REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Believe me, it's torture

POSTED BY: HKCAVALIER
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 05:35
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Friday, July 4, 2008 8:08 AM

CITIZEN


Isn't all torture primarily psychological?



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Friday, July 4, 2008 8:14 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

I'm close to losing my patience with you, SignyM. I said primarily psychological
You have not read what I wrote. It is NOT "primarily" psychological. "Fear of drowning" would be induced by telling someone who was afraid of water that you were going to throw them into the deep end... maybe even actually doing that. It becomes physical torture when you can't breathe.

Now, I don't know about YOU, but for 99.9999% of the population (with the exception of people who have "central apnea") breathing is a primary, involuntary reflex. The inability to blow off carbon dioxide and take in oxygen combined with water in your respiratory system sets off all kinds of involuntary physical alarm states. It is not the ANTCIPATION of drowning that sets off these alarm bells, it is the actual inability to breathe. It is no more "psychological" than if someone covered your head with a plastic bag until you nearly passed out, or hung you and cut you down, and then did it again. Now, if you think THAT torture is "psychological" then you have a different definition (one which I think is kinda whacky). But if you think that asphyxiation is physical but waterboarding is psychological then I think you're just trying to carve out a "psychological comfort zone" for yourself because they are very much the same.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 8:15 AM

KHYRON


Quote:

Originally posted by citizen:
Isn't all torture primarily psychological?

Well, one could argue this and I wouldn't completely disagree, but I think there's a distinction to be made. Many forms of torture involve inducing physical pain, and it's this pain that makes it torture. Obviously pain can leave psychological scars, but what makes the torture torture is the physical aspect of it.

Broadly, I think one could say that physical torture primarily involves pain, psychological torture primarily involves fear.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 8:22 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


People response to pain when they're afraid of it. Some cross-wired people actually get off on it, so for them it's not torture, it's fun. Broadly you could say that ALL torture involves fear, so I find your definition less-than-useful.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 8:29 AM

KHYRON


SignyM, I see it as a fear of drowning when one thinks one is going to drown. Asphyxiation sets this fear off, but the asphyxiation isn't what makes this torture.

Let's just agree to disagree, I've got more important stuff to do at the moment. If I feel like it, maybe we can continue this at a later date.

In the meantime, maybe you can let me know why you seem to think that terming something "psychological torture" makes it sound less objectionable than just "torture". In my opinion, it makes it worse, since it fully underlines the psychological aspect of it. I imagine the physical scars of torture heal much faster than the psychological scars of it.

Edit to add: No, believe it or not, there actually is a difference between pain and fear. Pain involves the nervous system, fear doesn't (unless the fear has physical manifestations, obviously, but in this case the communication in the nervous system goes the other way). But pain may lead to fear, I agree with you on that (I already said so myself). Doesn't make the definition any less useful, since there still is a difference between the two.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 8:39 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Fear most definitely involves the nervous system.... it involves everything from the central nervous sytem (the amygdala and elsewhere) to the peripheral nervous system.

Personally, I think psychological and physical torture are too intertwined to distinguish. It IS possible to "frighten someone to death" w/ ever laying a hand on them. Scientists and doctors weren't sure this even happened but have recently gotten proof that profound fear can lead to heart failure. So why distinguish?

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Friday, July 4, 2008 8:48 AM

CITIZEN


A big, perhaps largest, component of any torture is fear. In torture based around physical pain it's fear of pain. All torture uses fear to push a person beyond their psychological coping mechanisms, in essence causing a psychological breakdown. What's going on in the victim of waterboarding is exactly the same as what's happening in the victim of any other type of torture.



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Friday, July 4, 2008 9:47 AM

KHYRON


Alright, found a bit of time, so:
Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
Personally, I think psychological and physical torture are too intertwined to distinguish. [...] So why distinguish?

