Torture?

“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case.” -- Dick Durbin

This, from AOL News, jumped out at me this morning:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Nov. 28) - A U.S. citizen has been reported missing in Iraq, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Monday.
The name of the civilian, who was among a group believed to be peace activists kidnapped on Saturday, was not immediately released.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton said Monday that an American had been reported missing.
On Sunday, a Canadian Parliament official said that four humanitarian workers, including two Canadians, had been kidnapped. A Briton was also confirmed missing by British officials.
Dan McTeague, parliamentary secretary for Canadians abroad, said the incident happened on Saturday, but refused to name the organization the two Canadians worked for or the location where they were kidnapped.
He said he wouldn't release those details in order to protect the safety of the individuals involved. McTeague said the organization has not requested any assistance at this time.
Briton Norman Kember was among the four, the British government said Sunday. His wife said he was representing a number of groups in the country and was a longtime peace activist.

Most likely, in a few days we will be hearing the awful news that these 4 humanitarians have been beheaded by their captors. I don’t know if they are Liberals or Conservatives or a combination of both ideologies. But it doesn’t seem to matter to the terrorists anyway. All people, all ideologies are their targets. Even their own people. If they kidnap peace activists, do you think they will realize they have kidnapped peace lovers and just let them go unharmed? After all, they wouldn’t kill anyone that doesn’t want to kill them, would they?

And the Left wing Liberal Peaceniks are screaming that we should treat terrorists prisoners with respect and kindness, because we are supposed to be “civilized people.” Oh I know that if we torture prisoners, we are lowering ourselves to their level and it would damage our reputation in the world. So what? I don’t care what other countries think of us. Why should anyone care? Other countries don’t seem to be concerned with what we think of them. France comes to mind.

Arizona Senator John McCain (Independent Republocrat, whose political affiliation depends on whoever he is trying to procure votes from at the time) has introduced legislation that prohibits us (meaning the United States armed forces and/or CIA, FBI, and other agencies) from using any forms of torture to coerce confessions from prisoners of war. He says it doesn’t work.

McCain himself was tortured for 5 years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war prison, so he must know what he is talking about, right?

Maybe not. According to some commentators on my own blog, personal experience never trumps book learning. One has said, “Your own story about your own personal experience = anecdote. In other words, not evidence. Not a full picture. Not the whole truth. If you want your views to be taken seriously, you need to educate yourself about the whole subject, not imagine yourself an expert after a simple personal experience”

Nick Berg was unavailable for comment.

Maybe we need to tell John McCain that his 5 year long torture experience is just an anecdote. He is wrong, of course. Just today, I heard of one particular CIA operative that was tortured and gave up all the information he knew. He compromised the CIA’s entire operation in one country and then they killed him anyway. So McCain didn’t crack. It doesn’t mean no one would.

Perhaps we should consult textbooks on torture techniques to decide if torture works or when it is acceptable. Lets also not forget to call together round table discussions and debates to ascertain whether torture is indeed a workable solution or not. Of course, if we get all the participants from any of our institutions of higher learning, we will be hard pressed to find someone to represent the point of view that torture works.

I would say that after all the debates and discussions are completed and we arrive at some sort of conclusion on whether we should torture or not, the four humanitarians mentioned above will have been long dead, and many others not as yet captured at this time, will, too.

Meanwhile, the terrorists will be still kidnapping innocent civilians from all nations, and all walks of life, and embracing all ideologies, and will still be beheading them in the name of Allah and Usama, and the “religion of peace“.

I have heard, although I know of no way it could possibly be proven, that the human head retains life for as much as a full minute after being removed from the body. If that is true, do you suppose it also thinks, and feels, and sees?

If a “left wing peace-nik” loses his head, will he have time to change his mind about whether torture is an effective information gathering technique? Will he have time to change his mind about terrorists and their “fight for freedom“? What if that peace-nik is Cindy Sheehan? Or Barbra Streisand? Babs is a Jew. I bet that would carry some weight with the terrorists.

Will he sympathize with the plight of the poor misunderstood Muslim freedom fighters who simply want America out of Iraq as he sees his head being lifted clear of his torso and placed gently on his back so the cameras can get a close-up? Or will he continue to believe that negotiation is the way to world peace as the blackness envelopes him, giving way to the proverbial tunnel leading to the everlasting light of Heaven?

When he at last opens new eyes and finds himself on his knees before the Creator of the Universe and understands that he is being judged according to his works and his belief or disbelief in that same Creator (I am not making a judgment here, simply stating what the Bible tells us that we all will be judged), will he still believe that we were wrong to invade Iraq and attempt to rescue all those other innocents who also lost their lives to a ruthless dictator? Do you think it will matter, at that point, whether we were lied to or simply misled into supporting an unjust war?

Personally, I am tired of our country’s politically correctness and coddling of these enemy combatants.

I say if it takes torture to find, capture, or kill bin Laden and his cohorts, and any others that kidnap and kill innocent civilians, then lets do it, and do it quickly, before many more innocent civilians are slaughtered.

I believe that only a taste of their own medicine will make them finally sit up and take notice that we will not allow them to continue to run roughshod on the rest of the world. I do not care if it makes some people believe that we have lowered ourselves to their inhuman level. Perhaps lowering ourselves to their level is what it will take to stop the terrorism.

Torture them. Kill them. Behead them. Whatever it takes. But let’s put an end to this madness before it’s too late.