DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Lanya on September 23, 2006, 03:00:50 PM
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[....]
The bad news is that Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday, intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep deprivation.
Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101647.html
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Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?
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Michael, that's what I would like to know.
I can think of various ways they're thinking about this:
1. American exceptionalism=no one would do that.
2. That's pre-9/11 thinking. We have eeevil enemies.
3. We are using aggressive interrogation, see? Not torture. So no one better torture our guys.
4. Who cares? It's not my kids.
5. It's a volunteer force.....
etc....
This is unamerican and unacceptable. I hope it doesn't happen, but I imagine there will come a day when our troops there will be tortured. How will we react? Bomb the city to glass? Or will we just receive their bodies back here and mourn? I just don't understand what has happened to my country. I'm writing all the congressmen and senators, calling, writing media outlets.
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Since when have editorial comments expressing a point of view become fact as to the way things actually are?
I guess when it is convenient to think so.
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<<Since when have editorial comments expressing a point of view become fact as to the way things actually are?
<<I guess when it is convenient to think so. >>
That's hilarious. The editorial comments were directed at certain FACTS which I presume the newspaper or some other organ of the MSM had duly reported. Editorials usually try to confine their comments to the real world. I can't think of too many editorials that would comment favourably or unfavourably on Frodo's conduct of the war in Middle Earth or whether Zeus really respected woman goddesses.
I tried to picture BT reading some pre-Civil War abolitionist editorial bemoaning the fact that millions of Americans were kept in chains, and wondering how could the editorial possibly represent the actual state of things. It HAPPENS, BT. Sometimes the editorials actually get things right.
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Glad I was able to provide amusement.
Fact remains the editorial was based on supposition of future events, and unless the WaPo editorial board is clairvoyant, that hardly counts as more than conjecture.
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<<Fact remains the editorial was based on supposition of future events, and unless the WaPo editorial board is clairvoyant, that hardly counts as more than conjecture. >>
BT, the editorial was based on the "President's" reservation of powers to do certain things which the paper objected to. They don't object to the reservation of the powers because they know that they won't be used. They assume that the "President" reserved the powers because he intends to use them. It seems common sense that if he has no intention of using the powers, he would not be wasting political capital in retaining them.
If a bill were passed giving arbitrary power to the Chief of the General Staff to arbitrarily suspend any newspaper in the country in any national emergency, would you object to an editorial opposing the law on the grounds tht it was mere conjecture?
It seems to me that there are many editorials based on supposition of future events like Iraq misusing WMD or Iran developing nuclear weapons, and I don't recall you ever using terms like "clairvoyant" or "conjecture" with regard to them.
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<<Fact remains the editorial was based on supposition of future events, and unless the WaPo editorial board is clairvoyant, that hardly counts as more than conjecture. >>
It seems common sense that if he has no intention of using the powers, he would not be wasting political capital in retaining them.
And that statement presumes that he is protecting executiv powers for his own use and not protecting them for future presidents use.
It seems to me that there are many editorials based on supposition of future events like Iraq misusing WMD or Iran developing nuclear weapons, and I don't recall you ever using terms like "clairvoyant" or "conjecture" with regard to them.
And an editorial is an editorial. I doubt you can point out an instance where i quoted an editorial in some snark laden post declaring opinion as fact.
Even if that opinion conveniently matches my own.
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Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?
Yes , but can our opponents improve that much?
I do not think they can.
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Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?
Yes , but can our opponents improve that much?
I do not think they can.
You mean they can't do this to our troops?
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/
I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops. It will be used if we use it. That's why the Geneva Conventions came about.
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk?
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I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops. It will be used if we use it. That's why the Geneva Conventions came about.
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk?
You mean our troops were never tortured in prior conflicts? McCain might beg to differ.
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Does this mean that the Bush administration is willing to accept the same techniques being used on their own troops?
Yes , but can our opponents improve that much?
I do not think they can.
You mean they can't do this to our troops?
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/
I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops. It will be used if we use it. That's why the Geneva Conventions came about.
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk?
I do not understand you , do you think that the enemy we have now has even slight respect for the Geneva Convention?
Many of those captured by Al Quieda or by the copycats that admire Al Quieda turn up in pieces, and there never was any respect for their humanity .
