Month: January 2005

Reading through the warblogs today, I came across this oft repeated sentiment in the Powerline blog:

The first day of the Senate hearings seemed to confirm that the key Senators opposing Gonzales don’t take the war on terrorism very seriously. Democratic Senators (along, unfortunately, with Republican Lindsay Graham) kept arguing that our use of debatable interrogation tactics puts our soldiers in harm’s way because it means that when they are captured they are more likely to be tortured. There is some truth to this argument, but it would have been nice if one of these Senators had acknowledged that our actual enemies will behead any American (soldier or not) that they capture regardless of what interrogations tactics we use.

First off, it’s not only “democratic senators” alone who know that the US approval and use of torture puts American soldiers and civilians in harm’s way. These guys also think so and you’d think they’d get a little deference for expertise on the subject:

In a three-page letter to the committee released Tuesday, the retired generals and admirals, including the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, stated that during his tenure as White House counsel Gonzales “played a significant role in shaping U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.”

Those operations, the letter continued, “fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence-gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world.”

Those risks involve what Cullen called “the golden rule of torture.” If the United States justified torturing people, the same rule applied to us, he said.

Cullen, a Republican who last served as the chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals, described the letter in a telephone interview yesterday as almost unprecedented in terms of the number of retired generals and admirals who signed it and the level of concern expressed.

Among the actions by Gonzales that most troubled the retired military leaders was a series of memos prepared at his direction in 2002, Cullen said. Gonzales’ Jan. 25, 2002, memo to President Bush stated the war on terrorism rendered the Geneva Conventions obsolete, Cullen said.

This letter was signed by: Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms (Marine Corps), Brig. Gen. James Cullen (Army), Brig. Gen. Evelyn P. Foote (Army), Lt. Gen. Robert Gard (Army), Vice Adm. Lee F. Gunn (Navy), Adm. Don Guter (Navy), Gen. Joseph Hoar (Marine Corps), Rear Adm. John D. Hutson (Navy), Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy (Army), Gen. Merrill McPeak (Air Force), Maj. Gen. Melvyn Montano (Army), Gen. John Shalikashvili (Army)

Arthur Silber clips this letter from the NY Times:

During World War II, I was a prisoner of the secret branch of the Japanese military police for 18 months. Except for being hung by my wrists on a wall for three days and being beaten by a sadistic lieutenant (an exception to the typical investigators), I was humanely treated, both in the interrogation center at Fort Santiago in Manila and in the disciplinary barracks where I was confined for seven months.

I felt very strongly that one reason I and my companions were not tortured was that the United States Army had treated its Japanese captives on Bataan decently in accordance with the laws of war.

Alberto R. Gonzales and his political superiors should be less contemptuous of the Geneva Conventions, which were designed to protect fighting men everywhere.

After complaining about democratic senators attempting to represent soldiers who fear the destruction of the Geneva Convention, Powerline offers this non sequitur:

…it would have been nice if one of these Senators had acknowledged that our actual enemies will behead any American (soldier or not) that they capture regardless of what interrogations tactics we use.

Which is interesting, because the first American captives in Iraq were treated quite well, despite (ironic in retrospect) screechings from Rumsfeld & Company about violations of the Geneva Conventions because the Iraqis showed them on television.

Here are three pictures. What do they have in common?

The first American beheaded in Iraq, Nicholas Berg, was wearing a symbolic outfit. Would you care to hazard a guess as to why this outfit was chosen? Here’s another clue:

Recognize those jumpsuits? Every American beheaded in Iraq has been wearing one. Are you following the logic, here? No one was beheaded in Iraq before the torture of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. After the scandal broke, every beheaded American has been wearing an orange Abu Ghraib jumpsuit.

QED.

We don’t have to wonder if all the people speaking out against torture because it endangers Americans are right. That argument has already been proven correct. The evidence is right before your eyes.

Jonah Goldberg, conversing with the Corner Kids:

So many readers have made variations of this point, many, many from personal experience:

After I was captured, my hands were tied behind my back and I was struck repeatedly in the face with an open hand. After enduring the beating I was thrown on the water board, where under questioning the enemy would drown you till the verge of losing consciousness, only to revive you and start all over again. Then a black bag was secured around my head and throat which made it difficult to breathe. I was confined to a three by four foot tiger cage with a coffee can for a toilet. Loud music blared from speakers in the compound and I was repeatedly dragged from my cage for more beatings and interrogation. At night when it was freezing the guards would pour cold water on me. I was deprived of any food for five straight days.

Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? Well that is only part of what EVERY U.S. Navy and Air Force pilot and flight crew goes through in survival school. The Army does it for their special forces guys as well. We do this to our own people for training but we can’t do it to terrorists? Incredible.

Elsewhere, Derbyshire (of course) brings up frat hazing again.

Is it just me, or does anyone else remember when “conservatives” knew the difference between consensual activities and State coercion? I’m waiting for the Corner Kidz to bring up S&M bars next. “Hey, look! Here’s someone bound and gagged, hung naked from a meat hook and whipped bloody and they like it! See, Abu Ghraib isn’t so bad! And we never even beheaded anyone yet!”

Question for Cornerites: Is this torture?

UPDATE: Jonah answers a critic who asks “dont you think its a bit preposterous to cite torture simulation as a reason that torture is acceptible? ‘Our soldiers experience torture simulation as part of their training. Thus it’s okay to torture prisoners.’ Do you actually see no difference between a simulation and the real thing? This is not just a ridiculously bad argument as a simple matter of rhetoric, it’s a morally despicable argument that reveals some seriously warped thinking.”