I think there is a difference, but if what you wrote here is how you see it, why object to me calling this form of torture mostly psychological? From this point of view, psychological torture is just a longer expression for torture (just like physical torture is a longer expression for torture), so unless you also object to me calling a plane an airplane, there's no reason for you to object to me saying waterboarding is principally psychological torture, and there's no argument since we all agree that it's torture.
Quote:

Originally posted by citizen:
A big, perhaps largest, component of any torture is fear. In torture based around physical pain it's fear of pain. All torture uses fear to push a person beyond their psychological coping mechanisms, in essence causing a psychological breakdown. What's going on in the victim of waterboarding is exactly the same as what's happening in the victim of any other type of torture.

You certainly won't see me arguing that fear of pain doesn't play a role in physical torture, in fact I agree that it plays a large role in it. However, I do think there's a difference between pain and fear of pain. The pain can definitely leave a psychological impact (namely fear), but in the case of physical torture, this is a "secondary effect", the torture still mainly being the pain itself.

Maybe a quick flashback to my childhood will help to illustrate my point, at the risk of boring everybody to tears. When I was in school, every now and then we liked to play a game called "Mercy" during lunch breaks, which involved one boy twisting another's hands and/or arms until he gave up, and the boy in the class who held out the longest out of everybody "won". We were all having fun and laughing, so fear didn't have anything to do with it, but after a while even the toughest of us had to shout the safeword ("mercy") because the pain just got too much. So fear of pain played absolutely no role - except maybe the fear of not holding out as long as everybody else and being called a pansy - it was the pain itself that made everybody surrender eventually.

For this reason I think there's a difference between pain and fear thereof, but, again, I completely agree that the latter plays a big role in the effectiveness of physical torture. All I'm saying is what makes the physical torture physical, and not psychological (by my ad hoc definition), is the extreme pain.

This doesn't mean that the threat of physical pain doesn't count as psychological torture. On the contrary, since this relies solely on the fear of pain, not on pain itself, I consider this form of torture to be psychological.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 10:23 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
You made yourself sound like a genuine fool there, please retract it, okay?



Take it up with Mr. Hitchens, who wrote it for Vanity Fair.


My you're clever. Not quite clever enough to avoid a knuckle sandwich next time I see you on the street, though....

Threatening-like Chrisisall

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Friday, July 4, 2008 10:34 AM

HKCAVALIER


Jeez, ya guys. Look, you guys don't know nuthin if you think torture is about the fear of pain. I'm sorry, but damn, pain can be endured, the point of torture is to make you feel like you (or a loved one or a part of you, like a limb or a digit) are going to be destroyed. Fear of ignominious death in a dark place at the hands of people who have absolute power over you, that's the gorram point.

That's why your older brother straddling your arms and tickling you isn't torture and why effed up frat hazing isn't torture, and while we're at it, ol' Hitchens having fun in the woods with some tough guys, isn't torture either (though it can surely give an old man some small idea of what torture might actually be like).

You guys get so hung up on the most trivial things sometimes. What makes torture wrong is that it only happens when one party has absolute power over another party. You cut off a man's finger in a knife fight, well, c'est la guerre. You cut off a man's finger when he's tied to a chair and begging for mercy, that's torture.

When you have absolute power over another human being, all political affiliations fall away. There is no state, there are no laws; the state is you, the torturer, and the law is as far as you're willing to go, and your victim is just another human being you may destroy at whim. Nothing good comes of shit like that. Period.

I understand that good people act out of rage, do terrible things because we've given them terrible responsibility far beyond what humans should be asked to do, but you don't make such behavior policy. You don't make it part of your plan. That's the only thing that makes it forgivable, that it wasn't planned and we're only human. Good people have to do bad things sometimes, but when you start planning the bad things, writing up procedures and talking to your lawyers about liability, you've crossed the line. You're not good anymore.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 10:44 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
My you're clever. Not quite clever enough to avoid a knuckle sandwich next time I see you on the street, though...



Ohh. I'm afraid. You're causing me fear through threat of pain. Believe me, it's torture. How can you possibly live with yourself?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, July 4, 2008 10:48 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

Actually I was comparing the American-Fascists to the Cardassians

but whatever





There's no missing what was implied by your little post, but you could not have been more wrong, on both accounts, had you tried.

