Nancy Pelosi and waterboarding

The Left is frothing at the mouth again over the latest revelations on waterboarding by CIA chief, Michael Hayden. The Left conveniently (and deliberately) forgets that the CIA had given both Democratic and Republican Congresspersons, including Nancy Pelosi, private briefings on their torture techniques. Not only did the members of Congress not complain, two of them even pressed the CIA to do more. See LGF for the story.

Waterboarding

For all the hysterics about waterboarding, you would think that it was a daily occurrance down at Gitmo. Now ABC news (yes, ABC, not Fox) is reporting that waterboarding has been used exactly three times--no, not three dozen or three hundred!

One of the three forced to undergo waterboarding was Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11. The technique only had to be used for about a minute and a half before KSM broke and provided information about planned attacks on America (contrary to those on the Left who say that such techniques never work).

Since, according to ABC, the CIA hasn't used waterboarding since 2003, I thought I would suggest an interrogation technique that may be acceptable to the Left: Force the terrorist to watch CSPAN or listen to NPR every day. After a week of that, the terrorists may prefer waterboarding.

Hillary on torture

According to New York Daily News, "Sen. Hillary Clinton scored with a Democratic audience last night by contradicting her husband's belief that a terrorist could be tortured to foil an imminent plot - but what observers didn't know is she was contradicting herself, too."

Sounds like she may have been for torture before she was against it. Read the article at New York Daily News.

The torture of Megan Williams

Six white trash low-lifes kidnapped and tortured a young black woman named Megan Williams. For an entire week, they locked her in a small storage shed calling racial slurs while raping her, stabbing her, beating her, pouring hot water on her, choking her with a cable cord, and making her drink from a toilet and forcing her to eat rat droppings.

Prosecutors have decided not to press for hate crimes charges because the state’s hate crimes laws allow up to a10 year penalty while regular kidnapping charges bring up to a life penalty (AP).

Do you think Ms. Williams will ever get over this? Is it really justice to put these people away for life while the tax payers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide for their food, shelter, clothing, medical and dental care for the rest of their lives?

Quite frankly, I think it may be time to repeal the amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. These animals should be publically horse-whipped and burned alive at the stake.

Tenet on torture

According to YNet News:

Former CIA director George Tenet defended the agency's interrogation
techniques, which human rights groups say border on torture, saying tough US
interrogation of terrorist suspects had proven more valuable than any of the
other intelligence gathered by US authorities, "60 Minutes" Television show said
on Wednesday.

"I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots," Tenet told the program. "I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together, have been able to tell us." (Reuters)

So, if you were the President or CIA director and knew that water-boarding a known terrorist could save a dozen lives, would you approve it?

Japanese atrocities

Is there any adult in America who doesn't know that during World War II America locked up Japanese people during World War II? How many Americans know, however, about the 200,000 sex slaves held by the Japanese? According to FoxNews:

She shaved her head to make herself unattractive. She hid — once in a tree.
She huddled together and prayed with the other captive "comfort
women" — a euphemism for the up to 200,000 women who historians say were
forced to have sex with millions of Japanese soldiers during the war. She
punched and kicked and screamed, even though it invariably meant she was beaten
worse.

"Never did any Japanese rape me without a fight. I fought each one of
them," she said Thursday at a House Foreign Affairs Asia subcommittee hearing
where three former comfort women pleaded with U.S. lawmakers to adopt a
resolution urging Japan to formally apologize.

The memories of being raped and beaten day and night, even by the doctor
who examined her for venereal disease, "have tortured my mind all my life," said
O'Herne, a former Dutch colonist born in Java who now lives in Australia. "I
have forgiven the Japanese for what they did to me, but I can never
forget."

I have an uncle whose identical twin brother was a Japaneese POW during World War II. He didn't look like his identical twin when he got out.

America has apologized and made restitution for illegally imprisoning Japanese Americans. If Japan has never formally apologized for their atrocities, it is long past time that they do so.

More torture at Gitmo

Will the torture never stop?! News reports are now coming out of Gitmo that prisoners are being mistreated again. No, bamboo shoots are not being rammed under their fingernails. Electric prods are not being applied to their genitals. Worse! They are being over-fed and are actually gaining weight! (gasp)!

