Not Even Eric Holder Is This Stupid

The NY Times runs a guest op-ed by Matthew Alexander in which he explains that even interrogation under the Army Field Manual can be abusive:

The adoption last year of the Army Field Manual as the standard for interrogations across the government, including the C.I.A., was a considerable improvement. But we missed a unique opportunity for progress last August when the president’s task force on interrogations recommended no changes to the manual, which was hastily revised in 2006 in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

For example, an appendix to the manual allows the military to keep a detainee in “separation” — solitary confinement — indefinitely. It requires only that a general approve any extension after 30 days. Rest assured, there will be numerous waivers to even that minuscule requirement.

...

But military interrogators do not operate in a vacuum. The consequences of their actions have far-reaching effects — like Al Qaeda’s exploitation of American abuse of prisoners as a recruiting tool. And, in any case, extended solitary confinement is torture, as confirmed by many scientific studies. Even the initial 30 days of isolation could be considered abuse.

If we truly wanted to come up with a humane limit on solitary confinement, we would look at the Golden Rule: what would we consider inhumane treatment if one of our own soldiers were captured by the enemy? My answer: Given the youth of our men and women in uniform, that number is probably around two weeks. This limit, however, should be determined by medical professionals, not soldiers or politicians.

The Army Field Manual also does not explicitly prohibit stress positions, putting detainees into close confinement or environmental manipulation (other than hypothermia and “heat injury”). These omissions open a window of opportunity for abuse.

The manual also allows limiting detainees to just four hours of sleep in 24 hours. Let’s face it: extended captivity with only four hours of sleep a night (consider detainees at Guantánamo Bay who have been held for seven years) does not meet the minimum standard of humane treatment, either in terms of American law or simple human decency.

So the key to Al Qaeda recruiting is that America is imprisoning a bunch of lonely, tired terrorists who need more sack drill and playdates?  We've come a long way from their worries about infidels in the Holy Land and restoration of the Caliphate.

I am not sure how the Attorney General could insert himself into this debate but I hope Eric Holder gets behind these ideas.  And while we are at it, I bet their food could be a lot better, too - how is the arugula at Gitmo?  The world is watching.

Comments

[Jack is Back!]

After reading this I don't know whether to laugh or cry or do both at the same time.

Any ideas on what you would do?

[Ignatz]

--Not Even Eric Holder Is This Stupid--

Your hypothesis seems to suffer from a lack of empirical evidence and appears contrary to what evidence we do have.

[Sue]

Your hypothesis seems to suffer from a lack of empirical evidence and appears contrary to what evidence we do have.

I was about to say just that. Not as eloquently, of course. I was going to say horse puck.

[Rob Crawford]

If we truly wanted to come up with a humane limit on solitary confinement, we would look at the Golden Rule: what would we consider inhumane treatment if one of our own soldiers were captured by the enemy?

Turn this around: we should treat captured jihadis the way they treat captured soldiers.

Which means we should kill them if they're wounded, film their beheadings if they're not, and bury them in unmarked graves either way.

Whatever we do, we should not listen to douchebags like Alexander.

[Danube of Thought]

So stupid it's frightening. Literally.

[narciso]

Well we know about Holder, but I don't think Alexander was always this stupid, I think we're limited to the 'comfy chair' as tools in our arsenal, oh and watercolors

[daddy]

Listened late, late last night to Lefty Talk radio host Doug Steffin from back east somewhere

His report from some Euro-News reporter on the scene in Haiti says that with US troops now in there trying to establish security instead of passing out Happy Meals, that the angry Haitian populace was furious at racist "white US soldiers coming in and putting places off limits to normal Haitians and trying to take over the country and generally being awful etc.

Having listened to that Euro view, it strikes me as not completely outrageous to conclude that under Obama's "Save the Haitian's" campaign, public perception by the International left is that in trying to save Haiti we are allowed to treat them worse than Obama allows us to treat Terrorists.

So absurdly, maybe we shouldn't be trying to treat Terrorists badly, instead we should try to help assist them like Haitians. Maybe that's the way to get them singing like canaries.