Jean Luc Picard, stoic, proud, star fleet captain , is as opposite of a radical Islmo-fascist as one would find, while the Cardassians are as diametrically inverse to the US troops in purpose and intent as there ever could be.



It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager


" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Friday, July 4, 2008 11:15 AM

KHYRON


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
You guys get so hung up on the most trivial things sometimes.

Yeah, I agree.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 12:25 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Good people have to do bad things sometimes, but when you start planning the bad things, writing up procedures and talking to your lawyers about liability, you've crossed the line.



I suspect that US intelligence agencies have gotten more mileage, interrogation-wise, out of seeming ready to waterboard folk than they ever have in the few reported instances of waterboarding. Just the idea that it might be done, along with the outcry by human rights groups and the horror stories of folks like Hitchens, probably works on suspects fear pretty good. I doubt anyone else is ever going to be waterboarded by the US, but I also doubt that they'll flat out say it'll never happen again, just 'cause they get such good psychological use from the mere suggestion it's possible.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, July 4, 2008 12:53 PM

HKCAVALIER


If you're right, Geezer, the loss of our moral standing in the world seems a pretty steep price to pay just to drum up a little personal fear in this or that detainee, doesn't it? If you can't make a captive fear for his life, seems to me you ain't tryin'. And, sorry, but "horror stories?" You call Hitchens' article a horror story? Do you think he's exaggerating? Putting some kind of sensational spin on something which is in fact rather benign? As usual, I can't suss out what you're trying to say because your context is so obscure.

Oh, and, btw, I also find it disturbing that folks who attest to having read the article within the past couple days couldn't recognize your lengthy quotation. I spotted it instantly. It troubles me that people do carry around preformed opinions on all this stuff. Kinda makes one wonder what the point of discussion is.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 1:39 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
If you're right, Geezer, the loss of our moral standing in the world seems a pretty steep price to pay just to drum up a little personal fear in this or that detainee, doesn't it?


I suspect that a lot of the people who believe the US has lost its moral standing in the world due to the few reported instances of waterboarding - and due to the fact that we don't immediately repudiate and ban any aggressinve interrogation methods - probably didn't have too good an opinion of America's moral standing in the first place. If we did say we're sorry and wouldn't ever do it again, they wouldn't believe it anyway. Even if we'd never done it, those folks would believe we did.

Quote:

You call Hitchens' article a horror story? Do you think he's exaggerating? Putting some kind of sensational spin on something which is in fact rather benign?


Just as an example of the multitude of claims about the horrific effect of waterboarding. For other examples see those earlier in this thread.

Quote:

It troubles me that people do carry around preformed opinions on all this stuff. Kinda makes one wonder what the point of discussion is.


That's why I try to poke holes in folks pre-conceptions. Usually just ends up drawing insults.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, July 4, 2008 1:43 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Hmm, no one seems to have addressed a thing I pointed out repeatedly before.

Going hands-on in an interrogation is the surest sign of absolute incompetence, and without a doubt the best way to flood your intel base with fictional trash spouted just to make the torture stop until the whole damn thing is useless.

Resorting to physical interrogation is like putting your new spark plugs in with a hammer instead of wrench - sure, you might get em in that way, but I doubt they'll work so good once you do.

This ain't got shit to do with getting information, it's got everything to do with creating terror amongst those who oppose us, right on the same level as suicide bombing their elementary schools or lopping heads off and stoning people, the goal is obviously to terrorise an opponent, and the hypocrisy of it is so damned apalling that no one dares mention it.

Well, I dare - bullshit excuses aside, we ain't doin this to get information, we're simply committing terrorism as an act of revenge against people who had the temerity to not think, look and act like we do, whether by race, religion, culture or any combination of the above, we are practicing our own little form of ethnic cleansing by threat and fear, and anyone who doesn't see that is just fooling themselves.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Friday, July 4, 2008 7:56 PM

KHYRON


Fremdfirma, the reason why nobody responded to it is probably because nobody disagreed with it.

