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... But woven into some of the media reaction is another theme, too. It's in the Washington Post's editorial, which states: "This is not how Americans should behave. Ever."

It's in the many references, within the US, to the CIA torture as the antithesis of "national" and "American" values. And it is in Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein's observation: "We betrayed our values. We betrayed who we are."

Across the Arab and Muslim world this kind of response from the West might come over as somewhat belated and, well, maybe a little bit delusional, too. After all, "who we are" has been going on since 2001, at the very least (let's not get into the torture that was such an integral part of colonialism, or even the torture training that the CIA gifted a variety of brutal regimes during the 1970s). And "who we are" has for some time been painfully clear to those at the receiving end of it.

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The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, wept on Wednesday as she unveiled the findings of a Truth Commission investigation into the systematic murder, torture and other abuses carried out during the country’s military dictatorship.

... A share of the blame went to the United States and the UK, which were found to have trained Brazilian interrogators in torture techniques

... Many Brazilian officers went to Panama to train at the School of the Americas, alongside military and police officers from almost every other Latin American country, whether run by dictators or not... Secret instruction manuals used at the school were declassified by the US department of defence in the mid-1990s, revealing training in torture and other serious violations of human rights.

... One of the few former military officers who agreed to talk to the Truth Commission was ex-colonel Paulo Malhães, who was among those sent to the UK for training. Malhães told the commission “psychological torture was best, and England was the best place to learn it”.

... Malhães, by his own admission was also a sadistic physical torturer, who used snakes, crocodiles and rats to terrify prisoners. Two weeks after giving evidence to the Truth Commission in Rio, he was found dead at his home in mysterious circumstances. Former political prisoners believe he was eliminated to stop him talking more to the Truth Commission and providing the names of torturers..

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Western media reaction has been muted. Here is an interesting headline from the BBC, that bastion of UK propaganda:

CIA 'torture' condemned by world media

Because depriving someone of sleep for 7 days, or keeping them in a tiny box for days, or repeatedly near-drowning people, or keeping them in painful stress positions for hours .... some of these actions leading to the victims' death... isn't TORTURE, it's "torture".

Ah, those sneaky quotation marks! I give the BBC zero points for its "reportage" but high marks for its propaganda.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30411466

Western press is falling all over itself to excuse or ignore acts which - if committed by the perceived enemies of the USA- would have merited front-page articles on the horrific nature of the regime in power, but in the hands of the USA and it's vassal states merits praise for having come clean.

I think the reality is that the only people that this report might shock are those few moral souls who still believe in the greatness of the USA and its allies. Most Atlanticists are on-board with whatever the USA does to maintain their privilege within the empire. Clearly, massive double standards and the denial needed to maintain them are hard at work!

And pretty much everyone else in the world knows that the USA is will use any means at its disposal - mass bombings, drone strikes, mass surveillance ("Yes we scan"), assassinations, economic warfare, and "color revolutions" - to get its way. Because if you live in a nation ruined by USA-sponsored war, or you've had a black site in your midst, you already know what's going on. This commentary from al Jazeera

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... But woven into some of the media reaction is another theme, too. It's in the Washington Post's editorial, which states: "This is not how Americans should behave. Ever."

It's in the many references, within the US, to the CIA torture as the antithesis of "national" and "American" values. And it is in Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein's observation: "We betrayed our values. We betrayed who we are."

Across the Arab and Muslim world this kind of response from the West might come over as somewhat belated and, well, maybe a little bit delusional, too. After all, "who we are" has been going on since 2001, at the very least (let's not get into the torture that was such an integral part of colonialism, or even the torture training that the CIA gifted a variety of brutal regimes during the 1970s). And "who we are" has for some time been painfully clear to those at the receiving end of it.

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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/cia-torture-arab-worl
d-no-sur-20141211115033414634.html

So much for the "war on terror"!

Now, when are those arrests for ordering, facilitating, and performing torture going to happen?

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Just terrible, a real tragedy; like a bus filled with liberals going off a mountain cliff ..... with one empty seat.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

Sig, on such matters you're showing yourself to be naive, ignorant and unwavering in your stubbornness.

we BUILT a nation out of war ( yes, bombs were used ) and have maintained it with the 2nd Amendment.

It's not that I THINK so, I KNOW so.

Ya might want to see to that.

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Originally posted by second:

"Dick Cheney is Lying" http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/12/11/yes-the-cia-is-lying/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
This man is the devil incarnate............you could almost hear his maniacal laugh.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Because. of course, the reason why the USA was created wasn't because there were a lot of people who shared an idea of how they wanted to live, but because George Washington bombed the colonists into supporting his cause.

