If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fucking so! - Nice Guy Eddie - Resevior Dogs
From the
outset of the War on Terrorism, the Bush Administration has used torture as a tool, going so far as to engage the intelligence agencies of several police states, including
Jordan and
Egypt, to torture prisoners.
There are two schools of thought which the hawks apply: It serves as a great motivator to flush out other terrorists, and torture is a great tool to obtain confessions- the twin bastards chaos and terror. It is intentional.
More below the fold...
This dispite the fact that it is well established that
torture doesn't work, a fact well known snce 1931 when the Wickersham Commission
reported what most in the police and intel worlds know all too well- torture produces bad intel.
John McCain, who has first hand knowledge of how torture is exacted upon another human being and its affect thereupon is firmly against the use of torture by US forces for this very reason, amongst others. (An aside: Although I strongly disagree with McCain's assesment that the Bush Adminstration's "vigilance as a substantial part of the reason that we have not experienced another terrorist attack on American soil since September 11, 2001." The best available intel states that they simply do not know why the US has not been attacked. While the increase in vigilance is possible, it is more likely that terrorists wishing to attack the US are simply waiting. It follows the established modus operandi. Time is on their side. Also, successful operations take years to pull off. And, finally, much of what Al Qaeda wanted to achieve by attacking the US in 2001, they have acheived. Primarily a US pullout from Saudi Arabia. But, the reasons the US has not been attacked again are understood to a large degree, and vigilance is only part of the reason, not the "substantial" part. McCain's statement is disingenuous at best.)
It is my conviction that the primary reason for the use of torture is to create a sense of chaos. The war hawks driving the War on Terrorsim policy want to encourage chaos in the Middle East.
It's a topic that is slowly begining to bubble to the surface. This can't be emphasized enough:
The goal is to totally destablize the Middle East and rebuild it. It always has been. (Windows Media)
This is the primary reason I have always been against the war in Iraq.
It was ill conceived, ill planned, and an unrealistic utopian pipe dream from the outset. It sounds great, and who could disagree that it wouldn't be a good thing to have a stable ME, but how to go about it... well, that's a problem that has plagued minds greater than those that are currently in the White House for thousands of years.
More war isn't going to change that fact nor solve the complicated problems that exist in the ME. Not by a long shot.
Crossposted at The S.N.A.F.U. Principle and Jakeneck.