2. It could make us lose the war (because it provides propaganda to our enemies, turns moderate Arab opinion against us and undermines support at home)
Moderate Arab opinion is ALREADY against us, and always has been, long before any so-called 'atrocities' were committed. Moderate Arab opinion is, and always will be, against us, by simple virtue of the fact that we are not muslims (read what the Q'oran has to say about 'infidels' if you do not believe me). What an Arab (an Arab leader in particular) says in public and believes in his heart are very often entirely different.
I refer you back to what I said earlier about fundamentally misunderstanding Arab-Islamic culture.
Don't misunderstand me - I am not advocating 'gloves off' when it comes to prisoner interrogation - but we NEED the leeway to apply pressure to achieve the aim. The GC does NOT give us the leeway required, being 57 years out of date. It needs reviewing. I do not consider 'roughing up' (NOT 'beating up'), intimidation, sleep deprivation, 'white noise', humiliation, stress positions, or similar techniques, to be 'torture' - they have all been used for years and found to be effective.
Here is the problem - interrogators 'rough up' a suspect, deprive him of sleep, make him stand/sit in stress positions, subject him to white noise, etc etc. Western newspaper gets hold of it and carries the headline "Prisoners tortured at Al-****hole". The Arab world equates 'torture' to the kind of techniques employed by their own leaders and governments (electric shock, boiling alive etc) - from here on out, it DOES NOT MATTER what you say or do, or who is court-martialled for any offence. The Arab world will read it as "coalition cutting off peoples bollocks and jabbing electrodes up their arses". The report may not even be TRUE (as some have not been) - that is immaterial to them as well.
If the report is TRUE - Mass protests throughout the Arab world, lives lost, increase in attacks on our troops.
If the report is UNTRUE - Mass protests throughout the Arab world, lives lost, increase in attacks on our troops.
Regardless of the accuracy of the report, what good comes of it, for us OR them? ZERO.
You cannot reason with the unreasonable. These terrorists are not driven by money, politics, regional power or any of the 'traditional' motivators. You cannot negotiate with them. Their aim is to destroy western society, and Israel, and set up a worldwide fundamentalist Islamic government to enslave us all. They will kill us, our colleagues, our friends, our neighbours, our wives and our children, in cold blood and in some of the most horrible ways imaginable given half the chance, and film it and broadcast it across the world. They are indistinguishable from the ordinary citizens of Arab / Islamic countries, who just want to get on with their lives.
We CANNOT win this war by being 'nice' to them. We will NEVER win the hearts and minds of Islamic terrorists. If causing them some temporary discomfort gives us the intelligence we need to fight this war, and the GC prevents us from doing that, we need to look at the GC again very carefully. After all, after 57 years, I think it's due a review, don't you?
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