Posted: 12/27/2014
Trigger
Just read this opinion article by the New York Times Editorial Board titled “ Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses”. It this the last gasp of a dying and once vaunted media empire?
In this article, the NYT rehashed without any qualification a lot of the same baloney, which I will not repeat here. In short, the NYT wants to prosecute about everybody of the former George W. Bush administration.
One can only hope that one day we learn how many of the about 19 members of the NYT Editorial Board actually supported this opinion or who spoke out against it.
The Editorial Board Is No Emile Zola
When Emile Zola his famous J’Accuse article in which he forcefully defended Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish officer Dreyfuss who was indeed an innocent man.
KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and other detainees of the CIA who were subjected to aggressive/harsh interrogation were certainly not innocent.
Multiple Acts Of War
The NYT Editorial Board in its grand naivety completely and conveniently ignores the fact of 9/11/2001, Madrid (3/11/2004)/Bali (10/12/2002)/London (7/7/2005 & 6/29/2007)/Mumbai (11/26/2008) bombings and other similar, but foiled attacks.
Nobody knew how many more such attacks were planned or imminent to be carried out. Who wants to be the next victim of such senseless attacks, anybody of the Editorial Board?
Multiple Attacks Before 9/11
The NYT Editorial Board is willfully blind to the fact that 9/11 had a history of serious attacks on U.S. citizens and others across the world. For brevity sake, I will not list them here.
Had the former and overly popular U.S. President Clinton not ignored the rising danger of militant Islamism, e.g. had he captured Bin Laden etc. … Perhaps, he and his wife were too influenced by the NYT.
Fanatical Killers And Unlawful Combatants
Does the NYT Editorial Board really understand who these human beings are that we are dealing with?
What moral relativism is the NYT Editorial Board applying here to compare members of the U.S. government or its agencies with unlawful combatants who obey no laws or rules whatsoever?
A New Totalitarian Ideology
Have the naive members of the NYT Editorial Board realized that militant, fanatical islam or Islamism represents an emerging totalitarian, hegemonistic ideology as bad or worse than those of the last century. Actually, Islamism goes at least as far back to the 1950s (see e.g. Sayyid Qutb) Like those totalitarian ideologies of the recent past, Islamism enjoys powerful and financially well off supporters.
Does the NYT Editorial Board perhaps suggest we wait until this fairly new totalitarian ideology becomes a global threat and menace like the Western countries waited for decades until Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain were ready to take on the world?
One can also suspect that Islamism is being supported to keep the West on its toes.
What Is Torture?
I am personally very tired of hearing this word torture so frequently used to describe with the U.S. government’s treatment of detainees suspected of terrorism.
Who is behind this nasty propaganda? Putin the Terrible? China? Iran? Who are the fellow travellers?
The above NYT article bases its demand on “These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law [18 U.S. Code § 2340, 2340A], which defines torture as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture.” First of all these cited laws apply primarily during peace time not during military conflict.
One can have a debate of what constitutes torture? Is e.g. sleep deprivation or waterboarding as reported by the U.S. Senate committee really torture and so on? On the other hand, it appears that serious mistreatments possibly have occurred, which should be further investigated on a case by case basis.
Torture does not equal torture! There is huge difference when one considers circumstances and motives. Contrast aggressive/harsh interrogations that were applied to specific individuals to prevent further mass murder with a dictator or his relatives (e.g. Saddam Hussein and his sons, Fidel Castro or and his brother) torture innocent, unarmed dissidents in their dungeons and often inflict permanent physical damages or death.
Truth Drug
Unfortunately, as far as I know, we do not yet have a truth drug that could be applied to suspects of serious crimes. Would applying truth drugs to suspects of mass murder be considered torture as well?
Absolutely yes, according to the federal law cited by the NYT Editorial Board (see above or the article [18 U.S. Code § 2340, 2340A]). I would add that this federal law goes way overboard with its definition of torture as far as truth drugs are concerned.
