Proponents of the Bush/Cheney interrogation program have been on a backsliding position for several years now. And sadly for them, theres a pretty clear reason for this, that methods used in the program very certainly did constitute torture, clearly outlined under US and international law, and any debate on the subject inevitably leads to the clear determination that many of the programs progenitors are in fact warcriminals.
But lets focus on this new front line of their quickly evaporating position. Not the administrations previous argument, that it didnt happen, which has been at this point unarguably exposed as a lie. Not that torture is Ok in some circumstances, that has been explicitly false since Reagan signed the International Torture Ban in 1988, not to mention since the founding of the constitution. Not that its effective, it very demonstratively is not. It was designed and has been employed from the outset as an explicit method for extracting false confessions, and is used in SERE training to defend exactly against this. And documents have now shown that [surprise!] it has had the opposite effect of collecting viable information, that subjects who were originally singing like canaries clammed up and became permanent dead ends for useful information, [not to mention functionally brain dead] after being subjected to it. No, now, the argument retreats to the supposedly semantic question of whether waterboarding is in fact "torture", or whether you can hire some nitwit lawyers to call a dead fish a rose.
Define "severe"
I mean fucking really dude? Is that the best you have? What the definition of is is? How about the fact that no human being has voluntarily sustained longer than 20 seconds of it? And the detainees were held under for 30 seconds at a time several times a day, for months? How about the fact it can cause permanent damage to the lungs from dry-drowning, bleeding of the trachea, brain damage and that subjects have suffered broken bones struggling against the restraints? How about the fact that the UN, Amnesty international, and US Military courts from the time of the Spanish American War have testified to the agony it induces, on par with electric shocks, and have jailed everyone demonstrated to have carried it out?
How about the fact that international law defines any form of mock execution, which waterboarding expressly is, as a form of torture?
Shouldnt it tell you something that John McCain, undisputed war hero, undisputed victim of torture, and rare standard bearer of dignity in the republican party and arguably your most experienced expert on military policy defines waterboarding as torture? Shouldnt it tell you something that before Dick Cheney, the its most famous proponents were the Gestapo, the Kempeitai, the Khmer Rouge and the Spanish fucking Inquisition?
Though I realize how terrible our country is at holding people accountable, how disastrous it would be for Obamas ability to get anything done while the country watched its previous administration held for war crimes, I have hope left that there is some shred of dignity left in this country, that at some point, some kind of real human accountability is still possible.
It wasnt beautifully put - just long worded. Break it down to it's simplest arguement; Dumping water on on someones head is not torture - it scares the shit of them but it doesnt torture them. Who says the Geneva convention is 100% correct to begin with? Did they have covert terror networks at that time?
I remember a Chicago Tactical officer, the guys who do the real dirty work like going into armed drug factories and taking down hitmen - he said when working in some areas, with some guys who are so far gone, so cold blooded and inhuman from growing up in the most disgusting of conditions, burning dogs for entertainment, having murdered and gotten used to it before they could drive - this cop said he has no choice but to beat the shit of these guys, when he finds them in alleys hell scrape his face on the brick walls - because for some people there is no law and they dont understand anything else but pain. And you never hear about it. The judges wont put them in jail so they are out, free to terrorise the public if not for the tac officers. And if what it takes to keep terrorists talking, a little water, then pour away.
You can grandstand and say thats not my America, and my constitution is tarnished by such actions - but when these bastards kill another 3000 or more or shut down the Persian Gulf or Straights of Hormuz - you'll be the same asshole pointing fingers at the USA saying why didnt you protect us.
This whole thing is weird...I don't understand why some people are so passionately arguing / sympathizing for a few lost souls (caught on the battlefield) as if they were the ones either being waterboarded, or being persecuted for doing it...it's also strange how close-to-home it appears to be to these [architects] above who are apparently disconnected from it (contempt for military service) and what America is (was) or what the image of America has on their lives as archinect bloggers.
They are the same people who are so concerned about what the Middle east thinks about America while at the same time advocating for same-sex marriage which the middle clearly despises while also beheading people in lieu of waterboarding. It's twisted logic, no matter how flowery it's worded or how verbose the explanation, it just does not make sense. Self-righteous over-rationalization of a position resounds only with like-minded liberals. It's like preaching to a choir (without any religious connotation) whilst blindly following their replacement God and cabinet...yuk. Only 4-3/4 more years of this mess before it backfires completely in their faces.....
Pocz, your last post is really difficult to understand... but im gonna go after a few things here...
actually... im not even sure if i can fairly as the whole thing is so disjointed...
few things though...
"They are the same people who are so concerned about what the Middle east thinks about America while at the same time advocating for same-sex marriage which the middle clearly despises while also beheading people in lieu of waterboarding."
1.the middle doesnt despise same sex marriage. recent polls show that for the first time in history, more people support it than dont. And general polling over the past few years shows a basic 50/50 split when it comes to gay marriage for and against...So... you might want to get your facts straight on that one.
