@rapt again – sorry if that wasn’t not clear from the post.
The post acknowledges that there is a discussion in the U.S. about torture. I find that in itself unbelievable and abhorrend, but it is the case. The society has to argue about it to come again to some sense. I wanted to add to that argument.

Posted by: b | Nov 6 2007 18:58 utc | 4

Regarding above comments:
The U.S. Constitution forbids cruel punishment (torture) for the guilty, and no punishment ever for someone who has not been convicted by a jury of his peers. The whole argument, as b has pointed out, makes no sense unless one throws the U.S. Constitution out the window.
In addition, it is my understanding that it is against the Geneva Conventions to even threaten torture, much less torture. Is this correct?
The U.S. leaders are guilty, without a doubt, of War Crimes.
And rgiap is correct – torture has been used by the U.S. long before this current administration. But now it appears to be openly accepted by many. It is all almost unbelievable, but it is true.
I am ashamed beyond measure of my government at this lowest moment in our history.

Posted by: Rick | Nov 6 2007 19:40 utc | 6

@rgiap what is used against ‘terrorists’ is finally used against everybody Absolutely correct and I wonder if people are aware of the extent of population control being used to keep Baghdad the biggest outdoor prison camp under control. amerika has learned it’s lesson from Israeli control of Gaza well and amerikans should take heed because just as the helicopter was first used to conrol the streets of Saigon before being introduced into East LA then other poor urban neighbourhoods in amerika. What has been going on in Baghdad will soon be in the skies of amerika.
This isn’t as off topic as it seems because torture will be a major part of what is coming.
A couple of weeks ago the BBC had an interview with a chap who is developing a system to identify people by their gait. That is to be able to tell one person from another by the way they walk. This isn’t as silly as it seems there are a number of individual characteristics some based on physique such as the length of a stride and others based on stance and attitude (angle of back, head up or down) which when judged in combination can identify an individual with considerable accuracy.
The research has been spoken of occasionally since 911 particular emphasis on catching terra-ists in 2002. Most people put it out of their minds as more bullshit science fiction. But DARPA have been funding programs at Georgia Tech and this one in england at The University of Southampton.
I mention this because during the interview one of the scientists let slip that the programs are up and running on drones that circle over Baghdad.
He said “We should be able to get a drone that can stay up and in position regularly patrolling an area without needing to come down for 5 years. After all we’ve got them staying up over Baghdad for 6 months non-stop at the moment.”
I looked on the web but the information is limited. This Israeli press release is one of the few.
Torture comes in because that is the next step. A person is identified as having been in an area where some crime has been reported. Perhaps they’ve even been tracked to their home. Well the only way to ‘prove’ that is to give em the ‘old feel like they’re drowning’ routine.
Years ago during my law study phase I had a professor of criminology who reckoned the fairest justice system man could construct would be one where all citizens names were thrown in a hat (computer) and a set percentage were randomly selected for torture until they confessed their crimes.
Of course this program won’t do that just like police patrol cars these drones will concentrate on areas of poor people whose crimes are going to be immediate and obvious rather that wealthier areas where the crimes are much larger but usually better hidden.
Gaza and Baghdad are an attempt to solve the basic obstacle to this system of policing. If one lives in an area of low population density having a drone over the area isn’t cost effective. So the Palestinian and Iraqi people have been herded into enclaves to be controlled. Very similar to large urban slums except the ME people were herded using guns whereas the process in urban amerika has been quieter, done with planning regulations and rents.
Of course there are exceptions like during Katrina when the New Orleans inmates tried to escape through Gretna, but were held at gunpoint until they could be transported to be spread around other existing ghettos in other urban slums.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Here we go, hurtling closer to the precipice.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 6 2007 20:06 utc | 8

Thanks, B. I can’t tell you how important it is to have this sane perspective when we are living in the fishbowl itself (where all sight of the actual real issues is drowned out by making a lot of noise asking the wrong questions to distract the public from the fundamental issues at stake). Your posts such as this one keep us grounded and focused on what really matters. I only wish they could be read by a larger audience.
Americans have come to be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too comfortable with their liberties and to take them far too much for granted. We are all going to pay an inordinately steep price for our carelessness. By the time the average Joe realizes what has hit this country, it will be far too late.

Posted by: Bea | Nov 6 2007 22:18 utc | 10

sorry for not commenting on you post earlier b , its too depressing.

Posted by: annie | Nov 7 2007 1:59 utc | 12

CIA Rendition: The Smoking Gun Cable

.. one recalled to me for a PBS “Frontline” to be broadcast tonight, an incredible story of his treatment over the previous two years: of how questioned at first by Americans, by the FBI and then CIA, of how he was threatened with torture. And then how he was rendered to a jail cell in Egypt where the threats became a reality.
…
This was a subject about which he said he knew nothing and had difficulty even coming up with a story.”
Al Libi indicated that his interrogators did not like his responses and then “placed him in a small box approximately 50cm X 50cm [20 inches x 20 inches].” He claimed he was held in the box for approximately 17 hours. When he was let out of the box, al Libi claims that he was given a last opportunity to “tell the truth.” When al Libi did not satisfy the interrogator, al Libi claimed that “he was knocked over with an arm thrust across his chest and he fell on his back.” Al Libi told CIA debriefers that he then “was punched for 15 minutes.” (Sourced to CIA cable, Feb. 5, 2004).
Here was a cable then that informed Washington that one of the key pieces of evidence for the Iraq war — the al Qaeda/Iraq link — was not only false but extracted by effectively burying a prisoner alive.

Posted by: b | Nov 7 2007 6:47 utc | 14

@YY – This is similar to the argument against the death penalty on because mistaken conviction result in irreversible penalties. The core of argument against capital punishment is not based upon mistaken identities and the core of the argument against torture is not whether there is information to be extracted.
I totally agree. But I believe raising the question can help in discussions with torture apologists to show where there thinking is leading to.
But maybe I am wrong here.

Posted by: b | Nov 7 2007 11:07 utc | 16

b,
Actually, discovery of mistaken convictions has had significant effect in the argument against capital punishment.
Execution, to the extent it is practiced is not to punish with pain resulting in death. Ideally it should just cause life to cease with as little suffering as possible, so one would interpret. Not that this makes it right.
Issues such as effectiveness (or not) tend to obscure the cruelty which is fundamental to torture. One hears arguments about the non-lethality of the procedures as if that justified it. The stuff about being short of organ failure is precisely an argument that says one step short of painful death is acceptable.
I don’t think expanding the argument out to possible innocents or ordinary citizens becoming subject to torture will convince those who are intent on punishing the guilty to wake up. The simple argument of not inflicting pain is more convincing.

Posted by: YY | Nov 7 2007 13:55 utc | 18

Went to a talk at the weekend by UK human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson at a showing of Kevin Brownlow’s 1975 film about British proto-Communist Gerrard Winstanley.
Robertson is much exercised by the resurgence of torture currently favoured by western powers. (Torture was apparently not part of English common law, and in the run-up to the English civil war was abolished here c1638).
Robertson noted that one of the founders of Harvard, Hugh Peter, who preached at Oliver Cromwell’s funeral, was after the 1660 Restoration convicted of high treason and sentenced to death. Peter was tortured to death at Charing Cross in central London – hung, disembowelled while still alive, and his entrails fed to the fire lit under him so that he might die “smelling his own stench” as Robertson put it.
The Cheneyites have taken us right back there.

Posted by: Dismal Science | Nov 7 2007 18:55 utc | 20