DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Michael Tee on March 31, 2010, 12:39:19 AM
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The torture of Abu Zubaydah
http://www.truthout.org/torture-diaries-drawings-and-special-prosecutor58108 (http://www.truthout.org/torture-diaries-drawings-and-special-prosecutor58108)
I don't understand
1. How this can't make anyone sick
2.
There is no No. 2. If this didn't make people sick, then there's no real demand for punishment of those involved at any level and in fact it's quite easy to understand how everyone gets away with everything.
This is like one of those letters that I used to write in Amnesty - - nobody reads them, nobody gives a shit and nothing changes. But we wrote them anyway.
When the hammer finally comes down on the nation in whose name such acts are sanctioned, condoned and largely passed over in silence, the Rev. Fred Phelps and I, and hopefully many others as well, will not be crying any tears. We won't all be on the same page, obviously, but one thing we WILL have in common, and that will be that none of us will be crying any tears.
Why did I even bother to write this post? I don't know but I feel I have to do so rather than remain silent.
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Not to be too cynical, but to rely on diaries from a man suffering from both long term and short term memory loss as proper cause to go on a fishing expedition with the feds , seems to be the equivalent of a hanging curveball the size of a grapefruit to Ryan Howard, for any lawyer worth his salt.
But other than that, you are right.
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Torture of some form or another happens 100s of thousands of times a day, in as many locations, all over the globe.
Controlling husbands torture their wives physically and mentally. Adults cruelly torture their children with neglect, or outright abandonment. "Soldiers" from Africa, Canada, the United States, the UK, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, are all on record as having tortured civilians, and "enemy" combatants. Police officers from South and Central America, Mexico, Iraq, Egypt, etc., etc., torture "suspects" routinely. Adolescents, and teens, torture their peers over the internet sometimes pushing their victims to end their lives via suicide. Pol Pots regime sent children out into the countryside to torture and murder randomly. There is nothing special about your take on torture, Snowblower, except that you play at being some sort of avenger. We all can see into the dark. We don't need you to see whats going on. And we don't need you to set up the guidelines on how to handle it, or what the punishment should be, or who should be punished. And frankly, Snowblower, there is something very dark and bloody about you and your obsessions. There is something dark, bloody, and inhumane about your fascination with torture, war, and revenge. There is in you a greater share of the very darkness you pretend to enlighten then there is within most of us. You are the other side of the same coin. The torturer's face is on one side, your face is on the other side.
BSB
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<<Torture of some form or another happens 100s of thousands of times a day, in as many locations, all over the globe.
<<Controlling husbands torture their wives physically and mentally. Adults cruelly torture their children with neglect, or outright abandonment. "Soldiers" from Africa, Canada, the United States, the UK, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, are all on record as having tortured civilians, and "enemy" combatants. Police officers from South and Central America, Mexico, Iraq, Egypt, etc., etc., torture "suspects" routinely. Adolescents, and teens, torture their peers over the internet sometimes pushing their victims to end their lives via suicide. Pol Pots regime sent children out into the countryside to torture and murder randomly. There is nothing special about your take on torture, Snowblower, except that you play at being some sort of avenger. We all can see into the dark. We don't need you to see whats going on. And we don't need you to set up the guidelines on how to handle it, or what the punishment should be, or who should be punished. And frankly, Snowblower, there is something very dark and bloody about you and your obsessions. There is something dark, bloody, and inhumane about your fascination with torture, war, and revenge. There is in you a greater share of the very darkness you pretend to enlighten then there is within most of us. You are the other side of the same coin. The torturer's face is on one side, your face is on the other side.>>
We should just rip up UNCAT (UN Convention Against Torture and Cruel and Unusual Punishment?)
It's "dark and bloody" to punish torturers? I thought it was "dark and bloody" to torture people; it seemed like a pretty good idea to rid the world of torturers - - or at least make a start on it by ridding the world of the ones we can most easily get our hands on.
And BTW: if you can all "see into the dark," the U.S. government is sure wasting a lot of effort trying to keep it all secret.
Well, thanks for the feedback. I don't know how representative it is, but it's a pretty strong and articulate rejection of everything I felt when I read the Abu Zubaydah article. It really made me feel like a minority of one, except I know that can't be. I guess more accurately it indicates the gulf between those who give a shit and those who don't. Looks like you guys have the upper hand, for now and there isn't a God-damn thing that anyone can do about it. Wasted my time writing that fucking post like I wasted fifteen years in IA. Well, fuck it, c'est la vie.
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Not to be too cynical, but to rely on diaries from a man suffering from both
long term and short term memory loss
Not only that BT...usually I dont like to play the "kill the messenger game"...
but since Michael seems so fond of it....well I guess it seems appropriate.
Isn't the writer of this story the same writer that got caught lying about a Karl Rove inditement,
the same writer that Salon had to remove an August 29, 2002 story about Enron from its site
after it was discovered that he plagiarized parts from the Financial Times, the same writer that
got fired from the Los Angeles Times, the same writer that had his own memoir cancelled because
of concerns over the accuracy of quotations, the same writer that is a self-admitted past drug addict,
self admitted sufferer of past bouts with mental illness and suicide attempts, the same writer that has
admitted to breaking journalistic rules, and the same writer that was convicted for grand larceny?
Plus I agree with BSB...this guy has an agenda to sensationalize the US as the "bad-guy"
while pretty much ignoring much worse behavior all over the world every day.
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It's pretty lame to say that torturing this guy is okay because torture is so commonplace.
I disagree that it is commonplace, and I disagree that it is proper for the US government to use anyone as a guinea pig to see what works. I am pretty sure that this is already known, after all.
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The torture of Abu Zubaydah
http://www.truthout.org/torture-diaries-drawings-and-special-prosecutor58108 (http://www.truthout.org/torture-diaries-drawings-and-special-prosecutor58108)
I don't understand
1. How this can't make anyone sick
2.
There is no No. 2. If this didn't make people sick, then there's no real demand for punishment of those involved at any level and in fact it's quite easy to understand how everyone gets away with everything.
This is like one of those letters that I used to write in Amnesty - - nobody reads them, nobody gives a shit and nothing changes. But we wrote them anyway.
When the hammer finally comes down on the nation in whose name such acts are sanctioned, condoned and largely passed over in silence, the Rev. Fred Phelps and I, and hopefully many others as well, will not be crying any tears. We won't all be on the same page, obviously, but one thing we WILL have in common, and that will be that none of us will be crying any tears.
Why did I even bother to write this post? I don't know but I feel I have to do so rather than remain silent.
When it comes to fiction books sometimes if the writing is really good it will bring me to tears. Just yoking... great fiction piece!
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All prisons everywhere have accusations of mistreatment.
Probably almost all prisons everywhere actually have some mistreatment.
It's not an excuse....but it is reality.
Have we been 100% perfect? No, but show me prisons where everybody is happy.
Prisons here, there, everywhere...can always improve.
This author has an axe to grind....he wants to sensationalize any possible US mistakes
and leave an incorrect impression of the reality of US treatment of detainees. It's typical
media....do a big story about the rarity and pretend it's the norm.
I don't think sleep deprivation and/or waterboarding are "torture". Also torture is NOT a rare and
ill-advised flushing of a Qur'an down the toilet. It may be against a rule, but thats not "torture".
Even so...even if you think water-boarding is torture....it was applied to exactly three suspects
in the course of eight years......WhooopDeeeeeDo!
At Gitmo detainees receive 4200 calories a day with 53 individually prepared special diet meals.
Four different menus and three meals a day are offered. Halal and cultural dietary requirements
are supported. Refreshments are served in the recreation areas. All Detainees gain weight (average 18 lbs)
during custody. (Detainees on hunger strikes have gained an average of 20 lbs since going on strike.)
Opportunity to worship is respected. There is uninterrupted prayer time. Korans are provided in nine
languages. Prayer rugs, prayer beads, and oil are provided. Call to prayer is sounded five times daily.
Each cell or Detainee area is marked with arrows signifying the direction to Mecca. All Detainees have
significant opportunities for recreation. (2-12 hours daily). Sports opportunities include soccer,
volleyball, basketball, table tennis, and board games. Detainees have access to new aerobic
exercise machines. Detainees have access to Arabic language TV shows and broadcast of World Cup
Games. Detainees are provided two full sets of clothing, have privacy in cell toilet facilities, and are
permitted regular showers. All detention blocks are dry, clean, and free of unhealthy conditions.
Ample running water and Gatorade are provided. Books and magazines are offered to all
compliant Detainees. (All Detainees regardless of status have a Koran in their cell).
Over 3500 pieces of literature are available in 13 languages.
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<<Even so...even if you think water-boarding is torture....>>
Nobody has to "think" it's torture - - the UNCAT, a treaty which the U.S.A. signed and is a party to, SAYS that it's torture. Japanese officers were CONVICTED of torturing Americans and Filipinos with waterboarding. Waterboarding is a very clear-cut instance of torture, and the U.S.A. is obligated by treaty (a) not to do it and (b) to prosecute anyone who has done it.
<<it was applied to exactly three suspects
in the course of eight years......WhooopDeeeeeDo!>>
And you believe that? First they said they didn't do it. Then they said never more than three times to any suspect. Then they admit to over a hundred times for some other guy and 83 times for this guy. They are such fucking God-damned liars, yet whatever they are telling you at the moment, you eat it up and digest it as comfortably as if you were actually dealing with respectable honest people instead of lying, murdering scum.
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Why are you so upset about one man when it doesn't bother you one bit if millions die to "advance the revolution" ?
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1. How this can't make anyone sick
easy
people don`t want to admit inflicting or seeing pain on others is also a form of entertainment.
you can`t say a lynching was not entertaining to the audience.
I`m not saying all people ,but enough to give doubts how much control one has in a interogation.
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Nobody has to "think" it's torture - - the UNCAT, a treaty which the U.S.A. signed
and is a party to, SAYS that it's torture. Japanese officers were CONVICTED of torturing
Americans and Filipinos with waterboarding. Waterboarding is a very clear-cut instance .
of torture, and the U.S.A. is obligated by treaty (a) not to do it and (b) to prosecute
anyone who has done it. And you believe that?
What and you think it was applied to all?
Anything to further the bullshit lying misrepresentation half-truths about Gitmo!
More fake outrage about anything American while looking the other way and lack of any
concern for the people who have been tortured by Castro in his prisons.
Half of the American people approved of the Bush administration's decision to use of those
techniques during the questioning of suspected terrorists.
Do you know the U.S. military waterboards hundreds of our own soldiers every year?
It is part of the conditioning Special Forces troops undergo to prepare for battle
and the possibility of capture by the enemy. In other words, it's OK for us to do
this to America's best and brightest but it's too horrible for our worst enemies?
