Oh the horror!

Frank 013 · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject: Oh the horror!

I have two topics to discuss today.

One.

Torture was discovered to be taking place at GITMO earlier this week; it seems that the evil nasty soldiers are at it again.

Several lawyers for the accused have come forward demanding a stop to the torture that has been heaped on to their clients. The soldiers have been strapping down a few of the accused terrorists into chairs, poking them with needles and jamming tubes down their throats, as well as holding them there for several hours after words. Terrible huh?

Now the reason these accused terrorists are being strapped down is because they are on a hunger strike and have not eaten for more than a month. The needles and tubes are used to feed these people and they are held in the chair to keep them from vomiting out the food they were given.

If this is what passes for torture in today’s world, people really have become timid complainers. This brings me to topic number...

Two.

It was released today (finally) that a terrorist attack was thwarted in 2002. This attack would have killed thousands in the US. It turns out that back in 2001 some foreign agents picked up a known terrorist.

What did happen; this terrorist admitted to planning a strike on the US. The strike would have been 911 style, using a jet hijacked outside the country and flying it into a high-rise tower in California. This terrorist also gave up information leading to the capture of his accomplices, plans, and their relation to Al Qaeda. This terrorist was kept in the country where he was captured until after his operation was busted. Our agents were supervising his interrogation however. Yes, he was tortured and it most probably saved thousands of lives.

What did not happen; the terrorist did not just say “Ok guys you got me, here is my plan…” the terrorist was never interrogated in a place where it would have been considered illegal, and the attack did not take place.

So where do we stand on torture again?

Later

GOD defiles Reason · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:39 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the bullshit!

Do you believe everything your government leaks to the liberal media?

Chris OConnor · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:15 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the bullshit!

I find it odd that liberals almost always assume Bush is lying and our current administration is evil, and conservatives almost always assume the opposite. Doesn't anyone else see how their biases are playing a role in their political opinions?

Frank 013 · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:42 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the cow dooky!

The above information (item number two specifically) has been common knowledge among the intelligence community for many years now. I see no reason to doubt it, it was put on file at the DOD long before the current administration was having public relation problems.

Later

Frank 013 · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:44 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the chicken pooky!

For the record, I do not think that Bush is a saint, far from it. But I don’t think he is Satan either.

Later

GOD defiles Reason · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the bullshit!

How bout you, Chris. Do you trust what your government tells you?

I would be embarrassed to repeat what they say as true. Especially when it seems to come on the heels of ongoing investigations of the current wiretap situation.

I also happen to think its foolish to automatically think that someone is a liberal just because he or she doesn't trust the current government. The Democrats were in control at the beginning of Vietnam, and they lied and deceived the public about that war. If Kerry were in office right now, it would be his administration and p.r. people doing their spinning song and dance routines.

If we're going to hold Reason to any high regard, we're going to have to cut through the Liberal/Conservative and Democrat/Republican illusionary divide and attempt to understand what our government's policies are doing to us. We should be smart enough to sense when our government is trying to sell us something.

Frank 013 · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:53 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the monkey poo!

[GOD defiles Reason: We should be smart enough to sense when our government is trying to sell us something.]

Oh yes, the government is trying to sell us something, it is evident by the timing of the statement, but that does not make the event untrue.

MadArchitect · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the monkey poo!

Getting back to item number one for a second, it seems to me that the appropriate way to deal with a hunger strike is to do... nothing. Continue to make food available to them. Why force-feed them? What's the point? If they want to commit suicide, surely there are easier ways.

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 5:09 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the monkey poo!

I would still be against torture. For it makes us become what we despise.

Just because an end was good in this particular instance (if we accept the veracity of it all anyway), it does not justify any means used to get it. Do we RESPECT our values or not. Simple...even for those who are duped by this overblown threat of terrorism. I mean come on...the ONLY reason we care as much as we do now is because they DARED to hit us at home. Nothing changed in the world.

The thing is...if we torture, can we really have anything to say to those who will then toture us?

<mild attempt at humor>Bush is not Satan...Cheney is. Bush is more like a minor demon.</mild attempt at humor>

Mr. P.

:rollin

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Chris OConnor · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:33 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the monkey poo!

It is difficult to bitch about our soldiers being tortured when we are known to torture other nations soldiers/fighters.

All of the arguments for torture could be turned around on us. Just switch the names around and see how it feels. Pretend it is the Iraqi's or Syrians or any other nation that is torturing our soldiers and then justifying with the exact same excuses we use.

Greg Neuman · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:50 pm Post subject: Re: Oh the monkey poo!

Not to offend, but I find some of the moralist grand-standing here to be rather irritating.