[JohnFLob]

Mr. Alexander, are you capable of a logical thought?

Why in the world should we take all captured enemy combatants to a Riviera luxury hotel in the hopes they would miraculously be so beholding they would freely give us their knowledge of terrorist organizations. Your contentions imply that we should treat enemy combatants better than the Obama administration would treat U.S. citizens under his proposed health care reform and his 'crap and tirade' legislation.

When someone is trying to kill me, my family, or my friends I would not be predisposed to have compassionate thoughts toward or about them. But to you I am criminally insane for even having a thought that is not politically correct. I should apologize for being in the path of a bullet and disrupting its trajectory, right?

[daddy]

An OT Update on Proposed Drilling In the Alaskan Arctic by Shell Oil:

JOMer's will recall the big announcement 2 months back about Salazar and the Administration giving tentative "tentative" approval to Shell Oil to do exploratory Drilling this Summer Season in the Chukchi Sea off Northwest Alaska. Shell's VP in Alaska, Slaiby, said then that this was all preliminary, and nothing was concrete yet as real approval had not yet come through, due to awaiting EPA approval, secondary approval from Salazar's MMS Department, and the potential legal challenges by Enviro groups.

This story in yesterdays ADN Point">http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/story/1101960.html">Point Hope, environmental groups challenge Chukchi Sea drilling
APPEAL: Natives fear oil company will be careless, harm sea life shows that those challenges have now arrived at the door of the 9th Circuit Court, in a challenge by the big Enviro-groups and the Native Corps to shut the project down.

Just thought I'd put this out there and continue to try to keep you guys advised of what's going down.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Not Even Eric Holder Is This Stupid

Wanna bet?

[ELT2JV]

All right, here's my take on it: These terrorists gave up their rights to protection under the Geneva convention when they took up an undeclared military action against our civilian population. Therefore, torture by any name is not forbidden. The only questions that remain regard efficacy of technique.

Waterboarding has been adopted solely for its lack of permanent physical harm. I have no compunctions about causing any level of harm to a confirmed enemy combatant who absolutely possesses critical information. Put simply, their well-being, up to and including their life, is forfeit from the moment they take up arms against civilian targets.

I say, "Get the information by any means neccessary."

All this sobbing about how solitary confinement and waterboarding are so horrible makes me sick. These maniacs pray daily for our death. They send their children into crowded markets with suicide bombs. They try to explode our airplanes carrying hundreds of civilians. They have no reservations about doing us harm. Our restraint and spinelessness will place our necks below their boots. We can defeat them only if our resolve can be as strong as theirs.

[Neo]

I have to disagree.

Don't hold [no pun intended] Eric Holder short. He really is that stupid.

[narciso]

Ah daddy, do the Saudis and the Russians underwrite these groups, would it make any
difference if they did. How much do these people like the prospect of $4-5 gallon
gas,

[daddy]

Does anyone know if the Haitians are grateful that John Edwards has arrived in Port au Prince to announce he's the baby's father, or would they rather have preferred he waited to announce it on American soil?

I would have thought they would have preferred his arrival in Haiti and subsequent News Conference to be taken up instead by Doctors and rescue workers, but thats just my bias. So let me just put this out there preemptively:

If God forbid, we ever again have a horrendous earthquake up here like the 8.0 Good Friday Earthquake, please don't ship in headline seeking, lying celebrity adulterer's, intent on refurbishing their images by doing "mea culpa" photo-ops upon our crushed landscape.

Send the Doc's and rescue guys, and screw John Edwards.

[pagar]

"do the Saudis and the Russians underwrite these groups"

My guess would be George Soros. Didn't he just make a big investment in Brazil in the oil business. In fact, if I remember right Obama sent a bunch of our money down there to help him make more money. I can't imagine the Democrats letting us drill on American soil. I just don't see it happening, In the first place that would mean jobs for Americans-no way the Democrats are going to allow that.

[sbw]

Our policy on terrorist interrogation should be:

We reserve the right to interrogate those who violate the minimal standards of civil society by the means they have earned by their actions.

While that implies we may use any means necessary, that does not necessarily mean that we will employ those means. Part of your punishment will be to worry about the uncertainty of your treatment in the future.

