sisyphusshrugged | ah, but can you persuade some of the readers of a national magazine by sounding like a derelict at S

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Digby, bless him, has one of Jonathan Alter's past efforts not to be predictable

COULDN’T WE AT LEAST subject them to psychological torture, like tapes of dying rabbits or high-decibel rap? (The military has done that in Panama and elsewhere.) How about truth serum, administered with a mandatory IV? Or deportation to Saudi Arabia, land of beheadings? (As the frustrated FBI has been threatening.) Some people still argue that we needn’t rethink any of our old assumptions about law enforcement, but they’re hopelessly “Sept. 10”--living in a country that no longer exists.

This has been your latest dispatch in the ongoing blogospheric discussion of whether Mr. Alter could have put down his pompoms and mentioned some of what was actually going on in Washington without being shrill.

Read the punch line. It's a killer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

As someone who spent extended periods in both the military and law enforcement I would like to clear up a common misconception: TORTURE DOES NOT WORK

There is almost no evidence that drugs are much help in the process either. The type of information you are apt to get is opinion, not facts.

Those who advocate torture must present some research that it is effective. Their belief that you can beat information out of people is unsupported in the decades of research conducted by the military. Torture is most effective in getting people to lie, for example signing false confessions, which is in direct opposition to any claim of usefulness in gathering intelligence.

Torturing people is not simply illegal it is non-productive.

Interrogation requires extensive training, language skills, and cultural awareness. A successful interrogation takes time. There are no short-cuts, there is no instant answer.

Bryan D.

From: (Anonymous)

No as a tool to extract information, torture works, albeit not reliable. We can argue about the degree of reliability, but it is definitely not zero.

Second, torture is more than effective tool to intimidate. And the combined effect with the first one is why torture continue to persist.

Remember we still have more than enough legal protection to sustain your believe that torture doesn't believe. But for eg. the Army has no problem torturing son or daughter to extract information from father. Something that we can't do yet here) Or the Army can destroy every one of your kin houses and mean of live until you start talking. (can you imagine somebody start blowing each of your family houses and offices until you start talking?)

Quetsions: is it ethical? Can we as a nation tolerate the corrosive effect of torture toward society?

doesn't this violate the constituion? (cruel and unusual punishment) Isn't Iraq in our hand now? Isn't Iraq our responsibility? Why are we sending our soldier to torture Iraqis? When will it stop? Will we have another Mai Lay masacree?

most media hasn't discuss this yet. Everybody just giggle and chuckle and gee gaww ing as if it's some rather slightly disturbing thing instead of a war crime being committed.

We can't keep doing what we are doing. War, torture, etc...
There must be an independent institution that can keep check 'nation' from doing bad thing. (ICC is a good start, changing UN is another thing)

anyway...
hate this whole thing.

From: (Anonymous)

I was in Hyde Park at Speaker's Corner one Sunday in February and found that there were about six or seven speakers, each with their own milk crate or step ladder platform. Most of the speakers were talking about religion, Christers, Islam (big Islamic presence in the streets of London), Jews, and the space brothers. Only one of the speakers was talking politics and it was quite interesting, like question time at Parliament with a lot of back and forth between the audience and the speaker.

The guy I listened to was talking about globalization and we got into a dialogue that became a speech by me. After the speaker finished, the owner of the step ladder, an old white haired gentleman originally from Bulgaria, offered me the platform and I spoke.

I hope I didn't sound like a derelict and I didn't hear any speaker there who was incoherent at all.

Now I'm trying to get local groups in Boston and Cambridge to set up our own Speaker's Corners throughout the city for the Democratic convention.