Of
course, the FBI reports were sent to the military in the first
place, so they've known about this for a long time. The only thing
that's changed is that now a lot of other people know about it too. In
other words, they don't really care if prisoners are being
tortured. They only care if anyone else finds out about it. Makes you
proud, doesn't it?
Actually, the military abhors torture. That is why so many Generals are
opposing the Gonzalez nomination. A lot of this may have to do with
simple military tactics. In war, collapse of the enemy is accelerated
when the soldiers on the other side know they will be well treated if
they surrender. It is why the German Army was forced into an Armistace
in World War I (not because the Allies were winning on the battlefield,
basically the German Army gave up and started surrendering enmasse,
we--the French, British and Americans-- basically were pretty inept at
fighting that war) and why the Western Front collapsed in World War II
while the Germans fought to the death against the Russians--or tried
desparately to escape west so they could surrender to the Americans or
British.
Now the USA seems willing to pay the price of American captives being
tortured because of what the Bush people are doing right now to approve torture. Torture for information simply doesn't work. People will say
anything to stop the pain.
We beat the Nazis without torture, and we beat the Soviets without torture.
We can beat a few thousand muj without torture, and in fact I
believe that if we start using torture, we will in fact lose to them.
Because their game is to turn America into what they view it as, a
global tyrant willing to use any method, including torture, to protect
its ungodly interests.
That, in fact, is what Osama Bin Laden wants us to do. Go that
route, and muslims will flock to him. We've gone too far down that road
already. Torture is
materially harming our chances in this so-called "war on terror," it
has cost us the moral high ground, and it is turning the world against
us. Oh, and it's illegal. These are some damn good reasons why it needs
to stop and why those who authorized or excused these atrocities need
to take responsibility for their actions and need to be fired.
Not that I expect that to happen, of course, since the Bush
administration is famous for not requiring anyone to accept
responsibility for anything.
It's funny. As soon as you bring up torture, the conservatives become moral relativists.