I think you nailed it particularly well right here:
Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Going hands-on in an interrogation is the surest sign of absolute incompetence, and without a doubt the best way to flood your intel base with fictional trash spouted just to make the torture stop until the whole damn thing is useless.

If one wants to argue against torture not based on the ethics of it (or lack thereof), but on the practicality of it, that line sums it up nicely.

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Friday, July 4, 2008 7:58 PM

SERGEANTX


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
I suspect that a lot of the people who believe the US has lost its moral standing in the world due to the few reported instances of waterboarding - and due to the fact that we don't immediately repudiate and ban any aggressinve interrogation methods - probably didn't have too good an opinion of America's moral standing in the first place.



Geezer, this is one of the most ignorant, irrational posts I've read from you. To be fair, most of your stuff maintains intellectual honesty, even when I don't agree with it. But this is unadulterated bullshit. Why do you think we're so fucking upset by all this? Because we think America is evil? I think you are smart enough to realize that its exactly the opposite.

I love my country and I love the fact that we pretty much wrote the book on standing up for the dignity of the individual. But when I see fear driving so many of us, so easily, toward the tactics of those we've despised, it makes me want to vomit. How can you not see this??

I can appreciate wanting to defend the US against petty critics who would seize any opportunity to slam us. But to do so blindly, without any regard for the moral traditions we're defending in the first place, is to desecrate everything that makes America worth defending. The people doing that are the very worst enemies of freedom and traitors to our country.

If the only way to defend our country is to bathe ourselves in the evil we claim to abhor, then there's nothing left to defend. It's already lost. Fortunately, that's not the only way (it won't work anyway) - we can regain the moral high ground. But we have to quit pretending that the path we're on is infallible.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 2:39 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Khyron,

See, that's the thing - I don't so much have a problem with us playing the world domination gig, as much as I do with the halfass and totally incompetent way we go about it.

We coulda used our good rep and some snake oil bastards* to sleaze our way to a leadership position in the UN, then help clean up the corruption and use some shyster PR to assume dominance, then...

Let's be honest here, then we coulda made em our bitch, and got the work done FOR us without wasting OUR troops and resources on it, pushed OUR agendas under the guise of world unity and peace.

And as for Iraq, we coulda invaded them with Toys R Us and Taco Bell, used our culture as a weapon against them while refusing to even give the appearance of fearing those radical islamic bastards, use our massive co-opted pro-gov media engines to push the view that these pathetic rejects from a bygone era can't even be taken seriously in the modern age.

We coulda got what we wanted on a silver platter with the folks so happy to give it to us they'd be building statues in the town square, and by the time they really realized we were robbing them blind, our corporations would already have them in the same stranglehold they got us, slaving to hard just to survive that effective resistance is near impossible, especially with our UN mercs providing "security" for their country, and our real troops backing them up from the gulf if they wanna make an issue of it.

Then we open the back door for some quick negotiations with the former soviet union, an forment an asshole deal where we help them to the same thing to Iran in exchange - a little for them, a little for us, and fuck the locals.

Then when we offer afghanistan a protectorate status, and exclusive first-bid rights on local reconstruction contracts, there goes the Taliban and the Northern Warlords, we get to clean them out under the guise of securing afghanistans indepedance, and once we crush them back into the regions nobody really wants cause they're economically worthless, throw some amnesty offers and bleed em dry of troops till they got nothing left but to sit and stew up in mountain caves cursing their bitter fate.

And all the while we take afghanistan under our "protection", slide in our UN mercs, and since they're practically a state now, start handing out the W2 forms, heh heh heh, and they'll have no IDEA how screwed they are at that point until it's FAR too late to do anything about it.

And from there, it's prettymuch all over but the details, we stick old europe with the less-useful bits of the middle east that we don't want, and help the Saudis (as long as they play ball) expand a little, so to with the russians, and let THEM deal with Chavez, since he's onto us but doesn't realize they have the same agenda, and there ya go.

Only really nasty part of it is looking the other way when the isreal annihilates the palestinians and pushes the rest into the sea, but as long as we or our russian, egyptian and saudi buddies have them sewn up in that pocket, further expansion is unlikely - and it WOULD end that particular conflict.

