Let Freedom Ring! part 2

Counter PSYOP

(Part 2)

“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself” – Thomas Paine

The “Torture Memos”

A transparent cue of a republic gong wrong is when torture becomes justified as a means of obtaining HUMINT (Human Intelligence). In other words, when authorities begin torturing people to obtain information; it means bad news for everyone.

The infamous Bybee Memo was sent from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee to Alberto R. Gonzales. The Aug. 1, 2002 dated document rendered wording from the Geneva Convention & a 1994 UN convention on torture to the U.S. administration’s own definition. Torture in their words, is pain that is “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." It must be done with “specific intent” to be considered torture.

Through these “torture memos,” the Executive branch and the DoJ have set a precedent for interpretive denial of torture. Torture can now be described as “pressure” or “stress or duress.” Techniques to deflect criticism of torture such as extraordinary rendition (or Torture by proxy) involve transferring suspects marked for extreme interrogation to black sites. In effect, those responsible for this are making torture, of all things, politically correct.

These broad definitions leave room for all sorts of real torture and interrogation methods to be used. The Bybee and other “torture memos” include the “ticking time bomb” scenario: what should the government do, if someone with apparent first-hand knowledge of a major terrorist plot is in custody? If traditional interrogation does not yield information, should authorities torture the suspect to obtain potentially life-saving information? The DoJ’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo’s answer: “Well, I think in this area, I think the Justice Department had long thought that Congress couldn't limit the commander-in-chief power; that Congress cannot tell the president how to exercise his judgment as commander in chief.”

The “ticking time bomb” scenario is very unlikely to ever occur. It is also questionable what results torture would have on a person who would already be ready to die for their cause. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, former Al-Qaeda member, confessed to nearly everything under “pressure.” In the mainstream media, talk of him being torture was panned, but it is clear he was. It is also clear that torture does not yield legitimately truthful information. He was arrested in 2003, and by March of 2007, had confessed to a plot against a Plaza Bank in Washington State. The problem is, this Plaza Bank was not even founded until 2006; making it nearly impossible for him to have been a part of any plot against it. Former CIA officer Bob Baer wrote, “There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.”

Still, despite the endless debate as to whether torture could actually provide legitimate information key to saving American lives, it is wrong. It is wrong, because not only does it not yield “workable” information, but it is un-American. Yes, torturing our enemies is un-American!

Our government apparently thinks otherwise. According to our Justice Department, the decision to torture someone to obtain information would come down to the President’s decision. On Dec. 1, 2006, human rights scholar & Notre Dame professor had this exchange with John Yoo:

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Yoo implies that the President can order to torture the children of an “enemy combatant” if the President has a “reasonable cause”…Everyone should be outraged at this. This line of thinking goes back to the distortion of the Constitution that began with the Patriot Act. To suggest that torture of children is fine when the President makes a decision to do so, is paramount to the completion of an evil dystopian society.

Torture is un-American. It is not only unethical, it is evil. Torturers are considered to be among the evilest people to forensic psychiatrists. Tormenting the enemy combatants indefinitely held is what the real Islamic fascists and extremists want our government to do, to agitate the beehive that is the Mideast. President Bush claimed that we were attacked on 9-11 because of our freedom. If this is so, and we give up our liberties, and treat enemy combatants inhumanely, we are doing what the terrorists want Americans to do!

Islamic fascists & terrorists want us to bend laws and sidestep our sacred liberty to “fight the war on terror.” These terrorists want America to weaken from the inside. Al-Qaeda wants our own fears to fuel the fire that will ignite our own Bill of Rights and Constitution, indeed our own American ideals. This is simply the historical precedent of how terrorists operate! Yet, when we have given up our own freedom and approved torture of other human beings, the terrorists have already won!