I read threads like this and am dismayed by the apparent desire I see to have the US be the bad guys. It seems like a lot of you are really eager that the US be wrong, that Bush be wrong. That we be evil.
I see no other way to explain the hyperbole and jumping to conclusions. Believe what you want to believe.
I for one, would like to see the executive order, if it exists before I make any conclusions.
But then, I don’t hate my country. I am not blinded by that hate or my hate for Bush, or by paranoia. I don’t want us to fail, or to be the bad guys.
Further, I am more concerned about our soldiers and civilians who are getting their heads chopped off. When I compare that fact to the accusation that we are allegedly by executive order, treating detainees like med students, I feel pretty confident that I’m on the right side of this conflict.
We have been the bad guys.
It’s a matter of public record.
Now the point is to stop being the bad guys, yes?
What if The US does things that are wrong, what if Bush does things that’re, if not evil, certainly not very nice (or just)?
And, how would ‘we’ become evil if the US government were to commit some really bad deeds?
If the report is true, would you come to the same ‘hyperbolic’ conclusions?
If it’s true and you wouldn’t come to the same ‘hyperbolic’ conclusions, why wouldn’t you?
Can’t you make the conclusion that if it’s true, you will give it your condemnation?
Neither do I.
I happen to love it fiercely.
If it is true, it’s not paranoid, now is it?
And if it’s true, it automatically demands condemnation, doesn’t it?
And if we had acted like the ‘bad guys’, what would be the right thing to do?
Deny it, because you “didn’t want us to be the bad guys.”
Or accept it, and try to change it?
Just wonderin’
Good, then you oppose torturing prisoners as it will lead to more of this behavior, right?
Do I need to pull out the abu graib photos and testimony?
I haven’t kept up with the news, but I saw enough to grok the gestalt of what was going on.
So you will put into the permanent record of the Straight Dope
“I, Cylla will decry, in the strongest possible terms, the person or persons who authorized/commited/knew about such actions and the actions themelves should they be proven to be true.”
?
That’s the point, though. Why would an Israeli flag “infuriate them as deeply as possible”? If that’s truly the case, the problem is within themselves, not with anyone else.
Wherever the problem may lie, it is still not wise to exacerbate this situation by hitting problem areas as hard as possible.
This is not the way to fight the war on terror or win hearts and minds.
Who’s to blame are the perps themselves for behaving in a way that anyone with Kindergarten level education knows is wrong. I dunno that blame needs to go any farther up than that.
I hate war. For any reason you care to offer, I hate it. We delivered a war package to Iraq that was, for whatever reason, insufficient to ensure the happiness and safety of the good people in the occupied land. I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, and it pleases my heart to vilify The Little Facist in The White House, and to say he’s an idiot and that his entire cabinet is incompetent and that I could have done better. But I can’t believe this is the case. One nutjob in the bunch–Oh hell yeah, totally possible. All in cahoots to fleece a third world nation and establish an outpost in the Middle East from which to launch an all out assault on Islam while simultaneously securing vast oil fields? Mmmmmm…mmmmaybe. All incompetent bumblefucks with Bush in charge? Nah. Too many bright people involved–unless you’re willing to go all the way and say that they belong to a secret organization of some kind that orchestrated 9/11 as the kickoff to a decade of waste and horror. That sounds fun, but I’m not ready to go there just yet.
I was an MI punk once upon a time. I delivered the best product I could, but Intel is only as good as the source, collector and analyst that handle it, and it gets stale f.a.s.t. Saddam was a nutjob, but a damned tough one and he ran one tight ship. So tight that reliable info on him and his doings was not as easily obtained as misinformation or just plain dead ends. His subjects were terrorized for decades–distrustful of one another as they were of him. Their “liberators” had demonstrated 10 years earlier just how much they could be trusted to protect them from the old regime. And their “liberators” were neither Muslim nor Arab, and that matters. How can you hope to win hearts and minds that don’t see the world the way you do? As an apple for the picking? As a world devoid of God’s presence? GI Joe is not a bad man, just like Habib the Iraqi is not a bad man. But the distrust…I wonder how many Joe’s knew that Saddam was our pet once upon a time? I wonder how many Iraqis knew that!
