Reflections on Durbin

Now that I've finally finished all of my paperwork for my real job and I've had time to mull over the whole Durbin shpiel, I believe I can sum up my feelings on the subject this way:

Torture is terrible thing, no matter whom it's done to and who is doing the torturing. If the US officials at Gitmo are torturing POW's (and I believe we can agree that's what they are) out of sheer malevolence with no motive whatsoever, then absolutely it should be condemned. In that light, Durbin's statements make some degree of sense from the stand point of view that by doing so we become has inhumane as the enemy we fight.

However, I don't believe that is the case. Are there horror stories? Probably. Have some prisoners been mistreated for the sheer perverted pleasure of exerting ones will over another human being? Again, could be. But I don't think in the large sum of cases at Gitmo that is what is actually happening. I believe the episodes cited were for the expressed purposes of gleaning info from enemy combatants and nothing more. I would venture to say that the majority of POW's at Gitmo are subjected to various degrees of discomfort until someone on the food chain believes there is no more info to be learned from that person. Thus ends his being subjected to purposeful discomfort. Now if the discomfort leads to being maimed or death than that's a horse of a different color.

The fight seems to be between those who, bearing the above rationale in mind, would still call said discomfort torture. Hell, my dad would call listening to rap music torture. The other side believes that when the "torture" bares important pieces of intelligence it no longer remains "torture" rather it is an interrogation technique.

I personally belong to the latter group. It is from that point of view that I look at Durbin's remarks as inartful at best and assinine at worst. I do not believe it's treasonous, but I do believe for a rash of reasons we have lost perspective in this country and this is just one of the myriad example of said lost perspective.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong : )