The feeling of being overly positive about something that you did not personally witness is a feeling that should be heavily examined because of the dangers of taking action upon such a feeling.
One must do his best to conclude that he is not choosing to believe something out of fear as opposed to the avoidance of the realization of those fears.
The problem is that people substitute paranoia and gut reactions for systematic fact gathering. The reasons that people condone torture..such as fear of their "people" being harmed are the exact type of thing that cause people to think irrationally. Torture is an irrational behavior. It is a desperate attempt at achieving some ends...lashing out. It seems to me that many people are under the delusion that torturing suspects makes them powerful and in control. To me, it seems quite the opposite. The worst thing about all this is that a vast majority of the "torture" that occurs is probably a result of paranoia as opposed to facts. It drives me to the point of insanity that so many people don't seem to understand that when we allow torture to occur that we are becoming the evil thing we claim to want to fight. When you allow your judgment to be clouded to the extent that you must torture a person to relieve your anxiety, you have become just like the bug that you described. You are behaving on the same mental level.
I know that some people would say "I would rather be wrong and guilty than dead and innocent".....IMO torture removes the aspects of humanity that make life worth living. I know that it makes people feel more comfortable at night to think that those who are supposed to protect us would go apeshit and rip off someones balls if they thought it would save us. Our sound sleep should be equally dependent upon the fair treatment of the accused. The torture of innocents is the most vile injustice of all. Just as it is a soldier's duty to put his life on the line to protect us, it is our duty to put our life on the line to protect the ideals that those men and women fight to protect.
That's short sighted. "We'd better cover up the Holocaust, because it'd upset people." "We'd better cover up Watergate - we're at war and can't afford the uproar."
Not having disclosure and accountabilty gives license to the next acts.
The problems it causes are not any reason not to do it, short of perhaps nuclear war being prevented. But it IS often used as an excuse.
Wrong again. Even if they passed a bill for Gitmo, unless it specifically states that money will be used to torture, it isn't illegal. Gitmo itself isn't illegal, but things done there might be.
Again, if a prison guard beats a prisoner in a regular US prison, the guard faces charges. If he was told to do it, the other guards, or warden, or other personnel can face charges as well. The government (whether it is a state or federal) that is paying for the prison doesn't face charges.
So stop trying to indict the entire US congress for this. It reeks of a desperate ploy to shift blame away and spread it around to get people to think everyone knew about it.
Bush, Cheney, and whoever else that authorized, approved, and performed this should be up on criminal charges.
Congress has nothing to do with it, except for trying to create a smokescreen.
Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat
Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
Seems like the only "troll" here is the OP unless he can show where a "neocon" has stated that slicing genitals isn't "torture".
to give you some energy for your search...
There are plenty of people here that have supported all sorts of torture for the past 4+ years. From the " they are just terroristsand have no rights" defense, to the "waterboarding isn't torture, since we aren't hurting them" defense. Do a search, I'm sure you you will find plenty of people supporting the torture of terrorists.
So I'm waiting to see people make excuses/defenses of yet another new revelation. They defend waterboarding, why not this?
And from the responses so far, plenty of people are either ignoring or playing it down. Guess we know the answer.
I don't care who did it. Everyone involved need to charged and prosecuted. Dem, Rep, Martian, whatever.
So do you support prosecution for all involved? Well?
Still waiting for that response from CADsortaGUY
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
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Well then. Since there is no evidence of a clear directive by Bush and Cheney to torture, then they cant be indicted either. Afterall, how can they be held responsible for the actions of a few rogues?
Torture is torture, and we know where that line starts. Hint: it starts at waterboarding and gets worse from there. And we also know who around here generally defends torture, although perhaps once it reached the ball-slicing point, perhaps even those individuals would reconsider their stance. I'm convinced though, that there are those on these forums that would defend even this level of torture.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Did he give us any good intelligence? Maybe he should have contemplated the possibility of the enemy torturing him for information needed to prevent attacks against them before becoming a terrorist.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
But is it really "evil" if the "evil" is directed against people who are, in actuality, evil and who have already initiated violence against you?