Let me put you folks in a room.

In this room with you is a known terrorist. He has planned, and in some cases carried out, intentional attacks on helpless civilians in many countries. His motto is "Conversion or Death for the Infidel, and Nothing Else."

Furthermore, you know that he has vital information pertaining to an attack that will kill a group of people who's safety is your personal responsibility. Perhaps they are family or friends. Maybe employees. Either way, all that stands between them and a horrifying death at the hands of this religious madman is you. No higher authority is going to intervene; either you get the necessary information, or your people are going to die (if their lucky; they could spend the next twenty years in a miserable hell of skin grafts and repeated reconstructive surgeries).

This terrorist is a hard man, and he hates you and everything you stand for. To him, the people who you are trying to defend aren't really people; they are merely chits on a map of his mad objectives, willingly sacrificed to further the fantasy ideology of a global Caliphate. Concepts like "reason" and "compassion" are so far removed from his morality that he actually straps bombs onto children and sends them to blow up other children.

How will you proceed?

Each person must answer that for themselves, of course. But I'll willingly tell you what I would do: I'd tell the terrorist the exact, precise truth about my moral position.

I'd tell him that I hate - hate with every last fiber of my being - the idea of torturing a prisoner. I'd tell him that the mere thought of it sickens me beyond the abililty of words to describe. It stands against every last ethic that I hold as a rational and compassionate human being. Cruelty and murder are his tools, not mine. Using them is a crime against the very fabric of civilization.

And then I'd take out my hunting knife and tell him he has 30 minutes to tell me what I need to know, or I'm going to make the 24 hours that follow such an unendurable bloody mess that Mengele himself would turn away in disgust.

And I'd mean it. Every last word.

But you all aren't in that room, and neither am I. We're sitting on comfy office chairs, typing away on clean plastic keyboards, far from responsibilites that involve the lives of a thousand innocent people. As much as I tried to put you in that place, I am certain that I was unable to muster up even one-tenth of one percent of the dire reality of such a situation.

But those situations do exist, and there are people who must deal with them. It does not matter one whit how much we all wish it wasn't so; the universe cares nothing for our wishes, it merely sits dumb and blind while men do what men do.

It is so very, very, very easy to sit there in your comfy office chair, in front of your clean keyboard, and moralize about we-can't-do-that-to-the-enemy-or-we-become-the-enemy bullshit. It costs you nothing at all. In fact, it makes you look wise and compassionate to your fellow BookTalk posters. You're planting a flag on moral high ground that sits completely undefended.

But it is quite different for the people whose sacred trust is the defense of helpless civillians numbering in the hundreds of millions. They're not typing on clean keyboards, they're trying desperately to avert the next close encounter 'twixt flying bomb and skyscraper-full-o-office workers. It is not a moral exercise for them, it is a hard-and-fast physical reality.

Is it morally correct to despise torture and the people who willingly - even gleefully - use it? Yes.

Is it morally correct to spare one evil man such torture, after you've given him ample opportunity to cooperate, and condemn hundereds or thousands of innocent people to an agonizing death?

My answer, I think, is obvious. But it's something that each person will have to decide for themselves; I would only ask that you think carefully about the real-world implications of your position, instead of simply defaulting to the one that looks like the correct and easy answer.

G

"Dear Buddha: Please bring me a pony and a plastic rocket."

- Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity

Edited by: Greg Neuman at: 2/13/06 10:54 am

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:25 am Post subject: Re: horrors

Frank:

Quote:
Here is the problem, first you guys say there is no evidence that torture saves lives. I disagree but can only give you personal assurances that torture has indeed saved American lives. I explained that the data is skewed because the successes are classified.

So you give really no discernible proof at all...and expect us to belive what you say. Sounds like pretty much what the current administration expects of us as well. Some of us eat it up...some dont.

Quote:
Not so long after that, it is released that a terrorist attack that would have claimed several thousand lives, was averted, most probably by the use of torture, (Gee it almost appears like good old Frank might have some inside info.

Gee...it seems like Frank worked backward from something that happened to make it seem like he has some inside info....it can work either way. And again, you should acknowledge the fact that many, and I mean many, people do not trust what those who control our government have to say anymore. At all. And a release to the press is not the solid proof that will assuage our doubt.

Quote:
Anyway I do not recall anyone ever admitting to lying to the American public, they admitted to jumping to a conclusion that was untrue, nothing more.

Is it your argument that a liar can only be spotted when they ADMIT the lied. Are you for real man?

Quote:
If we knew they had no WMDs than why the hasty back peddling, why allow the world to see our mistake. This was clearly a blunder by the administration but it also shows that they really did believe the Intel given to them.

