“Setting aside the obvious flaw, that there are no “exact same consequences” ever, for anything or anyone.” While you can’t actually inflict the same kind of terror, humiliation and despair as a kidnapped person feels right before his head is sawed off, you could get a close approximation.

I had added something in my post about how revenge is imperfect so all we have is justice, but took it out as too rambling. Apparently I should have left it in. My point was that if the tortured people turned out to actually be bad guys, then who gives a shit what happened to them?

But the policy needs to be changed either way, because even if, by some miracle, no innocents had been tortured yet, it is only a matter of time before one does get tortured which makes the whole endeavor unworthy. Just like the death penalty, just because there are no documented cases of killing an innocent, there have been enough close calls and false imprisonments to prove the system has strong flaws that will eventually kill innocent (this of course doesn’t count the innocnets killed while in prison).

1. Enemies who can expect humane treatment surrender much more often than those who expect torture. A policy of unrestrained treatment of prisoners costs us valuable opportunities for new information.

2. Soldiers of a power known to engage in unrestrained treatment of prisoners are themselves more likely to face abuse, as part of the familiar cycle of anger and revenge.

So policies of torture hurt the war effort and endanger our troops.

We’ve learned that for most vocal libertarians, a war on fraudulent grounds, incompetently fought, used as an excuse for torture and the general trampling of civil liberties at home and abroad, plus fraud in every major policy initiative and incompetence in most or all agencies including the ones most necessary for the core functions of civil order and safety, is all preferable to a balanced budget and competent administration leading to improved conditions for the poorest if gasp there are tax hikes involved.

It’s not the size of the state, because Bush’s administration has expanded it greatly.

It’s not civil liberties, because Bush’s administration has been much worse. Giving full credit here to Bush I and Clinton Justice Department vileness with regard to Waco, more people are dying, more capriciously, and many more people are subject to investigation and harassment.

It’s not incompetence, since overall the Clinton administration did well on this and the Bush administration has rivalled or met the low-water mark for competence of any previous administration.

It’s not anything, as nearly as I can tell, except two to four things:

1. Taxes for the wealthy. It’s apparently very important to keep cutting taxes at the top, no matter (among other things) what this does to taxes for everyone else.

2. International cooperation. Any threat of impinging on US business’ right to do as it damn well pleases, like the state’s right to do likewise, must be resisted at all cost. Apparently no war or state of alienation could begin to approach the horror that would be, oh, the Kyoto accords or abiding by the Geneva conventions or paying our UN bill or anything like that.

3. Health care. Never mind all the evidence of other countries getting better care at less cost, and never mind the obvious and growing risks from epidemic and the light. It’s apparently very important that a large minority of American be left either to rot on their own devices or to bear in perpetuity the costs of expensive emergency fixes for what could have been prevented or treated earlier.

4. Gun control. After all, look how well it’s done since 2000 in keeping the government in line.

sigh

There’s an old joke that, by the 1950’s, the majority of the CPUSA was FBI informers, and that at one point, Hoover and cronies were discussing whether they should start altering party election results.

BTW, Not that it matters, but I was surprised to learn you are male. I always thought you were a female called Abby.

Barry,
You have said the code word correctly. The countersign is “Rove”. Let us proceed with the plan!

Yawn. Try another straw man, Dorothy.

The Pentagon has issued weasel denials for two and a half years over its use of incendiaries.

‘We don’t use napalm.’ Translation: we improved the formula, and call it something different these days.

‘We don’t use illegal weapons.’ Translation: we didn’t sign that treaty.

I have a problem trusting people who repeatedly lie. And that applies to ‘jet’ as well.

As for “Do you mean to say that you find what they’re doing now unnecessarily cruel and undesirable?” No, not in the least. Revenge is sweet and cathartic. In a perfect world, I’d have no problem with criminals suffering the exact same consequences as their victims. If you shoot your wife, rape a stranger, kill someone during a mugging, what mercy do you deserve?

But I’m still against torture because innocents get caught up in the machine and the gains will almost certainly never justify the torture of innocents.

If this is not typical for Stalinism, I don’t know what is.

Abb1, you should be very familiar with this. Suicide bombers often have flash burned flesh right next to unharmed clothing, and that’s whith the bomb strapped to them. This white phosphorus thing is far from proven.

But I know, you don’t even have to tell me, all American news is biased and we should only believe Aljazeera and Rainews.

Disagreeing with your statement that WWII was a full on love fest for captured POWs does not equal disagreement with you over how Bush needs to change the torture policy. Granted that might take a 4th or 5th grade reading level to discern, but trust me, it is there.

And you can read what a complete crock of sh*t that entire Independent piece is here.

On the substantive topic, BOTH sides agree that torture is not acceptable. So the question comes down to the comparison, the rhetoric. The substantive issue – that torture and extra-judicial detention are bad things – is not in doubt.

On the rhetoric, to call Gitmo a gulag is just rubbish: for goodness sake – many prisoners are gaining weight because they are being fed properly. In what way is this similar to the Gulag?

The comparison is simply not necessary to raise the issue: it represents an “own-goal” as it makes AI appear to have lost all sense of proportion.