If these "techniques" resulted in any lasting physical or mental side effects would
they be used on our own? Would it be reasonable to assume that we would have
already heard the outcry to cease these actions?
As far as UNCAT you are wrong, UNCAT prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
However, there is an important qualification. In consenting to both treaties, the US Senate
added a caveat: CID was to be understood in the U.S. as the cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment prohibited under the aforementioned Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
As a result, one can argue that it does not undermine the contention that those protections
apply only to civilian legal proceedings, not to the detention and interrogation of alien enemy
combatants in wartime. That is, CID would be controlled by governing American constitutional law
not what activist NGOs, international law professors, and foreign regimes decided terms like
"degrading treatment" might mean.
The law in 2002 when the CIA devised its interrogation program for terrorist detainees allowed for
waterboarding.
The CIA program was created to be within the law. The interrogation program was intended to shock,
surprise and scare detainees into revealing valuable intelligence information. And that's what it did.
And it was legal. Under the 2002 version of the law...Title 18 US Code Section 2340...waterboarding
was legal because it didn't cause prolonged psychological harm. That is precisely the basis for the
August 2, 2002 legal opinion signed by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee which found
on the basis of extensive psychological evidence on waterboarding obtained in military training
in which almost 27,000 men were subjected to it ...that waterboarding didn?t cause "prolonged
psychological harm".
The wailing leftist media and liberals with an agenda conflate the 2002 law with what it was
amended to say in 2005. Sen. John McCain sponsored and Congress passed an amendment
to the law to include "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment in the definition of torture.
Congress had previously limited the UNCAT ratification to exclude those terms because no
one can define them. But from then on, waterboarding...at least degrading and cruel
was against the law. Not before.
About one hundred high-valued detainees have been captured since 9-11. Of those,
three have been waterboarded.
My definition of torture is simple: It involves physical or mental abuse that leaves lasting scars.
Cutting off fingers, toes, limbs...that would be torture. Forcing prisoners to play Russian roulette
that would be torture. Sticking hot pokers in the eyes of prisoners...that would be torture.
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XO says, "It's pretty lame to say that torturing this guy is okay because torture is so commonplace."
Who said it was ok to torture that guy? If you're taking that from my post, read it again. I didn't say anything of the kind.
Moose breath says, "I guess more accurately it indicates the gulf between those who give a shit and those who don't."
As with XO, I don't know where you got the idea that I don't give a shit? I never said or implied that. I mean I've only posted my opinion on torture in here, supported by my eyewitness report of an event, about 50 times.
Try starting with a less prejudiced mind set and begin again here, "There is nothing special about your take on torture, Snowblower, except that you play at being some sort of avenger."
BSB
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Why are you so upset about one man when it doesn't bother you one bit if millions die to "advance the revolution" ?
D'oh
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<<Why are you so upset about one man when it doesn't bother you one bit if millions die to "advance the revolution" ?>>
Well, it sure as hell would bother me if millions were tortured to death to "advance the revolution."
You're comparing apples to oranges again.
Besides, this isn't a debate about revolutionary violence, it's a debate about torture. Torture bothers me. Revolutionary violence would bother me in some instances, if for example, it were unnecessarily harsh or unjust. We can have a debate about how much revolutionary violence bothers me or doesn't bother me in another thread, but I was upset about U.S. torture of helpless prisoners and regardless of my attitude towards revolutionary violence (which is nowhere near as black-and-white as you tried to portray it) I want to discuss the morality of torture, and specifically U.S. torture, which is the only kind of torture the readers of this NG can do anything about.
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<<Try starting with a less prejudiced mind set and begin again here, "There is nothing special about your take on torture, Snowblower, except that you play at being some sort of avenger.">>
"Play at being some sort of avenger" is BSB-speak for "is aghast at the lack of prosecution for an offence which the U.S.A. is bound by treaty to prosecute."
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<<As far as UNCAT you are wrong, UNCAT prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.>>
Maybe you better read UNCAT again. UNCAT prohibits torture (Article 2) and obliges the USA (as a signing party) to make torture a criminal offence in its domestic law (Article 4,) to arrest any offender (Article 6) and to prosecute him in criminal court (Article 7.)
UNCAT defines torture in Article 1: any act by which severe pain or suffering , whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining . . . information . . . "
"Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" are NOT part of the definition of torture; they are referred to in Article 16, which deals, not with torture, but with other acts that "do not amount to torture as defined in Article 1."
<<However, there is an important qualification. In consenting to both treaties, the US Senate
added a caveat: CID was to be understood in the U.S. as the cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment prohibited under the aforementioned Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.>>
The Senate did make a reservation with regard to torture, and that reservation was:
<< . . . that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from: (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.>>
I think when the Senate reservation is factored in, my best case is that waterboarding was severe physical suffering caused by cutting off the guy's air supply, so that the requirement for prolonged mental harm is applicable only to cases of "mental pain or suffering" and so is not applicable to a case of waterboarding, and your best case is that the suffering of waterboarding victims is mental and not physical and thus there is no torture unless there is also prolonged mental harm (which the government claims has not been established.) My alternative best case is (3) "threat of imminent death" which I think is the idea that the torturers are trying to create in the first place with the waterboarding.
The legal argument isn't important. It doesn't matter if the U.S. Senate found a weasel formula that lets it waterboard its victims and avoid falling under the treaty's definition of torture. That would just be slick lawyering. The act itself is repulsive. This is why the videos of it were all destroyed. This is why 90% of the photos and videos of the abuses of Abu Ghraib are being withheld even now by the Pentagon. It's a sickening violation of human rights and human dignity that makes me sick to my stomach.
I get your point that it doesn't make YOU sick to your stomach. That's fine and thanks for explaining it to me. I am just convinced as I said before that only one thing is illustrated here: the gap between those who give a shit about their fellow man and his suffering and those who don't. The phony crap excuses that it happens in every prison (which is total crap) and that nobody is perfect (just what Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer could have said!) are lame and pathetic. That Castro does bad things too - - one, he probably doesn't, and two, even if he does, that's HIS problem, and Cuba's; you as Americans can't excuse your own abysmal human rights record on the grounds that somebody else is worse. Even a child, if properly raised, would know better.
The argument that this is done to American soldiers is bullshit. The soldier knows going into it that he won't be harmed and that it's just for training purposes. The captured Afghan has no such assurance and struggles against drowning fully convinced that he could die in the process.
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"Maybe you better read UNCAT again"
Maybe you should read again....that the US Senate added a caveat: CID was
to be understood in the U.S. as the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
prohibited under the aforementioned Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
That is, CID would be controlled by governing American constitutional law
not what activist NGOs, international law professors, and foreign regimes
decided terms like "degrading treatment" might mean. So what is torture?
It really doesn't matter what Michael Tee or I think it may mean in the abstract.
We are governed by law, and torture has a statutory definition. Section 2340
of the federal criminal code defines it as a government act "specifically intended
to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering".
(an exception is made for the execution of capital sentences).
The law did not explain what "severe" means. Because of 2002 OLC guidance
(known infamously as the "torture memo"), much attention has been given to this question.
The memo certainly defined the term too narrowly, suggesting that severe meant
"equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ
failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Nevertheless, even in conceding
that this definition was too demanding when it withdrew the OLC memo in 2004, the
Justice Department reaffirmed that the designation torture is reserved for practices
causing "intense, lasting and heinous agony" (quoting a 2002 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals case)
which are so abominable that they stand apart from other condemnable forms of cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment. With respect to mental pain or suffering, Section 2340 does tell us
that severe "means prolonged mental harm".....
"The legal argument isn't important"
Not for those that lose legal arguments!
"It doesn't matter if the U.S. Senate found a weasel formula that lets it
waterboard its victims and avoid falling under the treaty's definition of torture"
Yeah sure Michael Tee....reality doesn't matter.
"That would just be slick lawyering"
No it would be reality.
"The act itself is repulsive"
War is repulsive and enemies should know that there will be sick,
cruel punishment for those that mess with the United States.
"This is why the videos of it were all destroyed"
No it's not....it was probably destroyed because they knew the anti-American
enemy supporters on the Left would use their garbage friends in the media
to help the enemy with videos. The war is not only with the enemy, there is
also a war with the "5th Column" of the Left.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Politics/1aLeftist_Atrocities.jpg)
It's a sickening violation of human rights and human dignity that makes me sick to my stomach.
Yeah you & the 5th Column's fraud outrage is pretty funny too...outrage at Israel while
you sit sipping coffee on stoeln land in Canada & fraud outrage at the US while your heroes
killed hundreds of millions "for the revolution".
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Politics/zarmeena.gif)
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Politics/226900715RL810908187.jpg)
"I get your point that it doesn't make YOU sick to your stomach"
It makes me very proud....I wish we would do it more.
I want to inflict much pain & suffering on enemy combatants
trying to destroy the United States.
"I am just convinced as I said before that only one thing is illustrated here:
the gap between those who give a shit about their fellow man and his suffering
and those who don't"
Actions speak louder than words...we see whose in Haiti and everywhere else
there is a natural disaster. But if the US dominates the aid relief in the world
but waterboards 3 terrorists flying airplanes into buildings...well golly geee
"the US must not give a shit about his fellow man". ::)
"The argument that this is done to American soldiers is bullshit.
The soldier knows going into it that he won't be harmed and that it's just
for training purposes"
Yeah sure...come over this weekend and we can try it on you to see how pleasant it is!
"The captured Afghan has no such assurance and struggles against drowning fully
convinced that he could die in the process"
Good...I want to put the fear of God in them....fear...where they literally shit in their pants.
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<<Maybe you should read again....that the US Senate added a caveat: CID was
to be understood in the U.S. as . . . >>
This is the second time you've missed the point. I will try once more to explain this for you. There are TWO issues dealt with in UNCAT. One is torture. The other is: cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that fails to meet UNCAT'S definition of torture. (The Article numbers of the Convention I gave in a preceding post.)
The issue I am dealing with is torture. So it does not matter how the U.S. Senate qualified or defined CID (cruel, inhuman or degrading) by caveat or otherwise, since I am not concerned here with "CID," but only with torture.
Torture is defined quite clearly in UNCAT. The U.S. Senate actually DID qualify its ratification of UNCAT's definition of torture (as well as CID, which you referred to above) by reservation that "torture" would mean deliberate infliction of "severe mental or physical pain or suffering" and went further to define "mental pain or suffering," which IMHO is irrelevant to this discussion since I think it's pretty obvious that waterboarding is a physical practice which denies the physical body an essential physical element (oxygen) and produces the physical symptoms of oxygen deprivation which are detectable by purely physical instruments measuring purely physical phenomena such as the concentration of oxygen and other blood gases in the blood, in the brain, in the muscles, etc.
