[ordinaryguy]

How they got information, without torturing, in WWII: Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence

[Wondergirl]

AHA!! So I'm right!!

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

[tomder55]

Further explanation was forbidden. The more than 3,400 prisoners who stayed there were off the books, too, partly because operations at Fort Hunt were "not exactly legal" according to the Geneva Conventions, the National Park Service said.WP: WWII interrogators break silence - Washington Post - MSNBC.com

Good thing the NY Slimes and the Washington Compost of today did not get this info . Then . No doubt the ACLU would've insisted the Germans get lawyers. But wait ;FDR and Truman were Democrats. Maybe that is why this secret was able to endure.

[ordinaryguy]

tomder55 agrees: I wonder if they fed the prisoners only ethnic German food and gave them copies of Mein Kampf, printed in German, to read in their free time.

Do you doubt that this approach actually does produce better intelligence? Or is it that you think the satisfaction of slapping them around is worth the reduced quality of intelligence produced by that approach?

[inthebox]

Well, if the fundies get their way, we are well along the road to Armageddon. There are people actively planning to destroy not just liberal democracy, but all human existence because they believe it is "god's will".

I believe Martin Luther King may be considered a "fundie" taking

Romans 12:
17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"[d]says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."[e] 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good ---------------------
------

Literally.

And so, I don't think torture can be justified.


Grace and Peace

[Skell]

Hello again Cap'n:

Our enemy's have ALWAYS had information that could save lives.... Nothing is different here. Besides, we won WW II without torturing anyone.

excon

Except for the folk in Hiroshima!

[tomder55]

Do you doubt that this approach actually does produce better intelligence?

I don't know . Ask Khalid Sheik Mohammed .

[CaptainRich]

Except for the folk in Hiroshima!!

Ask the folks at Pearl Harbor

[ordinaryguy]

I don't know . Ask Khalid Sheik Mohammed .

Ask him what? Whether he would have given more and better information if he hadn't been tortured? If he says yes, should I torture him until he says no?

It really has nothing to do with him or any other detainee. It has everything to do with you and me and what our government does in the name of our "security". Even if you don't give a crap for any moral or ethical reasons, if you care about real security, you have to care about the quality of information obtained by interrogators. The low reliability of torture-induced statements is well-documented. That leaves revenge as the only believable motive for doing it. If you'd rather have revenge than security, then it makes sense to support this Administration's policies on the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques. Otherwise, not. There are a lot of people who would rather have revenge than security, it turns out.

[Choux]

Men are violent; its in their genetics! Just give them a flag and a god to kill for and let 'em loose! Crafty leaders all know this. Whip men up so they release the wellspring of their repressed rage!

Torturing others in the name of god and/or country with a group of like minded individuals gives lots of guys thrills. The madness of the mob mentality. We only have to look to the KKK to see this reality enacted out. Look at AbuGrahb; how they all worked together to humiliate and torture guys-and they *photographed* the torture. There are very few torturers who operate alone. They are called serial killers such as that Lutheran deacon, the BTK killer.

Monotheism and warfare seem to be a natural fit!

[CaptainRich]

I wasnt looking for a competition on who killed the most people. Sounds like you were. Nice!!!!

That is so off base! Skell! Who's side are you on??

Did we torture any nation, any entity or religious faction, into a sneak attack on our soil? On our people!! EVER??

You think we should not respond to attacks on our nation!

[Skell]

No not at all. I was merely making the point that just as you use torture now, you would also have used it in WWII. I didn't make it correctly. My apologies.

But the answer is yes. You do use torture. Yes you have in the past. No responding to an attack on your nation is not torture, although those who lived in Hiroshima I'm sure have gone through and went torture after the A-bomb just as those in Pearl Harbour did after the Japanese attack.

War is ugly and tortuous. Your country is no different to any other. Or do you actually think that the US doesn't and has never tortured?

[ETWolverine]

Besides, we won WW II without torturing anyone. How'd we do that?

Says who? Where did you get the idea that we didn't torture enemy agents and soldiers during WWII? The OSS (precursor of the CIA) didn't use torture? Wild Bill Donavan didn't condone torture? Bull!!

Get real, excon. There has been torture used in EVERY WAR IN HISTORY by both sides, whether it is legal or illegal. That's why officers and black ops/spec ops guys are taught torture resistance techniques... because there's a very good chance that they may end up in enemy hands and be tortured for information they possess.

The only difference is that in the old days, the media knew enough not to ask questions or investigate such issues because to do so would compromise their country. The scumbags calling themselves the "press" today WANT to compromise their country, and go looking for torture stories to print so that they can have a "gotcha" moment against their government and hurt the country.

This is the real world, excon. I don't have any problems with torturing terrorists. In fact, if it were up to me, I'd do it for the fun of it, and eat a sandwich in front of the terrorists face while attaching the electrodes to his scrotum and flipping the switch. Torturing terrorists to stop another terrorist attack? That's just happy-making for me.

What I have problems with is anyone who WOULDN'T be willing to torture a terrorist to keep Americans safe. I have problems with anyone who thinks that the comfort of a terrorist is more important in the overall scheme of things than protecting American lives. I have a problem with anyone who says that the people charged with keeping our citizens safe should be forced to do so with their hands tied, their eyes blindfolded and their feet shackled... but if they make a mistake, they should suffer the consequences.

Here's a perfect "ferinstance". For a while there, Congress was demanding how much the government knew before 9/11. Who should they blame for 9/11 slipping by the various intelligence agencies? Why didn't they have the information to stop 9/11? Remember those hearings? I sure do.