Or whatever.

Pods.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Originally posted by DEVERSE:

If my country is found to have been involved in such activities I will be first in line to demand that those responsible be held accountable.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

And if your country had been attacked and 2,996 civilians had been killed ?
... EITs worked.

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Here is a thought experiment I have been using for many years as we’ve debated this topic....If you take everyone in America who is serving a minor jail sentence of say, 6 to 18 months, and you ask them whether they’d rather serve the rest of their time or be waterboarded....how many would choose waterboarding? I am guessing, conservatively, that over 95 percent would choose waterboarding.

....So ignore the blather about how enhanced interrogation is “not who we are.”

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
I'll ignore some silly " thought experiment " and deal with the world as it is. . . .
Even so, you don't clip off their fingers, you don't dunk them in baths of acid, or put car battery cables to their gentiles.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

We should be praising our guys, not vilifying them, for protecting our country.

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Because. of course, the reason why the USA was created wasn't because there were a lot of people who shared an idea of how they wanted to live, but because George Washington bombed the colonists into supporting his cause.
Or whatever.
Pods.
-SIGNY

Yeah, that happened.
Not.-RAPPY

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. -SIGNY
Yes, we can. Actually, we HAVE !!-RAPPY

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Every one, according to Brennan, of the detainees who had EIT's revealed valuable, legitimate information.Every single one.-RAPPY

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Originally posted by 1kiki:

I'll ignore some silly " thought experiment " ... ... because thinking, is just too hard.

I LOLed on your disavowal of 'thinking' rappy. It's what we knew about you all along, but you made it funny by bumbling into ARROGANTLY admitting it.

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Just terrible, a real tragedy; like a bus filled with liberals going off a mountain cliff ..... with one empty seat.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Sig - I do not think you say what you think you say.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

.. because there were a lot of people who shared an idea of how they wanted to live

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.. because George Washington bombed the colonists into supporting his cause.

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.. because there were a lot of people who shared an idea of how they wanted to live- SIGNY

The Manson Family lived like that. So did the Jim Jones People's Temple followers. You shoulda been there. A deranged psycho like you would have become their go to gal in no time.-JSS

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.. because George Washington bombed the colonists into supporting his cause.-SIGNY
I'd expect even a hopeless moron like you to know that Washington fought the British, not the colonists.- JSS

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And every single instance that Brennan pointed to has been disproved. Every one

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When you claim that you got "actionable intelligence" to detain a person from a victim of torture, but that person was detained a YEAR BEFORE the information was obtained via torture, that is serious serious timeline sloppiness! WTF??? What are we paying these guys for? They can't even lie convincingly!

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One must be a special brand of warped to believe that " building a nation on bombs " some how implies that the U.S. used those bombs ON ITS OWN PEOPLE, instead of fighting FOR its freedom against the Crown.

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Obviously, you failed Logic 101. Subject was in custody " A YEAR BEFORE the information was obtained ". Your words. So, let's review. Bad guy gets caught. Bad guy says nothing. They try and try, asking nicely, and nothing.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Are you being stupid on purpose? My comment was IRONIC. It was meant to demonstrate that the USA was NOT built by the Founding Fathers via bombing, shelling, and shooting the colonists.

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
So you don't like thinking, rappy?

You prefer to respond to events like one of Pavlov's dogs ... No thinking involved! THANKS for elaborating further!

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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Can't answer the question? Why does that not surprise me?

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The howitzer was originally developed to fire bombs (powder-filled explosive shells.) This required a large bore in order to get the best effect from the larger projectiles, but it also required that the propelling charge be reduced to about one-ninth of the shell weight, in order not to over-stress the hollow projectile. Since the small charge burned so quickly, there was no need for a long barrel, and the howitzer therefore evolved into a large caliber gun with a short barrel - about five to seven times the caliber was the generally accepted figure, as opposed to 15 to 25 times for guns. Howitzers, like mortars, were chambered.

The advantages of dropping the explosive shell over obstacles was introduced after the howitzer had entered service, and the design was soon modified to allow more elevation to the barrel to obtain plunging fire. Due to the short barrel and light charge this did not introduce any complications in the way of carriage design, although it must be stressed that in the 18th century an elevation of twenty degrees was considered high for a howitzer. It should also be added that although the elevation was increased over that of the gun, this was offset by the lower charge, and the howitzer never achieved greater ranges than guns of equivalent calibre.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

In a sideways note, there are people here who apparently think I don't know about weapons in the American Revolutionary War. I take a clue from Francis Scott Keyes, who wrote about

bombs bursting in air

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So our government's stance on waterboarding and torture has been hypocritical for quite a while.

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