Bush said, “We do not torture”.
That’s good enough for me.
I know. It was wishful thinking.
Not really. Define Severe. I’m honestly not being pedantic, but your severe and my severe are different. We can agree that chopping off fingertips is severe, but is violating cultural ideals or customs considered ‘severe’?
We HAVE to follow what we say we ‘won’t’ do with a manual for the people who aren’t supposed to do it, that doesn’t mean we won’t do it if we need to.
Hardly. We’ve spent the last 30 years breeding attackers and the last 7 years have been no different. The nation-building, regime changing and generally sticking our nose where it doesn’t belong has created the next generation of radicalized attackers.
No, we don’t. Further, we don’t have the stomach to allow our bad guys to deal with their bad guys. We like to think we’re better than the worst, but we’re not, we’re only different. In cases like this where we face a determined, desperate and faily well funded enemy that is using guerilla tactics and is not afraid to kill innocents with impunity. To say you’re repulsed doesn’t go far enough, nor does it address the truth. We can’t do a thing about what we’ve already done, we CAN fix the future and how we exist in it, still, we can’t do THAT until the people that hate us, also have either enough respect or enough fear of us. Since our wicked western ways don’t allow respect, fear is the next option. Unless of course you have another solution.
Agreed. Still, how to fix it? We will be attacked again. It’s not an if, it’s a when. Not because of Obama, not because of any party or person, but because we’re soft. We don’t quite have the resolve that our enemies do. Either we can break that resolve or buy it, and if we buy it, then they’re pissed off and rich. Bad combination.
I didn’t SAY any and all actions are permissible. I said that there are methods that work and ones that don’t.
Frankly, the Abu Ghraib photos don’t break my heart. Not to say I approve or am in anyway condoning it, but cruel? Perhaps a little bit, but rising to the level of torture? Not so much.
Ah, another standard right wing argument. “They all already hate us as much as humanly possible, so nothing we do can make it worse !” Wrong. We have created new enemies where there were none before, and discredited our cause.
Foreigners are not the borglike hive mind you are implying, they are NOT all our enemy, nor do they all hate us as much as humanly possible. But we’ve spent the last 7 years making sure not only that more would hate us, but that they are right to do so.
Oh, please. We’ve slaughtered and we’ve tortured. We have all the compassion of rabid dogs and we’ve shown it.
We could stop conquering and torturing people. But you’ll never admit that as a solution, because that would require admitting that many of our enemies are right to hate us. That quite a few of them are in the right, that we are in the wrong, and that our “wicked Western ways” have nothing to do with why most of our victims hate us.
If American isn’t what you call “soft”, then it is evil and SHOULD be destroyed.
No, merely evasive. You’re looking for a way to say we didn’t do it, without being too blatantly dishonest about it.
The manual constitutes orders. Torture methods have to be specifically ordered to countermand that. Yes, it matters.
Is that what you’re calling our invasion and destruction of Iraq, and the killing of hundreds of thousands of its people, most of whom have family members who didn’t hate us before but do now? Do you see any connection with the heavy *growth *in AQ membership since we started fighting them? Any connection at all?
Don’t fucking dare include anybody but yourself in that “we” shit. That’s a fucking lie.
A typical rhetorical device, lumping and depersonalizing an opposition into a monolithic and implacable The Enemy. Civilized people see through that one pretty easily.
We can stop being bad guys. Yes we can. You clearly don’t want to, based on all these lame excuses, but yes, we can stop.
Which is it, respect or fear? Fear is off the board, they don’t have a reason for anything but hate. Respect can be earned, by acting civilized. There is, fortunately, some evidence that we’ve started - including by stopping the use of torture.
[qutoe[Since our wicked western ways don’t allow respect, fear is the next option. Unless of course you have another solution.
[/quote]
I have an option for you. Educate yourself. Learn a little bit about the world. Maybe take a psych class and a history class once you get to college. Get to understand how people really work in the real world. Put down the fantasies. Then maybe you won’t post such disgusting bullshit.
quote]We will be attacked again. It’s not an if, it’s a when. Not because of Obama, not because of any party or person, but because we’re soft.
