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September 20, 2006
A Few Good Nuns
by Tina Grazier
I have a lot of friends who attended Catholic school. Through the years they've shared horror stories of torture at the hands of the nuns. One told me that boot camp in the Air Force was a snap compared to High School with "Sister Mary Forever". My friends always laugh about their experiences, but always with a grim smile, hinting that it really was no picnic at the time. All of these people survived and went on to live normal lives. Not one went "Looney-Tunes". I was thinking about all of this as I read the list of "torture techniques" that the CIA must now beg for authorization to use, they are:
1. Induced hypothermia; 2. Forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; 3. Sleep deprivation; 4. A technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized; 5. The "attention slap" or open hand slapping
that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; 6. The "belly slap"; and 7. Sound and light manipulation.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler comments on one of the techniques:
http://www.nicedoggie.net/2006/?p=1402
...a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is
forcefully seized;
"Forcefully. FORCEFULLY!!! H**, I can't verify this, of course, but
there may even be BUTTONS FLYING here!
No more, please. I'd rather be beheaded, set on fire, dismembered and hung from a bridge or have my genitals mutilated than ever have to undergo that sort of horrendous, degrading treatment."
And from GITMO (Kim Du Toi), "the other side" of upside down thinking:
http://www.theothersideofkim.com/index.php/tos/9752/
"The high-minded critics who complain about torture are wrong. We are far too soft on these guys - and, as a result, aren't getting the valuable intelligence we need to save American lives.
The politically correct regulations are unbelievable. Detainees are entitled to a full eight hours sleep and can't be woken up for interrogations. They enjoy three meals and five prayers per day, without interruption. They are entitled to a minimum of two hours of outdoor recreation per day.
Interrogations are limited to four hours, usually running two - and (of course) are interrupted for prayers. One interrogator actually bakes cookies for detainees, while another serves them Subway or McDonald's sandwiches. Both are available on base. (Filet o' Fish is an al Qaeda favorite.)
Interrogations are not video or audio taped, perhaps to preserve detainee privacy. That's not the worst of it. Try this one:
[A] multi-cell al Qaeda network has developed in the camp. Military intelligence can't yet identify their leaders, but notes that they have cells for monitoring the movements and identities of guards and doctors, cells dedicated to training, others for making weapons and so on.
And they can make weapons from almost anything. Guards have been attacked with springs taken from inside faucets, broken fluorescent light bulbs and fan blades. Some are more elaborate. "These folks are MacGyvers," Harris said.
Other cells pass messages from leaders in one camp to followers in theres. How? Detainees use the envelopes sent to them by their attorneys to pass messages. (Some 1,000 lawyers represent 440 prisoners, all on a pro bono basis, with more than 18,500 letters in and out of Gitmo in the past year.) Guards are not allowed to look inside these envelopes because of "attorney-client privilege" - even if they know the document inside is an Arabic-language note written by a prisoner to another prisoner and not a letter to or from a lawyer.
That's right: Accidentally or not, American lawyers are helping al Qaeda prisoners continue to plot.
There is little doubt what this note-passing and weapons-making is used for. The military recorded 3,232 incidents of detainee misconduct from July 2005 to August 2006 - an average of more than eight incidents per day. Some are nonviolent, but the tally includes coordinated attacks involving everything from throwing bodily fluids on guards (432 times) to 90 stabbings with homemade knives.
One detainee slashed a doctor who was trying to save his life; the doctors wear body armor to treat their patients.
But it gets still worse:
No expense spared for al Qaeda health care: Some 5,000 dental operations (including teeth cleanings) and 5,000 vaccinations on a total of 550 detainees have been performed since 2002 - all at taxpayer expense. Eyeglasses? 174 pairs handed out. Twenty two detainees have taxpayer-paid prosthetic limbs. And so on."
And finally we have the politician that loves to play center, John McCain on ABC television:
"there is a war we are losing in some ways and that's our standing in the world because of our treatment in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo".
John, lopsided media reporting is responsible for our "standing in the world", as you well know since you play to it all the time. The events at Abu Graib represent an unfortunate instance of failure on the part of one officer and a few people who should have known better, and as for Guantanamo, see above and then kindly report to a nun somewhere, she might be able to teach you a thing or two about lying.
