IT'S NOT INTERROGATION, IT'S REVENGE

A must-read: Harsh CIA Methods Cited in Top Interrogations.

I think it's time that we recognize that the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other prison facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan were not merely attempts to gain intelligence to help us win the "War on Terror," but acts of revenge and anger, and possibly fear reactions, against a perceived enemy. Certainly at Guantanamo and some of our "secret facilities" where some truly wicked Al Qaeda terrorists have been stashed, the urgent nature of the interrogations is understandable. However, experts in counterterrorism and intelligence have made the case against torture as an effective interrogation tool (scroll to bottom). The reason is obvious: if you're being tortured, you're likely to say anything you think your captor wants you to say, true or not, wasting valuable time and resources as our intelligence agencies try to validate and follow up on that bogus information. That's time and resources that could be used to pursue real villains. Haven't we had enough of failed intelligence efforts? Isn't it almost univerally accepted that 9/11 was at least partially a result of poor information, badly coordinated?

So why the bloodthirsty rantings of the right wing -- such as Sen. Inhofe, >Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North, Ann Coulter, and the majority of their listeners/callers, who are calling for a "jihad" against all Muslims, Iraqis, Afghans, and just about anyone who resists US power and authority anywhere else in the world? Suddenly any Iraqi who looks at us wrong is a thug and a terrorist, despite the International Committee of the Red Cross estimating that 75-90% of our detainees in Iraq are innocents picked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't the wingers WANT to win the war? How will catching, imprisoning, and torturing the WRONG PEOPLE make us safer?

Last night I heard Mike Gallagher on the ratio asserting to a caller that the beheading of Nick Berg by an Al Qaeda-affiliated group proves the connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. When the caller pointed out that the only known connection to Iraq pre-war was the fact that top bin Laden lieutenant Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi sometimes took refuge in the Kurdish terroritories of Iraq NOT controlled by Saddam Hussein, Gallagher replied that he wasn't trying to connect SADDAM with Al Qaeda, but IRAQ. So now the entire country is our enemy? The country that some 750 American soldiers have died to LIBERATE? And now all Iraqis are fair game? The same ones President Bush is always talking about as good, decent people who have suffered and will welcome the freedom we offer them as soon as they learn to appreciate us the way they ought to? Didn't the president repeatedly emphasize that our fight is with Saddam Hussein's regime and not with the Iraqi people?

It is clear from accounts of testimony by the accused soldiers and others that many, perhaps a majority, of our military people still believe that the Iraqis were associated with the horrors of 9/11. They have swallowed the implications of our Commander-in-Chief and his minions that a blow against Iraq is a blow against terrorism -- and some of them don't distinguish between "good Iraqis" and "bad Iraqis." I understand the human desire for payback; so does every American who's ever been criminally victimized. But if we're going to seek revenge, God help us, at least let's get the right guys. And for all our sakes, let's do it in the American way. If the world doesn't look up to us anymore as a beacon of freedom AND JUSTICE, what success can we hope to have influencing the world?

Oops. I think I've stumbled upon the answer...the Bushies don't particularly WANT to influence the world -- they want to own it and run it.