We know you know, you know

tor·ture Pronunciation (tôrchr)
n.
1.
a. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
b. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.
tr.v. tor·tured, tor·tur·ing, tor·tures
1. To subject (a person or an animal) to torture.
2. To bring great physical or mental pain upon (another). See Synonyms at afflict.
3. To twist or turn abnormally; distort: torture a rule to make it fit a case.

We in the West are said to abhor torture but our enemies practice it as standard operating procedure. We are "better" than they are ... or are supposed to be ... or maybe that is why they attack us?

Boosh yesterday signed into law a measure that would allow the executive branch to determine what torture is and what it is not. The idea is that this allow government operatives to extract information under federal guidelines (which will never be made public unless "someone" -- read DNC operative -- leaks it) and avoid legal liability for it. Good, it is not fair to task our soldiers and spies with the impossible and then hold them liable for following orders.

But then this law draws into the realm of public opinion the question: "what is torture?" And that, friends, is in the eye of the beholder.

The Loony-Left in this country regard a situation where detainees have to listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and have the lights on as torture. The Left in most places of western Europe follows this lead. But where the Loony Left are in power -- say in a third world country such as Venezuela, or Zambia or Zimbabwe, the Left are ardent practitioners of the ancient art of torture. Of course, the US and European Loony Left don't regard that as particularly important; the locals are just trying to cleanse the stain of capitalism out of their pure country.

Should we ask the UN? The same UN idiots who issued a report on American torture and inhuman conditions in Gitmo -- but failed even to visit it, instead relying on formal submissions by lawyers of the terrorist who are incarcerated there -- and who mostly come from countries with abysmal human rights records. The same two-faced apparatchiks who somehow fail ever to address their own countries'pecadillos, but then again, we know that denouncing the USA is what gets you ahead in international politics and the UN. Go to the entry archives of this blog -- I wrote a long one on that.

But is listening or being forced to listen to the Chili Peppers torture? Does it cause you excruciating or severe pain or anguish? It cannot be pyhsical in the truest sense of the word, although enough mental anguish could produce a physical response: vomiting, for example.

Does keeping the lights on to force sleep deprivation constitute torture? It would seem that the Left is pretty much unified that terror suspects need their sleep. Waterboarding -- where the subject thinks that he/she is going to die, but does not actually drown, seems to be more clearly in most minds as torture. But is is really torture and not the hyper-civilized weenie definition described above? Is having to stand naked infront of a dog really torture? Is humiliation of a male by a female guard torture -- of couse in the detainee's society he would instantly kill her for even looking insolently at him, let alone remarking on the insufficiency of his manhood. Is that torture?

Let's put it this way: IF YOU CANNOT CREATE AT LEAST SOME MENTAL ANGUISH (whatever "anguish" can be defined as) YOU WILL NOT GET THE INFORMATION THAT YOU NEED. So is it the position of the Loony-Left that we do not need information from our captives? Once caught, we ought to give them three squares, a nice comfy bed and a Qu'ran to leaf through at their leisure? How about pedicures? Because denial of liberty is enough to pay them back for plotting to murder our spouses and children? If we take the definition as broad as it appears, I would have to come down on the side of supporting "torture." That is not to say that I approve of physical harm (in general) -- I have to believe that we can get what we need without maiming someone.

Alan Dershowitz -- a notorious lefty constitutional lawyer puts the whole thing in context like this: say the police have captured an evil person. That evil person has placed your child in a box and buried it somewhere that only he/she knows. That evil person has given enough information or we have enough evidence to show that we have the right person in custody. That child has about an hour to live before the air runs out. What wouldn't you allow the police to do to that person in order to save the child? Is there ANYTHING that you would not allow to happen to the evil person if you though that the information might issue forth as a result of it?

There are two answers to the above situation: (1) an admission that you would do anything; and (2) a lie. If you, the reader do not have children, then you might not be qualified to answer -- not yet having experienced that particular element in the growth of humanity. In my case, it is not even a question of what I would let the police do, there is nothing I would not do myself to extract the information. The great American obsession with power tools.... The IRA favored Black and Deckers.

So, how is it that the Loony Left will let YOUR children die at the hands of terrorists, noting that the Loony Left often do not have children, and only extremely rarely have children in the armed forces -- let alone enlist themselves. Is it OK for your children to die for a (their) matter of principle? Is it a red state - blue state thing?

Certain idiots have come forward to say that coercive interrogation techniques do not work, that they do not yield good/reliable information. Bullshit. That notion is premised on the idea that a person in pain (pyhsical or mental) will say anything to stop it. While that is true, the ancient art would not be so ancient if skilled practitioners were not able to extract what was wanted. Do you think that the KGB and the Nazis wasted their time with it, or that they got results? (OOOOoooh we don't want to be like them!!!! No, instead you want our soldiers and civilians to die.)

All this sets up a slippery slope, of course. Does this mean that I suggest that the government can use torture at any time to anyone without oversight, without guidelines as to when it might be required? Difficult indeed. It leads to the same inquiry used to arrest someone in the criminal sense: probable cause. Who can we trust to determine probable cause? A judge? Someone appointed by Clinton? Clearly not. Perhaps a ten or twenty point test of evidence: you catch an Person/Iraqi/Insurgent running away from a spot in the desert where a US Humvee just blew up ... you have motive, proximity, consciousness of guilt, and no other likely suspect (you are in the desert!!). You let him go, you are consigning others to death. Better to find out what he knows about plans for other hits -- he didn't just get his explosives and training to use the IED in a vacuum. Is there urgency here? Is this a kid-in-a-box situation requiring extreme measures? Probably not, but say you caught him about to do the deed with an RC detonator in his hand ... what then? Or he was caught with binoculars about 500 yards away waiting for the explosion that by the grace of God did not happen ... what then? Do you have to go to a US federal judge to ask what he thinks -- like this asshole Koeltl who let the terrorist lawyer off with 28 months? The poor field commander -- likely a second lieutenant needs to know if his boys are at risk or about to run into an ambush -- he needs information right then. Probable cause? The people about to die are other people's children. As to the fact that the terrorist is someone's child too ... too damn bad. They are the enemy and want to kill us, we are not out there trying to kill them. As to why we are there ... that is NOT relevant to the issue at hand.

Some idiot on the radio yesterday called into a show to say that the whole threat situation is overdone -- the Nancy Pelosi theory -- and that as evidence he pointed out that there has been no attack in 5 years. Clearly the gent didn't regard London or Madrid as worth including and that absence in the US of successful attacks was happenstance. These are the people that vote for the Pelosi crew who want your children to die because terrorists need their sleep.