THEM Part 2

Posted By: June
Posted on: Sep. 18, 2007 at 9:10 AM

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According to an ABC News blog, the CIA banned waterboarding “sometime last year” with White House approval but without public fanfare. Them

“Its most effective use, say current and former CIA officials, was in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM] who subsequently confessed to a number of ongoing plots… the 9/ll attacks and virtually all other al Qaeda terror strikes, including the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

"KSM lasted the longest under water-boarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again," said a former CIA official familiar with KSM's case.

“A senior CIA official said KSM later admitted it was only because of the water-boarding that he talked. “

That’s the good news. Here’s the first comment posted by ED:

“When another 3,000 Americans are murdered because the weak-stomached politicians could not bear to do what needed to be done, I'd like to see them try soothing the families of those lost with talk of the moral high ground. You know what happens when you turn the other cheek? You get two black eyes instead of one.”

Damn straight ED! KM fessed up, right? Admitted waterboarding was his undoing, right? That’s why we haven’t experienced a terrorist attack since 9/11, right? The Nazis outlawed waterboarding - 70 years ago - and look what happened to them, right?

Who cares that post-WWII tribunals condemned the use of enhanced interrogation techniques as war-crimes, right? Who cares that the global community condemns Bush, the USA and you and me for promoting these techniques - they’re effective, right?

Only misguided Liberal wimps would extend the rule of law to the treatment of terrorists, right? Jesus, like John Yoo and Fredo Gonzales, would argue that paramilitary enemy combatants have no protection under the Geneva Conventions, Rules of War or any other “civilized” torture prohibitions because they’re not “uniformed”, right? Besides, enhanced interrogation techniques don’t leave any marks and haven’t resulted in any deaths, right?

Well then - why in the hell would General Hayden ban waterboarding?

That only leaves us with 'longtime standing,' which includes exhaustion and sleep deprivation with prisoners forced to stand, handcuffed with their feet shackled to the floor.

Think that’s enough to keep us safe?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/cia-bans-water-.html http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/verschfte_verne.html

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Comments:

prometheus

Sep. 18, 2007 at 10:28:03 AM

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I am all for waterboarding as long as the next happy recipient is that Albe-rot Gonzales! If it ain't so bad, lets hook him up!!! After that we can forever retire the sport and send that soft spoken freak with the giant head and tiny little hands and body to GITMO! We don't need to charge him with anything . . . just get his asss down there

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AZ Moderate

Sep. 18, 2007 at 05:10:14 PM

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June, I've agonized about torture for as long as I can remember. I don't know why. Maybe in a past life I was tortured.

I do know that it is an obscenity in the human species, and I have come to the conclusion that it about power. Those poor souls that condone or lobby for torture are unable to satisfy their need for power from within and from on high, the legitimate source of power. Instead they rob it from their victims.

These poor souls give meaning to Christs statement that "The poor you will have with you always." They are poor in spirit, and thus handicapped.

Such robbery is terrible immediately for the victim, and no one should ever suffer it. But the victim doesn't lose their soul* in the process. The torturer may have a brief jolt of power, but it doesn't last. That will drive repeated offenses, and the ultimate loss of that something in the torturer that is given to each of us at birth.

*That something is called a soul by some of us, although it has many other names and definitions as well. No matter. It is real, and it can be lost. Torturing another is the road to Hell.

Cheney defends torture 10/28/2005 - 9:07 AM
[link:www.voiceofarizona.com]

Bush for torture 10/28/2005 - 9:00 AM
[link:www.voiceofarizona.com]

Hell beckons Bush and Cheney.

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AZ Moderate

Sep. 18, 2007 at 05:55:42 PM

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And another thing – Americans have to have a “worthy” enemy.

By worthy, I mean one perceived to be formidable enough to actually put up a fight, with the “possibility”, but certainly not the probability, of winning.

Now this is not a Bush Cartel phenomenon. This idea surfaced for me decades ago while observing current events (the Cold War) and studying history. I came to the conclusion that we would be casting around for a new “worthy” adversary if the USSR ever actually stood down. Which of course it did.

This is not to say that some conflicts are not justified, and perhaps even "moral". But ...

