? Or should we continue the behavior and simply ignore that it helps the enemy?

2. If the learned helplessness model is an accurate depiction of the policy at these detention centers, do you think this is the best way of obtaining good intel?

Cheers, Widespread

Gturner, no I don't know you, nor do you know me. But please explain how you are different from all the very decent, hard working, honest living Germans who tolerated the Nazi party's invasion of its nation neighbors and the rounding up of its jewish neighbors. Like you, those decent honest folk were patriotic and could be confident in the knowledge that duly elected Chancellor Hitler was only doing what was best to keep the fatherland safe. How are you different?

Is there ANY action the Bush administration would take or has taken that you would actually say, "yes, that makes us safer, but NO I do NOT approve". I see no evidence of that. As long as the reasons for invasion are masked and what happens behind closed doors of torture rooms stays secret, you are happy. And that is just the same as it was for Germans and the invasion of Poland and the fate of all those jews behind closed doors.

Let me ask you...what happens to those US prisoners AFTER they've been tortured? Is there an offical record kept? Does the press know? Those decent honest Germans didn't know the answers to similar questions. How are you different?

Hello Widespread, let me give it another try. 1) It doesn't matter how the treatment I described comes to light. The question is, what kind of treatment are we talking about. It is obvious that the U.S. uses many forms of severe interrogation (ie. sleep deprivation, food deprivation, extreme noise, light, music, stress, hot and cold living conditions etc. ask Richard Reed the Shoebomber) to breakdown the will of the enemy who's stated mission is to kill us, all of us. Or are we talking about the type of torture that the liberal media would want the world to think is happening at the hands of American agents, depravity, medieval instrumentation, power tools and blow torches. It appears to me that many anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-torture proponents can't make that distinction in their minds. I hope you can.

1b) There is one right answer to each of your questions (curb freedom of the press, curb our behavior). Freedom of the press is what separates us from Chavez in Venezuela, Putin in Russia and ImAminiBlabaJab (sorry for spelling) in Iran. Curb freedom of the press NEVER! But the reality is the majority of the press is liberal or extremely liberal and they don't want to make any distinction between severe interrogation torture (my list) and depraved medieval torture (their list). You accurately described this in your post "Such media coverage certainly helps the jihadist...") To the liberal, anti-American media it serves their purpose to make no sort of distinction. Abu Graib is a perfect example of the media playing into the jihadist's progoganda. Jihadists love our liberal, anti-American media for just this reason.

As I spelled out previously, you are kidding yourself if you think radical jihadists will not find a reason, any reason to perpetuate their radical ideology. And the liberal media is complicit in their propoganda because they can't make the distinction between evil killers flying planes into our buildings and good people using force to stop them. Today its because we torture, we are occupiers, we are imperialists, we are depraved infidels and on and on. Tomorrow it will be Michael Jackson's Jesus Juice or Brittany Spears showing her female parts to the world. My point is, they have a reason and it is not torture. Their reason is a convoluted interpretation of who God is and what God wants... period! My God is a God of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control and I try to live this out in my daily life. Their jihadist god (little G) is a god of hate, killing, murder, treachery, lying, stealing and cheating and they try equally as hard to live this out in their daily lives... until we stop them.

1c) It is extremely important to make a clear distinction between extreme interrogation torture and depraved medieval torture. This is what President Bush took the courage to do just recently when he took the subject head on with the CIA and passed legislation spelling out the U.S. position on torture. President Bush in effect said we must be in line with our military and CIA's most up to date torture methods (extreme, yes but not medieval). So to answer your question, the right answer is we must be diligent to change our behavior if and when needed. But the behavior of extreme interrogation torture is NOT a behavior that should be changed in times of war. Look at it this way, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, extreme hot and cold living environments, extreme light, noise etc. to a Navy Seal is called TRAINING (they even drown our Seals, it's called drown proofing). What makes an evil killer at any level of their organization exempt from extreme interrogation torture even if the information is bit by bit in our favor? Don't we want to win as quickly as possible? Abu-Graib was not medieval torture, it was simply humiliating for the evil killers.

2) Learned helplessness is a reaonable outcome in the context of war as I have previously explained. I could make the same association with any of our elite fighting forces and the training they undergo that it is psychological reprogramming, in effect, learned helplessness towards a greater good. It is brutal, and de-humanizing training. Seals, Green Berets, Para-rescuemen etc. have even had casualties during training. It's brutality used as training to defeat wicked people across the globe. And they sign up for it.

As far as gaining good intel is concerned, extreme interrogation torture is only one way to gain information on the enemy. Granted, the enemy will not tell us the truth early and often because they believe they are killing us for a good reason. Our military and intelligence agencies employ diverse intel gathering methods and combine data from all methods to gain an upper hand on the evil killers. Some evil killers talk more freely than others, some lie until they are blue in the face, some may not talk at all. But the fact remains we must force them to talk if at all possible and try and end this insanity so we can live in peace. We are right, they are wrong!

This is war, not peace we're talking about. War by its very nature is extremely brutal. I wish it wasn't true. The only bright spot in war is that America has moved beyond medieval thinking and tactics. Unlike our enemy that refuses to progress from the 16th century. You must be able to make the distinction in your mind and stop buying the liberal media's propoganda that America is always the problem with the world, we are not. Like Rodney King so eloquently said "I wish we could all just get along." Unfortunately it is the responsiblity of good people to fight the bad people until the bad people grow wearing of defending their irrational ideologies.

As President Bush said on Sept. 14th 2001 "This will be a long, hard fight." Long and hard, never perfect, as all wars prove to be. The question is, who will grow wearing of war first, the good people who are beat down by the liberal socialist media ad nauseum or the bad people who are told by the world to snap out of it and progress into the civilized world for their own good. Which of these two scenarios will bring about peace, you tell me. If extreme interrogation torture helps us defeat the enemy sooner for the greater good of world peace I say with no less of a concerned heart... make it so.

I hope this helps you understand my point of view, GT

bsharporflat, are you comparing the President of the United States, George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, one of the most maniacal deviants of the 20th century when you ask how I am different from the German citizens of his day?

Sir, your dogma has run over your karma. There is no reasoning with you on why good people use extreme measures including extreme interrogation torture in the context of war. If you can't make the distinction between the struggle of good and evil there is nothing that I can say that will assist you.

If you are even remotely interested in developing a holistic world view (good, bad and ugly) read my previous post to Widespread. You will find I make a clear distinction between good and evil. Good luck, get some rest and eat your fruits and vegtables they're brain food.

Good day, GT