John Laesch on Republican Torture Politics

Eating lunch today and saw Laesch's second commercial .

My first thought was if Republican Torture Politics are creating more terrorists, then it seems to me like an immediate pull out from Iraq is the order of the day.

Next was to wonder if Laesch, in his time as an Intelligence Officer, used intelligence obtained coercively? If he thought terrorists fighting outside the Geneva Concention's rules-of-war were entitled to give just the name, rank, and serial number required by the Convention?

Or would he have drawn a line further out on what could be coerced and how during interrogation? He must have some thoughts based from his MI training here.

Which took my mind to the image of Mr. Faleh in Laesch's ad. The hooded prisoner with fake electrodes attached to him. Back when a Mr. Qaissi was posing as Mr. Faleh, the NYT's told us the real prisoner had been released and disappeared,

Meanwhile, it is not clear what happened to the real hooded man, Mr. Faleh. An Army spokesman said he was released from American custody in January 2004. Tribal leaders, and the manager of a brick factory next to the address where prison records say he lived, said they had never heard the name. Besides, they said, detainees often make up identities when they are imprisoned. Mr. Qaissi's attorneys said they have not attempted to search for him.

Finally I recalled one of the most impressive things I saw working in the Army. It was the Spec 4 in charge of the GIs in my computer room leading them in training on Wednesday afternoons. Once they went through exercises on ethics using case-studies like: you're a sole American Military Advisor to Commandte X in the jungle. The Commandte proceeds to slice off the ear of a prisoner. What do you do? You have no authority here, your just an advisor, and a lonely one at that among the Commandte's men.

These guys would discuss the cases and it was impressive to see them work solutions to this stuff. Almost embarrassing really because they looked up to me as the college educated computer programmer.

When the Taguba report came out and I read this citation at the end, I knew the Army was still doing the training.

4. (U) The individual Soldiers and Sailors that we observed and believe should be favorably noted include:

a. (U) Master-at-Arms First Class William J. Kimbro, US Navy Dog Handler, knew his duties and refused to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure from the MI personnel at Abu Ghraib.

b. (U) SPC Joseph M. Darby, 372nd MP Company discovered evidence of abuse and turned it over to military law enforcement.

c. (U) 1LT David O. Sutton, 229th MP Company, took immediate action and stopped an abuse, then reported the incident to the chain of command.

These guys are real heros to me. They knew the Army rules. They knew the moral boundaries. They saw line crossed and they acted. They're pretty impressive Americans Soldiers.

That's where Laesch's images on Republican Torture Politics took me.

xp at Bill Baar's West Side