2. Is this supposed to insinuate that we shouldnt care what the middle east thinks of us? Ill give you the benefit of the doubt that it wasnt your intention to insinuate that...Thats the same shit that has us in this pickle... it would seem to me that we are already getting somewhere by paying even the most innocent seeming attention to Iran.
Evil, i understand your argument, and im sure you have thousands of anecdotal stories about how torturing people, or causing people physical pain is the only way to get information from the real tough guys. Im sure youre 100% sold on the notion...
Its entirely possible you are right, but its also entirely possible you are wrong. YOU CAN NOT KNOW FOR SURE TORTURE IS EFFECTIVE! Becoming frustrated with those who believe there have to be better ways of getting what we want is near sighted. You have to accept that your argument is no more based in certainty than those who oppose torture if you want to sound rational and credible.
Hopefully you re read the last paragraph of your last post, which btw, is hysterical, and realize how 1 dimensional your rationalization is...
Poczatek, you make it sound like liberals are some tiny minority in the US. In fact, conservatism and particularly religious conservatism are shrinking rapidly, while our current "liberal" president won with well over 50% of the vote, and has amazingly high popularity ratings. Whether you like it or not, you're in the minority.
Obama's not a god or a messiah, and like every politician, he has to make some difficult compromises. But, luckily, he's also not a torturer, unlike the previous administration.
You mention contempt for military service. I have tremendous respect for military service, as long as its conducted honorably. Apparently, you're trying to create some tenuous fictitious connection between not supporting torture and not respecting military service. Well, it won't fly. I support what we're doing in Afghanistan—I just wish we were doing it smarter.
I support same-sex marriage here and in the Middle East. I don't support waterboarding or other forms of torture here or in the Middle East. I don't support beheading ever—and I don't support beheading beheaders (i.e. the violent Christian notion of an eye for an eye seems barbaric and primitive.)
You can't understand my logic, I can't understand yours (or, rather, I think I can understand it, but it seems cruel and inhumane to me.)
Lletdown I agree we need other ways of getting information, however waterboarding should be left as an option on the table. Whats so 1-dimensional about my argument? The law works and protects about 99% of the world. Then there is the 1% where there is no law. Its like this in business where a few insiders get away with crimes, hell even lawyers bend the law to suite their needs when needed.
The world isnt black and white and there are simply times when common sense needs to be applied; I pick up a guy with weapons a mile down the road from a known Taliban hideout in a remote region and He lies about where he came from and who he is. What would you do if you were the comander of the troops in the region? Hold him for 24 hours and then write him a ticket for not having a foid card? Give him a scholarship?
You're right. Early christians were turn the other cheek. The old testament is more eye for an eye. But somewhere along the way, it seems, fundamentalist christians lost the "turn the other cheek" philosophy.
@lletdownl:
its more like 80/20 against worldwide...not sure where your facts come from or who was polled to arrive at those numbers (e.g. 90% of Archinectors...)
@farwest1: The 50% of "the Vote" of which you speak is not representative of the real population...recent evidence also suggests major voter fraud and whatever the number may be is so divided into independent special interest groups that it is not a cohesive number....As a matter of fact, the African American population who voted something like 97% for BO voted 90% against gay marriage (for prop8). The problem is, while Obama did win with the majority of votes, those votes represent so many different groups of people that any particular issue is not backed collectively, and each is, in fact, the minority.
You're right. Early christians were turn the other cheek. The old testament is more eye for an eye. But somewhere along the way, it seems, fundamentalist christians lost the "turn the other cheek" philosophy.
There weren't any "christians" in the old testament - just Jewish people.
Umm. Having difficulty understanding what any of this^ has anything to do with anything.
It wasnt beautifully put - just long worded. Break it down to it's simplest arguement; Dumping water on on someones head is not torture - it scares the shit of them but it doesnt torture them. Who says the Geneva convention is 100% correct to begin with? Did they have covert terror networks at that time?
I understand the misconception. This is actually exactly the argument the spanish inquisition used, that hey! Its not so bad, no physical marks, its just pouring water on them. The kind of insidious genius of the method is that it exploits a very precise and unavoidable physiological reaction, the gag reflex, and uses it to slowly destroy the subject's respiratory system. You cant reproduce this effect by just holding people underwater, its not like you can just hold your breath, and its actually dramatically more painful and terrifying than any other kind of asphyxiation.
To give a sense, imagine a kind of pain that the toughest motherfuckers in the US military can withstand on average less than 14 seconds.
And the real problem is, that the Geneva convention isnt even this discerning. Waterboarding is so far over the line it doesnt even garner debate. It specifically covers spies and saboteurs and other irregular non-uniformed agents, and makes no distinction for their treatment. You can say "Well hey, maybe the geneva convention is just too soft!" but it wasnt too soft for Reagan when we had thousands of nuclear weapons hanging over our heads at the height of the cold war, or for Churchill even as the blitz was reducing the fabric of his country to smoldering rubble. When we signed the international treaty on the subject, we made a legal, moral commitment that our country does not engage in torture, that we are not somehow uniquely immune to international law. Which means you can make the ticking-time-bomb argument all you like, but you cant prevent the legal reality that Bush and Cheney and anyone who signed onto this thing are in fact international war criminals.