Just think... if we had grabbed Atta, a known terrorist and terrorism associate, when he was entering the country, incarcerrated him, interrogated him using every available method, and sqeezed him for every bit of information he had, 9/11 would have been avoided.

So who is to blame for 9/11?

The people who are afraid of using torture to obtain intelligence information that would have prevented 9/11, that's who.

And clearly some of us haven't learned our lessons from 9/11.

Keep in mind, excon, that I'm not even arguing over the issue of "what constitutes torture". I am taking it that torture, as it is legally defined, IS taking place. And my response to that is, "Good, where do you want me to put the next needle?"

Whatever it takes, excon. Whatever it takes. Anything less is an abrogation of their responsibilities to protect this country by any means necessary.

Elliot

[excon]

Hello again, El:

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.

The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.

I'd respect him a lot more if he were as honest about it as you are.

excon

[tomder55]

I'm trying to find that romantic time in American history you speak of.

Certainly it wasn't during the insurgency in the Philippines after the Spanish-American war . Captured Filipino prisoners had a short life, so there was little need for an Abu Gharib or Gitmo. They did not use water boarding but the "water cure " . They forced water into the prisoner's stomach . There was nothing secret about it . William Howard Taft testified under oath that U.S. soldiers were under orders to use the “water cure” on captives.

The CIA ran experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s perfecting their sensory deprivation techniques. During Vietnam the ran they Phoenix program ;about 40 locations where torture was practiced .

The big difference I see is that Bush may be the first one who tried to go public with what has been secretive black-ops before.

It can be argued never again ;but people who say never before had better re-examine the record.

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties.

Then 9/11 happened and we learned our lesson. Or some of us did, anyway.

American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.

Well, there's an assumption, if I ever heard one. Did they "respect us" or did they exploit us for our position on torture? Seems to me that countries that tortured people but knew that we wouldn't do the same to their agents were using that as a tool. Mohamed Atta knew that even if he was caught he wouldn't be tortured, and he used that against us. Iraq held us to a standard of how to treat our prisoners, but had no problem with torturing its own prisoners. Ditto in Afghanistan and in Iran, and practically every other dictaroship in the world. They use our position on treatment of prisoners against us, while having no issue with the torture of their own prisoners. They don't respect us for our position. They laugh at us for it.

The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.

Yes, and thank G-d for it. This is the first president in decades with a brain and the guts to actually do whatever is necessary to fight the enemy. AT ALL COSTS.

I'd respect him a lot more if he were as honest about it as you are.

excon

Politics is politics. He still has to play the propaganda game. Not being a political leader, I have no such constraints. I can speak openly about it.

And be honest... would you really have more respect for Bush if he came out and said openly "Yes, we are torturing our POWS, and we intend to continue doing so"? Or is that just rhetorric on your part? I'm guessing the latter.

Elliot

[ordinaryguy]

Then 9/11 happened and we learned our lesson. Or some of us did, anyway.

Different people learned different lessons. I'm just thankful that the proportion of people who learned the same lesson you did, though probably a majority on 9/12, is now much smaller and still shrinking.

[excon]

I'm trying to find that romantic time in American history you speak of.

Hello again, tom:

I agree that I look at my country through rose colored glasses. However, if given a choice, I'd prefer to think of the glass as half full. Are we as good as I think we are? No. Are we as bad as you think we are? Yes - NOW.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Different people learned different lessons. I'm just thankful that the proportion of people who learned the same lesson you did, though probably a majority on 9/12, is now much smaller and still shrinking.

Oh... so I guess you LIKED having terrorists attacking us once or twice a year for 40 years (on average). I didn't. I'd prefer that we DO something about it, and if that requires torture of the enemy, then screw them and the camel they rode in on. They're terrorists. They didn't sign the Geneva Conventions. They actively break the rules of the Geneva Conventions every time they attack civilians, as they did on 9/11. And if an ounce of torture results in a pound of prevention, then I say pour it on.

Remind me not to have you at my back if we ever have to fight a war here at home. You'd be too worried about collateral casualties and disproportionate force and treatment of POWs to protect yourself, much less me.

THIS is the very reason we need an ALL VOLUNTEER MILITARY. People who don't volunteer start squacking about unfairness, prisoners rights, disproportionate force, how terrible the US government is, etc. and generally get in the way of doing anything productive to stop the enemy. Volunteers generally are willing to get the job done, don't give much of a damn about how the enemy feels, have no problem with using disproportionate force, and aren't beyond torturing the enemy to stop them from committing the next terrorist act. Conscripts b!tch and moan (as many did in Vietnam... John Kerry to name just one), while volunteers get the job done.

Ordinaryguy, you can save your moral superiority. It's getting in the way of my family's safety. My dad was in 1 World Financial Center when the planes hit (right across the street from the WTC) and my brother-in-law was in Tower 1. Both survived. The next time they might not. If torturing one or two Mohammad Attas will keep the next attack from being successful, then I'm all for it. Your moral superiority gets in the way of that, and it therefore affects MY safety and that of my family. I don't find it enlightened or good or decent or charming, or anything else like that. I find it dangerous to me and my family. And to you and yours as well. So save the moral superiority until after the war is over and the terrorists are no longer a threat.

Elliot

[ordinaryguy]

IF torture produced better intelligence, and therefore more security, we could debate whether it was worth engaging in. Since it doesn't, the point is moot, unless satisfying your thirst for vengeance is more important to you than security.