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 – Resevoir 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.
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. (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.
While most everyone was deeply focused upon the political games on the Hill- the Murpha call for withdrawl of troops from Iraq “at the earliest predictable date.”, the GOP rewiting of his proposal and the ensuing vote not to “cut and run” – in the real world, the withdrawl from Iraq was quietly being pushed forward by the Pentagon.
Consider this…the right-wing propaganda mill NewsMax declares victory, essentially stating that the US will not withdraw from Iraq, and follows the party line that a withdrawl from Iraq is not suporting the troops, IE.- unpatriotic.
News Max also parrots the GOP talking point and defines any plan to withdraw as “cut and run”, another veiled attack on the patriotism of those who support a withdrawl plan:
House Rejects Dem Plan to Cut and Run: The House of Representatives overwhelming rejected last night a proposal to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq, after two days of over-hyped media coverage of Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s call for a U.S. pullout.
In a lopsided 403 to 3 vote, Democrats showed they were unwilling to back Murtha’s pullout proposal – even though many voiced support of his anti-war announcement earlier this week. [...] Though the American media ballyhooed Murtha’s comments as an indication that support for the war was collapsing at home, Friday night’s vote showed there was almost no backing in Congress for such a move.
Only three left-wing radicals voted for Murtha’s plan – Reps. Cynthia McKinney, Jose Serano and Robert Wexler.
Meanwhile, CNN is reporting:
The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official.
Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades — usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each — begin pulling out of Iraq early next year. [...] Rumsfeld has yet to sign Casey’s withdrawal plan but, the senior defense official said, implementation of the plan, if approved, would start after the December 15 Iraqi elections so as not to discourage voters from going to the polls.
The plan, which would withdraw a limited amount of troops during 2006, requires that a host of milestones be reached before troops are withdrawn.
Top Pentagon officials have repeatedly discussed some of those milestones: Iraqi troops must demonstrate that they can handle security without U.S. help; the country’s political process must be strong; and reconstruction and economic conditions must show signs of stability.
The deep irony is that Murpha’s intial proposal, before it was ripped apart by the Republican rewriting, was rooted in the belief, and attempting to provoke a debate, on the fact that the presence of US troops in Iraq makes the attainment of those “milestones” nearly impossible. It has become obvious that the high visibility of US troops in Iraq not only provokes the insurgency to greater and more daring heights of terror, the presence of US troops in Iraq is not generally supported by the people of Iraq. Important topics most worthy of debate and discussion.
Which brings us to the question that all good Republican chickenhawks should answer: If the Pentagon has plans in the works to withdraw, does that make them unpatriotic?
