Your looking at it from a legal view and your constitutional standpoint is to be commended. I believe what you said there would make you, in my forign eyes inway, a perfect American Patriot.

I’m looking at it from an outsiders point of view and also as an Australians point of view. Us Aussies are a wierd mob. We have an instant mistrust of anything official, probably stems from the fact that as of just over 200 years ago, we were a penal colony. With this mental psyche I suppose we all come to the conslusion that torture does indeed go on and is more than likely practiced by the Americans but also by our own people here. Getting bashed by th cops is something that is discussed with muc merriment down the pub.

Probably just the way we are, most of us are even too apathetic to care.

Hope that clears up any mis-understandings.

Many Americans are not shocked by it at all. But I’m not alone. There is a history to this issue, and I think if you read up on how the Geneva conventions got started, you’ll start to see why it is shocking. It’s also a slap in the face to our men and women in the military – it says we don’t care how they are treated either. It took a lot of hard work to get those agreements and laws in place – now it means nothing?

Then consider the issue of sending prisoners of war into other countries, where they don’t even have to consider those laws. They should – but they don’t “have to.”

Our own judicial system here, our own Constitution (which these people are sworn to uphold) is being eroded as well. One of the strengths of our system has always been held to be its insistance on human rights. For people, even American citizens, to be held without charge or trial is something like a blasphemy, and can only be done with an awful lot of secrecy, bending of the law, and hatred.

I’ve heard (although I haven’t researched it) that Gitmo and Abu Graib are being closed. There must be some acknowldgement then. But I don’t think it will stop. It’s like the national surveillance program, or the terrorism training camp we have here – they just pop up later under another name once the heat is off.

Yes, war is a nasty business, but the Geneva conventions at least delinate whether the boundaries _should_ be. When they are transgressed, it has to be addressed as a problem. Without them, all human rights and dignity are gone – for anyone. How can the US dare to speak to other countries on human rights while this hypocrisy is happening?

And, as I mentioned, there is the pragmatic answer. Torture simply doesn’t yield accurate information. Do you really think that anyone could be persuaded to share anything valuable after they have been tortured – after a mother watches her son raped in front of her, why would she ever believe that she would be treated fairly? And people who have been rounded up – on grounds such as wearing a kind of watch that might be a signal of terrorist membership, or who have been “sold” to the US whether or not they have any information or are guilty of any crime – and held for a few years – no longer have anything of value to know, if they ever did.

I in no way condone the actions of the US administration actions regarding the torture of prisoners in thier care but war is a pretty dirty, messy business.

As the US has declared war on just about everyone and everything at the moment you would have to expect that this sort of thing would be going on and I am shocked that the American people would be so shocked about it.

What does that say about me then? Do I mayby have more of an open mind? Or am I just jaded from too much watching 24 and reading too much conspiracy latrature?

If people want to rethink that, there needs to be a public debate in the US. Let’s hear the arguments again if we’re going to change our laws and agreements. Instead, what we see is secrecy and law-breaking as well as pretty good evidence that our democracy is broken. Our standards are meant to be high. We’re supposed to be the good guys. If you look into the whole history of this, you will see exactly what has happened.

I would have thought people would have expected that as a given. Also how does an interrigator get information from a suspect if they can only question him.

I’m assuming the the suspect would have been given suitable anti-interrigation training.

I think it is rather nieve (sp?) to think that the US would be all peaches and cream whislt interrogating.

t is pretty clear that while she may have had a lot of rank in Iraq, she didn’t have a whole lot of authority.