Let’s stand back and examine what we’ve done

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How can any of us determine if “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs)—the euphemism given to waterboarding, rectal hydration, sleep deprivation and other practices, applied to detainees—produced meaningful information?  The rebuttals exchanged by politicians consist of generalizations that fall along political lines and tell us nothing.

Investigating the issue is a daunting task, and the most meaningful information is not available. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report, which has been published by The Washington Post, consists of a 528 page executive summary, a ...

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15
DEC
15

Political Issues

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Former POW has learned not to hate

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Sometimes the lessons we learn aren’t what we would expect. You would expect to hear about faith or courage from a former prisoner of war. You wouldn’t expect a POW to talk about the destructive nature of hate, but that’s the lesson from Tom Moe, a Capital University graduate and Vietnam War POW, who served as Director of the Ohio Department of Veterans Services from 2010 to 2013.

Moe’s lesson for us is one of three ironies within his story, and, ...

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30
MAY
0

Social Issues

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How can be be debating torture?

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The U.S. Senate is locking horns with the CIA over records concerning “enhanced interrogation” techniques practiced at Gitmo Bay. Senator Diane Feinstein accuses the CIA of removing from Senate computers documents concerning interrogation practices. The CIA denies any wrong doing.

The Senate had been investigating whether meaningful information was gained through what most of us—but not the CIA and former Vice President Dick Chaney—would consider to be torture. The CIA is adamant it produced valuable information. Others, like Senator John McCain, ...

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17
APR
0

Social Issues

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Torture leads us back to Vietnam

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When the U.S. government acknowledged in 2009 that enemy combatants captured in Iraq and Afghanistan were tortured, two questions arose.  Was torture justified, and should we punish those responsible for approving torture?

The first question is difficult to answer, for the evidence is inconclusive as to whether torture has produced much information of any worth.  Some maintain we gained valuable information through torture.  Others contend that the information obtained by torture might have been procured through other means.

So, if the answer to the ...

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18
OCT
0

Social Issues

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