DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Lanya on December 13, 2007, 01:06:33 PM
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[depends upon your definition of works]
Torture Works
by digby
A commenter points me to this account of a successful "enhanced interrogation;"
. . . On Wednesday, June 28, 1628, was examined without torture Johannes Junius, Burgomaster at Bamberg, on the charge of witch-craft: how and in what fashion he had fallen into that vice. Is fifty-five years old, and was born at Niederwaysich in the Wetterau. Says he is wholly innocent, knows nothing of the crime has never in his life renounced God: says that he is wronged hefore God and the world, would like to hear of a single human being who has seen him at such gatherings [as the witch-sabbaths].
Confrontation of Dr. Georg Adam Haan. Tells him to his face be will stake his life on it [er wolle darauf leben und sterben], that he saw him, Junius, a year and a half ago at a witch-gathering in the electoral council-room where they ate and drank. Accused denies the same wholly.
Confronted with Hopffens Elsse. Tells him likewise that he was on Haupts-moor at a witch-dance; but first the holy wafer was desecrated. Junius denies. Hereupon he was told that his accomplices had confessed against him and was given time for thought.
On Friday, June 30, 1628, the aforesaid Junius was again without torture exhorted to confess, but again confessed nothing, whereupon, . . . since he would confess nothing, he was put to the torture, and first the [Page 24] Thumb-screws were applied. Says he has never denied God his Saviour nor suffered himself to be otherwise baptized; [1] will again stake his life on it; feels no pain in the thumb-screws.
Leg-screws. Will confess absolutely nothing [and] knows nothing about it. He has never renounced God; will never do such a thing; has never been guilty of this vice; feels likewise no pain.
Is stripped and examined; on his right side is found a bluish mark, like a clover leaf, is thrice pricked therein, but feels no pain and no blood flows out.
Strappado. He has never renounced God; God will not forsake him; if he were such a wretch he would not let himself be so tortured; God must show some token of his innocence. He knows nothing about witchcraft. . . .
On July 5, the above named Junius is without torture, but with urgent persuasions, exhorted to confess, and at last begins and confesses.
[...]
Burr's note: So ended the trial of Junius, and he was accordingly burned at the stake. But it so happens that there is also preserved in Bamberg a letter, in quivering hand, secretly written by him to his daughter while in the midst of his trial (July 24, 1628):
Many hundred thousand good-nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica. Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head and--God pity him--bethinks him of something. I will tell you how it has gone with me. When I was the first time put to the torture, Dr. Braun, Dr. Kotzendorffer, and two strange doctors were there. Then Dr. Braun asks me, "Kinsman, how come you here?" I answer, "Through falsehood, through misfortune." "Hear, you," he says, "you are a witch; will you confess it voluntarily? If not, we'll bring in witnesses and the executioner for you." I said "I am no witch, I have a pure conscience in the matter; if there are a thousand witnesses, I am not anxious, but I'll gladly hear the witnesses." Now the chancellor's son was set before me . . . and afterward Hoppfen Elss. She had seen me dance on Haupts-moor. . . . I answered: "I have never renounced God, and will never do it--God graciously keep me from it. I'll rather bear whatever I must." And then came also--God in highest Heaven have mercy--the executioner, and put the thumb-screws on me, both hands bound together, so that the blood ran out at the nails and everywhere, so that for four weeks I could not use my hands, as you can see from the writing. . . . Thereafter they first stripped me, bound my hands behind me, and drew me up in the torture. [2] Then I thought heaven and earth were at an end; eight times did they draw me up and let me fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony. . . .
[...]
And so I made my confession, as follows; but it was all a lie.
Now follows, dear child, what I confessed in order to escape the great anguish and bitter torture, which it was impossible for me longer to bear.
Burr's note:Here follows his confession, substantially as it is given in the minutes of his trial. But he adds:
Then I had to tell what people I had seen [at the witch-sabbath]. I said that I bad not recognized them. "You old rascal, I must set the executioner at you. Say--was not the Chancellor there?" So I said yes. "Who besides?" I had not recognized anybody. So he said: "Take one street after another; begin at the market, go out on one street and back on the next." I had to name several persons there. Then came the long street. [3] I knew nobody. Had to name eight persons there. Then the Zinkenwert--one person more. Then over the upper bridge to the Georgthor, on both sides. Knew nobody again. [Page 28] Did I know nobody in the castle--whoever it might be, I should speak without fear. And thus continuously they asked me on all the streets, though I could not and would not say more. So they gave me to the executioner, told him to strip me, shave me all over, and put me to the torture. "The rascal knows one on the market-place, is with him daily, and yet won't name him." By that they meant Dietmeyer: so I had to name him too.
Then I had to tell what crimes I had committed. I said nothing.
. . "Draw the rascal up!" So I said that I was to kill my children, but I had killed a horse instead. It did not help. I had also taken a sacred wafer, and had desecrated it. When I had said this, they left me in peace.
Now, dear child, here you have all my confession, for which I must die. And they are sheer lies and made-up things, so help me God. For all this I was forced to say through fear of the torture which was threatened beyond what I had already endured. For they never leave off with the torture till one confesses something; be he never so good, he must be a witch. Nobody escapes, though he were an earl. . . .
Dear child, keep this letter secret so that people do not find it, else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers will be beheaded. So strictly is it forbidden. . . . Dear child, pay this man a dollar. . . . I have taken several days to write this: my hands are both lame. I am in a sad plight. . . .
Good night, for your father Johannes Junius will never see you more. July 24, 1628.