There is no hope that kind treatment for capturd terrorists will induce kind treatment for the hostages and prisoners that they capture , they started on the wrong side of this and havent trended to bget better .
If they could possibly treat their prisoners as well as the tipical inmate of Guantanimo I would call that a very great improvement , but who is even asking them to improve a little bit?
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I think that anyone who is pro-torture for the enemy must accept that he or she is also pro-torture for our own troops. It will be used if we use it. That's why the Geneva Conventions came about.
I can't understand that. Why would you put our troops at risk?
You mean our troops were never tortured in prior conflicts? McCain might beg to differ.
I was just looking up something....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March
Several of my close friends were the children of Bataan Death March survivors. Their fathers were tortured, and did not live to very old ages.
And this is what happened to one of the war criminals in that war:
"War crimes trial
News of this atrocity sparked outrage in the US, as shown by this propaganda poster. The newspaper clipping shown refers to the Bataan Death March.
After the surrender of Japan in 1945, Homma was convicted by an Allied commission of war crimes, including the atrocities of the death march out of Bataan, and the atrocities at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan that followed, and executed on April 3, 1946 outside Manila."
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The guys who have been convicted of the abuse evidenced in the pictures you brought here are going to be in Levanworth a long time , trials can take place of US personell who torture and it has never been otherwise.
So you would like it to require less evidence or mete out harsher punishments?
An Al Quieda member that slices up a prisoner is lible to get a commendation , you are trying to make an empty point , our troops will be treated badly when they are captured by Al Queda and this has always been so and there is no point in pretending that Al Quieda has any respect for the Geneva conventions.
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you are trying to make an empty point ....
more precisely she is arguing an empty talking point, and therein lies the rub.
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<<An Al Quieda member that slices up a prisoner is lible to get a commendation , you are trying to make an empty point , our troops will be treated badly when they are captured by Al Queda and this has always been so and there is no point in pretending that Al Quieda has any respect for the Geneva conventions.>>
When did you become such an expert on how al Qaeda disciplines its members? For the record, I don't believe any American troops have fallen into al Qaeda's hands, so you have little if anything to base your opinion on.
The question was actually hypothetical. Is the "President" willing to subject American troops to the same treatment if they are captured? If it's OK on captured Resistance fighters, is it OK on captured GIs? You don't need to speculate on whether the Resistance forces will "improve" enought to capture Americans to answer the question. WOULD you object IF the same techniques were applied to American troops?
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It is not an if then situation. The then is already happening, and if not with US combatants, it certainly is with civillian non combatants. Does the name Nicholas Berg ring a bell?
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Americans have been captured by Al Quieda and other ad hoc groups for years , often as not they die.
Yes I do wish that Al Queda would improve thair treatment of prisoners , I do not think it possible that they copuld meet the standard set at Guantanimo or even Abu Graib , but it would be nice to see them try.
I am not willing to allow more captures just to give them the practice tho .
Have you ever heard of any Palestinian Authority , Hamas , Hezbolla , Saddam's army , Saders militia, Chechen resistance or anything of the sort ever ever useing any sort of disapline to discourage its troops from abuseing its prisoners?
I think it will take you some serious reasearch to find such a case.
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Sure the name Nicholas Berg rings a bell. So does Daniel Pearl. I was referring to American troops. It is very much an if-then situation with American troops and my hypothetical question (still unanswered BTW) was whether the "President" was willing to have the same treatment applied to US troops?
(In default of an actual Presidential response, I invite supporters of the "President's" policies on torture and the treatment of prisoners to answer the question in his stead, substituting their own thoughts for his.)
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Sure the name Nicholas Berg rings a bell. So does Daniel Pearl. I was referring to American troops. It is very much an if-then situation with American troops and my hypothetical question (still unanswered BTW) was whether the "President" was willing to have the same treatment applied to US troops?
(In default of an actual Presidential response, I invite supporters of the "President's" policies on torture and the treatment of prisoners to answer the question in his stead, substituting their own thoughts for his.)
Well then lets see if the Al Queda can treat a prisoner according to the golden rule , supposeing that they ever have the ability to capture someone that is not unarmed.