So even with the Senate reservations about the definition of torture, waterboarding would qualify as the deliberate infliction of severe physical pain or suffering. It's silly and laughable to argue that the physical pain or suffering of waterboarding is not "severe" - - since it's designed to force supposedly hardened "terrorists" to betray their comrades in arms when all other persuasive techniques have failed, the argument really is saying that these men, ready and determined to sacrifice their own lives in the cause, many of them having spent years in armed combat and gladly suffered grievous wounds for it, will betray it all just to avoid some physical pain and pressure that is only mild or moderate. That is ABSURD.
In any event, I want to avoid these silly legalistic arguments based on nothing more than academic hair-splitting. I wrote initially of moral revulsion and disgust. That reaction was not evoked by the success or failure of an act or series of actions to meet the verbal criteria laid down in a legal definition laid down in an international treaty and modified by weaselly Senate "reservations" - - the disgust and revulsion were a primary reaction to the actions of the U.S. military themselves, the way they can treat other human beings, the depths to which they are prepared to descend in the way they treat other men and women. This is not a judgment on the helpless victims themselves, it is a judgment on the scum-of-the-earth U.S. military, their enablers and protectors in Congress, the media and the judiciary.
Something in the U.S. is really wrong, really sick, and really deserving of appropriate chastisement from whatever source is capable of administering it. This is not to say that other nations are perfect, not to approve every atrocity committed by every other nation and particularly by the enemies of America, as CU4 seems to think it is, but a condemnation of the only nation on earth in which we as citizens (and I include Canada as well, for our armed forces also torture and get away with it) can actually play a role, however small, in abolishing the practice and punishing the practitioners appropriately.
I realize the problem, that plenty of Americans just don't feel the same way about these atrocities and I thank CU4 for sharing his opinions openly and honestly about it. There isn't any way to bridge this gap. Some of us are appalled by this flagrant denial of the humanity of others and will do whatever we can do to stop it, however insignificant our best efforts may be; others just don't give a shit and will gleefully promote this kind of unrestrained savagery and sadism as long as they feel it suits their nation's interests. There's a dark side (CU4) and there's a light side (ME!) and so far the good guys have been losing every battle we've taken on. But the good guys will go on fighting. That's what life is, a contest between the light and the dark sides of the human soul.
BTW, with regard to your three photos, CU4, "NOT ATROCITY," "NOT ATROCITY" and "ATROCITY," the mercenaries DID have it coming to them in spades, the victims of the WTC may not have personally had it coming to them for anything they themselves did, but they can thank the U.S. government and its policies directly or indirectly for the catastrophe that took their lives, with a nod of appreciation to the builders for their successful evasion of all meaningful building codes in accordance with the finest principles of capitalist practice, and the Abu Ghraib photo was in fact an atrocity, just far from the worst ones being committed at Abu Ghraib at the time.
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with a nod of appreciation to the builders for their successful evasion of all meaningful building codes in accordance with the finest principles of capitalist practice,
You probably should explain that statement.
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<<You probably should explain that statement [with a nod of appreciation to the builders for their successful evasion of all meaningful building codes in accordance with the finest principles of capitalist practice.]
The collapse of the buildings were due to the girders' exposure to heat. Instead of being encased in concrete of specified dimensions as per the NYC building code in force when the project went up, the builders took advantage of the fact that the site was owned by the NY Port Authority, a joint bi-state (NY, NJ) board not subject to the laws of either state, and used a spray-on insulation on the beams and columns. Due to the building's motion, the spray-on had been cracking off, and in some cases actually exposing the steel. The owners had planned to re-do the columns one floor at a time, which would have required decades to complete. The jet-fuel fires weakened the steel to the point of collapsing long before the people above the crash-site floors could have been safely evacuated.
There was also an elevator/stairwell cluster problem. The standard building practice of the day called for dispersed elevator shafts, closer to the four corners of the building, but all the elevators were closer to the center so that the owners could add more rentable floor space. Had the shaft clusters and stairwells been dispersed more widely, some could have maintained access to the lower floors even as others were blocked by debris. All stairwell descents from the upper floors were blocked by debris because they were too close together.
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The collapse of the buildings were due to the girders' exposure to heat. Instead of being encased in concrete of specified dimensions as per the NYC building code in force when the project went up, the builders took advantage of the fact that the site was owned by the NY Port Authority, a joint bi-state (NY, NJ) board not subject to the laws of either state, and used a spray-on insulation on the beams and columns. Due to the building's motion, the spray-on had been cracking off, and in some cases actually exposing the steel. The owners had planned to re-do the columns one floor at a time, which would have required decades to complete. The jet-fuel fires weakened the steel to the point of collapsing long before the people above the crash-site floors could have been safely evacuated.
They did not ignore the laws, the laws had been changed.
But isn't steel protected against the heat of fire? Building codes require that a layer of noncombustible material insulate the steel from the fire's heat for a given period, preserving its structural integrity long enough so that the building can be evacuated. That is why fire protection is rated in hours: two hours, three hours, and so on. Until the 1960s, structural steel was encased in poured concrete or brick, whose heavy mass absorbed the heat and dissipated it through dehydration. Because the weight of such fire protection added significantly to the cost of tall buildings, lightweight substitutes were developed, most commonly spray-on coatings of mineral fibers. The structural steel of the World Trade Center towers was originally fire-protected with sprayed-on asbestos, later abated and replaced by a 3/4-inch coating of inorganic fibers. This coating was in the process of being thickened to 11/2 inches (not all the floors in the south tower impact zone had this augmented fire protection).
At the World Trade Center, sprayed-on fire protection was effective in some buildings. A fire was started in 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high-rise, by debris and heat from the collapsing towers. By then, all underground infrastructure in the area had been destroyed, and there was no water for fire fighting, so the blaze, fed by diesel fuel from generators in an electrical substation, raged out of control. Nevertheless, it was seven hours before the building collapsed, and no lives were lost. On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that much of the spray-on fire protection in the twin towers was probably dislodged by the jarring impact of the planes and by flying debris, leaving the steel exposed and vulnerable. There is no doubt that it's time to take a long, hard look at the actual performance of spray-on fire protection. If more effective coatings cannot be developed, perhaps we should return to heavier methods of building.
http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings (http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings)
There was also an elevator/stairwell cluster problem. The standard building practice of the day called for dispersed elevator shafts, closer to the four corners of the building, but all the elevators were closer to the center so that the owners could add more rentable floor space. Had the shaft clusters and stairwells been dispersed more widely, some could have maintained access to the lower floors even as others were blocked by debris. All stairwell descents from the upper floors were blocked by debris because they were too close together.
The standard building practice of the day included a central core column - dispersed shafts are now becoming widespread.
Each tower had three sets of fire stairs (two 44 inches wide and one 56 inches wide), all clustered together in the service core at the center of the building, which also contained elevators, air-handling shafts, and bathrooms. High-rise buildings have always been designed with centrally located cores, which provide a convenient place for structural support and bracing. The design hides mechanical functions in the least desirable part of the building and leaves the perimeter next to the windows free for human use. The vertical shafts?stairs, ducts, and elevators?tend to act as chimneys during a fire and have to be specially protected. Although the cores of the World Trade Center towers were built of closely spaced, massive steel columns and beams, the fire stairs themselves were encased only by gypsum wallboard attached to metal studs: two 5/8-inch-thick layers of wallboard on the exterior and one on the interior. Such an assembly can withstand fire for two hours, but it offers little resistance to even a hammer blow, never mind the avalanche of debris that assaulted it on September 11. The failure of the fire stairs was almost total. All three sets of stairs in the north tower, and two of three in the south tower, were completely destroyed. Only 18 people in the south tower managed to escape from the floors above the crash zone (tragically, some people used the surviving stairs to climb up, believing that safety lay in the upper floors, away from the fire). It's impossible to know the extent of the destruction on the impacted floors of the towers following the crash, but it's easy to conclude that more robust emergency stairs, of reinforced concrete, spaced far apart rather than clustered together, would have been more effective. It's likely that new codes for the design of fire stairs in tall buildings will result from this experience.
http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings (http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings)
-
"This is the second time you've missed the point.
No I understand the point...you just do not like or accept my answer,
you even stated something like "well if they can weasel out with some
legal definition".
Torture is defined quite clearly in UNCAT.
No it is not.
UNCAT defined torture as involving the "intentional infliction" of "severe pain or suffering"
to interrogate, punish, or intimidate a person.
If you call that "quite clearly"....you are insane!
Michael seriously that defintion is a mile wide.
So even with the Senate reservations about the definition of torture,
waterboarding would qualify as the deliberate infliction of severe physical pain or suffering.
No it would not.
It's silly and laughable to argue that the physical pain or suffering of waterboarding is not "severe"
It is totally laughable to pretend waterbaording is "severe" ...."severe" is an entirely different level.
Severe is driving nails under someone's fingernails....severe is cutting off someone's toes, fingers, nose, ears.
Severe is popping someone's shoulder out, severe is sustained electric currents to their balls, severe is cigarette
burns to the eye-ball.
"That is ABSURD"
No it's not....it's tough...it is not severe and it is not torture.
In any event, I want to avoid these silly legalistic arguments based
on nothing more than academic hair-splitting.
Sure you do....the Left always wants to avoid hair-splitting
unless they can win the case....obviously your entire case
about this is total bullshit because if it were in fact true
charges would have been brought, filed, and won against
President Bush....leftist would have loved to have helped
the enemy and bring charges and convict President Bush
did not happen....talk is cheap!
it is a judgment on the scum-of-the-earth U.S. military
I wish it would get a lot nastier against your side.
And I mean a lot nastier.
I'm glad the US military pisses you off
I hope the US Military pisses off all it's enemies.
That means it is doing it's job.
The US Marines don't seek or want Bin Laden's or your approval.
The truth is all this boils down to is your opposition to our use of military force,
particularly in Iraq/Afghanistan. It's not like anything we do or any concession
we make is ever going to win you over. You are going to call us international
law criminals anyway and "look the other way" and excuse everyone else
so thats why we (the americans you describe as not caring) don't give a shit what you think.
There's a dark side (CU4) and there's a light side (ME!)
Yeah your side has produced so much for mankind....
Look at all the wonderful standards of living Communism has produced.
Look at all the masss immigration to Commi countries.
Pol Pot, Mao, and Stalin were such beacons of light.
-
The collapse of the buildings were due to the girders' exposure to heat. Instead of being encased in concrete of specified dimensions as per the NYC building code in force when the project went up, the builders took advantage of the fact that the site was owned by the NY Port Authority, a joint bi-state (NY, NJ) board not subject to the laws of either state, and used a spray-on insulation on the beams and columns. Due to the building's motion, the spray-on had been cracking off, and in some cases actually exposing the steel. The owners had planned to re-do the columns one floor at a time, which would have required decades to complete. The jet-fuel fires weakened the steel to the point of collapsing long before the people above the crash-site floors could have been safely evacuated.
