MZ,
My apologies for taking so long to get back with you. The up and down nature of the board recently combinded with a trip I took with my gf and her family has kept me away for a while. I'm sure you missed me.
I just felt like launching a small personal attack after having studied so many of your posts, both those you and I exchange over time and your many trade-offs with others. I gathered how you relish the art of insulting others and thought I'd get down in the gutter with you for a brief period of time. How rewarding to see your response to it.
As to my brand of tawdry thinking, you can be naked wherever you like so long as those who shouldn't see it due to age considerations can't view it. I don't have a problem with the human body or nudity. However, I don't want to take on a small role in the area of "innocence lost" in a world where those under age 18 can and do gain illicit access to nudity. While you can't always dress and control how much you do or don't show, you do have the power to control how much you undress and show.
In any event, that's just how I feel on the matter. I was no different as an under age 18 youth in my quest for Playboy and other related materials than many other kids. I can respect society's moral decision that you should be of a certain age and hopefully a certain accompanying level of maturity before being able to legally buy and view such material.
"Hit me where it hurts?" Nah. As I said in a late July posting in this same thread...
A reasonable debate can be had if the subject is what is fair treatment of detainees. The military should not have a blank check to torture, harass, or defile at will anyone they see fit. Guidelines should exist. Investigations have been done in Baghdad and at Gitmo and corrective behavior is being implemented. Many senators and reps that intially knee-jerked and said we should close gitmo now have backed off that assertion. What many of you lament is that the findings of the investigations didn't result in President Bush being led around naked on a leash like some of the stupid personnel in the military did to detainees at Abu Ghraib.
Interrogation tactics...should there be interrogation tactics used that the rest of us are unaware of, unless we're personally involved inside the US government? I'd say, emphatically, YES. Remember, these people are not being detained simply because of their skin color, as some here love to recount like a fable from childhood. They're not being detained because they're from a foreign country. They were not taken prisoner because of unpaid traffic tickets.
They are followers of radical Islam and have committed themselves to doing anything they can to destroy our way of life. If that isn't cause for alarm, to put it mildly, then excuse me and many others for thinking so. There is adequate space for a debate of how to fairly treat captured terrorists, so long as the words "captured terrorists" don't get lost in that debate.
I stand by those words, both as what I would pass for policy should they lower the age at which someone can be President and how I feel about the violations that took place in Iraq. I guess you were too busy at the time to scroll back one page or so to view it again.
An enemy whose own "playbook", if you will, emphasizes to its members to cry the words "torture, torture, torture" at all available opportunities to media in the West makes it hard to sort out what really does happen that should be punished versus what is made up and totally baseless. Let's recall Newsweek's haste in publishing that soliders had desecrated the Koran and the resulting violence that occured in the mideast. If I recall correctly, approx 15-20 civilians were killed in these riots against all that is evil in the world (the US). Only one problem...it didn't happen. Oops.
There have been investigations of supposed abuse of the Koran by military personnel. Brig. Gen Jay Hood reported in late May of this year that of 13 allegations of "abuse", 5 were substantiated and likely two of them were accidental in nature. What does "abuse" mean, exactly? Approved handling of the Koran means using two hands and wearing gloves when in direct contact with it. If any guard forgot his or her gloves, accidentally dropped or knocked the Koran off a table, or even reached to grab it before it hit the floor with one hand...well there you go, you have a case of abuse of the Koran in the eyes of detainees. Possible captive terrorist conversation..."Quick, get me the current number and address of Ms. Najat Al-Hajjaji of Libya, who used to chair the UN commission on human rights. She'll understand..."
In the spring of 2005, the Navy's Inspector General stated that out of 24,000 interrogations at Gitmo, there were 7 confirmed cases of abuse, most if not all of which were considered to be minor. [information in the two above paragraphs come from Washington Post, June 3, 2005]
Does any of this mean that no mistakes were made in drafting policies by which detainees were to be interrogated? No. Even a perfectly designed policy suffers if cretins down the chain of command take hold of it and implement their own version of it if they feel nobody is watching. Just review the findings (as I'll cover in a minute) of activities of former Spec. Graner and his co-horts in AG.
As Fareed Zakaria said in Newsweek in early June, there is a dichotomy in the Bush Administration when it comes to the GWOT. There is the realization that we need to improve our image among the average middle-easterner, and at the same time a disconnect with understanding that militarily effective methods of interrogation can generate huge political costs, no matter how unethical or dishonorable the enemy. This is further illustrated by historian Walter Mead's assertion that he feels the Bush administration fits into the "Jacksonian" tradition in American politics. One of this traditions core beliefs is that when dealing with a totally dishonorable enemy you suspend the normal conduct of traditional warfare...like the US soldiers did when fighting the Indian wars - when enraged by Indian fighting tactics, they fought ruthlessly themselves.
It is worth noting that the pictures that have been beamed all over the world [with a great number of them featuring former Specialist Charles Graner] from Abu Ghraib originated from one cell block inside the prison, one essentially run by a small group of soldiers that worked virtually alone, under the quasi-supervision of military intelligence units. As James Schlesinger, former Sec of Defense and person appointed to head a commission that investigated AG, stated when addressing what his commission found about this particular cell block, "it was like Animal House on the night shift". While he held that ultimate responsibility for lack of enforcement of discipline did go all the way up the chain of command to Donald Rumsfeld himself, Schlesinger decisively rejected the idea that Rumfeld should resign, stating "that would be a boon to all of America's enemies". [USA Today, Aug 2004]
To close, Middle East expert Fareed Zakaria, in speaking about what did happen at AG, "...but when there are lapses, the Pentagon needs to get much better at admitting them, investigating them and taking responsibility for them".
My addition to it all: If you want a complete discourse on how major powers treat Muslims, then why not open a thread for a detailing of the Russian Army exploits inside the republic of Chechnya these past 10 years? Maybe then international torture expert Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois will get to trot out his "soviet gulag" comments and they'll be more applicable.
