Protest in Afghanistan after Quran burning

[nikhil25]

Re: Protest in Afghanistan after Quran burning

@Med911

What is the procedure employed in the extraction of information from criminals in the US? You certainly cannot torture them. Why should there be a double standard?

Also, torture for the purpose of extracting information, implies the prisoner has already been found guilty. However, many of these individuals were not given trials. Indeed, it was assumed that putting them on trial would lead to their release for lack of evidence. Hence the legal/diplomatic/philosophical gymnastics that the Bush administration had to do in order to get around irritants like due process, the Geneva convention etc etc.

Regardless of what you call it, the US has to abide by certain established codes of conduct. They use terms like “enemy combatant” (how do they determine who is an enemy combatant without a trial?) because this implies, however subtly, that Geneva codes dont apply since they are not member of a regular army. Its dispicable how people like Chenney used such distortions, including terms like “enhanced” interrogations to justify grave human rights abuses.

It really is all word play. At the end of the day, these people were held prisoner, never given a trial, and tortured and an unknown number died. Its as simple as that.

the wartime code of conduct used by the US in handling enemy combatants and the legal nuances of interrogation is a very different discussion. in that discussion, i would probably agree with you more than disagree.

but i would also be speaking as a liberal/progressive US citizen that views the US as a morally superior actor and holds it to extremely high standards on issues like human rights and civil liberties. this is a very different basis for criticism than what underpins the outrage from this forum’s apologists and sympathizers of the taliban, ISI or any other brutal third world barbarians.