Human rights groups claim that they are not getting enough exercise but those who behave themselves have access to "treadmills, stationary bikes and other fitness equipment" (AP)

U.S. Soldiers, rape and murder

On “The Big Story” with John Gibson, Judge Andrew Napolitano just discussed the U.S. soldiers who are facing charges for killing an Iraqi family. Judge Napolitano said that the soldiers—in a crime that was pre-planned—allegedly took turns raping a 14 year old Iraqi girl in front of her family before killing the entire family. The judge says the evidence against the soldiers (which includes confessions to other soldiers) is overwhelming.

Of course these soldiers have the right to be presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law, but hypothetically speaking, if they really did these unspeakably horrible things, and if they really planned this atrocity ahead of time, how could anyone exclude the death penalty from consideration?

If I had my way, they would be stripped of their U.S. citizenship and turned over to local Iraqis for whatever punishment they might want to dish out (if we actually did that, I’m sure these soldiers would come to think of the death penalty as very humane).

More abuses at Guantanamo Bay

At a recent news conference sponsored by the Council for American Islamic Relations, a former Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay said that the prison should be closed. The chaplain charged that prisoners where forced to kneel inside of satanic symbols, were touched inappropriately by female guards, were occasionally wrapped in the Israeli flag, and that guards (gasp!) sometimes kicked the Qur’an! (CNSNews)

I’m sure all Americans will be shocked by these revelations. The next thing you know, we’ll hear that these poor terrorists have been denied such basic necessities of life as high-definition cable TV, sleep-number beds and La-Z-Boy recliners!

Americans tortured

Terrorists charged that their Qur’an’s were mistreated at Guantanamo and the Left is outraged at Americans. A few soldiers humiliate some terrorists at Abu Ghraib and the Left absolutely goes ballistic! Rumors come out about fatal shootings in Haditha and the Left rushes to judgment completely ignoring the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

By now everyone knows that the bodies of the bodies of two kidnapped American soldiers have been found. They were reportedly tortured in a way that one general described as “brutal” and “unnatural.” We’re still waiting for any sign of outrage by those on the Left.

Torture and allegations of torture

The news media seems completely obsessed over the alleged torture of terrorists by the U.S. Government, but they rarely seem to get around to investigating the many reports of even more serious atrocities around the world. For example, Voice of the Martyrs reports:

“An Iranian Christian convert was kidnapped from his home in northeastern Iran last week and stabbed to death. His bleeding body was thrown in front of his home a few hours later. Ghorban Tori, 50, was pastoring an independent house church of converted Christians in Gonbad-e-Kavus. Within hours of the November 22nd murder, local secret police arrived at the pastor's home, searching for Bibles and other banned Christian books written in the Farsi language. According to one source, during the past eight days representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested and severely tortured 10 other Christians in several cities, including Tehran. (Click here for original story posted on 12-05-2005, for most recent update, click here.)”

The December 7 Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin reports that in Sangla Hill Pakistan,

“A Muslim falsely accused a Christian of desecrating the Koran during an argument over gambling remittances. Exploiting the situation, Islamic clerics called Muslims to the mosques and incited them to 'defend Islam' and attack the Christians. The subsequent pogrom involving more than 2000 Muslims drove some 450 Christian families from their homes. Three churches along with manses and libraries were razed, as well as a convent and two church-owned schools. According to an editorial in Pakistan's Daily Times (28 November) the mob, armed with 'sticks, stones, big hammers and bottles of chemicals' went out to attack the churches. 'They raised cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) and "Asai kuttay hai-hai" (Down with the Christian dogs).”

I don’t want my government torturing prisoners and I think the news media is entirely justified in investigating these allegations. I often wonder, however, why the reporting is so unbalanced. The stories above are not even the tip of the iceberg and yet they never seem to make the network news. Muslims in Sudan were kidnapping, enslaving, raping and torturing large numbers of Christians for years before the major networks even noticed (and then only briefly). Or, in a different illustration: In news reports that seemed to go on for weeks, if not months— the news media falsely implicated Christians in the tragic murder of the gay man, Matthew Shephard, yet atrocities committed against large numbers of Christians hardly make the news at all. Why is that?