I think the war seemed necessary at the time, based on intelligence which may or may not have been accurate (WMD).
I think that once we were installed in a leaderless Iraq it would have been irresponsible to pull out and leave the Iraqis prey to their neighbors. GROSS GENERALIZATION: Arabs will tear each other’s throats out over ancient tribal fueds, but will put all that on hold to fend off an intruder. What would the Persians & Kurds have gotten up to after we left? Mischief of one kind or another.
I’ll fault Bush for failing to cultivate alliances pre-9/11 and for refusing to effectively exploit the world’s compassion post-9/11. I’ll fault him for being inflexible, a poor spin doctor, and a poor communicator. But as much as it galls me to admit this, I don’t have the information available to me to say that his personal incompetence alone is what led us to the disaster we now face.
I have no answers here, and I’m sorry I jumped into this thread–I’m just an insurance guy–but crimes happen right here at home despite the presence of police. Is it so hard to believe that the humans who would brutalize other humans would only do so if they had a green light from The Prez? Isn’t it more realistic to believe that The Boss said, “Be aggressive, we want to minimize damages caused by insurgencies.” and that that coincided with people just being people–occasionally someone behaves badly.
And Bush said and did everything he could in order to get reelected. Being a shit and playing peoples’ emotions is nothing new in politics.
Answer the question, asshole. What is so fucking fragile about these Arab captives’ psyches that the Israeli flag “infuriates them as deeply as possible”?
Maybe it’s because they’re bigots?
Now, I’m sure plenty of things in this world infuriate KKK-bigots and anti-gay bigots, but we don’t accomdate them and their beliefs. Why should we make exceptions for anti-Israeli bigotry?
The KKK bigots and anti-gay bigots you refer to exist within our culture (US) such as it is. Over the last 500 odd years we’ve come to the conclusion that, while we might hold bigoted beliefs, it’s really not polite to act on them.
The Middle East is NOT the US, and it’s a bit small minded to demand that they relenquish their “bigotries” because we in this hemisphere would prefer they do so. Such a demand would in itself be biggoted. No?
Why, yes, of course! And if you pose two men in positions implying fellatio, and take photos of them with the object of humiliating them, well, then it’s their fault for being homophobic!
You just keep thinking, Millroyj, its what you’re good at.
And Scylla, we talked about this, remember? How you promised never to post again after watching O’Reilly without at least half an hour to detoxify.
Well, yes, soldiers who commited acts of barbarism are to be condemned and prosecuted. But, the blame needs to go higher if it was ordered at a higher level, or if it was allowed to continue by superior officers.
To a degree you’re right, the reason doesn’t matter, the propaganda value for our enemies is the same.
However, why shouldn’t we hold our politicians feet to the fire, especially when they wage war?
If it turns out that Bush authored the EO, can he be legitimately ‘vilified?’
One nutjob who wasn’t noticed? Oh hell, no.
But if they’re so competent and capable, how the fuck did this happen?
If they intended this consequence they are vile, if the couldn’t forsee it they are incompetent.
Yes?
By helping them to increase their standard of living.
By providing for education.
By ceasing to act in an imperealistic fashion.
People seeing the world differently is allowable divergence in ‘hearts and minds’.
People seeing the world differently and therefore wanting to murder americans is not.
I don’t understand the point of this…
The intel was cherrypicked. And that alone makes the whole procedure suspect.
Maybe then it would have been more responsible to proceed with full UN backing and a multinational unit of peace keeping forces?
If it’s a gross generalization, and thus of dubious truth value/utility, why use it?
Fair enough, then, what led to it?
How?
Who knew what, what standards should they be held to, and what can we do about it?
Don’t be sorry for jumping into the thread, feel free to participate.
And, yes, crimes happen right here at home, but it’s not the police commiting them, and when it is, the justice system is supposed to come down on them like a ton of briks.
But, wouldn’t that make it the president’s fault for giving a green light?
This seems to have been a lot of people behaving badly for quite some time.
And even if this was a directive from the boss stating that we had to be more agressive, isn’t someone responsible for how that order is carried out?
Nope, certainly isn’t.
But if Bush did what it seems he may have? Doesn’t that elevate his crimes beyond mere demagogery?