Comment by Misty: Baytheist Living! on May 14, 2009 at 4:49am

oooh.. I'm sorta glad I got to this blog first! I hereby place my flag upon it and claim this comment as my own!

No, seriously. I've been thinking long and hard about this and I've come up with:


well......


Nothing.

I mean, it's a tough call to make.

I've got a few points here (that I've easily numbered for your discussion ease!)

1) Those that are responsible should be prosecuted to the highest standard of the law.
By 'those responsible' I do not mean the "common soldier that was following orders." Sorry, but anyone who has ever been in the military will defend this point. You are trained, conditioned and under legal obligation to follow the orders of your superior officer. That doesn't absolve the underlings of their moral responsibility, but it does of their legal ones. Had they refused, they would have been punished. Had they not, you are asking them to be? Bullshit. THAT will harm our troops in an irreconcilable way. If you doubt your superior officer, if you think you might get in trouble for following orders, then you hesitate. Hesitation leads to death. Not just your own, but that of your squad/troop/compa/whatever. That system is the most efficient one we have with our present day knowledge and technology. Find the people that gave the orders. Take them to court. Make sure their troops see it, witness it and LEARN what is acceptable as an officer and what isn't. Teach them to teach others. Don't punish the kids for the actions of their parents. Instead show them what is right and what is wrong. Create a better generation of officers.

2) We have three responsibilities now that the incidents have taken place. The first is to admit the problem and the second is to correct it. The third is to heal ties with the Muslim community and ensure our economical and peaceful progressions. The question I have for you is "Will revealing these pictures help accomplish any of those goals? All of those goals? Will it hinder one or more?"
I think the answer to that is probably a yes. Keep in mind that media is still a new form of weaponry to parts of the world, especially parts of the Muslim world. They show be-headings as a way to incite terror and violence. Visualization of their deeds is used to instigate, not calm. Their entire mentality is based on that. Look at what a few Dutch cartoons did. Deeper meaning is NOT considered. Laying it all bare in the written form is a full admission of the deeds. We don't even understand the level they hold visualizations to. Do we need these pictures?

I'll have more on this later as I ponder. any discussion is of course welcome.

Comment by SabreNation on May 14, 2009 at 9:37am

Excellent post LaRae.

To Misty -

1) Here's the problem, though, why does that apply to OUR soldiers but not those of opposition armies? When Nazi soldiers claimed they were "just following orders" they were told, essentially, to go fly a kite. It doesn't matter. At a certain point basic human morality should kick in and the excuse of following orders no longer applies. There is a very strong precedent set here, not just in the US but on a worldwide scale as a result of WW2. One of the biggest complaints you hear about America from outsiders is that we tend to hold our own citizens to a lower standard than we hold foreigners. Is this not just yet another clear case of just that? Nazi soldiers would've been killed if they didn't follow orders, our soldiers would - at worst - be demoted or court-martialled. So how can we excuse our soldiers for "following orders" when we told Nazi's who faced much harsher punishment that "following orders" wasn't a good enough reason?

2) I think this depends largely on how the pictures are presented. I think if done correctly it could show the Muslim world that America is ready to acknowledge the horrors of the past 8 years and move forward in a new direction. Create a video - in Arabic - to be sent to Al-Jazeera along with the photos, by Barack Obama himself stating very plainly that "this is what happened, we will not hide from our past but instead admit our mistakes and look to move forward in a new direction." Then show the photos. I, personally, feel that it would make a stronger case to the Muslim world to come out and publish these wrong-doings. Especially now, do you think this decision will be ignored in the Middle East? Like they're not going to publicize the decision to keep these pictures hidden? If there had never been any word about it then fine but now it's been publicized, it's all over our news, and I'm sure their's as well. I think refusing to make them public at this point is FAR more damaging to our credibility in the Muslim world than releasing them would be.

