Media Torture supporters twisting and shouting

[azul]

First I want to say that I think that the acceptance of torture by many Americans is a failure of our educational system, in that too many people lack critical reasoning skills that are necessary in a population to uphold the rule of law. Also that this ignorance has been worked-upon by a media on a violence mission.

I read about a Rasmussen poll that indicated that 59% of Americans would support the use torture to get information from the suspected crotch bomber. I didn't see the exact wording of the poll questions, but this number bolsters and supports the media twist on fear and war-mongering.



What I want to see is a huge wide-spread poll that asks the real big question:

Did you know that torture is prohibited by US laws with severe criminal penalties, and by endorsing or calling for torture you are actually recruiting terrorists and strengthening their cause, and may yourself be considered an enemy combatant and lose your rights as a citizen and human being and be held indefinitely without charge? Would you then support using torture, that has been proven to be ineffectual and is itself degrading and shameful, to get any information from this suspect in custody that is being charged with attempted murder aboard a jetliner?

Yes ___ No ___



And take it to the media owners and pundits for supporting law-breaking? Because is is counter-productive and inciting terrorism?:

AMY GOODMAN: I want to get your reaction to some of what various people are saying. This is former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live.

TOM RIDGE: I take a look at this individual who’s been charged criminally. Does that mean he’s going to get his Miranda warnings? Does that mean the only kind of information we want to get from him is if he volunteers it? He’s not a citizen of this country. He is a terrorist, and I don’t think he deserves the full range of criminal—protections of our criminal justice system as embodied in the Constitution of the United States.


AMY GOODMAN: I also wanted to play an excerpt of you, Spencer Ackerman. You were on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday debating Pat Buchanan on the subject. This is a clip from that discussion.

PAT BUCHANAN: What I’m saying is the first and highest priority when you apprehend him is not to make sure he gets his constitutional rights—he’s not even a citizen—but to get all of the information you can about where he came from, who trained him, where they are, are there other attacks coming, where are they coming. And if that means, frankly, you have to deny him pain medicine, because the child’s badly burned, I think you go ahead and do that. I’m not arguing for torture, but I am arguing—

SPENCER ACKERMAN: You just did!

PAT BUCHANAN: Nobody is. But I’m arguing for a hostile interrogation of this fellow, because our job is to protect American lives. It’s not to make sure his Miranda rights haven’t been violated.


AMY GOODMAN: That was Pat Buchanan. You were debating him, Spencer Ackerman. Your response?

SPENCER ACKERMAN: Like I said to Pat on Morning Joe, this is a completely invented controversy. I’ve been in contact with intelligence officials for the last couple days, as a lot of my colleagues have, and one thing that we have not heard at all is that the FBI has had any problem extracting information legally, humanely, and in accordance with our criminal justice system, from Abdulmutallab. The idea that we need to torture this man in order to prevent some kind of follow-on plot—or I don’t even know what, you know, Buchanan’s mind has run to in this sort of thing—is absolutely belied by the facts of the actual circumstance. The man has been charged in federal court. He will receive his day in court. He will undoubtedly be convicted because of the overwhelming amount of evidence, both on his person and eyewitness evidence on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. This is, as we—I think it’s uncontroversial to say—the system actually working, in a legal context.

AMY GOODMAN: I was quite surprised to see this debate going on right now, the anger at Abdulmutallab being charged as—in a US court, as opposed to—I think Pat Buchanan was saying things like, you know, why would he even be given pain medication if he was burned, all we need is information from him. The whole issue of torturing subjects.

SPENCER ACKERMAN: Right, what we need to do is commit a war crime, basically. I mean, it’s disgusting.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/30/christmas_bombing