Very well, then. Do you condone the use of torture against any detainees we have or might capture?
What is your opinion of the practice of “rendering” captured enemy combatants to other countries, which, shall we say, are not generally known for their commitment to human rights?
I do not like the practice of rendering. I think it should stop
What do you make of the fact that at least two detainees were killed while being held at Bagram Air Base? Or of other accounts of “rendered” individuals sent to these other countries; were tortured; and who turned out not to be the terrorists the government claimed they were when they were rendered?
I’ve read a good many of your posts on the subject of the war, and, apart from downplaying accusations of torture on the part of the US and vilifying the Iraqi insurgency as “terrorists” and “scum”, you’ve been quite silent on these questions. It’s quite easy to get the impression (even if it turns out to be mistaken) that you would condone the use of torture against those resisting the US.
Given how the terrorists behave (bombing marketplaces, killing police and army recruits, lopping off heads of Westerners, using a mentally retarded kid as an unwitting suicide bomber on election day), then the vilification is justified.
What you seem to be saying is that the 9/11 attack justifies just about anything the US does in response. Even a simple numbers comparison demonstrates the dubious moral grounds for such thinking.
I said nothing of the kind.
The terrorists killed over 3,000 Americans - an absolutely appalling toll and a moral crime. The invasion of Iraq, launched as a response has conservatively taken the lives of 25,000 civilians - people, by the way, who had absolutely nothing to do with what happened on 9/11.
And who killed most of those 25,000? The guys I call “scum” and “terrorists” and the guys you call “the insurgency”. BTW, it was never claimed that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. Give me one, just ONE quote from any administration official that made that claim.
It WAS claimed that Iraq supported and sheltered terrorists. This claim is verifiable true, inasmuch as Saddam did indeed shelter terrorist elements (Zarqawi, Abu Abbas, and Abu Nidal) and sent compensation to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers ($25,000 per bomber). Additionally, a terrorist training camp called Salman Pak was found on the outskirts of Baghdad during the invasion, complete with the fuselage of a 707. It is known that Zarqawi received medical care for wounds suffered while fighting Americans in Afghanistan in a Baghdad hospital that was normally reserved for Baathist bigwigs.
And who were Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal? Abu Abbas was the mastermind behind the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship The Achille Lauro, which resulted in the death of the wheelchair-bound passenger Leon Klinghoffer. At the end of the incident, when all terrorists were captured, Abbas went home scot-free because he possessed an Iraqi diplomatic passport. As for Abu Nidal, he ran the Abu Nidal Organization, a Palestinian terror network behind attacks in 20 countries, at least 407 confirmed murders, and some 788 other terror-related injuries. Among other things, Nidal’s group used guns and grenades to attack a ticket counter at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport on December 27, 1985 while another cell in Austria simultaneously assaulted Vienna’s airport, killing 19 people. According to an AP report, Nidal’s Beirut office said he entered Iraq “with the full knowledge and preparations of the Iraqi authorities". He lived there from 1999-2002 when the Hussein government claimed he comitted “suicide”. The method of suicide? FOUR shots to the head.
Now was Iraq as central to world terrorism as say, for instance Syria, Iran, or Saudia Arabia? Perhaps not. That is a point of legitimate criticism. However, it was thought at the time that Saddam posed a credible threat of passing on WMD technology to terrorist groups, based on his prior behavior and the intelligence reports of every intelligence agency in the world.