They did not ignore the laws, the laws had been changed.
But isn't steel protected against the heat of fire? Building codes require that a layer of noncombustible material insulate the steel from the fire's heat for a given period, preserving its structural integrity long enough so that the building can be evacuated. That is why fire protection is rated in hours: two hours, three hours, and so on. Until the 1960s, structural steel was encased in poured concrete or brick, whose heavy mass absorbed the heat and dissipated it through dehydration. Because the weight of such fire protection added significantly to the cost of tall buildings, lightweight substitutes were developed, most commonly spray-on coatings of mineral fibers. The structural steel of the World Trade Center towers was originally fire-protected with sprayed-on asbestos, later abated and replaced by a 3/4-inch coating of inorganic fibers. This coating was in the process of being thickened to 11/2 inches (not all the floors in the south tower impact zone had this augmented fire protection).
At the World Trade Center, sprayed-on fire protection was effective in some buildings. A fire was started in 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high-rise, by debris and heat from the collapsing towers. By then, all underground infrastructure in the area had been destroyed, and there was no water for fire fighting, so the blaze, fed by diesel fuel from generators in an electrical substation, raged out of control. Nevertheless, it was seven hours before the building collapsed, and no lives were lost. On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that much of the spray-on fire protection in the twin towers was probably dislodged by the jarring impact of the planes and by flying debris, leaving the steel exposed and vulnerable. There is no doubt that it's time to take a long, hard look at the actual performance of spray-on fire protection. If more effective coatings cannot be developed, perhaps we should return to heavier methods of building.
http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings (http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings)
There was also an elevator/stairwell cluster problem. The standard building practice of the day called for dispersed elevator shafts, closer to the four corners of the building, but all the elevators were closer to the center so that the owners could add more rentable floor space. Had the shaft clusters and stairwells been dispersed more widely, some could have maintained access to the lower floors even as others were blocked by debris. All stairwell descents from the upper floors were blocked by debris because they were too close together.
The standard building practice of the day included a central core column - dispersed shafts are now becoming widespread.
Each tower had three sets of fire stairs (two 44 inches wide and one 56 inches wide), all clustered together in the service core at the center of the building, which also contained elevators, air-handling shafts, and bathrooms. High-rise buildings have always been designed with centrally located cores, which provide a convenient place for structural support and bracing. The design hides mechanical functions in the least desirable part of the building and leaves the perimeter next to the windows free for human use. The vertical shafts?stairs, ducts, and elevators?tend to act as chimneys during a fire and have to be specially protected. Although the cores of the World Trade Center towers were built of closely spaced, massive steel columns and beams, the fire stairs themselves were encased only by gypsum wallboard attached to metal studs: two 5/8-inch-thick layers of wallboard on the exterior and one on the interior. Such an assembly can withstand fire for two hours, but it offers little resistance to even a hammer blow, never mind the avalanche of debris that assaulted it on September 11. The failure of the fire stairs was almost total. All three sets of stairs in the north tower, and two of three in the south tower, were completely destroyed. Only 18 people in the south tower managed to escape from the floors above the crash zone (tragically, some people used the surviving stairs to climb up, believing that safety lay in the upper floors, away from the fire). It's impossible to know the extent of the destruction on the impacted floors of the towers following the crash, but it's easy to conclude that more robust emergency stairs, of reinforced concrete, spaced far apart rather than clustered together, would have been more effective. It's likely that new codes for the design of fire stairs in tall buildings will result from this experience.
http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings (http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings)
D'OH
-
Michael Tee do you condemn the Russian President who today called for a
"brutal" response to the IslamoNazis in Russia. "We've twisted off
the heads of the most odious thugs, but clearly that's not enough" Medvedev said.
Should countries fight brutality with brutal responses?
IMO...any other way is a losing proposition.
What do you think Michael?
-
<<They did not ignore the laws, the laws had been changed.>>
This is a he-says, she-says kind of argument. The book I read (by two NYT reporters) claimed that they avoided then-current NY and NJ building laws because they were on land owned by or within the jurisdiction of neither state. Your source says the laws had been changed, which would be irrelevant if the project were subject to none of the laws. What was worse than the evasion of stringent building standards was the KNOWLEDGE the owners had before the attacks that the spray-on insulation was flaking off due to the motion of the buildings, and the lackadaisical approach they took to rectify the problem, a slow, one-floor-at-a-time repair that would have taken, IIRC, over 30 years to bring the building up to standard insulation of the steel frame.
<<At the World Trade Center, sprayed-on fire protection was effective in some buildings. A fire was started in 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high-rise, by debris and heat from the collapsing towers. >>
This is pure bullshit. The taller buildings and particularly the two towers, where the bulk of the casualties occurred, were the ones that swayed the most in the wind and the ones where the spray-on insulation showed (to the owners' knowledge) the most deterioration.
<<On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that much of the spray-on fire protection in the twin towers was probably dislodged by the jarring impact of the planes and by flying debris, leaving the steel exposed and vulnerable. >>
More was knocked off in the impact, of course, but that doesn't lessen the owners' culpability for failing to deal with the already sub-standard protection offered by the flaking off of the insulation coating that had already occurred before the attacks.
<<There is no doubt that it's time to take a long, hard look at the actual performance of spray-on fire protection. If more effective coatings cannot be developed, perhaps we should return to heavier methods of building.>>
Ahh, finally: the bottom line.
<<The standard building practice of the day included a central core column - dispersed shafts are now becoming widespread.>>
more he-said, she-said, my-source, your-source. With the additional element of "standard of the day" versus "best available at the time."
-
<<Michael Tee do you condemn the Russian President who today called for a
"brutal" response to the IslamoNazis in Russia. "We've twisted off
the heads of the most odious thugs, but clearly that's not enough" Medvedev said.>>
God-damn right I condemn him. Russia had brutally repressed the Chechen people and the Chechens are fully entitled to get payback any time they can, any way they can. Look up the Novye Aldi massacre for one of the more recent massacres, but these atrocities have been going on since the early 1990s. Look up Anna Politovskaya, a Russian journalist murdered for exposing Russian atrocities in Chechnya. Here's a site that detailed the atrocities, but all the videos and photos have been deleted from it, hmmm, wonder if Putin had anything to do with the deletions? http://russian-genocide-over-chechen-people.blogspot.com/ (http://russian-genocide-over-chechen-people.blogspot.com/)
How dare those Russian bastards talk about reprisals? They INVITE reprisals on their own people by the atrocities they have committed in Chechnya. The chickens are coming home to roost. But instead of acknowledging what they have done to bring these disasters down on their own heads, the bastards will talk about twisting off heads. Good luck widdat, Ivan. Looks like the Chechens are doing some twisting of their own but not enough to teach you anything yet.
<<Should countries fight brutality with brutal responses?>>
I think the aggressor nations (Russia, the USA) should look at their own conduct very carefully and see where and how they have done serious irreparable harm to others. I think those officials responsible for the aggression and repression should be removed from office and punished severely (up to and including capital punishment for those most egregiously responsible) and the appropriate apologies and reparations made to the victims or their survivors. Otherwise to "punish" a brutal but well-deserved act of vengeance from those against whom you have originally offended will do nothing but contribute to an endless loop of pointless violence and destruction which nobody can really win since neither side will be able to totally vanquish the other.
<<IMO...any other way is a losing proposition.>>
I would agree with that if you were fighting someone whose sole motivation is unjustified hatred and pure evil, such as, for example, the Axis Powers of WWII. However, when the fight is between a victimizer and its victims, the only "losing proposition" that I can see is for the victimizer to ignore (or worse yet, to misrepresent) the motivation of the victims and the contribution of its own policies to the reason why the victims fight, and to continue to pose as an aggrieved and innocent victim of pure evil, rather than first mending one's own ways. THAT is a losing proposition because the fight will go on forever, costing huge expenditures that will ultimately lead to ruin, while commercial competitors unburdened by such needless and pointless obligations proceed to overtake you in every field of competitition.
-
God-damn right I condemn him. Russia had brutally repressed the Chechen people
and the Chechens are fully entitled to get payback any time they can, any way they can.
Look up the Novye Aldi massacre for one of the more recent massacres, but these atrocities
have been going on since the early 1990s.
Wow....who woulda thought? Since pretty much all you condemn is the US.
The Russians are slaughtering innocents, but outrage is only reserved for the US.
Like I said earlier....it's obvious what motivates you.
But thats ok....because I dont give a damn what America Haters think as far as affecting our policy.
"I would agree with that if you were fighting someone whose sole motivation is
unjustified hatred and pure evil, such as, for example, the Axis Powers of WWII"
And IslamoNazis that hate because someone refuses Islam are not unjustified haters?
IslamoNazis that blow up girls schools because they want women to remain 2nd class are not haters?
Michael they are the same as the racists that blew up Black schools/churches in the United States.
-
This is a he-says, she-says kind of argument. The book I read (by two NYT reporters) claimed that they avoided then-current NY and NJ building laws because they were on land owned by or within the jurisdiction of neither state.
It's not "he-says, she-says". Your source, which still has not been revealed, are directly contradicted by records revealed by the NIST investigation.
Fire protection of exposed structural steel members in the WTC towers was provided by applied fire
resistive materials. They were either sprayed fire-resistive materials (SFRMs), gypsum wallboards, or a
combination of the two, depending upon the type of structural members, to meet the requirements of
Construction Classification of 1B of the 1968 New York City (NYC) Building Code. All floor trusses
and beams were protected with SFRM. The columns inside the core were either covered with gypsum
wall board or a combination of gypsum wall board and SFRM. For the exterior columns, vermiculite
plaster was applied to the side of the column facing the interior of the building, whereas SFRM was
applied to other three faces.
...
Fabrication and inspection requirements were contained in the contracts for the floor trusses, box core
columns and built-up beams, members of the exterior wall, and rolled columns and beams. In general, the
inspection requirements from the specifications for the various contracts were at a minimum equivalent to
those in the 1968 NYC Building Code. The Code contains provisions that govern the fabrication and
inspection of materials used in buildings. However, in a number of cases, the contract requirements were
more comprehensive and stringent than the corresponding provisions in the Code.
...
The primary egress system for the office spaces was the three stairways located in the building core.
These included two 44 in. (designated A and C) and one 56 in. wide (designated B) stairs which provided
exactly the code required capacity for an occupant load of 390 per floor (39,000 ft2 net at 100 ft2 per
person). The layout within the building core was consistent with the Building Code requirements for
maximum travel distance (200 ft unsprinklered, 300 ft sprinklered) and, while the separation was
consistent with New York City requirements (15 ft and later 30 ft), it was short of the more common
requirements found in all current building codes (one-half the diagonal of the space served if
unsprinklered, or one-third the diagonal if sprinklered) on some of the floors where the transfer corridors
brought the stair access closer together.
http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-1.pdf (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-1.pdf)
I think these bolded sections from the executive summary document what I've said - the Port Authority followed then-current NYC Building Code in building the towers, and some changes were later made to the code as a consequence of 9/11. Supporting documents are in the PDF.
