Ah, touché.
And could be rolled into a tube and used to smack the administration on the nose.
American authorities humiliate and torture prisoners housed in military detention facilities, film at 11.
Yeah, better string up the President responsible.
In fact, better dig up and string up all the past Presidents that might have condoned or approved anything like this ever before, right?
Don’t go off yet Skippy, I agree, it’s awful, it’s reprehensible, it’s illegal as anything, but let’s not all act like it’s news now, or ever before, ok? Maybe we can’t prove it’s never gone on before, but honestly. You think Rummy and his gang had this brilliant idea on their own?
“Hey guys, let’s TORTURE these guys and scare them and be really really mean to them ok”
“Gee, I dunno Master Rummy, that all sounds so NEW and UNTRIED, and besides what if we get caught???”
It’s crap, but it’s not news.
The difference between the Bush administration and EVERY OTHER ADMINISTRATION is that the Bush administration got caught at it. That’s all.
You know, sometimes torture IS justifiable. Nuclear bomb, millions of people will die, you know the drill. Except, if the information is so important that you’re willing to torture a potentially innocent person to get the information, why aren’t you also willing to ruin your career and face jail time to get the information? Would you go to jail for 10 years to save a million people from nuclear incineration? Why not?
Go ahead and torture the terrorist suspect if you think it’s important enough…but don’t expect to get a written pardon ahead of time. And if it turns out that the intelligence you gained saved countless innocent people then I’m sure the jury will take that into account during your trial. Heck, maybe you won’t even get a trial if the prosecutor thinks he’ll never get a conviction due to jury nullification.
Torture always must remain against the law and against policy, for very good reasons, even if very occasionally those laws and policies have to be broken for the greater good. But if it’s not important enough to risk being fired over, if it’s not important enough to risk going to jail over, it must not be important enough to torture someone over.
I disagree. Abu Ghraib and the Guantanamo detention center are facilities that were created by this administration. In both institutions, systematic mistreatment and/or torture of prisoners were widespread. Every effort was made to deny trials, those pesky nuisances that check the facts behind the arrests. These are not actions common to every other administration.
And even if they were, we still technically live in a society of laws. If we passively tolerate unacceptable actions on the part of our elected officials, then we are endorsing more such behavior in the future.
Getting lap dances from topless guards?
Shaking from the cold? In Gitmo?
All partisan bullshit aside I find these accusations need substantiation beyond the simple say so that they occured.
Is there substantiation?
And the way was paved by Ashcroft’s Patriot Act. Have you seen the draft of Patriot Act II? You’ll lie awake at night hoping every copy self-combusts.
The simple say so comes from:
1/ The FBI
2/ The maltreated
and they accord well.
The real trick is to get the dog to growl, bark and not show his teeth.
Unless you’re dealing with Ventrilo-Dog, a notorious Republican canine.
I’m surprised anyone is making light of the lap-dance allegation. If it involved a guard like Lynndie England, that arguably qualifies as torture in any setting.
A quick search shows that temperatures there can drop to the low 60’s at night. A person sitting in poor conditions with lots of concrete would probably be shivering at those temps. Here’s a day where it dropped to 62.
http://www.weatherunderground.com/history/airport/MUGM/2004/1/25/DailyHistory.html
I can “shake with cold” when it’s 70 and I’m at work, so I could believe it if I was sitting in a concrete cell after having been tortured for months or longer.
I think the topless lapdances sounds a bit of a stretch, but then who knows? Given the antics of Ms. England and others back in Iraq at another prison, I guess we really should be surprised that the prisoners weren’t dressed up like Rum Tum Tugger and subjected to routine Doberman ass-rapings while being forced to listen to Flight of the Bumblebee as played by Zamfir.
What Lemur said.
Hey, Una, I’m at work right now and if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to check me on something:
I don’t really want to google Rum Tum Tugger right now, do I?
This is not an accurate statement. The FBI has not offered an opinion as to whether these things have occured, but has solicited and collected allegations of FBI employees at Gitmo. Out of ±250 interviews they received 26 allegations. These allegations fall into several categories.
- Witnessed
- Told about
- Heard a rumor about
The FBI “employees” themselves include foreign nationals from muslim countries and some are characterized in the report as being “moderately” friendly to the US.
As to the second part, I did not see where the part in the 244 page report linked to which shows the corrobation between the detainees.
Could you show that to me, for, say, the lap dance?
When you read these kind of things and reports, there are two basic knee-jerk reactions that you could have. You can believe it, because it confirms what you believe to be true and supports stance. Or, you can deny it because you don’t want to believe it and it hurts your stance.
I think both are bad ideas, and would prefer to examine it skeptically.
You on the other hand have made a judgement already and wish to shit on the American flag (Why?) and freeze George Bush.
Not unsurprisingly, you lack the familiarity with the material incumbent upon a prudent person doing his due diligence prior to rendering judgement.
You appear to be just another knee jerk left wing nutjob. Congratulations. You’ll do well here.
It’s safe enough – it’s one of the characters in the musical Cats.
Actually, Una, I’m using this as an example to point out the ignorance of the posters here who are automatically accepting these assertions at face value without any attempt at due diligence and skepticism. If you read the report (which apparently nobody has,) this is actually one of the more credible allegations. The man was apparently left in a room with an air conditioner to deliberately make him uncomfortable and hypothermic.
If one had read the report one would see that this is one of the least credible incidents. It was not witnessed. One person “heard” that another female guard “bragged” about giving a lap dance.
Again, the OP makes high claims for corroboration but is not really familiar enough with his material to have a meaningful opinion.
This is the SDMB. Aren’t we supposed to be skeptical?
Yes. We are not, however, supposed to be selectively skeptical.
That’s what I have you for.
Why? When I saw that item on the list my first thought was: air conditioning. We know they have air conditioning at Gitmo, so what’s so odd about that claim?
Nothing is odd about the claim.
What is odd is that those supporting it aren’t familiar enough with it to even know what they are supporting.