Get on with It Then

I was reading about The World Can't Wait the other day. They are an organization that is seeking to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. One of their key voices is Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.

“I would personally rather die than have anyone tortured to save my life.”

My message to him is that he can take heart. No one will ever be tortured to just save his life.
However, if he is expecting others to follow him in his ideology, he may surrender hope there. There are millions of Americans and literally billions in the world who would see people tortured to save theirs.

There are hundreds of thousands who would see him tortured for any number of reasons or none at all.

When it comes to those things in GITMO that think of themselves as the acme of mankind, they are forfeit. If thumbscrews will get them talking, then please use them.

I used to try to emphasize what is torture and what is not. Humiliation that does not cause bodily harm is not torture. Stress positions is not torture. As much as it pains me to even think about it, Brittany Spears music is not torture. The problem with torturing a prisoner for interrogation is that he will tell you anything that he thinks you want to hear, be it factual or not.
Mr. Murray makes no distinction. To him, a tall stool with white noise is just as bad as pulling fingernails with pliers.

The position of political leaders is such that they must determine what is acceptable loss and to what extremes we may go.

Is it acceptable to use humiliation if it will yield information?

Is losing a battle justified if we can win the war by its loss?

Is firing a hellfire missile into the sedan of two young children, a pregnant woman, and a terrorist leader justified if it will save the lives of a few thousand?

Is letting a hostage be tortured - real torture with box cutters and wire - while waiting for a cell leader acceptable if it means we can get the entire cell?

Mr. Murry lives in a well protected world. I am sure that he has seen some of the worst of what man is capable and still holds his suicidal opinion.

Can Mr. Murray sleep at night knowing that thousands may die, not just him, because a sociopath could not be coerced to talk?

If that is the case, I wish he would just die and remove him self from the equation entirely.