What you are saying is like saying that shooting people is evil and therefore we shouldn't shoot soldiers in opposing armies because we don't want to become "evil" in order to defeat them. Instead we should bury them in a sea of love and lavish flowers and boxes of chocolate on them in order to defeat them.
ericlp
Diamond Member
- Dec 24, 2000
- 6,137
- 225
- 106
yeah like bush and rumsfield and don't forget about cheney, after all his daughter was gay, must of been some whakyness in the genes someplace.
But I agree, we aren't a free nation if we going to sweep shit under the carpet from it's people. I kinda feel like we might be living in Iran. What else are they going to "CHOOSE" to not tell us?
anyone up for a bit of selective dishonesty?
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Let's put this in context. The "people" being tortured have joined organizations that advocate or condone the murder of innocent people through terrorist attacks. In doing so, they have given up any claim to possessing individual rights and to being human. This is the mentality that we need to have if we are ever going to exterminate them--that we need to exterminate them ruthlessly and mercilessly and treat them, not like honorable enemy soldiers captured in battle, but like cockroaches.
The real travesty here is not that the detainees at Guantanamo are still detainees but rather that they were ever brought to Guantanamo in the first place and that they weren't pressed for information and then shot. The reason why we're still having problems fighting Al Quaeda and the Taliban is because we aren't willing to do what we need to do to get rid of them, which might mean dropping tens of millions of cluster mines in the mountains and whatnot.
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
To imagine a scenario under which the option to extract information via some illegal, inhumane, and otherwise unconscionable method is used requires a very in depth analysis of one's own self and that is near impossible to do... One cannot place one's self into a situation that does not exist and hope to formulate a plan of action that one would employ.
I am quite conversant with the points you raise. However, as close as I can come to understanding what I would do is based on what I think I'd do in that scenario. I might very well defer to the Rule of Law and attempt some legal and effective method and fail if that failed to preserve the lives and property my scenario indicated were in peril.
My thinking is that assuming I met the criteria I mentioned and was positive I just don't think I could let 3000 citizens face what I believed was certain death by complying with the Rules. I don't know what I'd really do, however... and I don't know what the threshold to cause me to be positive might be either... I'd have to cross that bridge when I came to it.
In Vietnam, a Sailor was charged with entering an enemy camp and to extract from that camp enemy who the intelligence folks 'thought' might have valuable information that could save American lives. This sailor (a Seal) proceeded to do this and did extract the enemy while killing many of the enemy. He sustained injury but continued to direct his unit. He was awarded the MoH. The information was as the Intel folks estimated and lives were saved... I don't know how much the enemy suffered as a result of that adventure but I'd think they did... and they did die. The ones extracted did not die but did reveal what was wanted from them.
That was war.. this is war.. both wars are/were not conventional in nature. The VC were ordinary citizens as are the Al Q group but they sought to kill Americans. Right or Wrong as their cause was their objective was to terminate Americans. If I were the Command Authority elected by the people to Preserve and Defend and had to make a choice on which do I do and which do I not do... I just have to think I'd opt for the bit that defended the lives of Americans and not comply with the bit that preserves the rights of non Americans.
Give me a break. Ethical and moral behavior isn't about other people, it's about YOU. What terrorists do or don't do can't change your ethics, or else they aren't ethics at all, just rules of convenience to be dropped again the next time they get in the way of you feeling self-righteous. And believe me, for people like you, that's an easy line to cross. Terrorists may have abandoned their humanity, which is why it's all the more important that we don't.
And on a more practical note, part of the reason we probably shouldn't go around extracting brutal vengeance against everyone is that we're not infallible. Not everyone we capture is undeniably guilty, in fact, there have been good arguments made that many if not the majority of the people we imprison in the war against terrorism aren't terrorists at all. Our justice system may serve a higher purpose of protecting the values that make this nation worth defending, but it also sometimes prevents us from making monstrous mistakes. Torturing and them summarily executing an enemy is bad, doing the same thing to someone who mistakenly believe is an enemy is much worse.
YES! Intrinsic evil is evil. Torture gains nothing other than the momentary "satisfaction" of inflicting pain and suffering on another. Committing such acts is the embodiment of evil.