-
This is pure bullshit. The taller buildings and particularly the two towers, where the bulk of the casualties occurred, were the ones that swayed the most in the wind and the ones where the spray-on insulation showed (to the owners' knowledge) the most deterioration.
The PDF in my previous post also has a section that documents the fact that the Port Authority maintained and updated the insulation as building codes changed - which is actually more than required (normally buildings are only required to be maintained to the code at the time they were built, not to meet later, improved code changes). I'll leave it to you to find that, I'm tired.
-
This is a he-says, she-says kind of argument. The book I read (by two NYT reporters) claimed that they avoided then-current NY and NJ building laws because they were on land owned by or within the jurisdiction of neither state.
It's not "he-says, she-says". Your source, which still has not been revealed, are directly contradicted by records revealed by the NIST investigation.
Fire protection of exposed structural steel members in the WTC towers was provided by applied fire
resistive materials. They were either sprayed fire-resistive materials (SFRMs), gypsum wallboards, or a
combination of the two, depending upon the type of structural members, to meet the requirements of
Construction Classification of 1B of the 1968 New York City (NYC) Building Code. All floor trusses
and beams were protected with SFRM. The columns inside the core were either covered with gypsum
wall board or a combination of gypsum wall board and SFRM. For the exterior columns, vermiculite
plaster was applied to the side of the column facing the interior of the building, whereas SFRM was
applied to other three faces.
...
Fabrication and inspection requirements were contained in the contracts for the floor trusses, box core
columns and built-up beams, members of the exterior wall, and rolled columns and beams. In general, the
inspection requirements from the specifications for the various contracts were at a minimum equivalent to
those in the 1968 NYC Building Code. The Code contains provisions that govern the fabrication and
inspection of materials used in buildings. However, in a number of cases, the contract requirements were
more comprehensive and stringent than the corresponding provisions in the Code.
...
The primary egress system for the office spaces was the three stairways located in the building core.
These included two 44 in. (designated A and C) and one 56 in. wide (designated B) stairs which provided
exactly the code required capacity for an occupant load of 390 per floor (39,000 ft2 net at 100 ft2 per
person). The layout within the building core was consistent with the Building Code requirements for
maximum travel distance (200 ft unsprinklered, 300 ft sprinklered) and, while the separation was
consistent with New York City requirements (15 ft and later 30 ft), it was short of the more common
requirements found in all current building codes (one-half the diagonal of the space served if
unsprinklered, or one-third the diagonal if sprinklered) on some of the floors where the transfer corridors
brought the stair access closer together.
http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-1.pdf (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-1.pdf)
I think these bolded sections from the executive summary document what I've said - the Port Authority followed then-current NYC Building Code in building the towers, and some changes were later made to the code as a consequence of 9/11. Supporting documents are in the PDF.
Can't wait to see the rebuttal to this. Perhaps a tongue sticking out?
-
"...which nobody can really win since neither side will be able to totally vanquish the other.
"
Gotta try , this is the only option being presented to us.
I think we do need a clearer definition of what an interrogator may and may not do , but this limit needs to be on the right side of the effective/ineffective border.
-
<<Your source, which still has not been revealed . . . >>
I've referred to this source in at least one previous post, and IIRC, named it as well. Unfortunately, I can't now recall the name of the book or the authors. The authors were two NYT reporters, the title was "[number] Minutes" and it was on the NYT non-fic bestseller list. You'd think it would be easy to find on a Google search, but unfortunately, there are so many conspiracy theories out there that any search of Twin Towers collapse or 911 yields thousands of results. I've spent all the time searching for this title that I plan to spend. If I can find this book in the pile of shelved and unshelved books that I call a library in the kids' former bedrooms upstairs, I will let you know.
-
<<I think we do need a clearer definition of what an interrogator may and may not do , but this limit needs to be on the right side of the effective/ineffective border.>>
IMHO, once you've crossed from ineffective to effective, you're already in Nazi or al Qaeda territory. That is your whole fucking problem right there. A "terrorist" who is prepared to sacrifice his life for the cause is NOT going to sacrifice the cause to spare his ears from the sound of Metallica. You've already crossed the line thousands of times and you're in the same moral category as your opponents and former opponents and deserving of the same fate. IMHO.
-
If I can find this book in the pile of shelved and unshelved books that I call a library in the kids' former bedrooms upstairs, I will let you know.
I'll stick with believing scientists and engineers (like those at NIST) over NYT reporters, especially on issues involving science and engineering.
-
Musk Ox Dropping says, "I want to discuss the morality of torture, and specifically U.S. torture...."
A) If you want to discuss the morality of torture we aren't going to limit it. Morality is an international, human, concept.
Did you call for the arrest of Ho Chi Minh for allowing the torture of American POWs during the second Indochina war? If not, why not?
>>Mike McGrath spent five years and nine months as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was captured after a failed reconnaissance mission sent his aircraft to the ground. His captors transported him to the Hanoi Hilton where he endured a life of isolation, torture and misery. The beatings were frequent and the living conditions deplorable.<<
>>Within ten hours of my capture, I was en route to Hanoi. At a pontoon bridge, I was taken out of a truck and jammed into a narrow ditch. The soldiers who were guarding the bridge took turns to see who could hit my face the hardest. After the contest, they tried to force dog dung through my teeth, bounced rocks off my chest, jabbed me with their gun barrels, and bounced the back of my head off the rocks that lay in the bottom of the ditch.
I said my final prayers that night, because I was sure I would not reach Hanoi alive.<<
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/gallery/4.html (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/gallery/4.html)
B) Artic Hare Rectum continued, "U.S. torture, which is the only kind of torture the readers of this NG can do anything about."
We did do something about it. The torture of enemy combatants was forcefully, and publicly, condemned. We held our elections and put new people, who have a very different philosophy, in charge. New Generals, who will hold all soldiers accountable, were placed in command. Veterans like myself, who have seen the elephant, made it clear, when discussions arose during family or social gatherings, that these actions must not stand. Any notion that America just went on uneffected, or stayed neutral to the actions at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, are foolish. This isn't Vietnam, or Cuba, where citizens live in such fear of government reprisals that only a very few brave individuals dare speak up.
-
<<I think we do need a clearer definition of what an interrogator may and may not do , but this limit needs to be on the right side of the effective/ineffective border.>>
IMHO, once you've crossed from ineffective to effective, you're already in Nazi or al Qaeda territory.
WE should have qualms that ensure we cannot fight for our own survival?
That would be fine if we never found enemys .
-
<<I'll stick with believing scientists and engineers (like those at NIST) over NYT reporters, especially on issues involving science and engineering.>>
Yeah, sure, those Federal Government employees would sure be able to sort out a jurisdictional tangle between NYC, NY State and the New York Port Authority better than mere reporters of the NYT. They'd sure know a lot more about local building codes than the NYT reporters. They'd sure know a lot more about how the building's owners were planning to address the known problem of uninsulated beams and columns after the spray-on insulation flaked off.
I'm also unaware of the particular rule of law or NYT staff rules that prevents NYT reporters from seeking out reliable scientists and engineers to solicit their views on the causes of the Twin Towers' collapse. I did not realize that they would be restricted in their inquiries to Federal Government sources.
-
Mycountryrightorwrong wants to know
<<Did you call for the arrest of Ho Chi Minh for allowing the torture of American POWs during the second Indochina war? >>
Are you fucking nuts? Ho Chi Minh is my hero and my god. A better man than you and your whole fucking army could ever hope to be. Including those whiny wimps you just quoted from.
Defeatedbyuncleho then wants to know: <<If not, why not?>>
I don't consider a few kicks and punches to be torture. Neither is eating dog-shit. Those whiners and complainers you just quoted make me sick to my stomach. If they'd think for one second of the pain and agony they and their comrades in arms had inflicted on the Vietnamese people, they'd never dare to open their mouths even once to complain about the minuscule payback that the Vietnamese exacted from them. They ought to fall down on their knees and thank the people of Vietnam every day of the rest of their miserable fucking lives that they were never forced to endure a tiny fraction of the suffering of their innocent napalmed victims.
Waaaaaah!hesaysmeanthingsaboutus says:
<<We did do something about it. The torture of enemy combatants was forcefully, and publicly, condemned. We held our elections and put new people . . . in charge. New Generals, who will hold all soldiers accountable, were placed in command. Veterans like myself, who have seen the elephant, made it clear, when discussions arose during family or social gatherings, that these actions must not stand. Any notion that America just went on uneffected, or stayed neutral to the actions at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, are foolish. This isn't Vietnam, or Cuba, where citizens live in such fear of government reprisals that only a very few brave individuals dare speak up. >>
Well, that's all very commendable, I'm sure, but I think that UNCAT obliges its signing parties to do a little more than forcefully condemn, publicly condemn, change personnel or even (Gasp!!) denounce during family gatherings - - it looked to me, the last time I read the treaty, more like they were looking for stuff like, you know, criminal prosecutions, jail time, etc. Something a little more than the house arrest that Lt. Calley endured (without even having to eat dog-shit) for a few months for the massacre of hundreds of innocent civilians. But I guess those were the halcyon days of U.S. moral righteousness - - today in America's current wars, I bet Lt. Calley's punishments would be viewed as Draconian.
-
<<WE should have qualms that ensure we cannot fight for our own survival?>>
Well, plane, first you'd have to show that torture is essential to your survival now, when you apparently survived the Second World War very well without it. THEN we could have a really interesting philosophical discussion about the morality of torture when your very survival is at stake.
<<That would be fine if we never found enemys .>>
First you'd have to stop MAKING enemies.
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<<Wow....who woulda thought? Since pretty much all you condemn is the US.
The Russians are slaughtering innocents, but outrage is only reserved for the US.>>
There's no point in condemning Russia or anyone but the U.S. in this forum. First of all because there aren't any Russians here. Secondly because everyone here is already condemning the Russians, the Chinese, the Muslims, the French . . . I see that the posters in this NG are ready and more than ready to condemn any and every fucking nation or group on this planet, except one: the U.S.A. The only nation on the face of the earth whose shit doesn't stink. What a fucking miracle! I don't think that it's a healthy situation for the members of this group to be encouraged in pointing their fingers at the crimes of, say, Russia, not when their own country is committing so many crimes on its own behalf anyway. Even the Bible recognizes this where Jesus says Why are you pointing out the mites in somebody else's eye when there is a mite the size of a fucking log in your own?
I hope, when I say something bad about the U.S. in this forum, that somebody somewhere, a lurker, a member, but somebody is going to think, even once, "Hey, he's right. That's NOT right," which is not gonna happen in the case of any other country.
