You’ve been reading too much American propaganda friend Paul. The kind that attempts to portray Americans as almost another species. We’re human, just like everyone else. And war tends to bring out the animal in our species…and American’s aren’t immune.
When the people in this country agree what is and is not torture…and whether it is or is not acceptable by whatever definition, the there will be hope that, at least our government won’t do such things as a matter of policy. This won’t prevent it all of course, as war brings out that animal in all of us (you and me included if we were put in a bad enough situation)…but at least it won’t be a matter of official policy. I’m not hopeful however that the citizens in this country will agree on the key points however…at least not any time soon.
Is anyone but me upset that we seem to have “outside contractors” who quite often are cited as having performed these acts? Does everything in modern life have to be subcontracted out to save money, or whatever the reason?
“The FBI on Tuesday released documents showing at least 26 of the agency’s employees witnessed aggressive mistreatment and harsh interrogation techniques of prisoners by other government agencies or outside contractors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
“W heard that every time the FBI established rapport with a d, the military would step in and d would stop being cooperative. Rumor that military would present themselves as FBI agents.”
God gave us our nature so that we might have something to overcome. If it is in our nature to beat and torture those in our care, the best of us rise above it.
Is it torture or not? Simple way to find out. Get a case of beer a couple of buddies and some carpenter tools. Build a waterboard. Read on the internet how it is done. Try it out. Report back. Fairly straightforward.
I for one do not need to resort to that. The freakin’ Khmenr Rouge used waterboarding. That is (as we say in police work) a ‘clue’ it is torture.
one, the general inertia of buying that “outsourcing saves money” (it doesn’t always but that’s a different thread)
two… it wasn’t “our guys” who did it! It wasn’t federal agents, american soldiers, some good men! No, no, no, just the subcontractors!
Oh. It’s OK, then.
Actually, this is a better point that a flip answer would indicate. This administration is big on fallback public relations position.
We never did it.
We did it but stopped.
We did it and kept doing it but it’s OK for whatever reason.
Maybe it’s not OK but it’s being done.
And so on and so forth. It begins to strain my credulity to believe ANYTHING the administration says to counter an argument or assertion against it. It’s getting to the point where I’m jumping straight to believing the worst because it seems likely to be true.
I was thinking the other day about what a far cry from modern life it must have been like to live in ancient Rome and to, in the course of daily life, walk down streets or walk past squares where some wretch had been nailed to a cross for whatever offense.
But then I wondered just how different things are now. True, there aren’t any wretches being tormented on public streets and squares, but we’re aware of those being tormented in secret places thanks to our modern mass media. And agents of our government ARE torturing people.
Of course, a lot of people who just shrug their shoulders and move on when waterboarding is brought up might have a different opinion of it if it were done in public on street corners and such. At least, I’d LIKE to think so. But I dunno about my fellow Americans any more. I have to admit, my opinion of them has gone down, and it wasn’t all that high in the first place.
Watch the direct personal insults. I’m sure we’d all hate to lose your insightful posts.
Nothing has changed IN PEOPLE’S attitudes, not in what is HAPPENING.
However, since you’re insisting on bringing it up, we’re supposed to take whose word that such things aren’t happening anymore?
My POINT is that there is now “evidence”. Only those at the level of Shodan and magellan01 pretended that these things didn’t happen. Seems like pretty much everyone else out there knew what was going on. Nobody even bothered denying that they weren’t doing THESE particular things, no, it was just that THESE particular things weren’t actually torture.
You get one video of a kidnapped US soldier being waterboarded and you can bet your ass it would be considered “torture”. You can also bet the US use of it would go underground so fucking fast it’d make your head spin.
“Oh no, what we called ‘waterboarding’ was totally different from that!” I imagine some weasel would point out that the ter’ists used pine while our guys use nicely scented cedar.
If I get banned for pointing out that you were being an over reactive ass, then so be it. Feel free to report me. In future you COULD simply explain what you mean instead of going off…just a thought.
Thats all you had to say old boy. When you said ‘Nothing has changed’, this implied (to me) that you were saying these things were ongoing…thus my request for a cite.
Do I need to draw YOU a diagram perhaps? Whats going to get you to calm down here?
There was a time when America did not accept torture. Now people on this board argue for it. This is not the America I was raised in. It does not work and it is wrong. Our government lies and blames subordinates when caught. Take it to the top. Rummy and Bush own this .