I kind of expect that what they have been doing to the unarmed ones indicates a general attitude.
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<<Have you ever heard of any Palestinian Authority , Hamas , Hezbolla , Saddam's army , Saders militia, Chechen resistance or anything of the sort ever ever useing any sort of disapline to discourage its troops from abuseing its prisoners?>>
I would expect that it was as a result of discipline that Jessica whatsername (Lynd? Lynch?) was so well cared for by Saddam's army and army doctors. I would expect that the Israeli soldiers currently in Hamas and Hezbollah custody, who have been shown to be in good condition recently, are well treated as a result of discipline.
It is too bad that the same standard of care was not shown to the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, Baghram Base, Guantanamo and other torture centres now or formerly operated by US troops. I don't think the problem was one of discipline, since the U.S. army must be at least as well disciplined as the others, obviously it is a problem of leadership and command.
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The guys who have been convicted of the abuse evidenced in the pictures you brought here are going to be in Levanworth a long time , trials can take place of US personell who torture and it has never been otherwise.
So you would like it to require less evidence or mete out harsher punishments?
An Al Quieda member that slices up a prisoner is lible to get a commendation , you are trying to make an empty point , our troops will be treated badly when they are captured by Al Queda and this has always been so and there is no point in pretending that Al Quieda has any respect for the Geneva conventions.
Plane, where in this new law do you see any mention of Al Qaeda?
It's not a coupon, "Good for wars in which Al Qaeda is a part of, expires on death of OBL."
It is a law. It will show other countries that we have chosen to codify our disrespect of the Geneva Convention into law, and they may be Chinese, North Koreans, etc.
Are you saying---surely not?---that if we face evil enemies, that use torture, we lower ourselves to that level?
We did not do that in WW2 and we should not do it now. It is not American.
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I invite supporters of the "President's" policies on torture and the treatment of prisoners to answer the question in his stead, substituting their own thoughts for his
See? Perfect example in the misuse of the word "torture"
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Are you saying---surely not?---that if we face evil enemies, that use torture, we lower ourselves to that level?
And yet again. Please let us know when we start beheading & burning our enemies, Lanya. Cause I sure as hell haven't seen it so far.
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<<I kind of expect that what they have been doing to the unarmed ones indicates a general attitude.>>
A general attitude to Jewish-American journalists or Jewish-American businessmen might not reflect their leaders' attitudes to American troops. The fact is you are just speculating.
So why don't you answer my simple little question? Are you afraid of exposing a little moral hypocrisy? If it's OK for US interrogators to use the "President's" interpretation of the Geneva Conventions to determine how the al Qaeda prisoners will be treated, will it be OK to treat Americans in captivity the same way?
Simple question, plane. Curious minds await.
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<<See? Perfect example in the misuse of the word "torture">>
So don't call it torture. Call it "Presidentially-authorized treatment of prisoners."
You gonna answer the question or not?
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,1877300,00.html
The military does not like this at all.
". The former secretary of state Colin Powell, Bush's "good soldier," released a letter denouncing Bush's version. "The world," he wrote, "is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," and Bush's bill "would add to those doubts". That sentiment was underlined in another letter signed by 29 retired generals and CIA officials. General John Batiste, former commander of the 1st army division in Iraq, appeared on CNN to scourge the administration's policy as "unlawful", "wrong", and responsible for Abu Ghraib......"
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."In the summer of 2004 General Thomas J Fiscus, the top air force JAG, informed the senators that the administration's assertion that the JAGs backed Bush on torture was utterly false. Suspicion instantly fell upon Fiscus, one of the most aggressive opponents of torture policy, as the senators' source. Within weeks he was drummed out under a cloud of anonymous allegations by Pentagon officials of "improper relations" with women. His discharge was trumpeted in the press, but his role in the torture debate remained unknown.
Bush had intended to use his post-Hamdan bill to taint the Democrats, but instead he has split his party and further antagonised the military. His standoff on torture threatens to leave no policy whatsoever, and leave his war on terror in a twilight zone beyond the rule of law."
