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So when I heard Condoleezza Rice mention the word renditions, my initial reaction was that she was going to discuss music. Condi is an accomplished pianist, who began taking lessons at age of three. At 15 her goal was to become a concert pianist, where she would devote all energies to performing. Unfortunately for us, she did not purse that career. Instead she became interested in politics and the rest is history. So when Condi mentioned EXTROADINARY RENDITIONS, she was not describing musical interpretations, she was describing the JUSTIFICATION FOR TORTURE. Extraordinary Rendition is the arrest, blindfolding, shackling, sedating, and transporting of captives by private jet or other means to secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. The CIA provides interrogators with lists of questions.

Uncle Sam or Marquis de Sade?

There are many ways that torture can be implemented to a captive, one of the more popular methods is known as waterboarding. The word sounds like sports activity but it is far from fun. It is a FORM OF MEDIEVAL TORTURE CURRENTLY USED BY OUR GOVERNMENT. It involves tying the victim to a board with his head lower than his feet so that he or she is unable to move. A piece of cloth is held tightly over the face, and water is poured onto the cloth. Breathing is extremely difficult and the victim will be in fear of imminent death by asphyxiation. However, it is relatively difficult to aspirate a large amount of water since the lungs are higher than the mouth, and the victim is unlikely actually to die if this is done by SKILLED torturers. Waterboarding is often used by torturers who wish to impose severe suffering without leaving marks on their victims as evidence. Some other forms of torture are: ATTENTION GRAB; ATTENTION SLAP; BELLY SLAP; LONG TIME STANDING AND COLD CELL. The CIA does not refer to these activities as torture they call them ENHANCED INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES. The Cold Cell enhanced technique, requires a prisoner to stand naked in a 50 degree cell and is continually doused with cold water. Whereas, the Long Time standing enhanced technique, forces the captive to stand handcuffed and shackled for more than 40 hours, and the Belly Slap delivers a hard open handed slap to the stomach intended to cause severe pain.

Egypt is the most common destination for the rendition of, suspected terrorists. However captives have been rendered to other countries, such as Jordan, Syria, Morocco, and Uzbekistan. Many captives who have been detained and tortured for six months or longer have been found innocent and abducted by mistake.

According to former CIA agent Bob Baer, “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear– never to see them again- – you send them to Egypt.”

One Man’s Terrorist Is another Man’s Freedom Fighter”

We cannot demonize someone by calling them a terrorist and then commit atrocities in the name of democracy!

By invading and occupying a country we have created insurgents that we now define as terrorists. How would any of us react if our country was invaded and occupied by a foreign government? Would we passively submit, or would we have the courage to fight back. Would WE then be defined as terrorists? Have we demonized, objectified and dehumanized resisters by calling those terrorists And if that kind of propaganda allows us torture and kill Iraqis, what will prevent the same propaganda from then being used against anyone who is labeled a threat? Will U.S. citizens be abducted and tortured, if someone decides to label them a terrorist?

We were all recently traumatized and horrified by the news coverage of a 60 year old, African-American retired school teacher, in New Orleans being badly beaten by the police. This horrific incident would have gone unnoticed, if the press and T.V. cameras were not present. Suppose he had been abducted and there were no T.V. cameras? If we allow our government to have free reign to beat, torture and abduct captives internationally, we are paving the way for the possibility of similar treatment to be imposed on U.S. citizens.

Sociologists use the term Elite Deviance, to describe persons and organizations in a culture that possess the highest social status, and have the power to systematically exploit the powerless by economic domination, denial of human rights, and governmental control. This deviant behavior causes injury, devastation, huge monetary losses, and ultimately undermines public trust in political and economic institutions. Can it be that the CEOS running the oil companies and the politicians controlling our government are inflicted with this deviant behavior? Or to put it simply, maybe they are just a bunch of THUGS.