I mean the thing is this really just isnt an emotional argument. It has nothing to do with how much we hate terrorists or love our troops. Its about what is the best way to protect americans, strategically and tactically, while preserving the moral character that makes our country worth having. This isnt stalinism and no matter how you frame it we arent in a total war for the survival of our culture. In fact, in reality, as real as the threat of terrorism is, we are probably infinitely more secure now than we have been in most of the last century, and about the only thing we could do to erode that would be carry ourselves about in the world like Augusto Pinochet. So lets cut the macho hyperbole eh?
In your fantasy they would be war criminals. How lovely that would be to see some Republicans strung up in The Hauge but although I havent read the Geneva convention rules I think it was written in a period of conscription armies battling en masse and not for the type of hide and seek warfare this struggle poses. We arent fighting a conventional military at all, some of the participants arent even soldiers in any capacity other than lookouts, suicide bombers or scouts. If on the one hand an open society has to become a closed society and scan people everywhere they go to protect itself and on the other hand advanced interrogation such as waterboarding can help protect your society, I would choose the latter unless you can suggest a better method? Truth serum? Is there such a thing? I wonder if you were able to go back to WW2 and find yourself in the Arden Forest and got to witness British troops who had been severely decimated by the germans how they handled their pow's in order to get nazi position information. Im not spewing macho bravado, if thats what I was interested in I prob would'nt be an architect - I would argue it's the realities of the situation, and that great gift of common sense that a lot of people are lacking, affords rational folks to understand where the law ends and necessity begins and also allows them the wisdom to know the line - thats why we elect them.
my cousin's husband is iraqi (shi'ah, he left iraq after GW one) and i'll take his word over visitors to iraq...
sewage, water and electricity infrastructures in iraq were decimated
museums were looted - i'm amazed the modern military is clueless to the heritage of the monuments men and the roberts commission.
millions of displaced iraqis have yet to return home
i'm not saying it was great under saddam - i'm aware it was pretty awful especially after he let everything go to crap after GW one, but we waltzed in (under-manned) and left it worse off than it was (which was fucking pathetic) and that's pretty infuriating.
ep,
it was a sinister and evil plot perpetrated by a small cadre of ideologue assholes and is being paid for by average americans who were lied to over and over and over and over and over.
as anti-tax and opposed to "wasteful spending" as you claim to be, i'm perplexed you think this was a positive expenditure.
we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon – paul wolfowitz. idealogue. asshole. liar. march 28, 2003
Holz - why dont you think it cant finance its reconstruction? Did the US military steal the artifacts? Could your reletive be bitter? I loved these 2 Iraqi dudes I used to get my haircut from who badmouthed Bush senior, said America is evil and sinister and destroying his country - this was 200 - how we left him and his student protesters to die adter the first war - so hateful of America and yet enjoying it so much really. Fucking hypocrites.
4.1.1 Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict and members of militias of such armed forces
4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
that of carrying arms openly;
that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
4.1.3 Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
4.1.4 Civilians who have non-combat support roles with the military and who carry a valid identity card issued by the military they support.
4.1.5 Merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
4.1.6 Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
4.3 makes explicit that Article 33 takes precedence for the treatment of medical personnel of the enemy and chaplains of the enemy.
13 Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
abu ghraib was a direct violation of article 13. i know facts bother wingnuts. i can understand why.
And Holz - c'mon - the American military is responsible for the destruction of the infrastructure? Armed thugs blowing it up in the middle of the night is our fault? That says a whole lot about the nature of the problem - maybe your right. We should stop spending tomorrow, pull out, offer no further support to anyone in the middle east militarily and economically EVER again. I'll buy you some popcorn as we watch the place fucking devour itself on CNN. Then you and your relative can gloat about how evil we are.
4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
Visible sign? Nope
that of carrying arms openly? sometimes
that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. ? Not a chance
Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power? Nope
so the infrastructure would have been blown up without american invasion? good one, ep. your logical just mindfucked me.
i never said pulling out and ending support was the right thing to do. not going would have been the right thing to do, but now that we're in, we have a responsiblity to oversee reconstruction and reconstitution.
ill catch up with the novels written above since my last post later... but here are those polls for Pocz...
Pocz, why would you care what the rest of the world thinks about gay marriage... i figured you for the "America, FUCK YEAH!" type...
[url=http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/two-national-polls-for-first-time-show.html]Two National Polls, for First Time, Show Plurality Support for Gay Marriage[/img]
So by Holz's logic its better to let the insurgents and militants fester among the poulation then risk losing the utilities, which we are paying for to fix - very humanitarian of you.
why is it that almost all political conversations result in willful/intentional twisting of others' logic? was this always a symptom of so-called civil discourse or is it a more recent phenomenon?
even in person (i.e., not just in on-line discussions) it seems what starts as constructive sharing of views often devolves into a sort of one-upping game of ridiculous accusations regarding what people actually want as the result of their politics: 'oh, so you want babies to die.', 'oh, so you think we should cut all funding to our troops and let them starve and find their way back.', etc.
can real civil discourse still happen or does it take too much effort?
