So why wait, let’s pronounce the verdict now!
Can’t you see the difference between,
“US tortured dozens of people to death!”
and
“Army investigations discovered 7 cases of death by torture. Perpetrators are being prosecuted. Further investigations pending.”
Wow, I haven’t read that in years. I guess I need to see if you have any need for a Lt.
I really wouldn’t mind the whole wash them and get them ready for you job either. Sounds like it might be fun.
Jim
Not that he deserves it, but I have to kind of defend Updike a little: I too was wooshed by Tom’s post about people dying from excess light. I thought he meant that with all that light people couldn’t sleep, and I know people have died from sleep deprivation.
Steve: Australia is indeed open for ‘management’ once I achieve global domination. I will, however, expect you to train and deliver an army of fighting kangaroos to me.
jrfranchi: We always need more lieutenants. If you would like, you may become The Lieutenant in Charge of Slave Girls. You’ll just have to become a eunuch first. Company rules. I’m sure you understand. If you change your mind there are still some other countries open though.
Poor reasoning, I’m afraid. My subsequent points that one is too many is simply to set the moral dimension to my argument. They were not exagerations, did you ignore all the cites I’ve provided? An estimate of roughly two dozen is the absolute lowest, with the miitary already estimating 26.
There should be a special fallacy for when people claim that a court of law is the ultimate arbiter of factual evidence. Jusisprudence ≠ epistemology.
Good thing I’m not a lawyer and people are allowed to make factual determinations even outside of a court of law, eh?
“Little Timmy, did you eat all the cookies?”
“Nuh uh mom.”
“But all the cookies are gone and there are crumbs all over your face.”
“So what, you can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I had any cookies, maybe I just got crumbs on my face.”
“Oh, you’re right. Next time I’ll have the DA build a better case. Now brush your teeth.”
This is exactly why I said we should not be overly eager to parse ‘deaths from torture’. If seven were tortured to death, that means they died while being tortured (like the guy whose head we put in a plastic bag before shackling him into an immoble position.). But the rest were criminal homicides, which means they died some time after being tortured, due to the torture they received. Does it really matter if you die of your life threatening injuries while being beaten or later that evening?
Good lord, pages and pages of calling people stupid. This and in my thread.
A total waste of time. No one is going to be convinced.
Just call each other names.
That works well. Juvenile shit.
Is their no control on this board? Sure as hell should be.
Will do. They will make excellent infantry - they can cover any terrain with ease at extreme rates of speed, and we don’t have to supply boots for them either. Instead of rifles, they will carry 45’s, as a concession to their rather tiny arms. How many ya need, when do ya want 'em? 
Hey, if you can’t handle the stupid, get out of the Pit.
Steve: I’d say that 10,000 Killer Kommando Kangaroos should be delivered to me within one year of your ascension to Emperor of Australia, and 10,000 every year after that point. Ideally they should be dressed all in black. Like ninja kangaroos. Then they can flip out and kill people.
Hey! There were other varied insults as well. (As well as a great deal of factual and logical refutation.)
And yet, a great many people who were not aware of the monumental stupidity of Uppy and Isky have now been made aware. The purpose of Pitting someone else is not always to convince them, sometimes it’s just to vent. Sometimes it’s to challenge them and make them look like an even bigger fool than before the Pit thread.
Welcome to the Pit. (You’ve got the holier than thou tone down pretty well.)
You will also notice, if you’re being honest, that this thread is not simply a string of ad hominem fallacies. Yes, people have been called stupid as well as wrong, but nobody has been called wrong because they are stupid. At least not that I’m aware of.
I’m actually somewhat curious as to how you missed all the logical and factual challenges made.
If you feel this thread breaks some sort of rule, you’re of course welcome to hit ‘report post’ and tell the mods why it’s beyond the pale. You should of course be aware that your characterization of this thread is inaccurate, and that you’re certainly not blameless of having content free snarky posts yourself. But hey, it’s the Pit, and you know what they say about heat and the kitchen.
Sure, I can see the difference. However, I can also see the clear trend leading from over 100 unnecessary deaths through 27 (that is over two dozens) illegal deaths to seven torture deaths. It indicates pretty strongly that as the number of know seaths rise, the numbers of known illegal deaths and torture deaths will also rise. Among the 27 known homicides are several beyond the seven that are strongly suspected of involving torture and as the numbers of all categories rise, your quibble is going to look very much like an inconsequential nitpick.