George Washington forbade certain treatment of prisoners, but because he reserved the right, any prisoner faced uncertainty first.

[peter]

Is Holder that stupid, or merely a radical ideologue? the same debate has been held concerning his boss, Mr. Obama. Not conclusive yet. Following for a decision.

[narciso]

peter, why can't it be both, they are not mutually exclusive

[Ignatz]

--Is Holder that stupid, or merely a radical ideologue?--

Or?

[clarice]

Where else for Edwards to go? The Naional Enquirer says he's finally been kicked out of the house by St Elizabeth.

[Ignatz]

**by Stupid Elizabeth**

You and your typos clarice.

[Barry Dauphin]

And in case people were wondering al Qaeda had no "recruiting tools" prior to Bushitlerburton.

[Cecil Turner]

Y'know, it makes perfect sense that enemy combatants who flout the laws of war should be allowed lawyers, civilian trials, and civil rights so that they can learn to be more like us. Doesn't it? I mean, we shouldn't treat them like mean old soldiers, should we?

[bgates]

so that they can learn to be more like us

So we can learn to be more like each other, Cecil. It's important to realize that neither side is completely in the right. We have as much to learn from al Qaeda as they do from us.

[Joseph Brown]

Waterboarding is not torture! Period! Torture is watching an Adam Lambert video over and over again, ad nauseum. Torture is having a picture of Amy Winehouse smiling with the gaping hole where a tooth used to be.
Hey, you can't fix stupid!
Witness the TSA agents in AZ that thought their former governor's Medal of Honor hanging around his neck was a karate throwing star. Not to mention....they didn't even recognize HIM.
Now THAT'S Stupid!

[Cecil Turner]

TSA agents in AZ hassled former South Dakota governor Joe Foss (MoH winner, top Marine ace in WWII). Not sayin' it wasn't wayyy stupid, but . . .

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

Alexander is a maroon. Although everyone is entitled to an opinion, there is no one but leftists putting out this line. Of course, leftists don't practice what they preach; witness the treatment of prisoners and "enemies of the state" in the USSR by the KGB, East Germany by the STASI, South Vietnam by the Viet Cong, China by Mao's finest, Cuba under the benevolent Castro, Cambodia by the redetc., etc., etc.

If you are old enough, you might recall that anyone who protested these country's treatment of their "enemies" were accused of interfering with their internal affairs.

[clarice]

I'm old enough,Jim. Fortunately , my memory is not completely shot.

[matt]

the short answer? Yes he is.

[Joseph Brown]

My bad, Cecil. My brain was faster than my typing finger.

[Terry Gain]

Al Qaeda Recruiting Tools

1. The Koran
2. Islamic xenophobia
3. Other religions
4. Unbelievers
5. Fighting back
6. Drone attacks
7. Civil rights
8. Liberal societies
9. Scantily clad women
10. Assertive women
11. Sexual freedom
12. Gitmo
13. Interrogation techniques
14. GWB

It took me a while but I finally happened upon the root causes of jihadism. Obviously it's a problem that must be attacked from the ground up.

[pagar]

Hey, look what they have to work with!

"It was a parade of pathetic, cowardly losers,"

Don't think I have read a funnier report on how the leftist losers Lost.

Don't miss it, it will brighten your day.

[JM Hanes]

My day has been brightened, pagar. And considering how bright it was already, that's really something.

[clarice]

The jihadis, it seems to me, almost always have psychosexual problems, What we need is an army of shrinks airdropped into Arabia..along with tons of porno mags and dvds.

[Flodigarry]

Flew back to ORD from DCA today. They had the special TSA detail that did extra screening before we boarded the flight (though they were not in evidence when I flew back the same route post-Christmas). Anyhoo - the first person they "randomly" pulled out of line for additional screening was a white-haired caucasian women in first class. Go figure.

[daddy]

"What we need is an army of shrinks airdropped into Arabia..along with tons of porno mags and dvds."

I volunteer to airdrop the porno mags---but can I keep a Playboy or two to help stay awake on the trip back?