Burr's note:And on the margin of the letter he adds:
Dear child, six have confessed against me at once: the Chancellor, his son, Neudecker, Zaner, Hoffmaisters Ursel, and Hoppfen Els--all false, through compulsion, as they have all told me, and begged my forgiveness in God's name before they were executed. . . . They know nothing but good of me. They were forced to say it, just as I myself was. . . .
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/torture-works-by-digby-commenter-points.html
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Also depends on one's definition of "torture"
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Seems to me it would be a simple feat to pass a bill specifically declaring waterboarding torture and ban it from use by US personnel.
Wonder why that hasn't been urged by pundits and polls.
Anyone know if the dems have a bill pending covering this ?
If not why not?
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Seems to me it would be a simple feat to pass a bill specifically declaring waterboarding torture and ban it from use by US personnel.
You'd think. Perhaps it's simply being used as a political football by the Dems, with no intention of doing anything about it, outisde to simply bash Republicans as being "for torture", with the mindset that the masses are too dumb to recognize your query, Bt?
I have a simple formula, for myself. If I knew someone had knowledge of 911 before 911 occured, what would I be willing to allow our forces to do, in an effort to pull such information. Water Boarding, noting how it does NOT cause any physical damage or dismemberment, definately fits in the can do column
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I saw a video of a guy who voluntered to do it.
he stated the only reason he lasted 25 sec is because he knew he it`s controlled.
the problem I see is how do you make sure the guys poring the water will stop on time.
the issue about torture that I just notice nobody address is torturing fun and people can go too far
remember the photos with the naked prisoners that popped up a few years back those soldiers are laughing.
the stanford experiment proves people can get caught up in the fun.
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Seems to me it would be a simple feat to pass a bill specifically declaring waterboarding torture and ban it from use by US personnel.
Ask and ye shall receive...
House votes to outlaw CIA waterboarding
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted on Thursday to outlaw harsh interrogation methods, such as simulated drowning, that the CIA has used against suspected terrorists.
On a 222-199 vote, the House approved a measure to require intelligence agents to comply with the Army Field Manual, which meets the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of war prisoners and prohibits torture.
The measure passed amid a congressional probe into the recent disclosure that the CIA destroyed videotapes of al Qaeda suspects undergoing waterboarding, a simulated drowning.
Many countries, U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have accused the United States of torturing terror suspects since the September 11 attacks.
President George W. Bush says the United States does not torture but the administration will not disclose what interrogation methods are used.
(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; editing by Lori Santos)
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That settles that.
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I saw a video of a guy who voluntered to do it.
he stated the only reason he lasted 25 sec is because he knew he it`s controlled.
the problem I see is how do you make sure the guys poring the water will stop on time.
the issue about torture that I just notice nobody address is torturing fun and people can go too far
remember the photos with the naked prisoners that popped up a few years back those soldiers are laughing.
the stanford experiment proves people can get caught up in the fun.
I am glad you reminded me of the Sanford experiment , anyone here not heard of it already?
Did we learn someting from it really?
http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/97/970108prisonexp.html
Details of the experiment are well known. They are included in most basic psychology texts and in a public television psychology course, "Discovering Psychology," that Zimbardo wrote and narrates. Movie rights have been optioned, "60 Minutes" has filmed a segment on the experiment, and even a punk rock band in Los Angeles calls itself Stanford Prison Experiment. In summary:
On Sunday morning, Aug., 17, 1971, nine young men were "arrested" in their homes by Palo Alto police. At least one of those arrested vividly remembers the shock of having his neighbors come out to watch the commotion as TV cameras recorded his hand-cuffing for the nightly news.
The arrestees were among about 70 young men, mostly college students eager to earn $15 a day for two weeks, who volunteered as subjects for an experiment on prison life that had been advertised in the Palo Alto Times. After interviews and a battery of psychological tests, the two dozen judged to be the most normal, average and healthy were selected to participate, assigned randomly either to be guards or prisoners. Those who would be prisoners were booked at a real jail, then blindfolded and driven to campus where they were led into a makeshift prison in the basement of Jordan Hall.
Those assigned to be guards were given uniforms and instructed that they were not to use violence but that their job was to maintain control of the prison.
From the perspective of the researchers, the experiment became exciting on day two when the prisoners staged a revolt. Once the guards had crushed the rebellion, "they steadily increased their coercive aggression tactics, humiliation and dehumanization of the prisoners," Zimbardo recalls. "The staff had to frequently remind the guards to refrain from such tactics," he said, and the worst instances of abuse occurred in the middle of the night when the guards thought the staff was not watching. The guards' treatment of the prisoners ? such things as forcing them to clean out toilet bowls with their bare hands and act out degrading scenarios, or urging them to become snitches ? "resulted in extreme stress reactions that forced us to release five prisoners, one a day, prematurely."
Zimbardo's primary reason for conducting the experiment was to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals. "I had been conducting research for some years on deindividuation, vandalism and dehumanization that illustrated the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage in anti-social acts by putting them in situations where they felt anonymous, or they could perceive of others in ways that made them less than human, as enemies or objects," Zimbardo told the Toronto symposium in the summer of 1996.
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what`s not mentioned is that the cause of the early shut down of the experiment was by a visitors reaction.
observers of the experiment will also get caught up with it and not see abuse.
you need an uninvolved person not on the premise to randomly vist to ensure no harm is done.
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<<you need an uninvolved person not on the premise to randomly vist to ensure no harm is done.
>>
Kind of like popping in unexpectedly at your child's daycare or volunteers who drop in at nursing homes and see how the patients are being treated, and report back to the area's Agency on Aging.
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exactly
since being there continually seems to effect judgement
the man who made the experiment admitted he saw no wrong till he gave a tour and the gruest pointed out whats wrong.