Lets put this in perspective. People endure all kinds of horrible things every day and nobody gives it a thought except for the dear ones who must go through it. Consider severe burn patients or folks suffering from certain forms of cancer. They endure weeks and months of moment to moment pain and suffering even as people help them and try to make them comfortable. The INTERROGATION techniques we are talking about cannot be any worse than these things. So let's tell the truth. We aren't discussing these things because criminal "torture" of prisoners mustn't be tolerated. If that were a real problem we would be condemning the terrorists actions every day. This is pure politics on the world's stage. Lending credence to the whining complaining objectors only sets
the whole world up for a long dark period of cowering in the corner and begging for mercy at the hands of those who really want to kill, torture and insight terror wherever and whenever they can. When we act like victims they win. We could sure use a few good nuns right now.
Posted by Post Scripts at September 20, 2006 08:36 AM
Comments
Regarding terrorists in Gitmo:
We should have held military tribunals right after they were captured. If they were found guilty of being a terrorist combatants in a war zone, then by the rules of war, they should be executed. GITMO SHOULD BE NEAR EMPTY.
This is international law and this is war. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to combatants not represented by a nation. How clear can it be?
These are evil people, they are terrorists, they fight without rules, they prey on anyone for any reason when it serves their purpose. What purpose does it serve to detain them and release them later?
Why doesn't every American understand this by now?
Not that it matters, but on their side of the war, we can be dragged through the dirty streets of Somalia or Afghanistan, our bloody legs tied to the bumper of a Toyota pickup while the cheering crowds beat our dead bodies and rip off our uniforms. We see this and we do nothing because these are terrorists mixed with women and children.
They can hang our burned corpses from the bridge rails, they can disembowel our men while still alive, gouge out r eyes, pull off flesh with pliers, smash feet with sledge hammers and then whip and beat us till dead. Then they wire up our bodies with explosives, hoping to take out yet one or two more of us. Anybody protesting OUR mistreatment, anybody, anywhere in the world? IF THEY ARE, THEN I SURE DON'T HEAR IT! SHOW ME THE OUTRAGE!
These terrorist SCUM recruit their own children to throw rocks at our patrols in Iraq and we do nothing except take it. Why? We know if we even pointed a weapon at those kids to scare them off, we would be crucified in the media.
Terrorists hide behind those children to snipe at us and they use women the same way and if some kid or some woman gets in the way, there is the media to rip us to shreds. Terrorists us Mosques to build IED's, no Muslims I know has ever complained about it. They also store weapons and hold terrorist training sessions in Mosques because they know those places are off limits to attack and the media could care less, the world's left could care less and WE endure the results while people like Murtha, Gore, Kennedy and Pelosi tell how we CAN'T WIN!
I don't hear any of this spoken about in the UN! I don't read it in our newspapers! I don't even hear our government leaders talk about it! I have heard that such discussion is too strong, too inflammatory for the public to hear! It's too inflammatory?
I never, NEVER, hear these all-caring, all-loving, all-wise liberals complaining about this sub-human treatment of our soldiers or captured citizens or the daily war crimes by these terrorists!
I THINK NOBODY ON THE LEFT REALLY CARES, BECAUSE THEY HATE US ALMOST AS MUCH AS THE TALIBAN. THE ONLY ONES WHO REALLY CARE AND REALLY KNOW WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT ARE THE SOLDIERS and a few of their loyal friends and family.
Maybe there are a few more people who still have some sense of a conscience, humanity and fairness, but that minority number seems so small these days.
When it comes to getting any attention or respect for their pleas for condemnation of this barbarism, their voices are overwhelmed by the ignorant mouths on the left.
Put me alone on the ground in Afghanistan, preferably near the Pakistani border with an M82A1 and I will show you how to send the right message to the enemy.
Posted by: AMERICAN11B634542768 at September 20, 2006 10:34 AM
I honestly don't know what to say, except that this is getting really sick. I mean, sick. We got our "martyred nun" syndrome working against our "martyr them all" syndrome, and it's all decidedly irrational.
I highly recommend that you all turn that TV off! It's only sturdy souls who can withstand the blandishments of the Fox News Network. I think a little prayer and fasting are in order.
Posted by: Libby at September 20, 2006 01:20 PM
I totally agree with Libby, one old Nun shot dead in the street by a couple of gunman in an Islamic country means nothing. Stuff happens, who knows why? It may not have had anything to do with the Pope's comments. It could have been a drug deal gone bad for all we know. Have you considered this could have been a mob hit? Afterall she had a bodyguard and why was that, huh? Anybody think about that one...why would Nun's have bodyguards? And she was Italian! Connect the dots, she could have been a made woman as it were, you know, just posing as a Nun doing charity work to hide her mob activities.