Comment by Misty: Baytheist Living! on May 14, 2009 at 1:11pm

Sabre-
1) I'd contend that water-boarding and sleep deprivation are a lot less horrifying than burning people by the millions, doing human experimentation without anesthesia and other acts carried out by folks "just following orders." Personally, in that case, I'd desert from Nazi Germany. As an American solder, it wasn't near so black and white and still isn't.
This is where I sit on everything that I'm aware of in the interrogation process. (That isn't to say that there aren't 'techniques' I'm not aware of that will make me sit back and hold up my hands, though. I'm totally open to correction if I'm missing a few.)
Water-boarding- I do worse to my students while diving. I force them back under the water while they are actually choking and sputtering and coughing because I need to enforce the point that you cannot surface on a technical dive or you will die of DCI or get hit by a boat. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how panicked you feel, you've got to stay under and work it out. I'll hold them down if necessary. Doing so risks medical complications.' Near drowning' (choking but not dying) is anytime water enters the lungs. Chemicals like chlorine or abrasives like salt from the ocean can damage the lungs. Near drowning carries inherent risks that are not deemed too unsafe for a recreational activity. When a bladder or plastic or whatever is placed over your face so you FEEL like you are drowning, no water enters your lungs, so there is no physical damage done. It's uncomfortable, especially when you aren't used to it or forewarned, but it is not going to cause permanent harm to your body.
(I would hereby like to declare water-boarding a new pre-requisite to every PADI scuba course.) *disclaimer.- I am not a PADI instructor. I do tech stuff. I don't represent PADI so don't sue them. I'm only half joking though. I think it would be beneficial for a student to know the sensation of drowning in a physically safe environment so they can learn how to deal with the panic response. Of course, I removed the scrubber from my own rebreather to test my own reaction to C02 poisoning so I could recognize the onset of symptoms in case of an incident underwater. This might be mad scientist talk.
Anyway. That's my feeling on water-boarding. On to the others.
Sleep deprivation- It sucks, but it isn't permanently harmful. People go though it in boot camp. People go though it for various reasons. It isn't fun, but it isn't torture.
Dog Handling-Again, as long as the dog isn't allowed to attack, it's just scary. As far as I know, they were used as threats, never EVER allowed to do physical harm. Seeing a pattern here?
Humiliation- Welcome to the real world, buddy. This is war, not your third grade math test. You aren't here to have your ego boosted, but instead to reveal information that might save lives.
Stress Positioning- I pay good money to have a trainer make me do that. We call it yoga here. (Ok, maybe not exactly the same, but again, no physical damage other than maybe being moderately sore after.)

Now, these are my personal opinions on the issues I know about. I'm stating them here to prove that it isn't nearly as black and white as being asked to kill babies, attack villagers rape children or do things that the Nazis did. That is a HUGE leap and comparing apples to oranges in my opinion. I feel that torture is something that maims or injures or at least leaves a scar..even a tiny one. Torture is forcing another human to endure agonizing pain for a set amount of time. This stuff is questionable, but not despicable.
Now, as leaders of the free world, and role models for human rights, the fat that it is even questionable means it should be taken off the table and corrected. We must hold ourselves to a much higher standard than the rest of the world if we don't want to be hypocrites. There can't be even a single HINT. Yeah, it makes me a little mad, because as an American AND a woman, I know good and well they'd have no qualms about much worse if I were ever a POW or suspect there. Somehow I doubt that I'd get a prayer mat sufficient food, water, medical care AND a copy of my religious document to use as my custom calls for.
But that is what makes America leaders of human rights, or at least puts on the path to being there. We must have higher standards, fair or not. So we will..and we've already taken the right steps. GB is being closed. Interrogation is being halted. Calls for justice are being answered. These are MAJOR corrections in few short months after Obama takes office. I'm rather impressed. Yeah, transparency was promised, but we have the documents. What can you take from pictures that you can't take from the written word? Are these pictures necessary? I'd hate to be Obama right now. He isn't Gandolf the fucking Gray here. People put such high expectations on him that he won't ever fully live up, no matter how well he does. Things will take time, there will be snags along the way, and promises made on the campaign trail suddenly seem a whole lot scarier now that there are literally lives hanging on his words. Yup. Sucks to be him. I'd rather be water-boarded.

2)Presenting them in the right manner.... hrm.
Crap. I'd like that. Seriously. If there was a way to publish them without pissing off a whole lot of people that want to kill us, I'd be all for it. I just don't know if that's possible. I mean, I see clips of people being beheaded, and I don't feel anything but deep seeded disgust, indignation and outright anger. Now, to be fair, like I said, apples and oranges. We weren't beheadding anyone, but to some cultures, humiliation like that is way worse than death. I think that there is a very good chance we will simply throw gas on the fire. Yeah, they already know about the pictures, but handing them over to Al-Jazeera with a video is in no way insuring fair and complete viewings. People will always clip and cut, take things out of context and rearrange it to suit their own ends, and frankly their ends are not the same as our ends. Sending fully disclosed documents or videos of officer proceedings and punishment might make a difference though, and that would be a hell of a lot harder to manipulate for their advantage.
Responsibility-Justice-Outreach.
I just don't see releasing those pictures as bringing us any closer to those goals.