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Well, if they pass a law, it will get it off the table.
Meanwhile . . .
Same ole same ole . . .
The intel industry bends as it has to, embracing the wisdom of the bamboo.
But no wind lasts.
Winds are ephemeral, like public attention.
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Also depends on one's definition of "torture"
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What is this, some sort of Mantra of the Asshole?
The more it is repeated, the less like torture waterboarding becomes?
Waterboarding is torture, people who do it are goons, people who order their goons to do it should be arrested, tried and sent to jail. Period.
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depends on one's definition of "torture"
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how about using only people who got through it to define whats totrture or not
I haven`t paid attention ,has anyone ever said I went through it`s not torture?
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Also depends on one's definition of "torture"
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What is this, some sort of Mantra of the Asshole?
You would obviously know, wouldn't you
The more it is repeated, the less like torture waterboarding becomes?
You mean the less waterboarding is to actual acts of torture, such as jt dislocations, burning flesh, piercings, pulling tongues out, cutting heads off. ACTUAL acts of legitimate torture, as exercised by our enemy, who give high 5's to each other, while the left here goes apesnot if someone is made to believe they're drowning, when they're not
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depends on one's definition of "torture"
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how about using only people who got through it to define whats totrture or not
Doubtful that's a working solution Kimba, since those at the other end of whatever interrogation technique that's making them feel the least bit uncomfortable, is going to claim "torture". We tried having this debate earlier, but no one was willing to call acts of some simple sleep deprivation, or episodic exposure to cold, or made to wear panties on one's head as not torture. Anything & everything that was demeaning or even embarrasing was being deemed as torture. Not to mention the fact we actually prosecute folks for pulling degrading acts such as the above, while our enemy is looking to one up themselves with their acts of mutilation & burning people alive
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I suspect that if someone were to waterboard your sorry ass, you would admit it is torture in about 4.9 seconds.
Truly effective torture extracts the information without maiming the torturee, which reveals the cruelty.
This "it depends on what is meant by torture, what is waterboarding, etc., blah blah" is just a mantra that assholes like the CIA use to justify their systematic cruelty, which they have been famous for at least since Dan Mitrione was sent to Uruguay to teach torture to the goons of state security there and was captured and executed for it.
Hitler & Goebbels had this concept of the "Big Lie", in which you simply tell a really big lie over and over again until people believe you. It worked for them pretty well, hence the fact that when the death camps were captured by the Allies it was said to be a huge surprise. All this time the official Nazi line was that the camps were sort of like summer in the Catskills, like Teresianstadt.
Lie lie lie, and eventually the softer minded will agree. This always works. Goebbels knew this, but so does Procter & Gamble ands the entire advertising industry.
The Republicans are experts in cruelty. They destroy public housing, which has failed because of poor planning and lack of funds and replace it with nothing. Then they blame the homeless victims for their incompetence.
They refuse to tax the filthy rich and claim that there is no money for children's healthcare, so the children end up in the ER, and their teatment costs about ten times more, and is funded by the County and the City, which are controlled by Democrats, so then they can blame the Democrats.
Democrats are occasionally stupid and occasionally corrupt. The Republicans are nearly always cruel and nearly always dominated by greed.
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I haven`t paid attention ,has anyone ever said I went through it`s not torture?
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The Republican Baloney mill claims that waterboarding is almost pleasant when compared with what we supposedly put our brave Marines and other military through. Not one of said brave Marines has come forward to say how much they enjoyed being waterboarded. If thyey did, their testimony would be suspect, because they can be ordered to tell lies.
We need to waterboard Cheney and Mukasey and then ask them.
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I suspect that if someone were to waterboard your sorry ass, you would admit it is torture in about 4.9 seconds.
See Kimba, your idea obviously won't work
Truly effective torture extracts the information without maiming the torturee, which reveals the cruelty.
Actually, true torture does nothing but maim the torturee, and ususally in the cruelest & most vile ways & means
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Hitler & Goebbels had this concept of the "Big Lie", in which you simply tell a really big lie over and over again until people believe you.
"Bush stole the election."
"Global warming is caused by humans."
"Both Coke and Pepsi cannot be served in the same restaurant."
Yup, seems to be true.
It worked for them pretty well, hence the fact that when the death camps were captured by the Allies it was said to be a huge surprise.
British Intelligence had lots of information on them, plus Jan Karski publically discussed them, giving his eyewitness testimony in 1942.
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The Republican Baloney mill claims that waterboarding is almost pleasant when compared with what we supposedly put our brave Marines and other military through.
Actually, the claim is that waterboarding is used on troops during training to resist interrogation techniques. Nobody that I know of claims that training is "almost pleasant." Perhaps you can provide a quote?
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I never said water boarding is pleasant.
but it just don`t ring true for me for somebody to claim something is not torture without going through it.
remember the subject is whats not torture.
how is it unreasonable to volunteer to go through it?
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I never said water boarding is pleasant. but it just don`t ring true for me for somebody to claim something is not torture without going through it. remember the subject is whats not torture. how is it unreasonable to volunteer to go through it?
You answered your own question, which reinformed my earlier point.
"I never said water boarding is pleasant."
Objectivity is replaced with subjectivity, Kimba. How's this for a follow-up question; How is it unreasonable to volunteer to have your elbows & knees dislocated? or perhaps your tongue pulled out? Point being both tactics are going to be "unpleasant" 1 causes a perception/fear of drowning. The other causes physical damage/mutilation, with likely nerve damage. That's an objective assessment. Once you apply the act, one no longer has objectivity as its guiding compass. In order for your suggestion to work, one needs to volunteer to do both, then compare the difference in order to better qualify what real "torture" is
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but is it objective for person to not experience it before saying it`s not torture?
as a swimmer I know whats it`s like to drown and my 1st rersponse of seeing the video was how do you make sure he don`t drown for real.
water boarding has been given a rep the it`s completely harmless just very scarey.
but that guy could easily of died if things get carried away.
note all the supporters never talk about safety measures.
