Message #162325

[Harconen]

Torture Memos

 

Obama releases several classified memos from the Bush administration that detail terrorist interrogation methods. Obama is immediately criticized by conservatives for releasing the information, and by liberals for saying he would not prosecute any CIA agents who followed the practices under orders. The procedures described in the memos include sleep deprivation, keeping detainees in cold cells for long periods, allowing nourishing liquids but no solid foods, slapping detainees, and threatening to put insects in the cell of a terrorist who was afraid of them. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey jointly charge in a Wall Street Journal editorial that the release of the information will “…invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on September 11, 2001,” and “assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques.” Some critics decry the use of torture by the United States, while others believe it is a strain to call it torture to threaten someone with a caterpillar because he fears insects. Retired Army Colonel Bob Maginnis states, “We’re at war. It’s a strategic mistake on the part of the president to release the details on how we will address would-be or confirmed terrorists who may have information that could lead us to stop pending attacks. I find it unacceptable completely.” Maginnis adds that sleep deprivation and slapping “seem to be rather benign given what goes on the world.” Treatment of the detainees included “dietary manipulation” (giving the terrorists healthy and nutritious but bland and unappetizing food). Obama’s release of the memoranda tells terrorists around the world what the United States is and is not prepared to do to stop them. Seeing what little the United States has done and will no longer do may prompt them to take even bolder actions. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum remarks, “I’d say if I’m a terrorist I’m feeling pretty good. I am now going to know every trick in the book that if I am captured they will use to interrogate me,” and charges, “This is an absolute betrayal of the national security of this country, to give away these techniques to the enemy.” [2399, 2400, 2452, 2466, 2467, 2523]

            Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has his own experience with “sleep deprivation as torture.” In February, 1993 Bill Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno, ordered a religious compound of Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas surrounded by federal agents. The standoff lasted 51 days, during which those inside were subjected to sleep deprivation from constant loud noise and music. Reno eventually ordered tanks to attack the buildings. Fire ensued, shots were fired, and 76 people inside were killed (including 23 children). Reno’s second in command was Eric Holder. Tanks came from Fort Hood, then commanded by Wesley Clark. Most who today argue that the government should not use sleep deprivation against terrorist detainees because they consider it torture likely did not protest against Clinton, Reno, Holder, and Clark for their use of the method in 1993. [2466, 2467]

            Some of the torture methods used by al-Qaeda include: drilling through the victim’s hands with an electric drill; severing arms and legs; dragging victims behind cars; gouging out eyes; burning skin with a blowtorch; electrocution; breaking limbs; binding and beating; whipping; hanging the victim upside down from the ceiling; burning the skin with a hot clothes iron; and squeezing the victim’s head in a vice. [2576]

            On April 18, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announces it will begin regulating greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, because of the “grave danger” they pose to the planet and human health. The EPA will have no choice but to make arbitrary and inconsistent rulings because every living creature exhales carbon dioxide and it is also created by millions of furnaces, automobiles, and production processes. (Water vapor is a much more significant greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and even a hydrogen-powered car creates water vapor, as does the simple act of taking a shower, exhaling outdoors on a cold day, or boiling water for a cup of tea.) The new EPA regulations will impose costs on virtually all businesses, costs that will necessarily be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for all goods and services. While the Obama administration is thus preparing to tax Americans hundred of billions of dollars to prevent global warming, new studies show that ice is expanding in Antarctica, not melting. The Australian states that a Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for a meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington showed the South Pole has shown “significant cooling in recent decades.” Some widely reported loss of ice in the west Antarctic has been more than offset by expansion of ice in the east Antarctic, but that expansion has been largely ignored by the fear-mongering media. The conclusion of an extensive report prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce recommends “…the Committee should consider again, and carefully, the question whether the anthropogenic effect on global mean surface temperature has—albeit inadvertently—been considerably exaggerated. Upon this question all else depends. If climate sensitivity is as low as theory and the satellite data are agreed in showing it to be, then that is the end of the ‘climate crisis,’ and it would be foolish to spend trillions on addressing a non-problem when there are so many real problems that need to be addressed.” [2401, 2403, 2404]