... the global terrorist plot is made to order for the chicken s*** bully we currently have as a world class hood ornament. While not a real threat to our survival, the damage it can do provides leverage through beating of the fear drums to do whatever the “dictator” wishes. And it is the gift that keeps on giving, an endless threat with no discernable definition of victory.

We have to have an enemy, and we do. It is Them. We have met the enemy and it is some of US.

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June

Sep. 19, 2007 at 10:40:27 AM

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Mody,

Thank you for your well-reasoned comments. I must also add that your organization and writing skills are an inspiration, as always - Damn, you're good!

On the soul-thing: concur with the concept' if not your power premise. For sure, there's some character (or deeper) deficiency in a torturer and or in those who enable them. The record shows torture is addictive and counterproductive.

Look at the case of KSM - he confessed to everything under the sun! How does one corroborate the confession, torture some one else?

Just finished Martin Cruz Smith's latest Renko novel - Stalin's Ghost (superb!). The plot turns on the progeny of one of Stalin's executioners - a man who, for 8 hours a day, shot political prisoners in the back of the skull. The conversations I've had with Russians in former gulag-communities in Siberia indicate Cruz isn't making it up - being sentenced to the Gulag was a second-order remedy for dissention. Maybe a power need is the motivation!

Cruz captures well the bipolar attitude that Russians, particularly the older generations, harbor about the Communist years and I couldn't help thinking of the parallel to recent American experience.

In Russia, the past is glorious - Stalin, et.al, kept the country safe, made the railroads run on time but...

In America, the man on the street sublimates the Dark Side while the Religious Right glorifies the leader who promotes it and what are the offsets? Security? No attacks since 9/11? UGH-LY!

I'm fascinated with this American ambivalence - if a torturer is a special breed of bully and most of us don't fit that profile, how can we NOT speak out against torture - especially when our elected leaders advocate it? DOUBLE UGH-LY!

I'm not encouraged by the lack of response to this article either. Yeah, "some of us" - but more of us than I'da guessed!

Thanks for the food for thought, Mody! 'Way down deep in my heart of darkness, I can relate to Prometheus' post. That's TRIPLE UGH-LY!

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Phaedrus

Sep. 19, 2007 at 07:01:28 PM

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Prom, I'm all for using the same aggressive techniques on Bush and Cheney.

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AZ Moderate

Sep. 19, 2007 at 09:28:08 PM

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“Junebug,” he addressed her affectionately, “it is so wonderful to be having verbal intercourse with you once again. Your intellect is so extremely attractive.”

Power, my dear. I have to stand behind that single word as the ultimate wellspring of torture. Power itself is not to be avoided: Christ turns power into the crystal clear fountain of life and respect for each individual; Stalin enabled the wellspring of power to be turned into the putrid sewer of the tortures’ chamber.

But power may not manifest itself in the sewage of human behavior. Stalin himself was not regularly involved in torture. He was an accomplice, and in some ways perhaps a greater torture for that. He enabled it and was thereby powered indirectly by it. That indirect involvement diminished his ‘Soul’ nevertheless, but he was able to gratify his hunger for power without getting his hands bloody (Pontius Pilot washing his hands of the crucifixion of an innocent man is a famous example).

Hitler is another well known, if not well understood, example. He is, in my reading and my opinion, a prime example of a drive that is in most if not all of us. We are comfortable with what we are familiar with. Most of us never have the power to shape our surroundings to fit our understanding and belief. He pursued that power, as most of us do to some extent. But he pursued it to the virtual exclusion of all else, without regard for what it resulted in for many others. He was “blessed” with a milieu, a zeitgeist within which he was able to fashion his reality to his liking. But that reality was quick silver, slipping constantly through his existential fingers. When he arrived there, he found that it was not sufficiently complete to qualify as his ‘heaven in earth’. In his driven determination, he would then refocus on another layer of fantasy to reinforce what he had achieved and to paper over his disappointment with the results. It culminated in his case in a total fantasy world of his making, one that he was himself lost in, that was completely at odds with the greater reality that he could not control.

Hitler was cursed by ‘fate’ with the apparent gift of great power, and it destroyed him. There are many Hitlers in every population on earth, but in the Germany of the Weimar Republic following WWI and in the beginnings of the Great Depression, the soil became fertile for this already sprouted weed. Location and timing are everything – the seed you will have with you always (with apology to JC for plagiarizing his teaching).