I mean, if were gonna be evil, and go for global dominion, let's do a better freakin job of it, you know ?

Above all things, I loathe incompetence.

-Frem

*Bill Clinton would have been FAR more use as our UN ambassador than as a president, he's one of the slickest bastards we've ever had, and installing him in the oval office (a post that could be filled by a monkey, really) was a complete waste of his more useful talents.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 2:58 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SergeantX:
Why do you think we're so fucking upset by all this? Because we think America is evil? I think you are smart enough to realize that its exactly the opposite.

I love my country and I love the fact that we pretty much wrote the book on standing up for the dignity of the individual. But when I see fear driving so many of us, so easily, toward the tactics of those we've despised, it makes me want to vomit. How can you not see this??



Should have been clearer. People have different reasons for their outage. On the world-wide stage, I think most of the 'US has lost its moral standing over waterboarding' folks don't think we have any moral standing anyway. In the US some think like this and some think like you. Thus the "I suspect that a lot of the people..." rather than "I suspect all the people...".

Quote:

If the only way to defend our country is to bathe ourselves in the evil we claim to abhor, then there's nothing left to defend. It's already lost. Fortunately, that's not the only way (it won't work anyway) - we can regain the moral high ground. But we have to quit pretending that the path we're on is infallible.



Reading American history shows pretty clearly that we aren't infallible. It also shows that we've committed acts which are much farther up the continuum of "Things Which Cause You to Lose Your Moral Standing" than waterboarding a few people. I'd suggest that with waterboarding we didn't "bathe ourselves in the evil we claim to abhor" but dipped a toe in the tub and found that was too hot for us to stand. The unpleasant reaction to that little dip will probably keep us from trying that particular tub 'o evil for a while, which is a good thing.

I don't doubt that the US will some day again dabble in something less than moral. I don't mind, in fact hope that, folks will point out that it's wrong - sort of like nerve cells sending a message to the brain saying 'this is too hot for us to stand'. I expect that if enough of those nerve cells send the message, they will be listened to and the metaphorical toe will be withdrawn.

What does bother me is when the toe is confused with the whole body. If we really did "bathe ourselves in the evil we claim to abhor" it would mean we had gotten comfortable with the heat and no one complained. This didn't happen with waterboarding. We don't, to my knowledge, have a waterboarding assembly line set up to run every captive through. We tried it in what we considered extraordinary circumstances and found that the pain wasn't worth the prize.

Now as to us individual nerve cells, we all trip the pain switch at different levels. Waterboarding obviously tripped it for you. Didn't quite reach that level for me. Maybe there are things which trip my switch which don't trip yours. But just like the body, it's the number of cells that send the message, not what one individual does.

Expecting any person, or any country, to always hew strictly to the moral code (even assuming you can agree on which moral code) is setting yourself up for disappointment. No one, and no country, is perfect. When your friend, or SO, or child makes a moral mistake, do you write them off as morally bankrupt, say they're bathing in the tub of evil, or do you try to show them what they did wrong and help them prevent it from happening again?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 3:24 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


The reason I didn't respond to Frem's post was because it was so ridiculous that I simply dismissed it out of hand.

That's all



It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager


" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 3:37 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Khyron, your question was: Why not say "psychological torture" when all torture is psychological?

Because.... and surely as person as smart as you doesn't need this spelled out ... MOST people think of "psychological torture" as "not real" torture. Hero, Rapo, Wulf, and a host of others would find justification in your words to dismiss waterboarding as any form of torture whatsoever. Now, you can tell me that's not what that means "to you", but the point of communication is to use words for their effect on others.

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Let's party like it's 1929.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 3:46 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

This ain't got shit to do with getting information, it's got everything to do with creating terror amongst those who oppose us, right on the same level as suicide bombing their elementary schools or lopping heads off and stoning people, the goal is obviously to terrorise an opponent, and the hypocrisy of it is so damned apalling that no one dares mention it.
Exactly. And Geezer even avows to that, and others sagely nod their heads... "Yes, yes... I can see how terrorizing people with a few examples will make it easier for us in the end."