<<Like I said earlier....it's obvious what motivates you.
But thats ok....because I dont give a damn what America Haters think as far as affecting our policy.>>
You are such a fucking crybaby. Even when the criticism is valid, you think you can invalidate it by attacking the messenger: "Well he's an America Hater." Even when the "America Hater" turns out to be a "Russia Hater" as well. As long as you can characterize the speaker as "America Hater," then what he says is meaningless to you. What I said was true, whether you wanted to hear it or not. America sucks. Deal with it.
<<And IslamoNazis that hate because someone refuses Islam are not unjustified haters?>>
Cut the bullshit, CU4. The Muslims who hate the USA don't hate it because it refuses Islam, they hate it for supporting Israel against the Arabs and for the daily injustice and humiliation that Israel is heaping upon the Palestinians. That is not by any stretch of the imagination "unjustified" hatred.
<<IslamoNazis that blow up girls schools because they want women to remain 2nd class are not haters?>>
They're backward idiots, but those women that they don't want educated are their own wives and daughters and sisters, so no, they are not haters. And they sure as hell wouldn't hold the U.S. responsible for efforts to educate their women if the U.S. butted out of their affairs.
<<Michael they are the same as the racists that blew up Black schools/churches in the United States.>>
Similar in some respects, I would not say the same. They are certainly not YOUR problem, CU4. This is one fight that the U.S. has no role in. You have no more right to restructure their society than they have to restructure yours.
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<<That would be fine if we never found enemys .>>
First you'd have to stop MAKING enemies.
That can't be done can it?
What behavior availible to human beings brings an enemy free future?
Much better than a false hope that there could be a time with no enemys is to controll our enemys and be good to our freinds.
By controll I don't necessacerily mean "destroy" , destroying enemys is not always necessacery , enemys that are civil ought to be given toleration , even appreaciation for the civility . Destruction should be reserved for enemys that are actually causeing harm, serious harm.
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Missing Polar Bear Brain, you said you wanted to discuss the "morality of torture".
What you posted in reply to my post is a sad joke and an insult to every soldier who was ever captured, imprisoned, tortured, starved, placed in solitary, or denied medical care, no matter their cause. You aren't at all interested in discussing the morality of torture. What you are interested in is displaying your ignorant, boorish, cowardly, bigoted crap that won't assist one POW ever, anywhere. Take your perverted rhetoric and stick it where the sun don't shine. I'm through with you.
BSB
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<<That [to stop making enemies] can't be done can it?>>
That is a pretty abstract question, plane. In the current situation (the enmity of the Islamic world and America) I think you can stop aiding and abetting the flagrant continuing insult and humiliation of the Palestinians which consists of the ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and the persecution of the people of Gaza. This is by all accounts (General Petraeus' included) a source of enormous anti-American feeling. Similarly the ongoing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Similarly the ongoing threats against Iran and the boycott. There are so many actions you have taken that are enraging the Arab world, and yet you say that you can't stop making enemies? That makes no sense at all.
<<What behavior availible to human beings brings an enemy free future?>>
Again, you are venturing into the abstract and the general. I don't know if it is possible to "guarantee" an "enemy-free" future, but the real point seems to be that you aren't even making the slightest effort to stop making the enemies that you are already making.
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<<Missing Polar Bear Brain, you said you wanted to discuss the "morality of torture".
What you posted in reply to my post is a sad joke and an insult to every soldier who was ever captured, imprisoned, tortured, starved, placed in solitary, or denied medical care, no matter their cause. >>
I indicated that I did not consider their treatment (as described) to be torture. They weren't waterboarded. They weren't burned with cigarette butts or electroshocked or suffocated or sodomized or raped, all of which happened at Abu Ghraib and other black sites.
<<You aren't at all interested in discussing the morality of torture. >>
That was my intention. Discussing the morality of torture doesn't mean we have to agree on every case of alleged torture whether it is actually torture or not.
<<What you are interested in is displaying your ignorant, boorish, cowardly, bigoted crap that won't assist one POW ever, anywhere. >>
What I was actually interested in was hearing how the actions of the American torturers that motivated me to start this thread can be defended by their supporters. What you are interested in seems to consist of attacking the messenger, or anyone else who dares to suggest that America's actions are not exactly on the highest moral plane possible.
<<Take your perverted rhetoric and stick it where the sun don't shine. I'm through with you.>>
Thanks, but I'd like to save my "perverted rhetoric" for anyone who's genuinely interested in discussing the morality of torture, and specifically the morality of the torture of Abu Zubaydah, as discussed at the head of this thread.
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<<That [to stop making enemies] can't be done can it?>>
That is a pretty abstract question, plane.
Behavior that would never net us an enemy is a very abstract concept , you went there first.
Where we have taken sides , we could have often taken the other side and had the other set of enemy , standing down and being nutral is sometimes not a reasonable choice and sometimes only makes both sides of the conflict enemys.
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<<Behavior that would never net us an enemy is a very abstract concept , you went there first.>>
I think if you review this thread, you'll see that I went there after you had broadened the issue to include any enemies and specifically implied that the U.S. would always have "enemies." But it doesn't really matter who was first to broaden the terms of the discussion, since I'm prepared to deal with the broader issues first and hope that we can return to the original problem later.
<<Where we have taken sides , we could have often taken the other side and had the other set of enemy , standing down and being nutral is sometimes not a reasonable choice and sometimes only makes both sides of the conflict enemys.>>
So then which of the participants in WWII are now enemies of Switzerland, Spain, Portugal or Sweden? According to your theory, they should have lots of enemies from both sides of the conflict. Or perhaps it only worked that way in the Korean War. Which of the countries that did fight in Korea are now enemies of which of the countries that remained neutral?
Seems to me that you have the theory alright, now all you need are some examples of its application.
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"There's no point in condemning.....anyone but the U.S. in this forum"
Michael Tee logic....since no one is on this message board from Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, ect, ect, ect,
ect, etc, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect, ect....then other countries gross human rights violations should basically be ignored and really only the US should be micro-ed to the 100th degree about every possible human right violation as if the US is the only country in the world to put under the microscope....and any comparision or any information that puts it all in a relative perspective should be dismissed. The problem with that bullshit logic...is #1 it's not reality....that would be like hammering someone's yard for a blade of grass being out of place while all the neighbors let their yards go to shit and don't even hardly have any grass.
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Much like the MSM, the evidence of the blinding bias, is usually in what's NOT said/reported.
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<< . . . then other countries gross human rights violations should basically be ignored and really only the US should be micro-ed to the 100th degree about every possible human right violation>>
Micro-ed to the 100th degree? What is micro or "100th degree" about rape? About shoving a fluorescent tube up a prisoner's ass? About suffocating a guy in a sleeping bag to death? About waterboarding, which your own courts had no problems in sentencing Japs to prison for when they did it to Americans or Allies?
100th degree, my ass!!! There is nothing micro about it.
<< . . . as if the US is the only country in the world to put under the microscope....>>
It's YOUR fucking country for chrissake. I'd think you would be a little more concerned about what wrongs your own government is committing and a little less concerned about the so-called Islamofascists, Russians and others for whom you have no responsibility and no controls.
<< . . . and any comparision or any information that puts it all in a relative perspective should be dismissed. >>
Oh great, now you're suddenly Mr. Moral Relativism. Well, fine, if it makes you feel any better, you're worse than Sweden but you're still not as bad as Nazi Germany. Does that help you?
<<The problem with that bullshit logic...is #1 it's not reality....that would be like hammering someone's yard for a blade of grass being out of place while all the neighbors let their yards go to shit and don't even hardly have any grass. >>
Well, Mr. Reality, I'd say that Abu Ghraib is not a fucking blade of grass, neither are the tortures of Abu Zubaydah nor was the Fallujah Massacre or the torture chambers of Syria and Egypt to which some of America's victims were secretly consigned. You've got a screw loose if you think MY concerns are unrealistic, while YOUR attempted whitewash is based in realism. It only proves that your grasp of reality is tenuous at best.
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Fakeblower says, "What is micro or "100th degree" about rape?"
At the same time this phony said that the 1,000,000 raped German women had it coming.
Have another nervous breakdown.
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<<Fakeblower says, "What is micro or "100th degree" about rape?"
<<At the same time this phony said that the 1,000,000 raped German women had it coming.>>
I guess the difference (which Peabrain probably already knows) is that those Nazi bitches DID have it coming. It was payback for the Nazi rape of Russia and also for the Holocaust. So what Holocaust and what invasion were the unfortunate rape victims of Abu Ghraib getting paid back for?
<<Have another nervous breakdown. >>
LOL. Over anything YOU write? Don't flatter yourself.
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"Micro-ed to the 100th degree?"
Yes Michael....there is no doubt you are obsessed with finding
US fault & just as obsessed with dismissing fault in others you favor.
"What is micro or "100th degree" about rape?"
It would be like if the parking cops only gave parking tickets
to blue cars...and all we heard was what lousy people
that drive blue cars were.....and then pretend that all
the illegal red, white, black, silver cars were to be
dismissed and then say just you just did
"well the blue cars were illegally parked damn-it!"
"It's YOUR fucking country for chrissake"
Yes it is and thats why I find it ridiculous to obsess
with only the bad...which is not reality because
there is lots of good....and pretend other's faults
are to be dismissed and can't be used as a
comparative base for discussions on human rights.
Especially since compared to most I think the US treats
captured enemy better than most now and throughout
human history.
I'd think you would be a little more concerned
about what wrongs your own government is committing
I don't think my government has many "wrongs" as far as treatment
of captured enemy....in fact I support harsher treatment towards
captured enemy.....I don't want to supply laptops to captured enemy!
I don't want to give captured enemy access to watch World Cup Games!
I don't want to give captured enemy a special religious diet.
I dont want to give captured enemy each a a sink installed low to the ground,
"to make it easier for the detainees to wash their feet" before Muslim prayer.
I dont want to provide the captured enemy loudspeakers broadcasting the Muslims'
call to prayer five times a day.
Oh great, now you're suddenly Mr. Moral Relativism.
No more like Mr Reality.....reality is what it is....I'd rather be in Gitmo
than most other nation's prisons and especially most prisoner of war prisons on earth.
Yeah sure most countries are going to provide Korans in nine languages, prayer rugs, prayer beads,
new aerobic exercise machines, access to Arabic language TV shows and broadcast of World Cup
Games, provided two full sets of clothing, have privacy in cell toilet facilities, and are
permitted regular showers. Provide dry, clean, sanitary detention blocks.
Sure most foriegn captured enemies get ample running water and Gatorade.
Sure books and magazines are offered to all compliant detainees and over 3500
pieces of literature are available in 13 languages.
Look at the above list....ARE YOU F-ing KIDDING ME MICHAEL TEE?