Comment by LaRae Meadows on May 14, 2009 at 2:00pm

Misty, your customers choose to go to you and can leave at any time. You are not a government.

For waterboarding: We prosecuted people for doing it to our soldiers, we consider it torture under the law. There is no abiguity. What is the difference between believing you will die because of drowning and believing you will die by a gun?

Sleep Deprivation: It has serious long term medical consequences. Heart, mental, lung and other problems.

Soldiers, in their training, are told that "just following orders" will not consitute a defense against morally indefensable acts. They are allowed to refuse unethical orders. We aren't talking about battlefield fear, we are talking about situations exactly that the refusal to follow orders moral exception was put in place for.

The FBI had already pulled their people from these intorragations because of the CIA's behavior. And let's not forget, this wasn't just the military. The CIA was primarily doing the intarrogations, and they seriously don't have a following orders excuse.

But lets just ignore the muslim world for a minute. We have a constitution and a judicuary, the meaning of both had been erroded during the bush administration. American law, all laws, point to the release of these pictures. There is no legal out for Obama. If he denies the law, he isn't any better than Bush. It is his job to uphold the constitution and the law, period.

Everyone, EVERYONE, even us knows that we tortured people. If he releases these pictures and does not prosecute anyone, we may have a big problem. He should prosecute every single person, even congress people and soldiers, ever single one of them. Then, and only then, will it seem like we give a crap about being good people again.

Many people don't know that the second half of the Geniva Convention on Torture, which we signed, requires any government who finds out about torture to investiage and prosecute. If they do not, the government and their officials who choose not to are war criminals in the same degree as the torturers. Right now Obama is walking a thin war criminal line.

Comment by Misty: Baytheist Living! on May 14, 2009 at 2:35pm

Sabre-
Only two interrogation methods were tossed back, so I'm free to skip over the others, yes?

SD-I've never seen any medical data that backs up your claim that temporary sleep deprivation causes long term negative effects. If you've got some, I'd be glad to look it over.

WB-True enough. I'm not imprisoning my customers, but my customers aren't potential terrorists, either. I'm not so optimistic that deep down, these people being interrogated are upstanding citizens that just had a bad childhood. I think information was gathered and it saved lives. I personally don't disagree with the methods used, but I'm a cutthroat, ruthless bitch, not the leader of the free world. If it was categorized as illegal at the time it took place, then no defense from me whatsoever. I fully agree that the CIA, FBI and (but only commanding) military soldiers be prosecuted. The enlisted men and women need some serious re-training and reassignments, especially before returning to civilian life. At least in my experience in the military, we were NEVER made aware of the fact that we could protest or disobey and order based on moral grounds...in fact, most of bootcamp is training you to do things to your own squad/company/whatever that you find morally wrong to better the group and improve efficiency. If you are the cadet in charge, you are made to punish innocent recruits for your own mistakes or that of others to teach you responsibility as a group. The hardest thing I've ever had to do in basic was force someone to keep drinking water long past the point of them throwing up (water drills for USCG.) He'd drink as much as he could, but dribble a little, and I had to order him to refill and do it again. And again. And again. With my medical knowledge, I knew this was potentially deadly, but I can't honestly say I would have refused the order if he would have stopped throwing up (signifying the start of said potential problem) I trusted that my CC also knew what to look for and would not order me to actually harm him.......and that was the first week of bootcamp. It's all uphill from there. I look back utterly horrified and what I was capable of now, but I can honestly say that in no way did I think I had a choice and in no way did I think there was anything wrong with it. I wasn't totally stupid at the time, either. I'd like to think I'm a fairly intelligent, educated individual and was then, too. The military needs to be revamped. People assigned to places and duties like that are sure as HELL not aware of/capable of due to conditioning/or understanding of making the choice to walk away. If they were, they wouldn't be stationed there in the first place. So yeah.. that's my only issue with that. Nail the CIA, FBI, officers and politicians, but leave the 18 year old confused private out of the brig and instead send him somewhere to be rehabilitated and made into a peaceful, contributing citizen with a healthy emotional maturity. Think he isn't traumatized, too?