Concidering the the title of the thread is "implosion of the republican party - Ill go get some popcorn, and then it starts with republican bashing - no - it was never civil to begin with. If you want gentle discussion may I suggest the folks at pbs
Im quite certain the 1988 updated treaty refers specifically to non-uniform operatives, because it was designed to address the treatment and exchange of captured cold war spies and actors working on behalf of revolutionary movements.
I think it should be telling that bush officials have completely abandoned that defense.
And on Iraq, Im sure we can all agree the first 5 years or so was an unmitigated shitfest eh? I mean evil, I know youre a Petraeus fan, certainly his renewed methods were an improvement over the bungling of his predecessors? Yea?
Again its just not an either or choice. Its not about how much stuff you can blow up or how many bodies you can pile up. You dont have to wipe out neighborhoods to break these networks, in fact all evidence both from Iraq and Afghanistan is that thats the worst thing you can do. I mean the last thing the guys on the ground want is to operate in an environment thats fully hostile to them, and so it seems fully incumbent upon our political and diplomatic leadership to do everything they can possibly do to improve our relationship with the general population.
OE - did it ever occur to you that they underestimated the assault? And that they have been grasping to find the best way to finish this up despite the chorus of naysayers, Bush bashers, media whores fanning the flames of anti-American sentiment? Imagine if we could actualy get behind this instead of sitting on the sidelines hoping for them to fail. Oh wait - only Republicans do that.
You dont have to wipe out neighborhoods to break these networks
You're exaggerating, but yea, we did have to operate door-to-door, rooting out insurgents/terrorist cells. If reducing a building to smithereens prevents US soldiers from having to clear it of terrorists, mines, booby-traps and the like, I approve. I'm sure many Iraqis/Afghanis don't like being embroiled in war, but there's no way around that.
And look, it's kind of silly to make sweeping, erroneous generalizations like,
"...all evidence both from Iraq and Afghanistan is that thats the worst thing you can do..."
or
"...the tactics of al qaeda are no different than guerilla warfare for the last 300 years..." (you're joking, right?)
This is an honest question... wasn't guerrilla warfare (at least the term) developed during the Vietnam War? If this is the case than the "300 year" remark is incorrect.
disapears back into the mist to chomp on her popcorn
*melt, I've heard it attributed heavily dating back to the French and Indian War.
It was the standard American method of fight during the revolution. More or less a feature of the Americas' and the successfulness of the practice-- was considered for a long time a brutish way of fighting in comparison to the turn-based warfare traditional to Europe.
The Iraq war was completely misguided with an alarmingly ignorant and disillusioned American public. Remember there were MANY suporters of the war on BOTH camps. And the American public was overwhelmingly in favor of it.
The instigators of the Iraq war (us) had this idea that we would go in, it would be very easy, and we could just create a puppet nation in the middle east with a puppet regime and puppet military consisting of 30,000 Ak-47 weilding Iraqi soliders. Should that have worked out, we would have been in a position to start making threats toward Syria and do the same thing there until it too had a puppet regime. Syria and Lebanon would have probably then be divided up in into cantons of land where Israel would have a large portion of southwestern Syria and most of Lebanon. Damascus would have been reduced to a bantustan (just like all of the Palestinian towns and cities). After this solution would be established -- all eyes would be on Iran for a a major war where the US could try to convince several other major powers to enter into the war.
But luckily for all denizens of the Middle East and most intelligent people here in America, they knew the George W. Bush and a large percentage of Americans are nothing but fucking rednecks that wouldn't know their asses from their elbows about how the Middle East works. And sure enough we're still scratshing our heads about the first of the series of planned wars that Bush started and that all "experts" thought would be soooo easy.
@lletdownl:
fivethirtyeight.com?
"Personally, I think it is somewhat unlikely that gay marriage has in fact achieved plurality support.."
-Nate Silver, Creator of fivethirtyeight.com
fivethirtyeight.com is a pretty well trusted source pocz... about as well regarded as any other online new source, and is probably the most trusted poll analysis site.
either way... your quote said that gay marriage was frowned upon by the vast majority of the middle... thats just 100% false, you were way off on that...
The Implosion of the Republican Party (hang on while I get some popcorn...)
Thank you, lletdownl. I agree.
Proponents of the Bush/Cheney interrogation program have been on a backsliding position for several years now. And sadly for them, theres a pretty clear reason for this, that methods used in the program very certainly did constitute torture, clearly outlined under US and international law, and any debate on the subject inevitably leads to the clear determination that many of the programs progenitors are in fact warcriminals.