You ever seen the movie "Midnight Express"?
"Well, Mr. Reality, I'd say that Abu Ghraib is not a fucking blade of grass"
Abu Ghraib was a picnic compared to most other prisoner of war facilities.
Go to North Korea, go to Rwanda and see how the Tutsis and Hutu treat their enemy prisoners!
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Good discussion about this topic:
Marc Thiessen Confronts Christiane Amanpour on Waterboarding Propaganda (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUl3iBN4PjI#)
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<<Abu Ghraib was a picnic compared to most other prisoner of war facilities.>>
The God-damn fucking NAZIS never stuck fluorescent tubes up U.S. prisoners' asses, never raped them, never sodomized them, never waterboarded them and never suffocated them in sleeping bags. WTF are you talking about? Jessica fucking Lynch was treated very humanely by the Iraqi Army when she was a POW, despite all the lies spread about the story by the MSM.
<<Go to North Korea, go to Rwanda and see how the Tutsis and Hutu treat their enemy prisoners!>>
What on earth is wrong with you? Is your self-image really so bad that you have to compare yourselves to North Korea or Rwanda before you can feel good about what you've done?
I see from your next post that you have even found some jerk-off to try to convince people that waterboarding is OK. If it's so OK, why did American courts convict Japanese officers of war crimes for doing it to Americans and Filipinos? Why did the U.S. government lie about it, deny they did it, then lie about the number of times they did it? Why don't they use it in American police stations if it's so OK? Who do you think is dumb enough to believe that fucking bullshit?
You seem to realize that raping prisoners is bad, but then you come up with this blue-car-red-car bullshit that is basically nothing more than an argument that others are doing it too. What kind of fucking excuse is that? It's a fucking atrocity and it shouldn't be any kind of defence at all to point fingers at other fucking criminals just as bad as your own military. If it's wrong, then it's wrong. Period. End of story. You think any bank robber ever gets a break by pointing to all the other bank robbers who got away and asking why the cops don't prosecute them?
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Jessica fucking Lynch was treated very humanely by the Iraqi Army when she was a POW, despite all the lies spread about the story by the MSM.
Part of the lie would be that she held as a POW by the Iraqi Army; this was never the case. She was a patient in a hospital the whole time.
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"If it's so OK, why did American courts convict Japanese officers of war crimes
for doing it to Americans and Filipinos?"
A Japanese official was convicted of another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian....
A CIVILIAN
not an enemy soldier....not an enemy combatant.
I 100% support water-boarding if needed of some captured enemy during wartime.
If it can prevent a massive loss of American life...then HELL YA!
"Why don't they use it in American police stations if it's so OK?"
In rare cases I think they should.....
I would fully support water-boarding at a police station if a judge granted
an authorization like a warrant because there was credible indication that
it could prevent some eminent horrible attack from happening.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Politics/2009fbec.jpg)
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"You think any bank robber ever gets a break by pointing to all the other
bank robbers who got away and asking why the cops don't prosecute them?"
Yes....a bank robber that robs 1 bank gets less punishment
than a bank robber that robs 10 banks
And if a prosecutor only arrests blonde bankrobbers and never arrests
any other hair colored bank robbers....made up excuses for all bank
robbers except the blonde bankrobbers...yes I think the blonde bankrobber
would "catch a break".
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LOL. So you love waterboarding and you'd support police waterboarding if authorized by a judge's warrant.
I gotta say, I really do appreciate how frank you are about this.
So if one day the cops are convinced you know something about a crime about to go down, and get a warrant from a nice friendly judge that says it's OK to waterboard you because they believe on reasonable grounds that you know a lot about some horrible murders that are about to happen, even if they're not correct, it's OK for them to waterboard you? What if it's one of your kids, or your parents? Waterboarding's OK to make anyone talk if the cops think (rightly or wrongly) that they know something? This could be your mother that get's waterboarded - - or someone's mother - - just cause some cop thinks she knows something but is holding out. Have you really thought this through?
Also, anything that you think it's OK for Americans to do to their prisoners is also OK for the enemy to do to American prisoners? If al Qaeda captures Americans and they want to know how many men are in the camp on the hill and how many officers, it's OK for al Qaeda to waterboard them if they won't tell al Quaeda what al Qaeda needs to know? OK to rape them? OK to stick fluorescent batons up their ass?
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The God-damn fucking NAZIS never stuck fluorescent tubes up U.S. prisoners' asses,
never raped them, never sodomized them, never waterboarded them and never suffocated
them in sleeping bags.
LOL....yeah Michael the Nazis just gassed a few million people....
and did ghastly medical experiments/torture on tens of thousands of others
wow them Nazis were not nearly as "evil" as those Americans waterboarding 3 captured enemy
Yeah sure the Gestapo motto was not "Torture them till they talk".
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"LOL. So you love waterboarding and you'd support police
waterboarding if authorized by a judge's warrant"
Let me be clear.....YES! YES! YES!
To prevent an attack that would cause mass American casualties.
If the police or whoever could have waterboarded & prevented 9/11
and I would be be against that? Are you F-ING NUTS?
I gotta say, I really do appreciate how frank you are about this.
You're welcome....I try to be frank and honest about all of my views.
I don't hide from my views....I dont wanna sneek anything in by disguising it as something else.
So if one day the cops are convinced you know something about a crime
not "a crime".....not just any crime
a serious credible threat that was going to kill thousands of innocents.
even if they're not correct, it's OK for them to waterboard you?
Just like if they suspect I am about to ram Obama's limo with a truck bomb and they
shoot me...but they end up being wrong...that does not mean we should forbid the
Secret Service from acting if they conclude a credible threat
What if it's one of your kids, or your parents?
If they have very credible info that says a member of my family is involved
in an attack that will kill thousands...then yes to prevent that attack absolutely.
You think I would not support waterboarding if the dude about to take part
in 9/11 happened to be my brother?
LOL....how self-centered would that be? "well the dude's my brother so yeah
go ahead and allow 9/11 to happen! ::)
Waterboarding's OK to make anyone talk if the cops think (rightly or wrongly)
that they know something?
Yes if a judge ok'd it after looking at the info to prevent a massive lost of innocent life.
Also, anything that you think it's OK for Americans to do to their prisoners is also OK for
the enemy to do to American prisoners? If al Qaeda captures Americans and they want to
know how many men are in the camp on the hill and how many officers, it's OK for al Qaeda
to waterboard them if they won't tell al Quaeda what al Qaeda needs to know? OK to rape them?
OK to stick fluorescent batons up their ass?
Maybe you should ask the US captured soldiers al Qaeda
tortured then slaughtered if they would have preferred waterboarding?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jun/21/usa.iraq1 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jun/21/usa.iraq1)
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<<Maybe you should ask the US captured soldiers al Qaeda
tortured then slaughtered if they would have preferred waterboarding?>>
Nope. I asked you. Besides, I can't ask them, they're dead. BTW, some people DO prefer death to torture, hence the cyanide pill. But here's the question I asked you:
<<Also, anything that you think it's OK for Americans to do to their prisoners is also OK for
the enemy to do to American prisoners? >>
(That's a yes or a no, BTW)
<< If al Qaeda captures Americans and they want to
know how many men are in the camp on the hill and how many officers, it's OK for al Qaeda
to waterboard them if they won't tell al Quaeda what al Qaeda needs to know?>>
(again, a yes or no will do)
<< OK to rape them? >>
<<OK to stick fluorescent batons up their ass?>>
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"BTW, some people DO prefer death to torture, hence the cyanide pill"
Americans were were tortured AND killed by IslamoNazis.
"anything that you think it's OK for Americans to do to their
prisoners is also OK for the enemy to do to American prisoners?"
"If al Qaeda captures Americans and they want to
know how many men are in the camp on the hill and how many officers,
it's OK for al Qaeda to waterboard them if they won't tell al Quaeda what al Qaeda needs to know?
(again, a yes or no will do) OK to rape them? OK to stick fluorescent batons up their ass?
It's not a matter of "ok"
It's war Michael.
It's "ok" to destroy the enemy....but it's not ok for the enemy to destroy us.
Is that difficult to understand?
It's pretty much been the logic of war for centuries.
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It's not a matter of "ok"
It's war Michael.
It's "ok" to destroy the enemy....but it's not ok for the enemy to destroy us.
Is that difficult to understand?
It's pretty much been the logic of war for centuries.
===========================================
Just so I understand you, CU4 - - if the U.S. Army needs the information to save American lives, it can torture a captured Iraqi insurgent to get the information. Say waterboarding him. You would NOT want to prosecute the soldiers who waterboard the captured insurgent.
But if Iraqi insurgents need information from a captured G.I. and they waterboard him, then if they are later captured and identified they should be tried for war crimes for torturing the GI by waterboarding him?
At this point, CU4, I'm not even arguing with you, I just want to be sure I understand how you see it.
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"Just so I understand you, CU4 - - if the U.S. Army needs the information to save
American lives, it can torture a captured Iraqi insurgent to get the information. Say waterboarding him"
Michael I do not accept that waterboarding is torture.
Torture is driving nails under fingernails.
Torture is electical shocks to genitals.
Torture is cutting off fingers, toes, ears, tongues.
Torture is gouging out eyes.
Torture is burning someone's skin, fingers, toes.
Torture is purposely breaking arms, legs, hips, knees, elbows, shoulders
Torture is casteration or cruel mistreatment of testicals.
Torture is gruesome and painful medical experiments like the Nazis employed.
Waterboarding does not come close to any of the above because waterboarding is not torture.
Waterboarding is very rough, but not torture.
"You would NOT want to prosecute the soldiers who waterboard the captured insurgent"
Well...yes and no.
Waterboarding is a very serious matter.
It should not be used lightly or casually.
Thats why only a very, very tiny few captured terrorist were ever waterboarded.
But if there is credible data showing that waterboarding a captured terrorist
could prevent a catastrophic event costing a large amount of American lives...
then yes they should be waterboarded and the soldiers/CIA/FBI should not be prosecuted.
"But if Iraqi insurgents need information from a captured G.I. and they waterboard him,
then if they are later captured and identified they should be tried for war crimes for torturing
the GI by waterboarding him?"
Absolutely not....waterboarding is not torture.
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Well, CU4, that was interesting. The main thing is, you're consistent. You wouldn't prosecute the GIs for waterboarding the insugent and you wouldn't prosecute the insurgents for waterboarding the GI, assuming that it wasn't done frivolously and each side needed the information they believed they'd get in order to save their comrades' lives.
I'd prosecute both of them, the GIs and the insurgents, because I believe that waterboarding is torture, it's the infliction of severe pain or suffering. You're absolutely right, that the examples you gave of torture are worse than waterboarding, but IMHO, they are the extreme examples. They produce extreme pain or suffering, but torture need only produce severe pain or suffering as it's defined in UNCAT, not extreme pain or suffering.