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>>The Republicans are experts in cruelty. They destroy public housing, which has failed because of poor planning and lack of funds and replace it with nothing. Then they blame the homeless victims for their incompetence.<<
I always find this particular kind of dementia amusing. Let's ask some simple questions shall we. Where do you find public housing? Why in big cities. Who runs big cities? Why democrats. So who's been doing the planning and funding of these places? Democrats once again. The left creates the liberal plantation, under funds it, refuses to protect and educate the people who live there, and then blame Republicans for their own scheme that keeps minorities and the poor voting democrat. Once again it's the big liberal lie.
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I'm sure the left would love to waterboard President Bush.
Also, do any of the lefties here think that waterboarding Muhammed Atta would have been a good idea?
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Also, do any of the lefties here think that waterboarding Muhammed Atta would have been a good idea?
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What sort of demented hypothetical crap is this?
National Security Condoleeeeza Rice failed to capture him, so this was and is impossible.
Might as well talk about waterboarding Adolph Eichman, or Pontius Pilate.
Republican run cities do not have public housing. Republicans prefer to drive their poor away, arrest them for vagrancy, perhaps use them for medical experiments.
The waterboard the evildoer or allow thousands of innocent orphans to die a fiery death scenario NEVER HAPPENS, except on teevee and in the fevered and twisted minds of ratwing bloggers,
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but is it objective for person to not experience it before saying it`s not torture? as a swimmer I know whats it`s like to drown and my 1st rersponse of seeing the video was how do you make sure he don`t drown for real. water boarding has been given a rep the it`s completely harmless just very scarey. but that guy could easily of died if things get carried away. note all the supporters never talk about safety measures.
Kimba, with all due respect, ANYTHING, if allowed to be "carried away" can result in serious harm, if not death. Being subjected to intermittent episodes of cold or sleep deprivation, is not harmful in any way. Being exposed to such for egregiously long periods of time can. The point is the ACT, not the duration. An extended duration of any act can lead to bad physical repercussions. The point remains that if you want to OBJECTIVELY try to define torture, and applying your mindset, you have to have the same person undergo various techniques, then differentiate between them. I also noticed you didn't answer my query......How is it unreasonable to volunteer to have your elbows & knees dislocated??
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Which was the first president to place limits on harsh treatmnt of prisoners of war (or combatants if you please) with an executive order?
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The issue is not who did first, the issue is to force the fools doing it to stop doing it NOW.
The government does not possess a time machine, and what happened before cannot be prevented.
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Notice XO dodged the question like a good little libtard.
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The issue is not who did first, the issue is to force the fools doing it to stop doing it NOW.
The government does not possess a time machine, and what happened before cannot be prevented.
You have no idea do you?
Has any president ever done more to limit the harshness of treatment of our POWS than has President Bush?
If you do not know , that is OK.
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I tend to believe if possible you should get 1st hand experience to make decision.
ex. when i help friends move furniture ,if a heavy items gets moved several Times
I would tell the person she needs to know how heavy the sofa is to truely know where it should go
so far this work extremely well.
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I tend to believe if possible you should get 1st hand experience to make decision.
ex. when i help friends move furniture ,if a heavy items gets moved several Times
I would tell the person she needs to know how heavy the sofa is to truely know where it should go
so far this work extremely well.
I like the concept, interrogators should not use any tecnique that they could not bear themselves.
This wouldmake the line between torture and fair leverage in questionng sharper and harder to miss.
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it`s not unreasonable the guy who volunteered did it twice.
so their are people willing to submit to this .
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I tend to believe if possible you should get 1st hand experience to make decision. ex. when i help friends move furniture ,if a heavy items gets moved several Times
Yes....BUT....if you're trying to define your work as simply hard vs torturous, you're going to have to have more examples of moving different furniture, to make that determination. Right?? So, how is it unreasonable to volunteer to have your elbows & knees dislocated??
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I tend to believe if possible you should get 1st hand experience to make decision. ex. when i help friends move furniture ,if a heavy items gets moved several Times
Yes....BUT....if you're trying to define your work as simply hard vs torturous, you're going to have to have more examples of moving different furniture, to make that determination. Right?? So, how is it unreasonable to volunteer to have your elbows & knees dislocated??
You could ask football players , that sort of injury is common in Colledge and pro ball.
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I tend to believe if possible you should get 1st hand experience to make decision. ex. when i help friends move furniture ,if a heavy items gets moved several Times
Yes....BUT....if you're trying to define your work as simply hard vs torturous, you're going to have to have more examples of moving different furniture, to make that determination. Right?? So, how is it unreasonable to volunteer to have your elbows & knees dislocated??
You could ask football players , that sort of injury is common in Colledge and pro ball.
Not so much Plane. Speaking from experience in the Sports Medicine field, elbow & knee dislocations are pretty rare. More common are shoulder seperations & subluxations. When knees are "blown" it's ususally due to a catastrophic damaging of one if not both of the player's cruciate ligaments, along with one if not both of the collateral ligaments. You could almost call that a dislocation, but technically it isn't until the bones that make up that particular joint are no longer in their correct alignment/position within the joint capsule.