But lets focus on this new front line of their quickly evaporating position. Not the administrations previous argument, that it didnt happen, which has been at this point unarguably exposed as a lie. Not that torture is Ok in some circumstances, that has been explicitly false since Reagan signed the International Torture Ban in 1988, not to mention since the founding of the constitution. Not that its effective, it very demonstratively is not. It was designed and has been employed from the outset as an explicit method for extracting false confessions, and is used in SERE training to defend exactly against this. And documents have now shown that [surprise!] it has had the opposite effect of collecting viable information, that subjects who were originally singing like canaries clammed up and became permanent dead ends for useful information, [not to mention functionally brain dead] after being subjected to it. No, now, the argument retreats to the supposedly semantic question of whether waterboarding is in fact "torture", or whether you can hire some nitwit lawyers to call a dead fish a rose.
Define "severe"
I mean fucking really dude? Is that the best you have? What the definition of is is? How about the fact that no human being has voluntarily sustained longer than 20 seconds of it? And the detainees were held under for 30 seconds at a time several times a day, for months? How about the fact it can cause permanent damage to the lungs from dry-drowning, bleeding of the trachea, brain damage and that subjects have suffered broken bones struggling against the restraints? How about the fact that the UN, Amnesty international, and US Military courts from the time of the Spanish American War have testified to the agony it induces, on par with electric shocks, and have jailed everyone demonstrated to have carried it out?
How about the fact that international law defines any form of mock execution, which waterboarding expressly is, as a form of torture?
Shouldnt it tell you something that John McCain, undisputed war hero, undisputed victim of torture, and rare standard bearer of dignity in the republican party and arguably your most experienced expert on military policy defines waterboarding as torture? Shouldnt it tell you something that before Dick Cheney, the its most famous proponents were the Gestapo, the Kempeitai, the Khmer Rouge and the Spanish fucking Inquisition?
Though I realize how terrible our country is at holding people accountable, how disastrous it would be for Obamas ability to get anything done while the country watched its previous administration held for war crimes, I have hope left that there is some shred of dignity left in this country, that at some point, some kind of real human accountability is still possible.
reductio ad defigo torqueo
oe, that was beautifully put. hard to argue against what you just said.
It wasnt beautifully put - just long worded. Break it down to it's simplest arguement; Dumping water on on someones head is not torture - it scares the shit of them but it doesnt torture them. Who says the Geneva convention is 100% correct to begin with? Did they have covert terror networks at that time?
I remember a Chicago Tactical officer, the guys who do the real dirty work like going into armed drug factories and taking down hitmen - he said when working in some areas, with some guys who are so far gone, so cold blooded and inhuman from growing up in the most disgusting of conditions, burning dogs for entertainment, having murdered and gotten used to it before they could drive - this cop said he has no choice but to beat the shit of these guys, when he finds them in alleys hell scrape his face on the brick walls - because for some people there is no law and they dont understand anything else but pain. And you never hear about it. The judges wont put them in jail so they are out, free to terrorise the public if not for the tac officers. And if what it takes to keep terrorists talking, a little water, then pour away.
You can grandstand and say thats not my America, and my constitution is tarnished by such actions - but when these bastards kill another 3000 or more or shut down the Persian Gulf or Straights of Hormuz - you'll be the same asshole pointing fingers at the USA saying why didnt you protect us.
This whole thing is weird...I don't understand why some people are so passionately arguing / sympathizing for a few lost souls (caught on the battlefield) as if they were the ones either being waterboarded, or being persecuted for doing it...it's also strange how close-to-home it appears to be to these [architects] above who are apparently disconnected from it (contempt for military service) and what America is (was) or what the image of America has on their lives as archinect bloggers.
They are the same people who are so concerned about what the Middle east thinks about America while at the same time advocating for same-sex marriage which the middle clearly despises while also beheading people in lieu of waterboarding. It's twisted logic, no matter how flowery it's worded or how verbose the explanation, it just does not make sense. Self-righteous over-rationalization of a position resounds only with like-minded liberals. It's like preaching to a choir (without any religious connotation) whilst blindly following their replacement God and cabinet...yuk. Only 4-3/4 more years of this mess before it backfires completely in their faces.....
(3-3/4 years)
Pocz, your last post is really difficult to understand... but im gonna go after a few things here...
actually... im not even sure if i can fairly as the whole thing is so disjointed...
few things though...
"They are the same people who are so concerned about what the Middle east thinks about America while at the same time advocating for same-sex marriage which the middle clearly despises while also beheading people in lieu of waterboarding."
1.the middle doesnt despise same sex marriage. recent polls show that for the first time in history, more people support it than dont. And general polling over the past few years shows a basic 50/50 split when it comes to gay marriage for and against...So... you might want to get your facts straight on that one.
2. Is this supposed to insinuate that we shouldnt care what the middle east thinks of us? Ill give you the benefit of the doubt that it wasnt your intention to insinuate that...Thats the same shit that has us in this pickle... it would seem to me that we are already getting somewhere by paying even the most innocent seeming attention to Iran.
Evil, i understand your argument, and im sure you have thousands of anecdotal stories about how torturing people, or causing people physical pain is the only way to get information from the real tough guys. Im sure youre 100% sold on the notion...
Its entirely possible you are right, but its also entirely possible you are wrong. YOU CAN NOT KNOW FOR SURE TORTURE IS EFFECTIVE! Becoming frustrated with those who believe there have to be better ways of getting what we want is near sighted. You have to accept that your argument is no more based in certainty than those who oppose torture if you want to sound rational and credible.