[/quote]
No, because we’ve given too many people too much reason to hate us. We’ve established too well that force is the only language many of us understand. Your “contributions” here are evidence of a widespread refusal to think of anyone else as actually human, just like us - that attitude towards others breeds the kind of response in them that you claim to be inevitable.
Try this: Tell us who these “enemies” are. No more of this faceless, monolithic lumping; tell us who their decisionmakers are, how they got into those positions, what their goals are. Then maybe it can become possible to discuss with you how to affect their actions.
But none that are just immoral, that make us no better than these “enemies” you despise.
What would you think if you were one of those prisoners? That you were taking part in a “fraternity prank”, like Limbaugh says? Or something else - what? Remember that those are real people, almost exactly like yourself. What would you think?
So you’re prepared to submit to it yourself?
A little more stalling on the part of the US might be worthwhile, just so we can see the evildoers [del]kidnapped[/del] extraordinarily rendered* and flown to France for trial:
*not like what happens at the hog processing plant, but like what the CIA does to foreigners they don’t like.
CNN.com - More images of abuse at Abu Ghraib - Feb 15, 2006
You did not see the pictures. You just saw the ones released in America. There were a lot more and the nastier ones were not shown here. This article describes a few of them. They did not get them all in Australia either. It was much worse.
It’s kind of funny how the torture-supporters think. They’ve got the idea that America is pretty much on the verge of collapse, that our people are weak, that we can’t compete against the real tough guys of the world.
They think the Taliban and Al Qaida are the wave of the future, and America is doomed unless we become more like them. Forget George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. They were pussies who didn’t understand what it takes in the real world.
America has a cultural tendency to assume that ruthlessness and evil are more effective; even when we restrain ourselves we think of it in terms of self sacrifice, not that being good is more effective as well as more moral. We tend to automatically assume that things like torture or dictatorship are more effective & efficient without actually checking.
I would rather the United States deal with this issue. Those, particularly in the media, who think this matter is embarrassing to the United States and therefore should be quickly stepped over may want to consider the embarrassment of the international community prosecuting a former POTUS and his administration. Initially, I thought any attempt to prosecute Bush or members of his administration would be too damaging to American society, too much for the American people. I have changed my mind. As a society, this deplorable chapter in history needs to be acknowledged and those responsible need to be held accountable.
The fact that an American citizen was denied his civil rights, held for over three years and tortured is all the evidence needed to show how dangerously close all Americans came to surrendering their rights to tyranny.
And we re-make those enemies with every new administration. Those that are determined to hate us will do so regardless of our alleged morality or lack of it.
I’m not saying “foreigners” I’m saying “enemies”. Al Qaeda, Taliban etc. I would love to travel to countries like Afghanistan or Iraq/Iran, with the kind of history that exists in that part of the world, it would be incredible. Further, there is more than enough evidence that says the average citizen of those countries WANT a democratic society, to be free to do, to think, to be. The problem isn’t the citizen, the problem, as I’ve said are the radicalized fundamentalists. Not too long ago 19 men brought a nation of 300 million to a fucking standstill, and we saw what were reported to be average citizens dancing in the streets as the the NYC skyline burned. It’s hard for most people to get beyond that and creates hate in OUR country where before there was only indifference.
Of course we have. We just don’t like to believe we’re doing it because we have a supposed morality to try and live up to.
We could, hell, we SHOULD but we can’t and we won’t. Our enemies are dead right to hate what our government has done, but let’s be realistic for a moment and admit that no matter WHAT we do, there is an element of radicalized fundamentalists who will hate us because we allow drinking, or because we allow women to lead or because we have money. Pick a reason, you’ll find a group.
This has gone on for 40 years and will continue until we reach the tipping point. It will be ugly for everyone by then.
Not sure I understand this, explain.
This is a sticking point for me. If our “enemies” are going to hate us regardless of whether we are moral or immoral (for lack of better terms), then why the hell would we ever choose to be immoral?
It also kind of raises the question of why they hate us in the first place.
It’s not because of our freedom.
It’s because they cancelled Baywatch.
Is that an oversimplification? Of course.
Are there other factors? Sure.
Is it accurate to state that a major motivation of some Jihadis is the perceived opposition of Western values to Islamic fundamentalism? Hell yes.
And if we choose to be moral it kind of damages any arguments they’d have to convince others to hate us too.