Most have so implicitly accepted the notion that we SHOULD be terrorizing people that it makes good sense to them.


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Let's party like it's 1929.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 4:15 AM

SIMONWHO


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
There Are Four Lights........






It was so embarassing for Gul Madred, he went the other side of the desk and found out one of the bulbs had blown.

Oh and anything that involves Christopher Hitchens being tortured gets my approval.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 4:17 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Oh, just for clarity...

I ain't in favor of going that route, mind you.

It's just the only thing we could possibly do *worse* than that, is to try to go down that path and then do so in an incompetent fashion that causes tremendous collateral damage to our moral standing, economy, military and the nations who's resources we wish to take advantage of - in other words, exactly what we ARE doing.

You don't defend your castle by razing it to the ground, and you don't capture the enemies by blowing it to bits.

And if you do both, in the end you have nothing, don't you ?

It's just fucking stupid, is what it is.

-F

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 5:14 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
On the world-wide stage, I think most of the 'US has lost its moral standing over waterboarding' folks don't think we have any moral standing anyway.

Like Sarge said, you usually have some points, and I even agree with them sometimes, but in this instance you are so way out there.
I NEVER liked some of our black bag stuff (most notably for me the messed up s**t we did in Nicaragua), but at least it wasn't POLICY!!!! Get it???
For an American President to officially sanction TORTURE is SHAMEFUL. I takes us down even more than some more destructive & deadly covert stuff!
It's us saying " Yeah, we bad, wanna f**k wit us now, dog?" We're acknowledging that we're the biggest, baddest bully on the block, and THAT is what disgusts me so about this subject.

The serious Chrisisall

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 5:45 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SignyM:
Exactly. And Geezer even avows to that, and others sagely nod their heads... "Yes, yes... I can see how terrorizing people with a few examples will make it easier for us in the end."

Most have so implicitly accepted the notion that we SHOULD be terrorizing people that it makes good sense to them.



Well, first off I never said we SHOULD be "terrorizing" people, just that the government probably thought the potential threat of waterboarding was of some use. Second, the population of people who would feel "terrorized" should be pretty low, sort of on the same scale as the number of people who are "terrorized" because they think the death penalty will be applied to them. Third, on the frightfulness scale, waterboarding isn't up there with the real scary stuff, even stuff the US has done in the past. Fourth, nobody's waterboarding any more, per their statements, and very few folk ever were. We didn't go too far down that road before deciding it was a bad idea. The waterboarding has stopped. Rejoice! The beating of the dead horse, on the other hand...



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 5:47 AM

SERGEANTX


Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
...but at least it wasn't POLICY!!!! Get it???
For an American President to officially sanction TORTURE is SHAMEFUL. I takes us down even more than some more destructive & deadly covert stuff!
It's us saying " Yeah, we bad, wanna f**k wit us now, dog?" We're acknowledging that we're the biggest, baddest bully on the block, and THAT is what disgusts me so about this subject.




Thank you Chris, that gets right to the core of it. Certianly, America isn't infallible, and traditionally the world has been ready to forgive us our mistakes. But I don't recall my nation ever being so brazen and proud of it's mistakes. Geezer is at least honest in pointing that the real value of the torture policy is the intimidation it fosters. Like the Nazi SS, or the Soviet KGB, we now wield a reputation for evil as a tool for political control. That mentality is even beginning to creep into our domestic policies and it's got to stop. This is the unforgivable shame of the Bush administration.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 5:52 AM

SERGEANTX


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Fourth, nobody's waterboarding any more, per their statements, and very few folk ever were. We didn't go too far down that road before deciding it was a bad idea. The waterboarding has stopped. Rejoice! The beating of the dead horse, on the other hand...



I haven't seen any clarity or conviction in this regard. Given that this policy was approved, even promoted, at the highest levels, it needs to be disavowed there as well. When that happens, and when the tools who pursued this policy in the first place are removed from office, I'll rejoice.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:00 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
For an American President to officially sanction TORTURE is SHAMEFUL.



