Reply #8: Ah, the "give what we get" argument [View All]

I've heard my repug friend echo that Bush sentiment, too.

That very Christian "Eye-for-an-Eye" that Jesus was so against.

The look at Daniel Berg and say, "Look what they did to him. They want us to play nice?"

They automatically assume that our people are going to be tortured whether we torture THEIRS or not. So we might as well torture the hell out of them.

MEANWHILE....

Please point THIS out to the Freepers....

Some Americans sued Saddam Hussein because they were captured and tortured during the first Gulf War. They won their judgements, but President George W. Bush issued an Executive Order to BLOCK OUR OWN TORTURED POW'S FROM RECEIVING THEIR SETTLEMENT AGAINST SADDAM FOR BEING TORTURED!

And Richard Storr, one of the tortured POWs is speaking-out against America's use of torture

Ex-POW's suit vs. Saddam snarled
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/191956p-165868c.html

By PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Richard Storr

Air Force Capt. Richard Storr endured 33 days of torture at the hands of Iraqis during the Persian Gulf War 13 years ago. He knew firsthand the cruelty sanctioned by Saddam Hussein and believed that the U.S. was right to go to war again in Iraq.

When he heard the allegations and saw photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi POWs, Storr was filled with shame and empathy.

"For those of us that have been there, I just felt horrible for those guys," Storr said of the prisoners.

"What I did see in those pictures I thought was just awful," said Storr, 42, of Spokane, Wash. "There is absolutely no reason for those prisoners to receive that kind of treatment.

"I was ashamed," said Storr, an airline pilot and a lieutenant colonel in the Washington Air National Guard. "And I'm glad to see the military is acting swiftly, and I think they're taking all the appropriate measures in regards to these soldiers for doing that to these guys."

<snip>
"Those guys were wrong, and the worst part about the whole thing is that the troops there are going to suffer."

<snip>
Hoping to deter mistreatment of future prisoners of war, Storr and 16 other Americans held as POWs filed a $900 million lawsuit two years ago against Iraq, Saddam and the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

They won a judgment, which they were told would come out of Iraqi assets frozen at the beginning of the current Iraq war.

Then they were told the money was used to rebuild Iraq.

The case is under appeal.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has suggested that mistreated Iraqi prisoners might be compensated, a notion Storr finds puzzling.

"They're trying to extinguish this lawsuit, and we go and mistreat the prisoners," he said. "What are we saying? What kind of message are we sending? It's very confusing to me.

more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/191956p-165868c.html

See also:

Bush fighting former U.S. POW's
http://www.iht.com/articles/117008.html
Philip Shenon/NYT The New York Times

WASHINGTON The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were brutally tortured in Iraqi prisons during the 1991 Gulf war from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein.
.
In a court challenge that the administration is winning so far but is not eager to publicize, administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction, and that the court judgment won by the 17 former American prisoners should be overturned in its entirety.
.
If the administration is successful, the former prisoners would be deprived both of the almost $1 billion that they won and, they say, of the validation of a judge's ruling that documented their accounts of gruesome torture by the Iraqis, included beatings, burnings, starvation, mock executions and constant threats of castration and dismemberment.
.
"I don't want to say that I feel betrayed, because I still believe in my country," said Lieutenant Colonel Richard Storr, whose plane was shot down by Iraqi fire in February 1991.
<snip>
Officials at the Justice Department and State Department, which are overseeing the administration's response to the case, say they are sensitive to the claims of the former prisoners, who brought suit against Iraq under a 1996 law that allows foreign governments designated as terrorist sponsors to be sued for injuries.
<snip>


The judge rejected the families' request, noting that President George W. Bush signed an executive order in March, on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, that confiscated Iraqi assets and converted them into assets of the United States government. In May, after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the president issued a declaration that effectively removed Iraq from a list of countries liable for some court judgments involving past human right abuses and links to terrorism.
.
In a sworn court filing in the case involving for the former prisoners, L. Paul Bremer 3rd, the American administrator in postwar Iraq, said that the money won by the former prisoners had already been "completely obligated or expended" in reconstruction efforts.