The answer? ” Of course I see the difference between the two: it’s a psychological difference.”

What an idiotic moral zero. Hey, Jonah. Is anyone locked up in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo voluntarily, that you know of?

UPDATE: I received this in email from an acquaintance who went through Air Force survival school in the late 80s:

I was a flight crew member, and I went through that training. The
correspondent is flat wrong or else he’s very dated; that is, he’s referring
to training in the 50s or 60s. The POW simulation phase at Fairchild AFB
was only about 24 hours. No one used physical violence, no water was dumped
on anyone, and no one was ducked in water. Indeed, throughout the period,
if there was a problem, a trainee could indicate this by using a phrase to
call time-out.

Most of what happened was psychological–a sort of walk through of what
totalitarian states did–and it was explicitly made clear that even this
stuff was illegal under the Geneva Conventions.

The only part that was true is the coffee can, the small cell (not a tiger
cage) and the loud music (They played the Dead Kennedys during my shift).
But that period was a matter of hours. They also put us in some small
enclosures for about twenty minutes: one that made you stand up, and another
that forced you to curl up into a ball. We went through some simulated
interrogations. They were stressful, but not violent.

All in all, Boot Camp was worse than the POW training. I’d say the
experience was as traumatic as Hell Week for a fraternity. (And, unlike
Rush Limbaugh, my use of this analogy is accurate and warranted).

WIIIAI points out this hideous statement by David N. Tornberg, deputy assistant secretary of defense for clinical and program policy in the Washington Post article highlighted in Antiwar.com’s headlines today:

He and other military officials argue in the article that when a doctor participates in interrogation, he is acting as a combatant, so the Hippocratic oath does not apply.

WIIIAI says:

The WaPo article on the participation by military doctors in torture sessions in Guantanamo buries the money quote, from deputy assistant secretary of defense David Tornberg, that such doctors are acting as combatants and therefore are not obligated by the Hippocratic oath. (The Post also neglects to say that Tornberg is himself a doctor.) Even if doctors could ever be absolved of their ethical obligations by virtue of being “combatants,” Guantanamo was not a combat zone.

Good point, and another thing occurs to me amid these protestations of non-accountability of combat doctors. The NYT reported enemas being administered in what the Pentagon calls a “coercive technique” and the civilized world calls “torture.”

Mr. Kahtani was, for example, forcibly given an enema, officials said, which was used because it was uncomfortable and degrading.

Pentagon spokesmen said the procedure was medically necessary because Mr. Kahtani was dehydrated after an especially difficult interrogation session. Another official, told of the use of the enema, said, however, “I bet they said he was dehydrated,” adding that that was the justification whenever an enema was used as a coercive technique, as it had been on several detainees.

So, are these combat doctors doing the interrogation enemas? I can’t believe I actually have to ask this question. How low will this administration take us?

Via Arthur Silber and Yankeedoodle, we find this ominous report:

BUSH REJECTS BAD NEWS

The Nelson Report is a daily political tip sheet and analysis written for the past 20 years for the (US and Asian) corporate and government clients of Chris Nelson, a former Capitol Hill staffer and UPI reporter. (He was actually the first to break the looted explosives story before the election; Josh Marshall then posted it to his blog.) This Monday, he wrote:

There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear “bad news.”

Rather, Bush makes clear that all he wants are progress reports, where they exist, and those facts which seem to support his declared mission in Iraq…building democracy. “That’s all he wants to hear about,” we have been told. So “in” are the latest totals on school openings, and “out” are reports from senior US military commanders (and those intelligence experts still on the job) that they see an insurgency becoming increasingly effective, and their projection that “it will just get worse.”

Our sources are firm in that they conclude this “good news only” directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message.

We have goggles, but we’d rather have food!

How ridiculous is this?

The commander of an Army Reserve
detachment is begging friends back home to
send food for Iraqi police dogs.

“The dogs are starving and urgently need dry
dog food,” Capt. Gabriella Cook, commander
of the Las Vegas-based 313th Military Police
Detachment, said in a Dec. 28 e-mail reported
Wednesday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“Some of them have already died,” Cook wrote.
“Half of them are sick. We have no way of buying
actual dog food here.”

Cook’s unit arrived last month in the Iraq capital.
She said 12 German shepherds and one black
Labrador retriever trained for bomb-detection
and attack at the Iraqi Police Academy in Baghdad
have been eating table scraps and garbage.

People are asking about how to donate to help the dogs. I found this: (click more)

Continue reading “Military dogs starving”

The Army Reserve is finally stating what’s been obvious for some time:

“While ability to meet the current demands associated with OIF (Operational Iraqi Freedom) and OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan) is of great importance, the Army Reserve is additionally in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational requirements including those in named OPLANS (operational plans) and CONUS (continental United States) emergencies, and is rapidly degenerating into a ‘broken’ force,” Helmly wrote.

Helmly said military leaders had rebuffed his proposals for change. The memo’s purpose was to inform Schoomaker of the Army Reserve’s “inability — under current policies, procedures and practices governing mobilization, training and reserve component manpower management — to meet mission requirements” for the two wars, Helmly wrote.

Now what? Invade Syria? Iran?

Yoshie: How Many Troops Would It Take to Defeat the 200,000-strong Guerrilla Insurgency?

Poorman: I’m Not Sure How Many More Corners We Can Stand To Turn