Hopefully you re read the last paragraph of your last post, which btw, is hysterical, and realize how 1 dimensional your rationalization is...
Poczatek, you make it sound like liberals are some tiny minority in the US. In fact, conservatism and particularly religious conservatism are shrinking rapidly, while our current "liberal" president won with well over 50% of the vote, and has amazingly high popularity ratings. Whether you like it or not, you're in the minority.
Obama's not a god or a messiah, and like every politician, he has to make some difficult compromises. But, luckily, he's also not a torturer, unlike the previous administration.
You mention contempt for military service. I have tremendous respect for military service, as long as its conducted honorably. Apparently, you're trying to create some tenuous fictitious connection between not supporting torture and not respecting military service. Well, it won't fly. I support what we're doing in Afghanistan—I just wish we were doing it smarter.
I support same-sex marriage here and in the Middle East. I don't support waterboarding or other forms of torture here or in the Middle East. I don't support beheading ever—and I don't support beheading beheaders (i.e. the violent Christian notion of an eye for an eye seems barbaric and primitive.)
You can't understand my logic, I can't understand yours (or, rather, I think I can understand it, but it seems cruel and inhumane to me.)
Lletdown I agree we need other ways of getting information, however waterboarding should be left as an option on the table. Whats so 1-dimensional about my argument? The law works and protects about 99% of the world. Then there is the 1% where there is no law. Its like this in business where a few insiders get away with crimes, hell even lawyers bend the law to suite their needs when needed.
The world isnt black and white and there are simply times when common sense needs to be applied; I pick up a guy with weapons a mile down the road from a known Taliban hideout in a remote region and He lies about where he came from and who he is. What would you do if you were the comander of the troops in the region? Hold him for 24 hours and then write him a ticket for not having a foid card? Give him a scholarship?
farwest - "i.e. the violent Christian notion of an eye for an eye seems barbaric and primitive."
Christians were the turn the other cheek people / all the others were the eye 4 eye people
You're right. Early christians were turn the other cheek. The old testament is more eye for an eye. But somewhere along the way, it seems, fundamentalist christians lost the "turn the other cheek" philosophy.
That was prob after they were fed to the lions
@lletdownl:
its more like 80/20 against worldwide...not sure where your facts come from or who was polled to arrive at those numbers (e.g. 90% of Archinectors...)
@farwest1: The 50% of "the Vote" of which you speak is not representative of the real population...recent evidence also suggests major voter fraud and whatever the number may be is so divided into independent special interest groups that it is not a cohesive number....As a matter of fact, the African American population who voted something like 97% for BO voted 90% against gay marriage (for prop8). The problem is, while Obama did win with the majority of votes, those votes represent so many different groups of people that any particular issue is not backed collectively, and each is, in fact, the minority.
...the blogospheres from which you collect your facts, and poll numbers, is deceiving.
And you have a direct pipeline to the truth, Poczatek?
There weren't any "christians" in the old testament - just Jewish people.
Umm. Having difficulty understanding what any of this^ has anything to do with anything.
It wasnt beautifully put - just long worded. Break it down to it's simplest arguement; Dumping water on on someones head is not torture - it scares the shit of them but it doesnt torture them. Who says the Geneva convention is 100% correct to begin with? Did they have covert terror networks at that time?
I understand the misconception. This is actually exactly the argument the spanish inquisition used, that hey! Its not so bad, no physical marks, its just pouring water on them. The kind of insidious genius of the method is that it exploits a very precise and unavoidable physiological reaction, the gag reflex, and uses it to slowly destroy the subject's respiratory system. You cant reproduce this effect by just holding people underwater, its not like you can just hold your breath, and its actually dramatically more painful and terrifying than any other kind of asphyxiation.
To give a sense, imagine a kind of pain that the toughest motherfuckers in the US military can withstand on average less than 14 seconds.
And the real problem is, that the Geneva convention isnt even this discerning. Waterboarding is so far over the line it doesnt even garner debate. It specifically covers spies and saboteurs and other irregular non-uniformed agents, and makes no distinction for their treatment. You can say "Well hey, maybe the geneva convention is just too soft!" but it wasnt too soft for Reagan when we had thousands of nuclear weapons hanging over our heads at the height of the cold war, or for Churchill even as the blitz was reducing the fabric of his country to smoldering rubble. When we signed the international treaty on the subject, we made a legal, moral commitment that our country does not engage in torture, that we are not somehow uniquely immune to international law. Which means you can make the ticking-time-bomb argument all you like, but you cant prevent the legal reality that Bush and Cheney and anyone who signed onto this thing are in fact international war criminals.
I mean the thing is this really just isnt an emotional argument. It has nothing to do with how much we hate terrorists or love our troops. Its about what is the best way to protect americans, strategically and tactically, while preserving the moral character that makes our country worth having. This isnt stalinism and no matter how you frame it we arent in a total war for the survival of our culture. In fact, in reality, as real as the threat of terrorism is, we are probably infinitely more secure now than we have been in most of the last century, and about the only thing we could do to erode that would be carry ourselves about in the world like Augusto Pinochet. So lets cut the macho hyperbole eh?