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<<Have you ever heard of any Palestinian Authority , Hamas , Hezbolla , Saddam's army , Saders militia, Chechen resistance or anything of the sort ever ever useing any sort of disapline to discourage its troops from abuseing its prisoners?>>
I would expect that it was as a result of discipline that Jessica whatsername (Lynd? Lynch?) was so well cared for by Saddam's army and army doctors. I would expect that the Israeli soldiers currently in Hamas and Hezbollah custody, who have been shown to be in good condition recently, are well treated as a result of discipline.
It is too bad that the same standard of care was not shown to the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, Baghram Base, Guantanamo and other torture centres now or formerly operated by US troops. I don't think the problem was one of discipline, since the U.S. army must be at least as well disciplined as the others, obviously it is a problem of leadership and command.
Your standards are unbeleiveably unequal.
One captured soilder is treated well and this is proof of good disapline?
So if I can find a single example of an Al Quieda fighter being treated well my case is made about American disapline?
This is not the question asked , where could you find an example of any of Americas enemys disaplineing their troops when there was evidence that they had been abusive?
If you do find a case , even one , I shall be amazed.
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<<Well then lets see if the Al Queda can treat a prisoner according to the golden rule , supposeing that they ever have the ability to capture someone that is not unarmed.>>
I think you have forgotten that after a 14-year-old girl was raped and, together with her family, murdered, by U.S. troops, the local Resistance fighters captured and executed two members of the unit that had committed the crimes.
You are very much mistaken if you think that the Resistance forces are unable to capture Americans. Right now that's not in their plans, so it is not happening very much. But they are not incapable of doing so just because it is not their priority. I would think that capturing prisoners is not as difficult as holding them. They'd need a large expanse of safe territory for that.
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The guys who have been convicted of the abuse evidenced in the pictures you brought here are going to be in Levanworth a long time , trials can take place of US personell who torture and it has never been otherwise.
So you would like it to require less evidence or mete out harsher punishments?
An Al Quieda member that slices up a prisoner is lible to get a commendation , you are trying to make an empty point , our troops will be treated badly when they are captured by Al Queda and this has always been so and there is no point in pretending that Al Quieda has any respect for the Geneva conventions.
Plane, where in this new law do you see any mention of Al Qaeda?
It's not a coupon, "Good for wars in which Al Qaeda is a part of, expires on death of OBL."
It is a law. It will show other countries that we have chosen to codify our disrespect of the Geneva Convention into law, and they may be Chinese, North Koreans, etc.
Are you saying---surely not?---that if we face evil enemies, that use torture, we lower ourselves to that level?
We did not do that in WW2 and we should not do it now. It is not American.
And in what part of this do you construe disrespect?
When there is evidence against a soldier who IS an American he is liable to be tried and sentanced for the crime , this includes recent cases of prisoner abuse which has always been against our rules.
For Al Queda it is just not against the rules at all to torture a prisoner , or humiliate him , or make him convert to Islam at gunpoint.
If we fight North Korea they might respect the Geneva conventions just as much as they did last time.
Whoever we fight , I would indeed like to see them proscicute any soldier who mistreats American Prisoners , just as we do.
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<<Well then lets see if the Al Queda can treat a prisoner according to the golden rule , supposeing that they ever have the ability to capture someone that is not unarmed.>>
I think you have forgotten that after a 14-year-old girl was raped and, together with her family, murdered, by U.S. troops, the local Resistance fighters captured and executed two members of the unit that had committed the crimes.
You are very much mistaken if you think that the Resistance forces are unable to capture Americans. Right now that's not in their plans, so it is not happening very much. But they are not incapable of doing so just because it is not their priority. I would think that capturing prisoners is not as difficult as holding them. They'd need a large expanse of safe territory for that.
I think you are busy makeing my point.
The guys that might actually be guilty of that particular crime are going to be put on trial.
The guys that captured some Americans almost certainly abused prisoners that were innocent .
If any American will do for revenge , whjy not any Arab?
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The guys that might actually be guilty of that particular crime are going to be put on trial.
The guys that captured some Americans almost certainly abused prisoners that were innocent
BINGO. Now, will Tee or Lanya catch on to this concept, yet?
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So don't call it torture. Call it "Presidentially-authorized treatment of prisoners." You gonna answer the question or not?