Posted by: Jack Lee at September 20, 2006 07:12 PM
"...it's all decidedly irrational."
And that's the root of the root as they say. Libby we live in aworld where we cannot expect reason to rule...that's why John Lennons romantic entreaty to give peace a chance is absurd. Surrender to this reality and you will feel much better.
"I highly recommend that you all turn that TV off!"
Good advice, generally, but from what I read above people like "AMERICAN11B634542768" don't have a remote with an off button for this particular show...they are living the whole thing in color...God bless them and keep them safe. The least we can do is have the guts to face it and give them all the support they deserve.
Praying and fasting is a good plan, on that we agree.
Posted by: Tina at September 20, 2006 09:21 PM
"Maybe there are a few more people who still have some sense of a conscience, humanity and fairness, but that minority number seems so small these days."
There are more of us out here than you realize...more also than the screeching left realizes and our numbers grow day by day. Twenty years ago we were considered a small fringe group, laughed at by leftist elites and media darlings. Today the number of conservative radio talk shows, blogs, and journalists has grown and continues to grow, while the voice of the left is shrinking or out of business. The more they are threatened the louder and nastier they get...it means we are winning. Truth and light will do that.
"Let not your heart be troubled"... we stand with you with a firm and confident resolve born of truth and the same love of country that you so obviously have. Thank you so much for what you are doing (or have done) for us.
Posted by: Tina at September 20, 2006 09:43 PM
"Maybe there are a few more people who still have some sense of a conscience, humanity and fairness, but that minority number seems so small these days."
Tina: There are more of us out here than you realize...more also than the screeching left realizes and our numbers grow day by day.
This from a torture advocate? You guys are getting weirder day the day.
Let me try it one more time, to exhalt the nun whilst promoting barbarisms upon others is sicko ... isn't it ???
Posted by: Libby at September 21, 2006 01:15 PM
"This from a torture advocate? You guys are getting weirder day the day."
"Let me try it one more time, to exhalt the nun whilst promoting barbarisms upon others is sicko ... isn't it ???"
NO, it isn't! But, you have to have the capacity to discern the difference between wanton savagry against innocent people and a disciplined effort to stop such barbarism...so far you hemonstrate that you lack this ability....so, I repeat:
NO!!
Posted by: Tina at September 21, 2006 08:56 PM
Tina: "But, you have to have the capacity to discern the difference between wanton savagry against innocent people and a disciplined effort to stop such barbarism"
I don't know who's told you there is any such distinction, but you have been misinformed. Seriously. Sadly.
Posted by: Libby at September 22, 2006 02:41 PM
"Not that it matters, but on their side of the war, we can be dragged through the dirty streets of Somalia or Afghanistan, our bloody legs tied to the bumper of a Toyota pickup while the cheering crowds beat our dead bodies and rip off our uniforms."
This is exactly why it matters to me.
"I don't know who's told you there is any such distinction, but you have been misinformed. Seriously. Sadly."
No one had to tell me Libby, it's as plain as the proverbial nose (see the above from one who has witnessed it first hand). While it is a tragic reality that we live in a world where people are capable of despicable things like torture and murder and bomb making it is also true that passivity in the face of such acts would lead only to the strongest most viscious people being what's left on the planet. NOT YOU for instance. Now there are those who claim they would rather die than fight and they are:
1) killed or severly oppressed in countries containing these thugs,
2) priviledged to live in countries where others will protect them, or
3) living cloistered away in peace and harmony while others die to protect them.
All tribes since the beginning have had "warriors" to defend and protect... when the tribe is not threatened, warriors get to go back to hunting. Human nature dictates this...and no matter how much you wish it could be otherwise you and I don't have the capacity to create the complete and lasting transformation of everyone alive now or in the future. Only if that were possible could humans "give peace a chance"...in that romantic sense. The best hope for the world man can muster is democracy and the rule of law...and we still require a "police force" to stop the bad guys and bring them to justice.
"Terrorists hide behind those children to snipe at us and they use women the same way..."
That this means nothing to you is seriously sad.
Posted by: Tina at September 22, 2006 11:22 PM