THAT all said, whether its torn knee ligaments or a joint dislocation, it's pretty darn painful, from what I've witnessed, with LONG term rehabilitation required just to simply run again
Now, we just have to get those same players to volunteer for some waterboarding, to compare the misery for Kimba's query
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Inside Edition tonight has a piece on a person who asked to be waterboarded to see what it was like. It airs here at 7:30 PM on an independent channel, so you will have to check your local listings.
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Which was the first president to place limits on harsh treatmnt of prisoners of war (or combatants if you please) with an executive order?
George Washington did it as leader of the Continental Army.
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/lofiversion/index.php/t5690.html%3EOLD%20American%20Century%20/t2297.html
Lincoln did it as President.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-30.htm
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Which was the first president to place limits on harsh treatmnt of prisoners of war (or combatants if you please) with an executive order?
George Washington did it as leader of the Continental Army.
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/lofiversion/index.php/t5690.html%3EOLD%20American%20Century%20/t2297.html
Lincoln did it as President.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-30.htm
Great!
I didn't know these.
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I knew about Washington, but that was before he was president. Lincoln was the first person actually serving as president I could find that addressed the issue.
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The issue is not who did first, the issue is to force the fools doing it to stop doing it NOW.
The government does not possess a time machine, and what happened before cannot be prevented.
You have no idea do you?
Has any president ever done more to limit the harshness of treatment of our POWS than has President Bush?
If you do not know , that is OK.
By authorizing torture against POWs and enemy combatants and so forth, Bush has endangered our servicemen more than any other president before him.
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By authorizing torture against POWs and enemy combatants and so forth, Bush has endangered our servicemen more than any other president before him.
They weren't in harms way before Bush?
Was John McCain tortured in Nam?
Has a time machine been invented that i didn't read about?
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The issue is not who did first, the issue is to force the fools doing it to stop doing it NOW.
The government does not possess a time machine, and what happened before cannot be prevented.
You have no idea do you?
Has any president ever done more to limit the harshness of treatment of our POWS than has President Bush?
If you do not know , that is OK.
By authorizing torture against POWs and enemy combatants and so forth, Bush has endangered our servicemen more than any other president before him.
When did he do that?
I thought he set new limits.
I just learned that Lincon set some limits , has any president since then set limits?
BTW I also do not beleive that we should set our behavior by what our enemys might be doing , the Al Queda have no limits to speak of and it is expected that their captives will be treated badly. If we treat our captives like kings , we can expect the same from them as if we didn't.
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Has any president ever done more to limit the harshness of treatment of our POWS than has President Bush?
EVERY president has done more than Juniorbush. Ask Amnesty International.
The US tried and executed Japanese for using waterboarding.
Then, it was clearly a war crime, but under Juniorbush, "it depends".
What a load!
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>>The US tried and executed Japanese for using waterboarding.<<
They did huh? Then I'm sure you'll be able to provide us with the names and dates of these trails and executions.
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McCain: Japanese Hanged For Waterboarding
GOP Candidate Says There Should Be "Little Doubt" It Is Torture
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Nov. 29, 2007
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Republican presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. speaks during the CNN/YouTube debate in St. Petersburg, Fla. Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007. (AP)
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Fires Flare At GOP Debate
Candidates' views on immigration, capital punishment and the Iraq war were front and center at the YouTube GOP debate, with each fight yielding a surprising outcome. Jeff Greenfield reports. | Share
* Candidates\' views on immigration, capital punishment and the Iraq war were front and center at the YouTube GOP debate, with each fight yielding a surprising outcome. Jeff Greenfield reports.
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* Harry Smith speaks with senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield about the GOP debate and the surprise questions presented to the candidates via YouTube.
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(AP) Republican presidential candidate John McCain reminded people Thursday that some Japanese were tried and hanged for torturing American prisoners during World War II with techniques that included waterboarding.
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Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.
"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said.
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"There should be little doubt from American history that we consider that as torture otherwise we wouldn't have tried and convicted Japanese for doing that same thing to Americans," McCain said during a news conference.
He said he forgot to mention that piece of history during Wednesday night's Republican debate, during which he criticized former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney after Romney declined to publicly say what interrogation techniques he would rule out.
"I would also hope that he would not want to be associated with a technique which was invented in the Spanish Inquisition, was used by Pol Pot in one of the great eras of genocide in history and is being used on Burmese monks as we speak," the Arizona senator said. "America is a better nation than that."
Waterboarding generally makes breathing difficult and can cause the subject to think he's drowning. It's banned by domestic law and international treaties, but those policies don't cover CIA personnel and President Bush's administration won't say whether it has been allowed against terrorism detainees.
McCain was a prisoner of war for more than five years during the Vietnam War. He was tortured during that time, but said he wasn't subjected to waterboarding.
>>The US tried and executed Japanese for using waterboarding.<<
They did huh? Then I'm sure you'll be able to provide us with the names and dates of these trails and executions.
John McCain pointed this out. Apparently on Planet Christian Anarchy, the news does not get around too well.
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"If the United States was in another conflict, which could easily happen, with another country, and we have allowed that kind of torture to be inflicted on people we hold captive, then there's nothing to prevent that enemy from also torturing American prisoners," McCain said.
McCain also said the presidential primary process needs to be straightened out, and if the political parties can't, Congress should.
"The people deserve a longer process of scrutiny of the candidates and they're not getting it. It is a little bizarre for us to be having a primary on Jan. 3," said McCain, referring to the Iowa caucus.
Florida moved up its primary election to Jan. 29, and Michigan later set a Jan. 15 date, moves that set off a scramble that resulted in Iowa's caucus and the New Hampshire's primary moving up to preserve their early voting status. New Hampshire will vote Jan. 8.