Perhaps after you start accurately applying the terms
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<<Your standards are unbeleiveably unequal.
<<One captured soilder is treated well and this is proof of good disapline?
<<So if I can find a single example of an Al Quieda fighter being treated well my case is made about American disapline?>>
The number of captives held by each side is different. Very few Americans in captivity and lots of Arabs. So in the case of Americans in captivity, there is very little data to go on. For Saddam's army, we actually know of several in captivity. NONE abused, ALL well treated. You have no basis whatsoever on that scorecard to predict that Saddam's army will mistreat Americans. For the Hezbollah, we know they hold two Israeli prisoners. Again, NONE abused, all well treated. No evidence to suspect any mistreatment in future.
In the US Army, many prisoners abused, many held. There is every likelihood more prisoners have been abused. One abused prisoner is one too many. Two abused is twice as bad. There isn't any real excuse for even two or three abused prisoners, when the toll is in the hundreds or even thousands, it's absolutely scandalous.
You don't rate an army by how many prisoners it DOESN'T abuse, which would be absurd. Kind of like rating mass murderers by how many people they didn't kill. "Well, Ted Bundy didn't kill EVERYBODY he knew, Your Honour. It's absurd to call the guy a mass murderer because there are at least thirty young women living in a two block radius of him that he DIDN'T torture, rape or kill."
How come you still won't answer my simple question?
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<<The guys that might actually be guilty of that particular crime are going to be put on trial.
The guys that captured some Americans almost certainly abused prisoners that were innocent .
<<If any American will do for revenge , whjy not any Arab?>>
Any Arab WILL do for revenge. What do you think the massacre of Falluja was all about anyway? 800 civilians massacred to avenge 4 US mercenaries.
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Tee: So don't call it torture. Call it "Presidentially-authorized treatment of prisoners." You gonna answer the question or not?
sirs: Perhaps after you start accurately applying the terms
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Didn't think you would. There isn't one supporter of the "President's" policies on treatent of prisoners that will answer this question. It's hilarious.
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My simple answer would be to take no prisoners. No prisoners, no problems.
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::And in what part of this do you construe disrespect?
When there is evidence against a soldier who IS an American he is liable to be tried and sentanced for the crime , this includes recent cases of prisoner abuse which has always been against our rules.
For Al Queda it is just not against the rules at all to torture a prisoner , or humiliate him , or make him convert to Islam at gunpoint.
If we fight North Korea they might respect the Geneva conventions just as much as they did last time.
Whoever we fight , I would indeed like to see them proscicute any soldier who mistreats American Prisoners , just as we do.::
What is your point here? We'll only abide by the Geneva Accord that WE ratified, unanimously, if THEY do? And if they abuse prisoners then that's the signal that we will abuse their people?
I ask you, what country are you from? An American does not have to be led by others, is not dependent on what others do to set his moral compass for him . An American knows right from wrong, or should. We do not have common ancestry, nor common language, nor a king. All we have to tie us together are our ideals, and our laws. And this you trample when you say, "Not going to abide by those stupid Geneva things, not this time. We have an evil enemy and we're gonna slice him."
Like Hitler wasn't evil? Never mind. You want torture, there are plenty of people who are willing to torture. I don't want them living in the same country, though.
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All we have to tie us together are our ideals, and our laws. And this you trample when you say, "Not going to abide by those stupid Geneva things, not this time. We have an evil enemy and we're gonna slice him."
Like Hitler wasn't evil? Never mind. You want torture, there are plenty of people who are willing to torture. I don't want them living in the same country, though.
Americans are some of the most violent people on earth. Where is all this oprah outrage coming from. What gives you the idea that our ideals are not to hit the guy until he goes down and hit him again if he tries to get up. That's our nature. Deal with it.
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The "hillarious" part is how you keep trying to lay claim of how abusive Bush and our military is, trying to compare them to the terrorists, all in polar opposite of the facts. Suffice to say, if I were President, we'd be a whole hell of a lot harder on interrogating prisoners, stopping short at the infliction of fractures, dislocations, & dismemberment
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If we fight North Korea they might respect the Geneva conventions just as much as they did last time
Say what??? ??? Oh wait, I caught the qualifier, "just as much".