Geneva Conventions

Regarding all the recent back and forth regarding what the definition of “torture” is and what the Geneva Conventions mean, and whether we should be engaging in torture or “coercive interrogation” — here’s my two cents, for what they’re worth.

1. If you wouldn’t allow someone to do it to your own kids, it’s torture.
If Bush wouldn’t run the twins through it, then he shouldn’t be doing to anyone else. If you wouldn’t want it done to the people that you love, then it’s MORALLY WRONG for it to be done to anyone. What Bush is doing is immoral and unchristian. Keep in mind that they people they’re interrogating haven’t been convicted of anything. We don’t know if any of them are actually guilty of anything. Some of them are American citizens. If we allow this in the name of the “War on Terror”, what’s to stop them from using it in the next “War on ________” — a war that you might accidentally get caught up in?

2. It’s been proven that torturing people doesn’t gain you real information.
Over and over this has been proven — people will tell you what they think you want to hear if you torture them. They don’t give away secrets at all, they make shit up. There’s no evidence we’ve gained any useful information from any of they people they’ve tortured so far.

3. The rest of the world already hates us — why validated their hatred?
I’ve said it over and over again, but it bears repeating — Bush is making all their lies true. He’s taking all the false rhetoric of fanatical countries and making us the mirror image of it. The more he does this, the more they hate us. We aren’t “rooting out terrorists” anywhere — we’re systematically making more of them. This is a war that will never, ever end, because we’re constantly manufacturing more of our enemies through our own actions.