And with Bush and Cheney pleading that Congress never outlaw torture, we can probably count on the troops recognizing the intent of their leaders and carrying out more torture and more deaths.
Is it name calling, if the targeted person IS stupid, or is it simply statement of a well known fact? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze don’t ask for cites, the board would choke on the traffic from everyone. :eek:
A question, Tom, perhaps we’re using different defintions, but I don’t understand how those 27 can’t be said to be due to torture. Perhaps we’re defining torture differently?
It seems to me that if someone is deliberately dealt physical injuries/pain then that is torture. As I understand it, torture does not require interrogation or authorization from superior officers to be torture. If someone walks into your cell and starts beating you and you later die from it, I’m not sure if it actually matters whether it would be parsed as ‘torture’ or ‘abuse’.
And the fact that there are that many homicides does indeed speak to the fact that at least that many people met violent ends at our hands.
Can you perhaps clear up where I’m misreading you?
Each of the 20 persons who are not yet categorized as torture deaths may or may not have suffered beatings and abuse that lead to the deaths. I am pretty sure, for example, that several of them have been reported to have been shot. They may or may not have been tortured prior to their murder, but the method of death may not have involved torture: shooting, hanging if not carried out by slow strangulation, a single heavy blow to the head can all cause death without torture.
Ah, I grok. It is interesting, however, that according to our own government’s semantics, if it causes pain akin to organ failure or death it’s torture. So I suppose getting shot would qualify under that rubric.
I suppose we might need to parse those… but it still seems to me that under the working definition that I’ve been using, that of purposefully inflicting physical pain/damage, then shooting, hanging, etc, would all qualify. Although I do suppose that outright murder is a different moral matter than ‘merely’ tortuing someone so badly that they eventually die.
And then again, no matter what we call it, the reality of the events remains unchanged. But thanks for helping me to understand your position a bit better.
This FindLaw article makes a number of interesting poionts (not least being the ridiculous hoops the government is jumping through), but it includes the following:
An interesting definition, but it seems to have some holes in it.
For instance, it leaves out torture for the sake of torture, that is, blatant sadism. I also think that the focus on official capacity is somewhat diversionary. If, for example, a US soldier in his off time beats the living daylights out of someone for fun (as testified in the HRW report I linked to), it’s still, in my book, torture.
But still, it’s good to be discussing our terms and defining them rather than calling folks traitors. Why, this is like unto the School of Athens. I feel faint.
Good plan! Kangaroos come naturally equipped with stinger missiles.
Rumor has it he may have to fight off Evil Captor for that job, though.
Not at all. I’ve learned quite a bit about the torture situation in Iraq, seen some high quality cites, and some pretty good arguing. Not from the pittees, of course.
Can’t deny [at the risk of making this a lawn chair/popcorn post] that there’s been some first class entertainment as well.
Well, a couple of things:
That cite doesn’t actually show any of the data they used to arrive at those numbers, and in this day and age of exagerated claims and hyperbole and spin (on all sides) it’s hard for me to accept something unless I can also see the raw data from which the conclusions were drawn.
I will point out that the article says 27 “suspected or confirmed homicides.” That might mean 26 confirmed homicides and 1 suspected, or, 26 suspected and 1 confirmed homicide. We don’t know.
The other thing I will point out that is not mentioned is who perpetrated the homicides. I have seen pictures of the jail conditions that show crowding. Presumably this means that the prisoners are not isolated. So, the question is of the subset of the 27 suspected and confirmed homicides which ones are suspected or confirmed as perpetrated by US forces?
The other question is, of the seven that we are told died as a result of torture (or torture wa involved) how many of those are suspected or confirmed of being tortured by US forces?
Yesterday for example, US forces took over a detention center where the new Iraqi government had been torturing and abusing prisoners. You’ll remember this from the singular defense put up by the head of the installation. “We didn’t behead anybody.”
One might assume that some of those people died or will die, and there will be autopsies. Some of those will be labelled as homicide or suspected homicide and probably several of those will be labelled as having been tortured.
The question is how many of those twenty seven homicides/suspected homicides died while or were killed while the responsibility of US forces? How many of the seven tortured who later died had been tortured by other than US forces?
The actual examples your article gives don’t focus on this.
Oh, and by the way, thank you for posting a definition of torture. It seems that some need it.
Well of course it’s a good plan. I didn’t become an Evil Overlord by being pretty. 
Hrm. Would EC be willing to submit to the junkectomy? The slave girls do need someone who can take pride in their craft.
Need a definition or need to be tortured?