New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina should still be allowed to pick their candidates ahead of the rest of the country, but the country should then be divided into four sections with voting in each on a schedule that allows candidates time to campagn in each region before moving to the next, McCain said.
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Okay, I'll repeat the question:
Then I'm sure you'll be able to provide us with the names and dates of these trails and executions.
There are plenty of examples of war crimes committed by the Japanese. The question is, is there anything simiiliar in what they did, and what we call water boarding today? Most people would say no. The example you give cites a prison sentence of 15 years. Was this the only crime committed? I doubt it. No execution.
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Something else here, this debate is pointless at this point. The democrats have once against taken away a useful tool that has saved American lives. We now know the brain addled Nancy Pelosi supported water boarding and worried that it might not be a strong enough method, as did that intellectual giant Rockefeller. Now however, the anti-everything-American left have put the butchers on notice that water boarding is a harmless way to scare them into telling us where they plan to kill the next group of women and children. They need not fear drowning thanks to the American left and it's fake outrage.
The next thing the left will want is for American forces to read terrorists their Miranda rights (another liberal atrocity) after capturing them using silk gloves.
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If you think that Juniorbush and his henchmen are no longer waterboarding, you are almost certainly wrong. All that has happened is that they will now continue to torture, only they will be even more secretive, and if they have any records, they will destroy them, as we have seen.
I think putting Rumsfeld and Cheney away in a prison like the one enjoyed with the convicted Japanese general would send a lot better message.
You might as well give up, as you have convinced no one.
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Has any president ever done more to limit the harshness of treatment of our POWS than has President Bush?
EVERY president has done more than Juniorbush. Ask Amnesty International.
The US tried and executed Japanese for using waterboarding.
Then, it was clearly a war crime, but under Juniorbush, "it depends".
What a load!
No , you have not pointed out a single real instance of any president produceing a limit on harsh treatment , by executive order or otherwise.
I just learned from another poster that Washington and Lincon did , but ca'tyou find an example ofa more recent president doing so?
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ASK AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Jeez.
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>>If you think that Juniorbush and his henchmen are no longer waterboarding, you are almost certainly wrong. All that has happened is that they will now continue to torture, only they will be even more secretive, and if they have any records, they will destroy them, as we have seen.<<
I don't understand why you wouldn't want to protect these CIA agents identity. If these tapes were released they would surely diclose the identity of these agents putting their mission and their lives at riisk. Afterall, you agressivley protest against Valerie Plame's identity being released, even thought she wasn't covert and her husband had already given her name to the public. As for waterboarding terrorists in porder to save lives, I hope the president is still doing it of course. Well, unless it was you are your family in danger, then I would hope he would take your wishes into consideration just ask nicely.
>>You might as well give up, as you have convinced no one.<<
I never plan on convincing you of anything. You're to far gone.
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I seriously doubt that the CIA lacks the expertise to edit the faces and voices of their torturers from these tapes. As an agency that dedicates vast amounts of resources to disinformation, if they couldn't edit the tapes, they deserve to be fired and demoted to janitorial duties.
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ASK AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Jeez.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/feature-stories/poems-from-guantanamo-20071212
They don't know whether previous presidents forbid more or less harsh treatment than President Bush , neither do you apparently.
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I don't understand why you wouldn't want to protect these CIA agents identity.
Because if they were committing torture, then they were committing criminal acts.
Something neither Valerie Plame nor her husband did, by the way.
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Something neither Valerie Plame nor her husband did, by the way.
How do we know that?
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How do we know that?
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One way we might guess that is that no charges have even been made against them. Not even Mad Jane Coulter has accused them of anything.
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>>Because if they were committing torture, then they were committing criminal acts.<<
Waterboarding isn't torture. What torture are you referring too?
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>>I seriously doubt that the CIA lacks the expertise to edit the faces and voices of their torturers from these tapes.<<
They could have destroyed them without telling anyone either. They didn't. If they had released the video with the faces obscured, do people from your planet really believe the anti-American left would not squeal for their heads? Of course you would. Since the left believes water boarding is a crime, does any rational person believe they wouldn't plaster their names and faces all over the media? They'd want them put under the jail. Yet the left wants the Bush administration impeached for the Plame debacle.
::)
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>>I seriously doubt that the CIA lacks the expertise to edit the faces and voices of their torturers from these tapes.<<
They could have destroyed them without telling anyone either. They didn't. If they had released the video with the faces obscured, do people from your planet really believe the anti-American left would not squeal for their heads? Of course you would. Since the left believes water boarding is a crime, does any rational person believe they wouldn't plaster their names and faces all over the media? They'd want them put under the jail. Yet the left wants the Bush administration impeached for the Plame debacle.
::)
The administration claims that they wanted the tapes preserved , is this a case of a CIA operateing outside of orders , or a set up of plausible denyability?
I could beleive either one.
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How do we know that?
Have any charges been filed? Anyone even hint that there might be? Anyone accuse them of any criminal acts whatsoever? If so, what were they?
C'mon, BT, enquiring minds want to know.
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Waterboarding isn't torture.
Are you sure? Have you tried it? From what I understand right now, the jury is still out on that one.
What torture are you referring too?
Any and all that they might have been stupid enough to commit on tape.
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I seriously doubt that the CIA lacks the expertise to edit the faces and voices of their torturers from these tapes.
They probably could do just that. However, as was recently seen in the case of the nutjob in Europe that posted videos of himself molesting children, even though he 'masked' his face on the videos, the methods used to do so can be cracked.
