Churchill Torture Claim: Sorry, No Cigar

May 1st, 2009 (3) Posted By Pat Dollard.

obama_profound

I might stop making fun of the gay NPR. All the things they consider seem to miss the greater issues. If done with an English accent, I guess it’s OK to (once or twice) question the Big O.

NPR: At a news conference this week, President Obama evoked the name of Winston Churchill when he said the British Empire didn’t torture its prisoner during World War II. Ian Cobain is a reporter for the Guardian newspaper. He says the British actually tortured a number of prisoners during the war.

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  • Scout01

    President Obama needs to brush up on WW2 history and Churchill, if he wants to use them as examples of “Moral” behavior.

    We have all been bombarded with news about torture. We have our own ideas about what level harsh interrgation techniquies cross the line into torture. We also know the situations that would reveal our true stance will not be forthcoming, unless a truely unforseen situation arose to test it. I’m for levels of interrogation that are useful in extracting information from those inhuman elements of man that prey on on the lawabiding majority.

    “A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.” –Thomas Jefferson

    “The secrets of the London Cage
    · Beatings, sleep deprivation and starvation used on SS and Gestapo men
    · POW camp in Kensington kept secret and hidden from Red Cross

    The London Cage was used partly as a torture centre, inside which large numbers of German officers and soldiers were subjected to systematic ill-treatment. In total 3,573 men passed through the Cage, and more than 1,000 were persuaded to give statements about war crimes. The brutality did not end with the war, moreover: a number of German civilians joined the servicemen who were interrogated there up to 1948.

    The Cage was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Scotland, a forceful, outspoken man deemed to have the perfect background. Although English, the colonel had served briefly in the German army in what is now Namibia shortly after the turn of the century, and was later awarded the OBE for his work interrogating German prisoners during the first world war. In 1939, at the age of 57, he was recalled for service.

    The Cage had space for 60 prisoners at any time, and five interrogation rooms. Scotland had around 10 officers serving under him, plus a dozen NCOs who served as interrogators and interpreters. Security was provided by soldiers from the Guards regiments, selected, one archived document asserts, “for their height rather than their brains”.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/nov/12/secondworldwar.world

  • JayMS

    Susan Estrich, for all her stupidity, at least offers up a missing sense of perspective on this complete non-issue. Harsh interrogation tecniques were a response to Islamic nutjobs flying planes into buildings. The public wanted action and Bush did just that. This hand-wringing horseshit is an outright embarassment.

    But I have no doubt that this cheap political theater will come back to bite BHO in the ass. What is he going to say when another tall building collapses in flames or shopping malls start exploding? It will be funny to watch him in front of a TV camera with his dick in the air lecturing about “moral authority”, “soft power” and “multilateralism”.

  • Sully

    I can’t find a source from which Barry could make a valid claim to any ‘moral authority’.
    It’s not curriculae of any school he attended.
    It’s not a part of Jeremiah Wrights theology or church even if Barry had been listening.
    And according to him his own grandmother was a racist.

    He has no standing to decide the ‘morality’ of anything let alone “torture”.