Like Lincoln?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Douglas_(Chicago)


"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:08 AM

CITIZEN


Well, if they did it in the 1800's...

Though there's no actual mention of torture there.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:13 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SergeantX:
But I don't recall my nation ever being so brazen and proud of it's mistakes.



Stop and think about this statement for a moment, Sarge. Do you really consider waterboarding a few folk, none of whom dies, as being superior in brazen evil to the killing fields of Cambodia, the gas chambers of the Nazis, the 60 million or so killed in various Soviet terror campaigns, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.?

It's almost like you want us to be the most evil. Why is that?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:17 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by citizen:
Well, if they did it in the 1800's...

Though there's no actual mention of torture there.



Link doesn't like ending with a ).

Quote:

It is estimated that from 1862–1865, more than 6,000 Confederate prisoners died from disease, starvation, and the bitter cold winters (although as many as 1,500 were reported as "unaccounted" for). The largest number of prisoners held at any one time was 12,000 in December 1864. Accounts vary as to precise numbers. According to 80 Acres of Hell, a television documentary produced by the A&E Network and the The History Channel, the reason for the uncertainty is that many records were intentionally destroyed after the war. The documentary also alleges that, for a period of time, the camp contracted with an unscrupulous undertaker who sold some of the bodies of Confederate prisoners to medical schools and had the rest buried in shallow graves without coffins. Some were even dumped in Lake Michigan only to wash up on its shores. Many, however, were initially buried in unmarked pauper's graves in Chicago's City Cemetery (located on the site of today's Lincoln Park), but in 1867 were reinterred at what is now known as Confederate Mound in Oak Woods Cemetery (5 miles south of the former Camp Douglas).

Nobody was ever held accountable for the conditions and actions at Camp Douglas, in fact the only Union general to gain the rank without seeing combat was an overseer of Camp Douglas. This is also to this date the largest mass grave in the western hemisphere, as documented by the book To Die in Chicago.


[edit] Conditions
Henry Whitney Bellows, president of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, wrote to Colonel Hoffman his superior after visiting the camp: "Sir, the amount of standing water, unpoliced grounds, of foul sinks, of unventilated and crowded barracks, of general disorder, of soil reeking miasmatic accretions, of rotten bones and emptying of camp kettles, is enough to drive a sanitarian to despair. I hope that no thought will be entertained of mending matters. The absolute abandonment of the spot seems to be the only judicious course, I do not believe that any amount of drainage would purge that soil loaded with accumulated filth or those barracks fetid with two stories of vermin and animal exhalations. Nothing but fire can cleanse them." (in the documentary 80 Acres of Hell).

According to the History Channel documentary, the commander before Sweet imposed the following harsh conditions: 3oz daily meat portions, sitting naked in the winter, crippling sittings on a sawhorse device, and beating or shooting of those trying to circumvent food rations — even, for example, to punish the eating of snow. [1]

During Colonel B.J. Sweet's command of Camp Douglas, he used reduced food rations — removing vegetables and decreasing the 3oz daily meat portions — to control the prison population and reduce escape attempt numbers. The reduced rations increased instances of diseases such as scurvy and helped to increase mortality rates. Sweet rewarded guards for shooting prisoners, restricted prisoner movement, and enforced nightly quiet hours. Acting on rumors of a pre-election Camp Douglas Conspiracy to break prisoners free, Sweet extends martial law from the blocks surrounding Camp Douglas to the city of Chicago and arrests about a hundred citizens suspected of treason (reference: 80 Acres of Hell).

Prisoners were tortured to try to extract information. Prisoners were hung by their thumbs or forced to ride the "wooden horse" or "mule", with weight hung on their feet to make the experience more painful (reference: 80 Acres of Hell).





"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:18 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SergeantX:
I haven't seen any clarity or conviction in this regard. Given that this policy was approved, even promoted, at the highest levels, it needs to be disavowed there as well. When that happens, and when the tools who pursued this policy in the first place are removed from office, I'll rejoice.