Back on Obama: I'd rather not ignore the Muslim world..mainly because they refuse to ignore us. Anything we do from now on needs to take that into consideration. Period. Obama is under no legal obligation to reveal those pictures or any other unless commanded to by a whole string of judges and after a shit ton of appeals. He could keep it wrapped up long after 8 years, but so far, it seems like he's taking thoughtful measures. So no. Not legally obligated to release them, else the Republicans would be all over him calling for impeachment and making a fuss.
Is he morally obligated to? Like I said. I don't know. If he does, he might piss off people with a whole different mindset than you or I can understand. These people already don't like us and are looking for any excuse. Of all my international friends polled, not a single non-American agreed with releasing the pictures. Documentation and prosecution is his legal obligation, however. That is a fact and as you said stated in the GC. I've got the utmost confidence that this will come to pass. The pictures are not necessary for this process, however, so I remain unconvinced. For the most part, I'm just showing a side of the argument for my own consideration, not out of conviction. Give me a reason why they should be released, and I'll sink my teeth into it in a heartbeat. Right now I'm still agreeing with Obama that the risks outweigh the benefits. I'd rather he look less than perfectly transparent and have to deal with the calls of liar and hypocrite than have those pictures framed on some cave wall to help focus a suicide bomber on to his 72 virgins (or gems of wisdom, or whatever the going translation is)
So far, just my opinion. Like I said, it isn't set in stone, and I can be convinced otherwise with the right information......well, that's sorta how I am about ALL arguments. "Until proven otherwise" but the otherwise has me on the fence right now, not in the field.

Comment by Misty: Baytheist Living! on May 14, 2009 at 2:36pm

Crap. That was to you, LaRae...sorry. I addressed it to Sabre again! My bad! xxx

Comment by Stacy B on May 14, 2009 at 3:20pm

I didn't read through all the commentary so far (sorry guys!), but I have to wonder what purpose it serves to release humiliating pictures just so the American public can gawk and stare at the train wreck. By humiliating, I mean to the prisoners in those degrading pictures. If I were tortured, I wouldn't want the pics of me strapped to something or naked in a cell or beaten up and bloodied released for wide spread consumption. Again we seem to be forgetting that these are human beings, not just pawns in a political game of American rights and civil liberties. Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but it seems dirty to release those photos. Deal with the problem of these actions taking place. Don't get stuck on some perverse desire that Americans have to view disturbing and humiliating photos under the guise of "rights." The photos should be entered as evidence in the cases against the people who have perpetrated these foul acts and I don't see why the rest of the world has a right to see them. We can have transparency without torture pics. Really, it's kind of sick that we feel the need to push this. I'll take the government's word for it that there are pics of torture carried out by Americans. Why do I need to see them to understand?

It just seems like an appeal to the survival horror fans.

Comment by Misty: Baytheist Living! on May 14, 2009 at 3:29pm

*Points to Stacy*
Yeah! What she said.
I know how to settle this!
We should poll everyone in the pictures and see what they have to say!

Comment by LaRae Meadows on May 14, 2009 at 4:30pm

Uhm, the first amendment is why. Sometimes what we do is ugly, and we need to see it. If we were worried about humiliating these people, we should not have tortured them.

Misty, if that person you made drink water over and over died, I'd want you brought up on murder charges. Period. There is no exception. Would you have been killed if you said no? Of course not. That is just a horrible excuse military people use to no longer be responsible and it's got to stop.

Comment by Stacy B on May 14, 2009 at 4:51pm

Which part of the 1st amendment demands that the government release photos of crimes?
And which part covers government transparency?

Oh, that's right. It doesn't. Freedom of speech you say? We can talk about it all we like, but that doesn't indicate that have a right to see some photos. Freedom of the press? Nobody's keeping the press some publishing anything that they have in their possession. That doesn't indicate that we have the right to see some photos. Government doesn't have to actively aid the press. You get the closest with the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." But we can petition all we want and not having some photos doesn't hold us back. That line doesn't indicate that the government has to come to a decision regarding any grievance which we favor.

There may be something in the Constitution that covers this issue, but it's not the First Amendment.

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