In your fantasy they would be war criminals. How lovely that would be to see some Republicans strung up in The Hauge but although I havent read the Geneva convention rules I think it was written in a period of conscription armies battling en masse and not for the type of hide and seek warfare this struggle poses. We arent fighting a conventional military at all, some of the participants arent even soldiers in any capacity other than lookouts, suicide bombers or scouts. If on the one hand an open society has to become a closed society and scan people everywhere they go to protect itself and on the other hand advanced interrogation such as waterboarding can help protect your society, I would choose the latter unless you can suggest a better method? Truth serum? Is there such a thing? I wonder if you were able to go back to WW2 and find yourself in the Arden Forest and got to witness British troops who had been severely decimated by the germans how they handled their pow's in order to get nazi position information. Im not spewing macho bravado, if thats what I was interested in I prob would'nt be an architect - I would argue it's the realities of the situation, and that great gift of common sense that a lot of people are lacking, affords rational folks to understand where the law ends and necessity begins and also allows them the wisdom to know the line - thats why we elect them.
farwest,
my cousin's husband is iraqi (shi'ah, he left iraq after GW one) and i'll take his word over visitors to iraq...
sewage, water and electricity infrastructures in iraq were decimated
museums were looted - i'm amazed the modern military is clueless to the heritage of the monuments men and the roberts commission.
millions of displaced iraqis have yet to return home
i'm not saying it was great under saddam - i'm aware it was pretty awful especially after he let everything go to crap after GW one, but we waltzed in (under-manned) and left it worse off than it was (which was fucking pathetic) and that's pretty infuriating.
ep,
it was a sinister and evil plot perpetrated by a small cadre of ideologue assholes and is being paid for by average americans who were lied to over and over and over and over and over.
as anti-tax and opposed to "wasteful spending" as you claim to be, i'm perplexed you think this was a positive expenditure.
we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon – paul wolfowitz. idealogue. asshole. liar. march 28, 2003
Holz - why dont you think it cant finance its reconstruction? Did the US military steal the artifacts? Could your reletive be bitter? I loved these 2 Iraqi dudes I used to get my haircut from who badmouthed Bush senior, said America is evil and sinister and destroying his country - this was 200 - how we left him and his student protesters to die adter the first war - so hateful of America and yet enjoying it so much really. Fucking hypocrites.
the tactics of al qaeda are no different than guerilla warfare for the last 300 years. read some effing history books, please.
also, the bush admin did violate the geneva convention - you should read it sometime...
Third Geneva Convention of 1949:
4.1.1 Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict and members of militias of such armed forces
4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance (there are limited exceptions to this among countries who observe the 1977 Protocol I);
that of carrying arms openly;
that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
4.1.3 Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
4.1.4 Civilians who have non-combat support roles with the military and who carry a valid identity card issued by the military they support.
4.1.5 Merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
4.1.6 Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
4.3 makes explicit that Article 33 takes precedence for the treatment of medical personnel of the enemy and chaplains of the enemy.
13 Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
abu ghraib was a direct violation of article 13. i know facts bother wingnuts. i can understand why.
And Holz - c'mon - the American military is responsible for the destruction of the infrastructure? Armed thugs blowing it up in the middle of the night is our fault? That says a whole lot about the nature of the problem - maybe your right. We should stop spending tomorrow, pull out, offer no further support to anyone in the middle east militarily and economically EVER again. I'll buy you some popcorn as we watch the place fucking devour itself on CNN. Then you and your relative can gloat about how evil we are.
read you rules - they dont apply
4.1.2 Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, provided that they fulfill all of the following conditions:
Visible sign? Nope
that of carrying arms openly? sometimes
that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. ? Not a chance
Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power? Nope
It goes on
ep
yes, some americans stole artifacts.
no, i don't think it can finace its own reconstruction. GDP per capita is $3,600
a good number of anti-saddam people that laid groud work for us invasion were left after GWone to saddam's revenge.
also, you can despise american foreign policy and still love america. for 7 years, i sure did.
You can love it and be completely wrong
so the infrastructure would have been blown up without american invasion? good one, ep. your logical just mindfucked me.
i never said pulling out and ending support was the right thing to do. not going would have been the right thing to do, but now that we're in, we have a responsiblity to oversee reconstruction and reconstitution.
ill catch up with the novels written above since my last post later... but here are those polls for Pocz...
Pocz, why would you care what the rest of the world thinks about gay marriage... i figured you for the "America, FUCK YEAH!" type...
