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Rantings of a Sandmonkey

Be forewarned: The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off

Monday, July 04, 2005

Oh, That's nice!

Ahmed Nazif comes clean on Egypt's role in the war on terror: The CIA torture guys! "I think that the war on terror, if it's a war, then it has to be treated as a war."Ahmed Nazief, the Egyptian prime minister, recently explained to a group of Tribune reporters and editors why his country has agreed to receive what he estimates are "60 to 70" suspected terrorists delivered into its hands from all points of the globe by the CIA. [...] "Whether it's in Egypt or the U.S. or they're kept in Guantanamo or in a prison near Cairo is immaterial in this case. It's not the physical location. It's the process itself." [...] The nation appears to have received more such deliveries of terror suspects, known as "renditions," than any other country, in large part because it is the native land of many of the militants who carried the Muslim doctrine of jihad, or holy war, to Afghanistan and elsewhere. Nazief admitted he isn't "privy to the details of each case," which he said are worked out between "security people" in Egypt and the U.S. But he said he has no concern about the practice as long as the "rendered" suspects are Egyptian nationals. Nazief also acknowledged that a criminal charge isn't necessary to land a suspected terrorist in an Egyptian prison."If they fall within our definition, and your definition, of terrorists, they're dealt with this way." Nazief emphasized that torture is illegal in Egypt, although "police abuses" occur in nearly every country in the world. Oh, of course! See that kids? That's an example of a statement designed to cover one's own ass : "Toture is illegal, but police abuses happen in every country in the world. Did i say they happen in Egypt? Nope, i said in the world, which makes it a worldly practice, and since Egypt is in the world, then its normal if we have a couple of cases of police abuse. But don't call it torture! Nope, never that word! That word is dirty. It's just your normal, run of the mill, everyday, common all over the world Police abuse! And we don't mind police abuse that much, we consider it our way of joining the "Global village". But we mind torture, we mind it very very much and that kind of thing never happens in Egypt!" But the U.S. State Department's current survey of human rights declares that Egyptian security forces continue to torture prisoners with electricity and by other methods. Oh! Oooops Nazif. Guess that's what you call Police abuse, huh? Whatever happend to our so-called planned quantum leap in Human rights? Guess that will take some time huh? You know, i am feeling kinda conflicted over this: On one hand i am glad that finally the people in Egypt are taking the War on Terror seriously and are vocally supportive of it (notice the cell in Egypt & Gitmo comparison? Wait, on a second thought, that's not a good comparison to the americans: Gitmo isn't that bad!), but... but on the other hand, the idea that this is our contribution to the war, to be the people who do the dirty work and torture the suspects, well, that's just foul! And the fact that this egyptian adminstration agreed to it, not only proves that they are ok with violating people's rights, but that they are actually the local experts on it. They are the "Go to people" when it comes to torture. And we are talking real torture, not the sleep depravation/ make them listen to Christina Aguilera music crap. It's just shitty that that's what we have become. Sigh...

2 Comments:

At 7/04/2005 10:56:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a hard one. I agree that people should not be tortured, no matter how much they deserve it. We give up our own humanity when we sink to that level. By the same token, how many lives can be saved by the information obtained.

I'm really torn on the terrorists, because what can you do with people who saw off heads, and torture their victems, and blow up children? Hammorabi's website published pictures of the Najef bombing, complete with close ups of children with their little legs blown off, and dismembered bodies, women with their heads three feet from their bodies.

Could I torture someone? I don't know, it would depend on how soon after I saw the mangled bodies of women, children, and innocent worshipers just wanting to honor God. I struggle with this all the time.

No matter how tempted we are to give these men what they so richly deserve, I think for the safety of our own souls, we must threat them with dispassion, and put them on trial and if found guilty, they must be dispatched to the hands of the One who is better suited to decide these matters.

 
At 7/04/2005 11:22:00 AM, Blogger programmer craig said...

MMI, I know what you mean. The pickpockets were so bad in the Philipines when I was there the first time in 1984 that we (military guys) all were briefed on how to put our ID in our sock and keep our money in our front pants pocket, and not carry a wallet at all. Despite this, one time I was putting my change away and some kid grabbed the bills in my hand and tried to get away... but I'm hella fast and I had him by the arm and my money back in my pocket in no time. I was about to let him go when a cop ran up and asked me what happened. Of course, I said "nothing" but then he said he saw it and was going to arrest the kid anyway. I had to threaten the cop so that he'd let the kid go! The good thing (I guess) about being a US Marine in the PI back then was that we could threaten cops. So he let the kid go, with some grumbling. It was about 30 pesas, like a dollar and change! I resolved at that point to let the pickpockets have my money in the future. It really sucks when you'd rather see criminals get away than get arrested :\

Tina, physical torture is never OK. It's, in my opinion, the worst thing one human being can do to another. How can anybody claim they support a concept o human rights and support torture at the same time? They can't.

How should we deal with terrorists? We should kill them. Maybe there's a benefit to torturing them, in the information that we could obtain, and we lose that benefit. Oh well. I'm sorry, but I just cannot go along with deciding some people deserve to be tortured and others don't.

 

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