OT: meet the new global policeman
 

I bet this does wonders for our self-styled image as a global 'good guy':

FBI and Justice Department investigators are increasingly frustrated by the silence of jailed suspected associates of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, and some are beginning to that say that traditional civil liberties may have to be cast aside if they are to extract information about the Sept. 11 attacks and terrorist plans.

...

...it could get to that spot where we could go to pressure . . . where we won't have a choice, and we are probably getting there."

Among the alternative strategies under discussion are using drugs or pressure tactics, such as those employed occasionally by Israeli interrogators, to extract information. Another idea is extraditing the suspects to allied countries where security services sometimes employ threats to family members or resort to torture.

...

He said there was a difference in employing a "truth serum," such as sodium pentothal, "to try to get critical information when facing disaster, and beating a guy till he is senseless."

"If there is another major attack on U.S. soil, the American public could let it happen," he said. "Drugs might taint a prosecution, but it might be worth it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Oct20.html

Re: OT: meet the new global policeman
 

Well, this raises all sorts of interesting thoughts.

1) Who said we had an image as a global 'good guy'? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Ask the average citizen of a Central American nation about the 'good guy' image of the US... Even if you remember Ronnie Raygun's illegal war on Nicaragua you only know a fraction of the story. We've been invading our neighbors at will, and toppling governments that were inconvenient to our wishes, for more than a century. Everyone else in the world know this. but for some reason Americans are utterly blind to history...

2) In comparison to what we've done all over the world for the Last century+ I don't think that drugging a terrorist is all that awful a crime. I'm a bit surprised they haven't done so already. Beating them up or otherwise applying physical torture would be useless, at best. It's very unlikely you'd get any information that way. If they're prepared to die in the course of their attacks they're not likely to be intimidated by physical suffering. But the US resorting directly to torture (as opposed to supporting proxy forces that use it) would be another step back from our professed principles. It would have very nasty implications for the rights of US citizens in the future, too. Would be much better if we moved closer to them by NOT supporting proxies who do this. Iran under the Shah, Israel and Saudi Arabia being prime examples. The Israeli double speak term 'pressure' used to gloss their use of torture has never fooled anyone.

Besides the difference in 'principle' from physical torture, the use of drugs is far more likely to get some results. All the various 'truth serum' drugs do is lower inhibitions (like alchohol) and make you more likely to say things that you would normally keep to yourself. Since these terrorists are generally Muslim fundamentalists who will not drink, at all, their experience with resisting these impulses will be nil. They'd better have good Arabic speakers, or whatever the terrorists native language is, when they do this, of course. The only legal problem I see with it is that you are not supposed to be compelled to testify against yourself. So, if they drug someone I guess they cannot use any information gained in his own trial. Big whoop if you stop another major attack. There's got to be another way to prosecute them.

It is 'new ground' certainly, and might require legislation to clearly define what circumstances allow the use of drugs, but as long as the right to refuse self-incrimination is preserved I think it's not that huge a challenge to our views of human rights. Torture definitely would be.

3) I'm not sure how this relates to the 'Global Policeman' role that the US has tended to assume for the Last 5 decades or so, actually. I'd think discussion of the siege of Afghanistan would be much more relevant to that. At least the current campaign is being conducted with some degree of restraint. Whether or not to drug terrorists for interrogation is a domestic legal issue.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 22 October 2001).]

Re: OT: meet the new global policeman
 

1: our domestic media. thus i qualified the statment with the prefix 'self-styled'

2: good thoughts, and i agree. honestly, i think that if they were thinking about doing nasty things to terrorists and their families who would not be missed outside of their criminal orginizations, i think they would have done it already and the people would have disappeared. I think the concern here is that they are looking for reasons to apply harsher measures more broadly, and might start doing dirty stuff to the hundreds of random suspects they have rounded up.

3: see 1.

Re: OT: meet the new global policeman
 

Off Topic in the Off Topic. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Check this out. Very funny.
http://www.gotlaughs.com/funpages/bin2.swf

Heres where you can download the MP3 of the song. omegatg.com/apostle/laden.mp3

[This message has been edited by CNCRaymond (edited 22 October 2001).]