I fail to see why the CIA wouldn't keep the tapes, if they were so innocent in nature, and insure they were only seen by, say, members of the Justice Department who might be investigating such claims, or a Congressional committee. If they are - or were - not incriminating, and show no law was broken, classify them appropriately to keep the identities a secret and file them away. If there was criminal activity on them, make them public - it would have been hard to keep the perpetrators identities secret throughout their arrest and trial, but even that could have been done, though if they were convicted, release the tapes.
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They might have made the tapes to show to future prospective torturees, to show them that Bubba don't play.
My guess is that they destroyed them because they show severe cruelty and implicate the CIA in it.
Now the same goons can continue torturing, perhaps in Turkmenistan, perhaps on Diego Garcia, and they won't have to ever pay for their crimes.
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>>The administration claims that they wanted the tapes preserved , is this a case of a CIA operateing outside of orders , or a set up of plausible denyability?<<
I'm sure they would have liked to preserve them, but like we've seen since the beginning of the war, there are people in the CIA and the State Department who are working against the adminstration for political reasons. Destroying these tapes and then leaking it to the press is typical of the adminstrations enemys in these organizations. Bush should have cleaned house in both the CIA and the State Department.
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>>Are you sure?<<
Yes.
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>>My guess is that they destroyed them because they show severe cruelty and implicate the CIA in it.<<
Why of course. I'm sure these CIA agents are monsters. Afterall, they're Americans.
By the way, have you seen the Daniel Pearl tape? Shosei Koda? Paul Johnson? Eugene Armstrong? Jack Hensley? Kim Sun Il? The four Russians? All of these people have had their heads sawn off and it was filmed on video tape. Have you heard about Al Qaeda cooking a families young son and serving him to them?
This bogus concern liberal/anti-Americans claim to have about waterboarding terrorists to save lives is twisted and sick. People who actually think waterboarding is anything like what the enemy is doing to innocent men, women, and children are fucking insane.
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I brought this up last week and got no response
I`ll bring it up again in different words
torture not only effects the person getting it
it also effect the person doing it and the observer.
people can`t seem to understand that
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>>torture not only effects the person getting it
it also effect the person doing it and the observer.<<
How profound.
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I brought this up last week and got no response
I`ll bring it up again in different words
torture not only effects the person getting it
it also effect the person doing it and the observer.
people can`t seem to understand that
True. Like that Stanford experiment showed, it brings out the worst in us...and is of no benefit.
One article I read, it was a thing from WW2 and the trials of war criminals. The things they did were not much different from what we are doing, from the photos at Abu Ghraib, etc. The descriptions of water torture were exactly the same as what we're reading in our newspapers now.
And the people were convicted then and were war criminals. No civilized society wants them.
I repeat: no CIVILIZED society....wants....them.
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I brought this up last week and got no response
I`ll bring it up again in different words
torture not only effects the person getting it
it also effect the person doing it and the observer.
people can`t seem to understand that
True. Like that Stanford experiment showed, it brings out the worst in us...and is of no benefit.
::) Sad, how very sad.
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I'm sure they would have liked to preserve them, but like we've seen since the beginning of the war, there are people in the CIA and the State Department who are working against the adminstration for political reasons. Destroying these tapes and then leaking it to the press is typical of the adminstrations enemys in these organizations. Bush should have cleaned house in both the CIA and the State Department.
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Yeah. Bush should have cleaned house!
He could have chosen more geniuses like Eliot Abrams, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. More bungling Neocons, more thieving contractors. If there is one thing that Juniorbush has been bad at it is choosing competent people. He is a bungling, knucklewalking, drooling incompetent fool himsel. He could no more restaff any agency with worthwhile people than my cat.
Being an enemy of this administration is a GOOD THING, because this administration is festooned with incompetent, stubborn morons.
I am sure he could have asked Mossad to send him some spymasters that would have made you scream with orgasmic delight.
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You could say Sipowicz eased our acceptance of Tony Soprano by teaching viewers how to love an epicly flawed person and believe it was possible such a man could redeem himself.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/213889_tv01.html
Wvery now and then Sipowicz woud break a nose , thrashing a prisoner while the other officers were fetching coffe. "NYPD Blue" was one of the cutting edge of gritty shows in '93 , back when an eight year old might have been watching it then, and could be a seargent in the Army now.
More recently "24" shows a even greater tolerance for beating the truth out of a prisoner, kids learn a lot about what is and isn't socialy acceptable from their TV.
Sipowicz had somewhat good judgement and got good results from his interogation tecniques , isn't he the guy you waould want on the case if you had been kidnapped?
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My guess Plane, is that if it were one of Lanya's or Xo's loved ones, cup of tea, with some brandy, comfy blankets, and a little John Lennon playing as background misic, are that's required for them to crack and tell us where there loved ones are being held.
(now, watch how fast they try to paint a response with the notion that sirs "loves torture", when I've been on record as to what I do and don't consider "torture". Hint, breaking bones, even noses, isn't something sirs supports)
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My guess Plane, is that if it were one of Lanya's or Xo's loved ones, cup of tea, with some brandy, comfy blankets, and a little John Lennon playing as background misic, are that's required for them to crack and tell us where there loved ones are being held.
(now, watch how fast they try to paint a response with the notion that sirs "loves torture", when I've been on record as to what I do and don't consider "torture". Hint, breaking bones, even noses, isn't something sirs supports)
Forceing brandy on a muslim might be torture. Very few of these guys would have a lot of experience being drunk.
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My guess Plane, is that if it were one of Lanya's or Xo's loved ones, cup of tea, with some brandy, comfy blankets, and a little John Lennon playing as background misic, are that's required for them to crack and tell us where there loved ones are being held.
Forceing brandy on a muslim might be torture. Very few of these guys would have a lot of experience being drunk.