[url=http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/two-national-polls-for-first-time-show.html]Two National Polls, for First Time, Show Plurality Support for Gay Marriage[/img]
So by Holz's logic its better to let the insurgents and militants fester among the poulation then risk losing the utilities, which we are paying for to fix - very humanitarian of you.
why is it that almost all political conversations result in willful/intentional twisting of others' logic? was this always a symptom of so-called civil discourse or is it a more recent phenomenon?
even in person (i.e., not just in on-line discussions) it seems what starts as constructive sharing of views often devolves into a sort of one-upping game of ridiculous accusations regarding what people actually want as the result of their politics: 'oh, so you want babies to die.', 'oh, so you think we should cut all funding to our troops and let them starve and find their way back.', etc.
can real civil discourse still happen or does it take too much effort?
Spare me your global insight
so, no, huh?
Concidering the the title of the thread is "implosion of the republican party - Ill go get some popcorn, and then it starts with republican bashing - no - it was never civil to begin with. If you want gentle discussion may I suggest the folks at pbs
A couple of things,
Im quite certain the 1988 updated treaty refers specifically to non-uniform operatives, because it was designed to address the treatment and exchange of captured cold war spies and actors working on behalf of revolutionary movements.
I think it should be telling that bush officials have completely abandoned that defense.
And on Iraq, Im sure we can all agree the first 5 years or so was an unmitigated shitfest eh? I mean evil, I know youre a Petraeus fan, certainly his renewed methods were an improvement over the bungling of his predecessors? Yea?
Again its just not an either or choice. Its not about how much stuff you can blow up or how many bodies you can pile up. You dont have to wipe out neighborhoods to break these networks, in fact all evidence both from Iraq and Afghanistan is that thats the worst thing you can do. I mean the last thing the guys on the ground want is to operate in an environment thats fully hostile to them, and so it seems fully incumbent upon our political and diplomatic leadership to do everything they can possibly do to improve our relationship with the general population.
OE - did it ever occur to you that they underestimated the assault? And that they have been grasping to find the best way to finish this up despite the chorus of naysayers, Bush bashers, media whores fanning the flames of anti-American sentiment? Imagine if we could actualy get behind this instead of sitting on the sidelines hoping for them to fail. Oh wait - only Republicans do that.
I think you meant "misunderestimated."
FP that stategery won't work here
You're exaggerating, but yea, we did have to operate door-to-door, rooting out insurgents/terrorist cells. If reducing a building to smithereens prevents US soldiers from having to clear it of terrorists, mines, booby-traps and the like, I approve. I'm sure many Iraqis/Afghanis don't like being embroiled in war, but there's no way around that.
And look, it's kind of silly to make sweeping, erroneous generalizations like,
"...all evidence both from Iraq and Afghanistan is that thats the worst thing you can do..."
or
"...the tactics of al qaeda are no different than guerilla warfare for the last 300 years..." (you're joking, right?)
What 'statergy?'
It was a joke, not a strategy.
This is an honest question... wasn't guerrilla warfare (at least the term) developed during the Vietnam War? If this is the case than the "300 year" remark is incorrect.
disapears back into the mist to chomp on her popcorn
*melt, I've heard it attributed heavily dating back to the French and Indian War.
It was the standard American method of fight during the revolution. More or less a feature of the Americas' and the successfulness of the practice-- was considered for a long time a brutish way of fighting in comparison to the turn-based warfare traditional to Europe.
FP - was just trying to play along with the bush-isms
The Iraq war was completely misguided with an alarmingly ignorant and disillusioned American public. Remember there were MANY suporters of the war on BOTH camps. And the American public was overwhelmingly in favor of it.
The instigators of the Iraq war (us) had this idea that we would go in, it would be very easy, and we could just create a puppet nation in the middle east with a puppet regime and puppet military consisting of 30,000 Ak-47 weilding Iraqi soliders. Should that have worked out, we would have been in a position to start making threats toward Syria and do the same thing there until it too had a puppet regime. Syria and Lebanon would have probably then be divided up in into cantons of land where Israel would have a large portion of southwestern Syria and most of Lebanon. Damascus would have been reduced to a bantustan (just like all of the Palestinian towns and cities). After this solution would be established -- all eyes would be on Iran for a a major war where the US could try to convince several other major powers to enter into the war.
But luckily for all denizens of the Middle East and most intelligent people here in America, they knew the George W. Bush and a large percentage of Americans are nothing but fucking rednecks that wouldn't know their asses from their elbows about how the Middle East works. And sure enough we're still scratshing our heads about the first of the series of planned wars that Bush started and that all "experts" thought would be soooo easy.
melt,
unconventional warfare (aka guerilla warfare) is as old as war itself...
@lletdownl:
fivethirtyeight.com?
"Personally, I think it is somewhat unlikely that gay marriage has in fact achieved plurality support.."
-Nate Silver, Creator of fivethirtyeight.com
Polls are pure Crap.
Holz you do realize your rationalising terrorism by comparing it to gurilla warefare dont you?
Where the hell is Wonder Krotch? She started this the least she could do is show up
fivethirtyeight.com is a pretty well trusted source pocz... about as well regarded as any other online new source, and is probably the most trusted poll analysis site.
either way... your quote said that gay marriage was frowned upon by the vast majority of the middle... thats just 100% false, you were way off on that...
Al-Qaeda suicide bombing is NOT guerilla warfare.
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