A Gentleman’s view.

In depth debates about the legality of how far to go with torture is revealing.

Please feel free to read the torture memos on tab above or the Pages panel called BUSH.

They, Bush and Cheney, claim to have been operating in the best interest of this country by using these formerly declared illegal tactics to interrogate suspected Al Qaeda terrorist. This was in an attempt to obtain information about events the terrorist had participated in or was planning to implement on US soil or possessions. They claim also to have obtained valuable intelligence from of the sessions of enhanced interrogation. Documentation state all legitimate information was obtained before they decided to use those techniques, but they did so anyway even after being told upfront by experts that they did not work and were counter- productive to military and intelligence gathering efforts. The Bush/Cheney co-dictatorship decided in America’s name and revenge that it was okay to brutalize people not proven to be guilty of any but being Muslim in their own back yard. Worse still they wanted to send a very strong white male macho message to the Muslim world, ‘DON’T EVER F*@K WITH US LIKE THAT AGAIN OR ELSE, UNDERSTAND!’

We, as Americans must understand what we have participated in by either standing by while it happened or supporting these tactics as a statement of how we now do business. If not, declare the new manner in which believe in and own it, if it is what we believe to be good for America. Leaders around the world already accuse us of belligerence and speak of possible implications to the treatment of our citizens caught in any number of unlikely circumstances that might put them under the control of a group of citizens from a country no longer appreciative of our present state of hospitality. The 266 times of just using the one enhanced interrogation technique of making an individual believe that death by drowning is imminent is nothing less than torture. 186 times to just one person over an 30 day period is astounding whether that man is brain dead or not today. I can almost guarantee that Cheney, though capable of coming up with the idea, was definitely not man enough to carry it out on anyone. I was abused, so let’s take a stroll down memory lane with a more personal view of both the position of the abuser and the detainee, shall we?

First, for those of you who visit this site; THANK YOU! WITH ALL OF MY HEART! But, this is why I am out here in internet cyberspace, bullies, terror, beatings, rape, abuse, torture and people being mean to people. I was bound, hands and feet, awaiting punishment for she claimed her silverware was being lifted from the house. I was not the one doing it; I didn’t know who was doing it. I was not a belligerent child by any means, but by eight, all respect for authority was shot to hell by then, because of the constant beatings for any and every little thing that went wrong in my mothers’ world and sexual abuse by a white male leader of my church. On this occasion, bound as I was, she decided to go and take a nap to have the energy needed to beat me the way I deserved to be beat for disrespecting her by stating that I was tired of her beating me for something I did not do. At first my mission was just to be a better kid, but better though I felt I was being, never came, and the beatings never stopped. Next, I, being raised as a catholic in New York City, sought help in my church. That was a mistake; a male somehow got the impression that meant I wanted to be sexually intimate with him. Next, I just wanted to duration of the beatings to lessen or cease, but they didn’t, so then you steel up and pray for help or talk to people in school and they in turn call in the very person you are seeking protection from, your mother. This is taking place during the mid-sixties. Finally, you steel up real hard and you just take the blows, barely flinching as the tears stream down your cheeks giving away the fact the body is experiencing terrible pain, never ever screaming again as long as you live.

So, while that was going on, I was a witness to the amount of physical involvement there was also for the person who inflicted all of this on me and my brother, my mother. As we progressed through the levels of beatings, I watched the impact and change on her as well. A major amount of energy was expended on her part as well during this evolution that during one session of her beating my brother, she knocked out four front teeth of my brother. I had to start screaming for her to stop hitting him as I was sure he would be killed. At fourteen, I had had enough and ran away to be on the streets of New York City for two and half years. I thought home was bad; boy I was under the wrong impression. I had no idea just how good home was, I just could not take the abuse coming like that consistently from someone who loved me.

The point was it took six years before I decided enough was enough, how long does it take if you think you are surely going to die if the treatment keeps up. What do you do if the essence of your day is experiencing simulated drowning six times? How long does it take for anyone one soul to break down and start making up all kinds of stories if they think just one more thing I can come up with will stop this agony. This continues for a month straight, personally I believe that I would be making up some stories also in any attempt to stop the water boarding. How many shifts of how many interrogators did it take to maintain the madness thru this period?  Are these the ones committing suicide presently back at home in the US? The federal statutes already states it is against the federal law, several international treaties we have signed and the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which governs all members of the military. That suggests that there should be filed at some point in the future 266 charges of the war crime of water boarding against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, several attorneys, and others on the high end of government operations for approving of using torture as a means to obtain information in the name of protecting America. I don’t think it is going to be a matter of if we are going to use legal recourse against them, but when. If we don’t, who knows what will be the long term price to Americans all over the world.

© 2009, agentleman.