This is just an assertion on your part. Speculation at best. Once in Iraq, the brushed the facts under the carpet. It did not matter anymore once the military ousted Saddam and we were in. I did not consider it backpeddalling...I consider it obfuscation. After we entered Iraq, it became less about WMD and more about "Iraqi Freedom" (crescendo of heartfelt music here). And there were so many people saying, at least from what I recall, that Saddam was NOT a threat with WMD. Those people were marginalized before the Operation, the Admin went ahead after a facade of diplomacy and invaded Iraq, which according to some that were inside the administration was on the Admin wishlist all along...before 9/11.

And I think we pretty much understand now (and did kinda realize then) that Saddam did not work with the terrorists.

Quote:
The fact is Saddam is insane and suffers from megalomania

Hee hee...I will refrain from stating the obvious.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Frank 013 · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 2:56 pm Post subject: Re: horrors

[Mr. P: So you give really no discernible proof at all...and expect us to believe what you say.]

Nope, I was just trying to show you guys that the data held by civilians is not complete enough to make an intelligent assessment of the use of modern torture.

[Mr. P: Gee...it seems like Frank worked backward from something that happened to make it seem like he has some inside info....it can work either way.]

Sure, if that’s what you want to believe that’s cool, I don’t suppose it makes any difference to say that I could be arrested for giving out my knowledge of classified material before it is released by my Government? I think you have some serious issues with this administration, and you are incapable of believing anything positive related to it.

[Mr. P: And again, you should acknowledge the fact that many, and I mean many, people do not trust what those who control our government have to say anymore. At all, and a release to the press is not the solid proof that will assuage our doubt.]

Well you are saying just that, you will not accept anything the current administration says, so if they say the sky is blue you will insist it is…what, a very light shade of purple minus the red? You have a biased view point so no matter what was said, you will remain untrusting, or worse claim it is a lie.

[Mr. P: This is just an assertion on your part. Speculation at best. Once in Iraq, the brushed the facts under the carpet.]

This is speculation and honest observance on my part, I cannot know for sure, but the actions taken after the invasion seemed to appear like a seriously embarrassed administration, not a cover up. If they could not cover this up by planting weapons or materials, (it would have been a relatively simple matter) than why assume that they could fabricate the documents, materials, witnesses, and agents necessary to show a defeated terror attack? All done 4 years before the actual release of said evidence.

[Mr. P: And there were so many people saying, at least from what I recall that Saddam was NOT a threat with WMD. Those people were marginalized before the Operation]

How many was that…2, the fact is because Saddam hampered the efforts of the inspectors no one was sure. The inspectors wanted to continue the inspections without interruption… that clearly was not going to happen. Saddam said he was going to allow the inspections to continue without harassment many times in the past and in every case he denied the inspectors access to suspicious areas. After 12 years of this we began to see the pattern, I am surprised you couldn’t.

Later

Luck of the Draw · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:03 pm Post subject: Re: horrors

F013---How many was that…2, the fact is because Saddam hampered the efforts of the inspectors no one was sure. The inspectors wanted to continue the inspections without interruption… that clearly was not going to happen. Saddam said he was going to allow the inspections to continue without harassment many times in the past and in every case he denied the inspectors access to suspicious areas. After 12 years of this we began to see the pattern, I am surprised you couldn’t.

2??!!!! You do remember the protests that took place all around the world prior to our invading Iraq? When before in our history had so many ever attempt to prevent a war in like manner? A show of #'s that they thought this was entirely wrong? And Bush didn't heed.

And the inspectors left without completing their inspections as Bush was impatient to get his war on!!!!

LoTD

"If the truth ever wins ask which lie fought for it"--Nietzche

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

Edited by: Luck of the Draw at: 2/12/06 4:07 pm

Niall001 · Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 6:49 pm Post subject: Re: horrors

Quote:
Nope, I was just trying to show you guys that the data held by civilians is not complete enough to make an intelligent assessment of the use of modern torture.

See this is where you're wrong. I've studied the various ways of detecting deception and the various methods of punishment. All of the research conducted by the foremost experts in the field indicates that torture cannot be justified. For instance, you mentioned elsewhere the use of 'truth serum'. That shit just does not work in any way that is reliable. And while it is true that in certain circumstances something like torture can produce results, it has been shown that in any situation where torture might prove useful, other methods work better.

How many people were tortured in the search for Saddam, but it was the reward that resulted in his capture.

Let us agree, there is no one single reality. Not upon this stage, not in this world, all is in the mind... imagination is the only truth. Because it cannot be contradicted except by other imaginations - Richard Matheson

There are no conclusive indications by which waking life can be distinguished from sleep - Rene Descartes


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