I get the feeling you probably would not allow blowtorching a prisoner or driving wooden splinters under his fingernails and setting them on fire or raping the guy's female relatives in front of him - - in other words, you DO believe in some limits, only that waterboarding falls short of the limits. Am I right?
In which case, I still don't agree with you, but I can't say you're a totally bad guy either.
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We have been discussing this subject for years in the art of TV and movies.
NYPD Blue , the Sheild , 24......
It isn't hard to call up movies in which the Hero gets the Villan to talk I even saw Hoss Cartwright waterboard his fathers kidnapper when his dad was "Shainghied" in San Francisco.
On the other hand authors and scriptwriters often establish the villinany of their villan with a scene of cruel torture.
MT excuses the torture by people he likes and we are loth to condemn the misbehavior of people we like .
I think I am looking into a mirror image.
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Caribou Crud said, "............Nazi bitches DID have it coming. .....payback............"
Ha, you're a joke. No one with a brain bigger then a snail's would pretend to be discussing the morality of torture while making statements like this. Well, some far right southern preacher, and We We, would. Which, BTW, means your moral compass is pointing in the exact same direction as America's far religious right's is. No surprise there actually.
BSB
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means your moral compass is pointing in the exact same direction as America's far religious right's is. No surprise there actually.
BSB
Oh thanks heaps BsB when did I kick you in the whatever?
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Well, I didn't have you in mind, Plane. And, while you have your moments, you do have a heart. That's more then I can say for Fakeblower, and the religous right I had in mind.
BSB
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Well, I didn't have you in mind, Plane. And, while you have your moments, you do have a heart. That's more then I can say for Fakeblower, and the religous right I had in mind.
BSB
That is OK .
I almost admit to it earlyer in this thread anyhow.
I don't want to have our terrorist hunters prosicuted for what they did in good faith and by the instructions and findings of the administration.
I am haveing my doubts tweaked tho , what should the limit be? and should this limit be very firm?
It is easy enough to say "zero tolerance" for one ,if one never expects to be involved.
Hard enough to draw the line anywhere when your own and your best freinds lives are being harmed a lot.
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As a soldier there are times when you want to do things that would cross the line. How can one not get angry when as you say, "your best friends lives are being harmed a lot"? How can you not get angry when you've carried a live torso with a head, and nothing else attached, that was a close friend of yours? But, once you cross the line you're screwed. As a friend of mine said, "you're on the devils time then". Further, if you don't try and stop others from crossing the line, you'll put your whole unit on the devils time. So, you have to keep your shit together.
BSB
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<<MT excuses the torture by people he likes and we are loth to condemn the misbehavior of people we like .>>
In general I don't. The three days of plunderfreiheit allowed by their commanders to the men of the Red Army after the fall of Berlin was an exception generated by the unprecedented savagery and barbarism of the Nazis in the USSR which cost about 35 MILLION Russian lives, and utilized every form of torture and abuse known to the human race. Even so, I would not have condoned torture, even for uniformed SS men, at any time. But some form of payback there had to be, and I think that the amount measured out by the Red Army commanders was just and appropriate in the circumstances.
Torture may be something that we have always had with us, and it will be a long, hard struggle to abolish completely, but there has never been a concerted effort to abolish torture until the United Nations began to construct the legal framework which led to UNCAT and its enforcement mechanisms. I have always recognized the difficulty and the importance of this work and realized how totally counterproductive to the struggle any form of partisanship would be. At the same time, a false sense of non-partisanship (for example campaigning against "torture" in Cuba to counterbalance campaigning against torture in Central America) is dishonest, unethical and tactically suicidal, since most of the genuine opposition to torture comes from the left and not from the right, just as most of the torture states are right-wing rather than left-wing, as was certainly the case in Latin America. The U.S.A. even runs a school for torturers, which they periodically pretend through various name-changes to shut down, but which continues in operation, as far as I am aware, into the present day.
<<I think I am looking into a mirror image.>>
I hope not - - I remember your attempts to minimize Abu Ghraib - - but I really lack the objectivity to make the call. It's possible I am too twisted against the horrors of fascism to make a stand against torture, but then who the hell is the "pure vessel" who is going to be impartial enough to oppose torture? My feeling is basically that torture is an abomination that has to be stopped and yet we (Canada and the U.S.A.) have been sliding backward into that abyss even before the start of the Bush administration in the U.S.A. and its little admiring clone, the Harper administration here in Canada, and the process of backsliding took off on rocket fuel once Bush and his handlers arrived in Washington.
Maybe Buddha's right - - we all have our secret or not-so-secret pet hates who we'd really love to see tortured to death, Commies in your case, Fascists in mine - - but that's typically the problem with his whole fucking attitude. In his POV nobody would oppose torture because nobody is pure enough to do so, so the whole fucking thing would just go on unopposed for milennia like it already has. I think we just have to accept we are who we are but God damn it, torture IS wrong and it has to be opposed. In the absence of an army of pure vessels who have no vengeful feelings towards anybody, it falls to less perfect beings like ourselves, with whatever imperfections we have, to advance the struggle. The people who founded the UN, the diplomats who negotiated and hammered out the terms of the UNCAT, if you took Buddha's view of them, they are probably all corrupt sods serving corrupt governments and unworthy to be the bearers of the anti-torture flame, but then where would that leave us? Back in the fucking Dark Ages.
So if you're looking at a mirror image, it's not a fully accurate mirror. There were more similarities than I wanted to admit, but at bottom, I oppose torture and you don't. You already said, in effect, if it works and if it promotes our survival, you're for it. I don't believe in survival at any price. To me, that's a form of moral cowardice. You or your cause should be able to survive without torture. As in WWII. And I think today as well. But even if it could not, I don't believe that it SHOULD be saved if the price of saving it is torture.
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Penguin Pussy said, "Maybe Buddha's right - - we all have our secret or not-so-secret pet hates who we'd really love to see tortured to death..............."
I never said anything even remotely like that.
Wolf Woof continued, "In his POV nobody would oppose torture because nobody is pure enough to do so........."
Never took that point of view. Never said anything of the kind.
Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown furthered his BS with this, "if you took Buddha's view of them, they are probably all corrupt sods serving corrupt governments and unworthy to be the bearers of the anti-torture flame............"
Never commented on them at all. Never took that view.
BSB
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I was extrapolating by necessary inference from what you did say. If I got it wrong, so be it. It's not important because the point I was making doesn't depend on what you said or didn't say. I don't think plane and I are mirror images, I don't believe that there is torture in Cuba and if there is, it's on a minuscule scale compared to the torture inflicted by US-sponsored death squads in Latin America. To condemn Cuba would in effect be serving the interests of the world's major torture sponsor, the U.S.A., and would be wrong if the condemnation occupied more than one one-thousandth of the efforts devoted to condemnation of the tortures perpetrated in Latin America in the service of U.S. imperialism.
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Fraudblower, "The U.S.A. even runs a school for torturers, which they periodically pretend through various name-changes to shut down, but which continues in operation, as far as I am aware, into the present day.."
Yes and the name-changes are so convenient for you.
MT runs a school for Chinese torturers on the ten best ways to breakdown a Tibetan Monk. Periodically he pretends to shut it down with various name-changes otherwise I'd give you an URL. However, trust me, it's still in operation today.
BSB
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Perfect illustration of "why do you point out the mite in the other guy's eye when you've got a log in your own?"
Thanks.
If I were you, I'd be a little less concerned about the tortures of the Chinese and a whole hell of a lot more concerned about the tortures inflicted by the U.S.A. You guys excel at pointing fingers everywhere, at everyone, except your own.
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Gee MT, I think you missed the point. I'm sorry if that was too difficult for you.
BTW, are you getting enough fiber? It's not good to have to strain you know, particularly at your advanced age.
Start roughing it!: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fiber-full-story/index.html (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fiber-full-story/index.html)
BSB
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".........comes from the left and not from the right, just as most of the torture states are right-wing rather than left-wing, as was certainly the case in Latin America. The U.S.A. even runs a school for torturers, which they periodically pretend through various name-changes to shut down, but which continues in operation, as far as I am aware, into the present day.
<<I think I am looking into a mirror image.>>
I hope not - - I remember your attempts to minimize Abu Ghraib - - but I really lack the objectivity to make the call. It's possible I am too twisted against the horrors of fascism to make a stand against torture, but then who the hell is the "pure vessel" who is going to be impartial enough to oppose torture?"
Frankly ,I thought I was being generous.
At the time .
I consider this unsettled , and I can't be satisfied with haveing two standards .
I don't feel right about haveing a standard that is determined on purpose to produce ineffectiveness.
I don't feel right about haveing a sliding standard diffrent on tuesday than thursday , diffrent for Gen Westmorland than for Ho Chi Minh. Diffrent for when I am mad than for when I am calm.
BsBs answer to my question directed at him is so thought provoking that I don't want to comment further at this point.
I consider this unsettled , and I can't be satisfied with haveing two standards .
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I got both of your points - - the first was so childish and stupid that I didn't bother to address it. Everybody knows the School of the Americas and anybody interested enough to follow the lying bullshit machinations of the U.S. military can probably follow its changing names and agendas through Wikipedia or other on-line sources, for whatever the exercise is worth. I was more interested in your second point, the "accidental" use of Chinese torture in Tibet, an almost equally childish diversion of the "Hey there's a mote in HIS eye" variety, which most of the conservative posters in here seem to regard as the ultimate come-back to any legitimate criticism of U.S. criminality.
I don't read diet tips on the internet any more than I watch Oprah or Dr. Oz. I have excellent doctors and if I need to hear anything about what to eat or don't eat, I rely on them to bring it to my attention. Otherwise, I eat whatever the fuck I like. But thanks anyway.
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<<Frankly ,I thought I was being generous.>>
You were being generous - - and I reciprocated by questioning my own objectivity. Which was also partly due to BSB's mockery of my "Nazi bitches had it coming" and similar remarks.
I also am trying to rethink, but I really don't want to get into a "let it all pass" kind of universal acceptance, which as far as I can see is just an excuse to avoid moral judgment and justify our own acquiescence in the abuses and crimes of our own leaders.
This always seems to resolve into a conflict between Old Testament and Buddhist attitudes to crime and punishment. I don't know whether Buddha's ridicule relates to the perceived moral presumption involved in passing the judgment in the first place or my impotence in executing on it in the second place. Probably both. But doing nothing - - failing to even pass judgment on the bastards - - seems to be even worse. It's like I've morally abdicated and don't give a shit.
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School of the Americas? Hummmm, you mean that school where we train Police officers, and Palace guard types, for our South and Central American neighbors at Fort Benning in the art of crowd control? Imagine us risking all that blow-back just for our southern friends. Well, you can't be too neighbourly now, can you.
BSB