Or how about:
1) - Arrest "Suspects"
2) - Investigate.
3) - Release those who are not terrorists.
4) - Do what you like to those that are.
The parts that appear to be missing in this process are 2 and 3 as there appears a great desire to jump from 1 to 4 based on the cyclic thought patterns I mentioned above.
If parts 1-3 are open to scrutiny and above board I (and I suspect most people will feel the same) don't care what they do as part 4.
The fact that 1 and 4 are the only processes you see does not mean they do not take place. As one who has worked with investigators, there are many different aspects to investigation, some highly visible and many more subtle and elusive to the untrained eye. Place that within a highly sensitive and classified environment and you come up with the feeling that steps 2 & 3 were ignored for the sake of expediency when in reality they were not revealed to those who did not need to know.
I believe that the US government would have no reason to simply grab people off the street and interrogate them for 19 months. They would in fact have better uses for their manpower and facilities.
MontyB said:
I agree completely however it is unfortunately a point that is continually being side stepped by cyclic arguments such as:
- We lock up captured terrorists.
- They are locked up therefore they are terrorists.
- They must be terrorists or they wouldn't be locked up.
Essentially its assuming guilt based on the position of being arrested.
I agree that such a mindset is wrong and counterproductive to the justice system. Fortunately in America, judges and jurys are held to make an objective decision based solely on the facts within the parameters of the charge and its circumstances. That is a very verbose way of saying innocent until proven guilty.
In reality, it doesnt matter if you or I think these people are guilty or not, any more than whether we believe that Scott Pederson or O.J. Simpson are guilty or not. We didnt sit in court, nor did we tag along with the investigators during the course of the investigation. We do not know the facts.
There are many different agencies that monitor investigative techniques and such, and their efforts have stepped up particularly after Abu Ghraib. These people DO have access to this information and would be better suited to calling foul play.
senojekips said:
There is always a possibility that some of these reports are false, but the simple fact that they all agree almost to the tiniest detail gives the very strong impression that there is a good basis in truth in these stories. This, when coupled with such things as Abu Ghraib, and the Government's tacit admission that they are using torture destroys our credibility in the eyes of the world. The last thing we need is to give our enemy any credibility.
We differ slightly here. When I see so many stories with almost 100% exact match, I do not lend them support based on strength in numbers. I do a 180 and offer the suggestion that in fact repeated allegations are merely carbon copied reports. It would take far more effort to conjure up a 1000 stories about how the CIA tortured Mr. X Y and Z rather than come up with one story and apply it to the same men. Not only that, even teenagers know that if they can get another person to back their story it becomes that much more believable.
On a side note, the events at Abu Ghraib were not engineered to extract
any information, in fact they were designed solely to humiliate thier victims.
I'm sure that the people making these allegations would have a very good case in any independent court in the world, there's just too much supporting evidence and every time we choose to ignore it, the case against us gets worse. Sticking our heads in the sand will not make it go away
I am curious as to what an "independent" court is. Not tied to political ideals? Now, I have never been to a court outside the country so I dont know if they do things differently or how the word independent would come into play, but from my experience in the judicial system in America the courts are very free of exterior political pressures. Granted my experience is on a completely different echelon, but I would expect the standards to remain. One could argue that a judge could be a "yes man" in order to seek nominations, but then again it takes years to become a judge, and years more to get to the point where they could influence a case such as this. Each one of those years is spent defending the constitution and all that goes with it, good and bad. Judges dont make a decision off the constitution and their subjective opinion. Instead, they make a decision based off the interpretation of the law and the objective facts. I have seen several criminals of whom all parties involved could smell the guilt radiating off them, yet were found not guilty because the facts simply could not add up to beyond reasonable doubt.
I am glad you compared this to your generations experiences with Vietnam. It does add some food for thought.
Spartacus said:
I believe the good will do what it can do morally to win this war and that the bad will go to any end, use any means including propoganda to win.
I did not say that all good people fell on our side and all bad fell on theirs. I realize, as brought to light with PVT Green and Abu Ghraib, there are bad people on both sides. I believe there are far more good than bad on our side, but I do not decieve myself into believing everyone on our side will do what is right.
senojekips said:
A skeptic perhaps, but not necessarily "naive", this is a personal judgement and as a patriotic citizen, no doubt you would like to see your country in the best possible light. This is highly understandable and commendable in itself, but you hit the nail on the head with that one word in your paragraph above, "morally". Otherwise we could end up in the unfortunate circumstance of having won the fight, but lost the war in the eyes of the world
Honestly, I do not believe we can win these wars in the eyes of the world. I think there will always be someone who is decieved by people like Al-Zhawari and his kind. There will always be people who spread anger and hatred and lies to seed more anger and hatred and lies. Not to mention their religious/legal system that can be used to demand repayment for shed blood, regardless of guilt or innocence. This does not mean that I support throwing in the towel and saying "f**k it, kill them all" not by
any means. All we can do is what is right. End of story.
Leading that back into the topic, I dont feel the need to bend over backward to avoid losing the war in the eyes of the world nor do I feel the need to hastily make decisions about a series of reported interrogations. Surely there are others within our government who are sincere about doing what is right and who will not allow less than moral techniques be applied, and should they be, not withhold them. Marines have taken a stand when others betrayed the moral code, Soldiers have done it when other Soldiers broke the law. I see both bad and good, but I do see enough good to keep our government in check
from the inside and not from our enemies.
Hollywood is a beast unto itself, but sometimes it does release movies that I think carry valuable lessons.
Rules of Engagement and
The Kingdom are two movies that tie well into this topic.