Even beyond that, I have wondered about my fascination with torture. I hate it, but I am strangely caught in its claws. I am fascinated with it as one in mortal combat with a terrible enemy. What happened in the concentration camps and Gestapo basements was an itch I could not scratch. It bothered me continuously. I found peace with that conundrum years ago when I realized that we all have the Hitler syndrome within us, and while I could not do anything about what happened in the basement of the Kremlin or in Auschwitz, I could master myself.

That conclusion was confirmed for me years later when I read that Mother Teresa, of all people, had struggled with the same conundrum and had arrived at that same conclusion in her own life. We all have the full set of options. The fight is personal, within each and every one of us. Each of us has the potential to pursue the path followed by Hitler, Stalin, and by the denizens of the secret CIA interrogation centers in Uzbekistan etc., or follow the path of enlightenment laid out for us by so many teachers and prophets of many religions. My choice is Christ, but I do not judge another’s choice.

It seems to me that there is a continuum of counterfeit power grabbing. Floating on the surface of the cesspool you have Hitlers and Stalins and … you know who. At the bottom of the cesspool you have the tortures in their chambers. Between these two extremes you have the Himmlers and Eichmans and the Gonzos. But they are all driven by the need for counterfeit power because they have chosen it rather than to pursue legitimate power from on high and from within, as epitomized by Mother Teresa.

One last point if you will. Rape is a manifestation of this counterfeit power grab. It is not really about sex. Oh, sex is certainly the vehicle for its consummation, the same as the whip is for torture. But I am convinced that Rape is another head of the same animal.

“Thank you for your patience with me.” he whispered. “I love our literary intercourse and now I will turn over and fall silent in great anticipation of your views.”

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AZ Moderate

Sep. 20, 2007 at 08:19:39 PM

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Here is a study that supplements some of what is contained in the foregoing comment, i.e., "Know Thyself!"

___________ [link:www.lucifereffect.com] ____________

Welcome to LuciferEffect.org, official web site of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House, 2007). In this book, I summarize more than 30 years of research on factors that can create a "perfect storm" which leads good people to engage in evil actions. This transformation of human character is what I call the "Lucifer Effect," named after God's favorite angel, Lucifer, who fell from grace and ultimately became Satan.

Rather than providing a religious analysis, however, I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts. As part of this account, The Lucifer Effect tells, for the first time, the full story behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study I conducted in 1971. In that study, normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison, yet the guards quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.
o
o
o
______________________________________________________

For the details, I recommend this book, a recent best seller, by the title of "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil", authored by Dr. Phillip Zimbardo.

[link:www.lucifereffect.com]

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AZ Moderate

Sep. 20, 2007 at 09:16:08 PM

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Here is an article that is germane (not German) to this article and comment thread:
______ [link:www.voiceofarizona.com] ______
Begin Excerpt: ______________________________________________________
Whatever Happened to the SS, SA and Gestapo?
The German Nazi party evolved two main enforcement organizations:

o the SA (Sturm Abteilung, literally Storm Troops)

o the SS (Schutzstaffel, literally Elite Echelon)

The SA, the strong-arm wing of the party, fought the street fights with the Communist and socialists gangs, and bullied opponents and victims for Hitler. It was a well organized Mega street gang that was later used to violently oppose the Weimar Republic.

The SS was Hitler’s Praetorian Guard, his personal bodyguard that swore absolute loyalty to him above all else. It evolved into the Nazi party’s internal security apparatus as well as an elite political-military arm of the party.

The SA consisted largely of unemployed lower-middle-class workers, ex soldiers and workers.

The SS consisted largely of middle-class intellectuals, professionals and businessmen.

End Excerpt:_____________________________________________________

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June

Sep. 20, 2007 at 11:26:08 PM

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Brrraaavvvv-Oh-Oh-Oh! She purred.

Thank you for the most thoughtful, stimulating, er... thought-provoking comments, Mody. Wish I had more time to respond - I'm familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment - in fact, that immediately came to mind when I first read about the incident at Abu Ghraib - but wasn't aware of the new book. It's on my reading list!

Will reply when I've had the opportunity to digest all this. On the SS, SA, Gestapo post - how'd the Gestapo fit in; looks like there's a place for all of us in the SS or SA, right? Who gets the tasers?

Be back - soon, I hope.

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