Oh no, it wouldn't be forced. Per lanya & Xo, It would be offered. Perhaps have Air America playing in the background, to make them feel more at home ;)
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They might have made the tapes to show to future prospective torturees, to show them that Bubba don't play.
My guess is that they destroyed them because they show severe cruelty and implicate the CIA in it.
Now the same goons can continue torturing, perhaps in Turkmenistan, perhaps on Diego Garcia, and they won't have to ever pay for their crimes.
In all this talk about torture, there are some differing degrees.
O they say . . . all torture is wrong.
So it is.
But where was all the umbrage when the torturing of the enemy, perceived or otherwise, was conducted within the parameters of Intelligence?
Anybody who has chosen to serve in Intelligence work for the past seventy-years in our history clearly has understood that torture is a part of the game. That is why the little pills to be chomped down on were invented.
All the umbrage about torture now is because we fear that it spilled over the boundary, and will happen to us.
So it will.
Unless the extremist elements who have brought this phenomenonal threat down into our lives are stopped.
Can a change of guard in DC stop it?
Will a change of guard of in DC stop it?
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making muslim take brandy technically should be ok since he`s not willing to drink it.
if he understands this it really shouldn`t be a hardship
it`s like dying of starvation or eat pork
this is allowable but it really depends on the guy and how he views his belief
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making muslim take brandy technically should be ok since he`s not willing to drink it.
if he understands this it really shouldn`t be a hardship
it`s like dying of starvation or eat pork
this is allowable but it really depends on the guy and how he views his belief
I see your point , but this person would still rather not be fed disgusting food and be made drunk , he might consider it bad treatment.
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it is bad treatment but he should not be worry this is a violation of his beliefs.
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it is bad treatment but he should not be worry this is a violation of his beliefs.
I agree , the speculation that Muslims would be terrified of being smeared with lard is about the same , they would certinly be disgusted , but perhaps not more co-operative as a result.
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unless I`m wrong nobody has the ability to make a muslim violation his beliefs
the religion stipulate exception
ex. going to mecca ,but only without undue hardship
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They might have made the tapes to show to future prospective torturees, to show them that Bubba don't play.
My guess is that they destroyed them because they show severe cruelty and implicate the CIA in it.
Now the same goons can continue torturing, perhaps in Turkmenistan, perhaps on Diego Garcia, and they won't have to ever pay for their crimes.
In all this talk about torture, there are some differing degrees.
O they say . . . all torture is wrong.
So it is.
But where was all the umbrage when the torturing of the enemy, perceived or otherwise, was conducted within the parameters of Intelligence?
Anybody who has chosen to serve in Intelligence work for the past seventy-years in our history clearly has understood that torture is a part of the game. That is why the little pills to be chomped down on were invented.
All the umbrage about torture now is because we fear that it spilled over the boundary, and will happen to us.
So it will.
Unless the extremist elements who have brought this phenomenonal threat down into our lives are stopped.
Can a change of guard in DC stop it?
Will a change of guard of in DC stop it?
Why do you choose the term of seventy years?
The CIA is not that old.
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Why do you choose the term of seventy years?
The CIA is not that old.
The US began its first propaganda ministry in the Woodrow Wilson administration in 1912. Mitchell Palmer was the inventor of propaganda in the modern era. Palmer managed to whip up all manner of hate against the Germans as the "Huns". The main reason for the US getting into WWI was that JP Morgan knew that if the Brits lost, they would never pay him the money he had lent them, of course. The US had no logical reason to fight WWI. The largest immigrant population in the US at the time were Germans, most of whom were pacifists who had flred German militarism from the 1700's through the Bismarck period. They certainly wanted no part of any war, not against Germany nor for the US or anyone else. But within a few years, Palmer managed to get the German language rfemoved from the curriculum of most highschools, and a huge numnbers of Germans changed their named, the Schmmits becoming Smiths, the Mullers becoming Millers, the Schneiders becoming Taylors and so on.
The US invented modern advertising, British ads tended toward the dumbass "none genuine without this signature" crap, but the creating of an image for a product, like Quaker oats (which was never sold by Quakers) and phony experts like Betty Crocker and Aunt Jemima became the essence of advertising, and Palmer was the father of propaganda.
The Germans in the 1920's admired the US, which has=d made so many of their peasants into successes. Hitler admired the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the Model T, and Palmers propaganda, and the German versions of these, the Autobahns, the VW and Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda were the new, improved German versions of this.
The Germans managed to surpass the Brits through science, and a strict meritocracy in education. The Brits preferred to graduate upper-class twits who would meet up with a few geniuses in College, but the German system relied more on science.
Torture was always used in human history, but the Germans applied scientific principles to it. Goebbels was himself no scientist, and Nazi science was often way off the track, but then the US invented the OSS, patterned after Britis intelligence, but with more smart people and fewer twits than the Brits used, and a more German meritocratic bent. The OSS contacts with the French and Italian criminal element were instrumental in the French connection and the European end of the modern Mafia. IT provided organizational skills the dummies in the criminal element did not possess.
Propaganda and covert operations have a similar goal: to defeat an enemy with stealth rather than force of arms, by weasly wile rather than expensive brontosaurian muscle. I would say that this began around 1915, in the US.
Arab terrorism was simply an extension and a third world duplication of the failed French attempts to keep Algeria part of Metropolitan France. Of course, there were some terrorists in North Africa trained by the OSS as well.
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"...US invented the OSS, patterned after Britis intelligence, but with more smart people and fewer twits than the Brits used,..."
I hate to think that we have a twit gap.
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The US has a very limited aristocracy. Twits are the incompetent sons of the aristocracy. Juniorbush is pretty close to being a twit.