PROSPERITY GOSPEL: WHAT GOD DO THEY WORSHIP AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

White House staffers have been meeting weekly at hour-long prayer and Bible study sessions. Bush aides organized the sessions before his inauguration. What God are they really praying to? Are they praying to a God that advocates invasion, destruction and the annihilation of 120,000 Iraqi civilians? Are they praying to a God that allows 37 million Americans to live in poverty? Are they praying to a God that accepts no health-care for 45 million Americans? Are they praying to god that permits corporations to swindle people out of their homes using the questionable Supreme Court ruling, Eminent Domain? Are they praying to a God that says it’s fine to leave people homeless and desperate in the Gulf Coast? Are they praying to a God that says it is morally correct to give tax cuts to the rich and powerful, and to cut programs for the poor? Are they praying to a God that says execution and Capital Punishment is tolerable? Are they praying to a God that says human rights are not important and that it is acceptable to abduct torture and throw into prison captives, without allowing them due process? Exactly what god, can they be praying to at the White House?

The gospel is clear about torture, Jesus said: ‘Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.” This implies very strongly that some day they WILL know the full extent of what they did. It will be at that time that they will repent. Note Matthew 23:37-39:

AND MAYBE THEN, THEY WILL CHANGE THEIR TUNE!

Let’s talk about naivete for a moment, what you accuse some of here (West Wing). I am glad this has come out into the open like it has, because it was much worse while done in darkness. Every form of torture, and more than you have seen from terrorists has been Made In America – if you balk, your simply naive. So let’s get a good dose of that “reality” you speak of, face this problem squarely and make a commitment – NO TORTURE PERIOD. OK? I hope that’s clear enough for you.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/12/condi-rices-no-torture-pledge-dont.html

Yeah, Jim, but what if even Torture Lite is used as the raison d’etre for an American Beslan? Doesn’t Torture Heavy threaten an even worse vindictive response? Where does the cycle break?

Torture Lite may work in one case or another. However, it didn’t work in the case of Khaled Masri, because he didn’t have any information to give up. When it finally became clear that they had the wrong guy, they shipped him back to where they picked him up on some trumped-up charge of passport forgery just because his name vaguely resembled someone else’s on a list, and then, by his account, they told him to keep walking and not look back. Then our government put pressure on all concerned to keep the whole fiasco quiet.

How did Masri get through his incarceration and mistreatment? He says he got a lot of moral support from other detainees. He’s now planning to sue the CIA. Well, good for him: he’s taking the high road, the road of civil society redress for wrongs done. But what if he went the other way? What if his experience — and his “moral support” — convinced him that only violent Jihad was the right path?

During the years of the Intifada, doing time in Israeli prisons became the Red Badge of Courage, and those prisons became breeding grounds for islamist militancy. Jihad in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and now Iraq has been breeding new generations of islamist militant heroes. The challenge in confronting this threat with force is in how to take the moral high ground at every opportunity.

But that’s not what we’re getting, are we? No, we’re getting Condi touring Europe, insisting that we don’t torture, you can’t prove that we torture, and we promise we’ll never torture again — though it’s still possible that … mistakes will be made.

We learned in fighting the Germans in WWII and the Soviets during the Cold War that an ‘eye for an eye’ does not work, is not where a compassionate democracy operates from.

While we argue about how bad Saddam is/was/would have been, the fascists in the White House just lick their lips and toast each other, laughing at how rich they’ve made their buddies through defense spending, higher petroleum prices and so-called ‘security contracting’ both at home and abroad.

Grow up. We are all saps for having elected a do-nothing, roll-over Congress to represent nothing about our democracy, except for its need for greed in the person of George W. Bush.

Somewhere The Senator From Boeing continues to decompose.

We are NOT talking about what Saddam did: beatings, rapes, mutiliations, etc.

We are talking about: cold A/C, loud and obnoxious music, sleep deprivation, and yelling. Sounds like my last job. This also includes waterboarding which is pretty close to the line but not applied beyond folks like Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed KNOWS THINGS. He was the architect of both the 1993 WTC bombing and the 2001 9/11 attacks (itself recycled and reduced from the Bojinka plot he and nephew Yusef hatched). He knows people, methods, contacts, means of operations, and finance methods for Al Qaeda. Stopping Al Qaeda requires this information. KSM did not talk until he was waterboarded.

What leftists here want is a moral vanity. A perfect world where law enforcement can “stop” terrorism. This isn’t a TV show, it’s reality and the rules of the West Wing or Commander in Chief don’t apply.

