Petraeus speaks out on Gitmo, torture

[bascule]

This was a rather interesting interview:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=5457154

 

I don't think we should be afraid to live our values

 

General Petraeus says he thinks a responsible closure of Gitmo is a good idea. He would like us to move forward beyond scrutinizing past cases of torture, but suggests that existing methods of interrogation work just fine and there was no need for "extended interrogation" techniques. He suggests that torture has lost us huge points in the court of public opinion and thus is counterproductive to winning in Afghanistan.

 

I've had mixed opinions about Petraeus in the past but this was a very interesting interview to watch and I'm generally pleased with his responses.

 

The reaction from the talking heads at Fox was rather hilarious. The co-anchor committed a few diction errors within the span of about 10 seconds as he tried to use some $10 words whose definitions he didn't really know.

 

Values are fungible during times of war

 

Yeah, I don't think "fungible" means what you think it means there guy. Perhaps the word you were looking for was "flexible". Either way that was a pretty sickening statement coming in direct response to the Petraeus interview. Here's the guy who's in charge of the "war" saying we need to stick to our values, and Fox's response is "No we don't, we're at WAR"

 

I really hate that sentiment.

[Mokele]

"If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values: they're hobbies."

— Jon Stewart

[Pangloss]

I agree. Procedures, and even laws, can be flexible in their application under the right circumstances, or updated/replaced when determined to be insufficient to circumstances. But if your values have become flexible then I think you need to ask yourself if they are really your values at all.

[bascule]

Perhaps by fungible he meant that during times of war we can buy and sell values like commodities

[Pangloss]

"Light Sweet Values opened down 30 today following overseas trading on news from the recent negotiations with North Korea. Secretary Clinton tried to calm investors, saying that recently captured North Korean president Kim Jung-il has not been waterboarded, as some reports claimed, but in fact confessed after watching six hours of outtakes from American Idol."

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Now there's an interrogation technique I can agree with.