Shooting and killing those who are attacking us is NOT the same as torturing captives who have been rendered unable to inflict harm on anyone. There's also the same problem that arises with the death penalty -- You can't un-kill or un-torture someone who is later found to be innocent.
That is, by definition, becoming the evil you say you want to defeat. When you do, you have also forsaken your humanity, and evil has won.
This is precisely why the torture documents must be made public. We cannot stop such evil unless and until we acknowledge and confront it.
Yours is the monstrous menatily we must avoid if we are to remain the human beings we claim to be and the society we claim we are defending. We have a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution and a body of laws and traditions borne of a historical legacy of humane and humanitarian ideals that decree and delare that we are and shall remain other than the evil you would have us become.
THEY may be the enemy who wants to attack us from outside. Those like YOU who would sacrifice our humanity are the cockroaches living among us and eating at us from within. :Q
The real travesty, here, would be if we allowed blood thirsty sub-human cockroaches like you to infect and destroy our nation with your venom. :thumbsdown: :|
"Imagining a scenario" is the wrong approach to this issue. We can't form our laws or our moral beliefs around some extreme hypothetical, and people using that argument are almost always trying to mislead you. After all, if we can imagine a ticking time bomb scenario to support torture, we should be equally able to imagine a scenario where we torture an innocent person, and as a result, he and his family and friends become enemies of the United States. Except we never consider the second scenario, which is exactly the point of the Jack Bauer legal analysis in the first place.
Well now, it depends if it was done without an order, doesn't it? So I guess we need an actual (gasp) investigation to see where the paper trail goes (if there is one). Nothing wrong with that, is there?
If they did it without informing the higher-ups, thats one thing. But if the anyone higher-up authorized this before done, they should be indicted as well.
Well, he is the "we can do whatever we want, once we accuse someone of terrorism (guilty or not), they forfeit all rights, thus nothing we do is illegal" defense.
Yet another clueless chickenshit citizen.
LunarRay
Diamond Member
- Mar 2, 2003
- 9,993
- 1
- 76
I think that is what I said... I can't be in the stead of another. To condem or condone I think I've to attempt that.
I'll never be in the position that would require that choice so I've to try and understand what was in the mind of the folks who were.
It is far too easy to sit in a chair drinking coffee and pronounce right and wrong as if it is abstract. The people who ARE in the situations are either sadist or American. Either sating a personal need or advancing a philosophy which hopefully was intended to save lives.
My gson asked me If I thought dropping a bomb on a suspected Taliban or Al Q camp and blowing some up and doing all sorts of damage to others and injuring others not even bad guys might be the same as torture.. I didn't have an answer to that... some of it seems the same... all of it seems a lot worse... Where is the line?...
You lying neocon right wingnuts keep pimping torture and posting the same fucking lies time, after time, after time, and you're just as full of shit, now, as you've always been. Your mercifully EX Traitor In Chief admitted he approved the use of torture in April, 2008:
You can spew specious bullshit about the "legal opinions" by John Yoo Bush claims support his actions, but you'll only be regurgitating more of the same lies that have long since been discredited time and time again, including in multiple threads on P&N.
Then, there is this direct admission by your thankfully EX-Vice Traitor In Chief in Jonathan Karl's interview on ABC News on Dec. 15, 2008:
Next time you bitch about my "macros," remember that they're only useful because the right wingnuts continue to repost the same lies, and the facts that refute them don't change anymore than their lies.
You don't get things that are simply immoral, and why revenge doesn't change that.
But after we note that the people being tortured haven't tortued anyone - you are simply dehumanizing them - note your argument actual gives THEM the right to torture Americans.
A Muslim who hasn't tortured anyone is tortured by the US or people acting on its behalf - by your logic, they now have moral license to do the same back to their torturers.
Ever heard the phrase cycle of violence? Two wrongs don't make a right?
You need to develop your own sense or morality and understand why torture is wrong before you worry about any policy for an enemy.
Even take your example of shooting at enemy soldiers - what does Vietnam have the right to do to the US at this point based on your argument?
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
What if that person has information about a terrorist act that could kill thousands of people and torturing him is the only way to get the information out of him? Now what?
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