Realism means putting American lives first over moral vanities and folks wanting to preen or “be loved” by Europeans who think if they appease enough bin Laden won’t attack them. Europeans who would also be happy to see massive attacks destroying American cities and plunging America into an economic crisis, and therefore crippling an economic rival.

The Left which is basically a hereditary elite wishes to maintain a “stable” system through making people “love them.” This is a fool’s errand since Al Qaeda could care less, “you submit or we slaughter” is their creed as seen by their penchant for sawing off heads for their pleasure and terror. There is a the alternative of moral vanity of giving name, rank, and serial number treatment ala the rejected amendment to the Geneva Conventions in the 1980′s (Reagan’s rejection was praised by the NYT) which will lead to information NOT being gathered and attacks on the US succeeding. Leftists live in a fantasy denial of 9/11 or bin Laden’s attempts to duplicate it on a massive scale. The “wishing and hoping” strategy of a hereditary elite that hates change on all levels and sticks their heads in the sand.

Denial of rough tools that stress terrorist prisoners (and are used by the Brits, French, Italians, Spaniards etc on their own internal terrorists like the IRA or ETA and OK’s by the EU) will lead to successful attacks and a counter-reaction of REAL TORTURE. Replicating some of the worst of Saddam’s stuff.

The way to avoid torture is to neither live in a fantasy world of the West Wing nor embrace brutality but stress terrorists up to but never crossing the line to torture.

We lose say kindergartens to Beslan style attacks because we could not question KSM roughly and we certainly will torture. Logic dictates then that we should approach but never cross the line.

The CIA leaks? Wishing also to return to the 90′s status quo where advancement meant getting on the job liaison tidbits (passed intel of dubious value, etc) from the Saudis and lucrative lobbying positions for them afterwards. See: Joe Wilson, the current and former Mrs. Wilsons, Brent Scowcroft, others.

Well, what can you expect when Dean and Pelosi call for surrender to bin Laden/Zarqawi and Kerry calls the Troops Terrorists? Somewhere FDR weeps.

There was an interesting remark made in this Iraq newspaper covert-paid-placement propaganda. An officer in Iraq connected with the operation was quoted as mentioning bin Laden’s belief that half the war is in the media. The implication was obvious: we have to fight fire with fire. There’s an irony in that — he was referring to Zawahiri’s letter (indirectly addressed to Zarqawi) where it argued strongly against Zarqawi’s terror attacks on Shi’ites, that the media splashes created thereby actually undermined the Al Qaeda cause.

Fighting the war in the media only works as long as you’re not shooting yourself in the foot.

This officer’s remark would be even more ironic if, in fact, the intercepted letter WAS actually doctored or forged outright by U.S propagandists, as many in Iraq suspect — then it was just the U.S. quoting itself through a faked terrorist megaphone. (And more ironic still: he might have been doing it unwittingly. I’m assuming that this particular officer wouldn’t have been in on any such propaganda exercise. But who knows?)

What’s missing from that officer’s reasoning is the recognition that, with the cover on the paid-placements now blown (which was probably inevitable — what arrogance made them think otherwise?), almost any story in Iraqi newspapers about positive developments is likely to be regarded with even more suspicion than before. It would have been better if the papers had simply run the articles as paid political messages, with whatever disclaimers the editors and publishers felt would put an arm’s length between themselves and the source of the message.

Admittedly, in today’s Iraq, perhaps there’s less scope for an open approach than there is for bribing the media to do covert paid-placement. Openly running U.S.-sponsored pieces as such could expose Iraqi media operations to even more threats and initimidation than they’d suffer for running the same piece as “news”, since it would make it obvious that the paper was taking money to be a channel for the U.S. point of view. If so, well … today’s Iraq is a product of yesterday’s Iraq policies, so guess who has to share the blame?

Insanity has been defined as persisting at what hasn’t worked. By that definition, whoever dreamed up this propaganda project must have been nuts.

Like the possibility I might be completely insane ???

Well woodrow I’m afraid that’s all you have so aiming an accusation that’s only valid when looking in the mirror in Atlanta is well, myopic.