So over all torturing just increases our enemies and dangers they pose. Only a traitor who cared nothing for America, or an incredible moron would choose it.
Republicans are full of both kinds. Also torture is a war crime.
Republicans: the party of traitors, fools, hypocrites, and despot war criminals.
The label will only stop applying when they join a movement to extradite Bush and his henchmen to the ICC to face a war crimes trial.
So much for the rallying cry of “no judicial activism,” right?
If they wanted waterboarding to be permitted, they should change the law and define it so it is not “torture.”
Please. We did it, I know we did it, they know we did it, the issue isn’t that it was done, rather, was it torture as defined. If it was, it was, then the next question is, was it necessary?
I know what the manual does, and although it constitues orders, the persons executing those orders just maybe aren’t following the book.
Yes, that’s what I’m calling it because that’s what it IS. I didn’t, don’t and refuse to agree with this godawful ‘war’. But this isn’t the first time we’ve made enemies of friends and it won’t be the last. The only difference is that we’ve done it in greater numbers this time.
Whatever gets you through the night, cousin. It’s
Don’t disagree here either, but does personalizing someone who wants you dead make them any less dangerous?
Sure we can. We can ask them nicely to stop plotting, to stop flying planes into buildings, to stop trying to acquire nukes or bioweapons. Stop training rogue killers, if you stop, we’ll stop too, k? Let me know how that works out, eh?
Respect or fear would work either way, but we don’t have enough courage to instill fear nor enough political capital to instill respect. I agree that say we aren’t going to torture goes a long way to generating that capital, but we’ve got a long way to go, because not only do we have to stop SAYING we torture, but we actually have to stop DOING it.
Because of this mess, since 2001 I’ve learned quite a bit. From men who’ve fought side-by-side with Iraqis, from military tacticians, from people who have on the ground experience and I think I’ve got a fair grasp on the real world implications of our meddling. What I’ve found is that the current mess we’re in is a result of a complex series of terse interpersonal connections that have gone south and stayed there. Deals made and reneged on, lies told and promises unkept.
This isn’t NEW. They’ve hated us for DECADES. We funded Osama Bin Laden to fight against the Russians, and he turned on us because of our dealings with his enemy. I don’t know anything about you, but from the things I’ve learned from the men who’ve been to the places we’re only talking about, it seems that you’re the one without a true grasp of the situation. My contributions are meant to see the problem in the wide view. Of course I know we’re dealing with humans, I’ve never denied that, but for those who are against the things we’re helping the people of those countries fight for; freedom, democracy, trade I absolutely draw a hard line. If you don’t want your countrymen to be free and your countrymen want freedom, you are on the wrong end of the fight.
See above.
Woah, wait a minute, I don’t despise the enemy (as previously described) and no fighter should. I think the enemy is an obstacle to a goal, and you can win him over, or remove him from the fight. Generally, when the goal is freedom for the people, the fight is a fierce one. Sometimes, you have to be on the same ground as your enemy and let him know there is no length to which you won’t go to win your fight. It’s as much psychological as it is physical.
Good lord I hate Limbaugh. I’d hate it, not saying I wouldn’t, hell, I’m not even approving of it, but the naked pyramid, the guy with the spooky hood, the guy with the dog collar, that was all fairly sadistic and again, I don’t really approve of it if it’s for the sake of taunting alone, but if we’re talking about death by 1000 cuts or electrical shock vs. those things, I’d rather have the nake pyramid.
I haven’t looked at gonzo’s link yet, so perhaps I’ll be more appalled later.
And it’s a fair point, honestly, I get it. Still, sometimes you’ve got to get your hands dirty. This is a fact of life. You can be conditioned not to break under even the harshest of conditions, if you know your captors are only going to ask you questions and perhaps play some john denver to break your spirit, you’ll deal. If you think this man is going to drug you, beat you, tear you to shreds, drown you and leave you to die, maybe you’ll give up the intel. That same reason is why torture, real painful torture doesn’t work though. There’s a line that we as civilians can’t know the location of. We’ve got to trust our people on the ground, a strict “we never torture” policy that equals “we won’t even make you uncomfortable, won’t insult your mother and we’ll give you a cheese sandwich” isn’t going to get the intel we need.