January. Can we give the dead horse a break then?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:37 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


An example of stirring intellectual honesty:
Quote:

Well, first off I never said we SHOULD be "terrorizing" people, just that the government probably thought the potential threat of waterboarding was of some use.... I suspect that US intelligence agencies have gotten more mileage, interrogation-wise, out of seeming ready to waterboard folk than they ever have in the few reported instances of waterboarding ....Waterboarding obviously tripped it for you. Didn't quite reach that level for me... {or} Lincoln
Wow, talk about finely parsed. Never let it be said that Geezer would plainly endorse what he so clearly excuses and defends. I guess it depends on what the definition of "is" is, huh?

US torture policy might not make everyone else so nervous if we could at least be depended on to attack only our enemies, or if we restricted ourselves to waterboarding. The problem is, we (as a people) tend to be irrational and unpredictable and we apparently have no compunctions about killing a few hundred thousand over some cock-and-bull rationalizations or... if "HERO" is to be believed... NUKING countries over oil. The world never knows who's going to be in the Administration's line of fire next, and can't count on either our morality or even plain street-smarts to defend our own interests. So we invade nations and torture en masse (Remember abu Ghraib? The photos that you saw were the LEAST offensive.) and "detain" thousands (many of whom were ultimately found innocent by the military) and in general terrorize anyone and everyone with our nukes, "bunker busters" AND our waterboards.

The frightening thing is that so many will excuse/ rationalize it.

---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:38 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Link doesn't like ending with a ).

Ok, but that was the 1860's, the better part of a hundred years before the Geneva convention. People in the United States still kept slaves, operating a concentration camp and torturing detainees then, was a very different proposition than it is now. Now that we are supposed to no better, and it's against international law.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:40 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Stop and think about this statement for a moment, Sarge. Do you really consider waterboarding a few folk, none of whom dies, as being superior in brazen evil to the killing fields of Cambodia, the gas chambers of the Nazis, the 60 million or so killed in various Soviet terror campaigns, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.?

It's almost like you want us to be the most evil. Why is that?

If your yard stick is the most fucked up people you can find, more power to you, but I believe some did die of the water boarding, and some detainees have died in camp X-Ray.



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:42 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Do you really consider waterboarding a few folk, none of whom dies, as being superior in brazen evil to the killing fields of Cambodia, the gas chambers of the Nazis, the 60 million or so killed in various Soviet terror campaigns, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.?



And just so you don't think I'm picking on foreigners, How about the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Trail of Tears, Lincoln's suspension of Habeus Corpus, Jim Crow, the Black Hills, Hawaii, internment of Japanese-Americans, Montgomery, the Bay of Pigs, etc.

What makes waterboarding so much worse than these things? Or is it just that you don't like the current administration as much as you did Lincoln or Roosevelt or Kennedy?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:49 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Basically, afa geezer is concerned you're just supposed to shut up about it, because whether you protested the Vietnam war and its excesses then (Kennedy) or whether you protest the Iraq war now, it's all called "hating America".

In the future, he'll use our horrors in Iraq to excuse some future horror, and if you haven't protested that he'll ask: "Is it just because you don't like XXX as much as you did Bush?" And if you HAVE protested our misdeeds he'll just say that you "hate America".
---------------------------------
Never let it be said that Geezer would plainly endorse what he so clearly excuses and defends.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:55 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Do you really consider waterboarding a few folk, none of whom dies, as being superior in brazen evil to the killing fields of Cambodia, the gas chambers of the Nazis, the 60 million or so killed in various Soviet terror campaigns, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.?



And just so you don't think I'm picking on foreigners, How about the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Trail of Tears, Lincoln's suspension of Habeus Corpus, Jim Crow, the Black Hills, Hawaii, internment of Japanese-Americans, Montgomery, the Bay of Pigs, etc.

What makes waterboarding so much worse than these things?

You dolt! It's NOT worse than those things, it's that for us to okay any form of torture officially is a step in the Nazi direction...let me put it this way: Dirty Harry stepping on an admitted scumbag's shot leg to get the location of a hidden kidnap victim is one thing- if the LAPD decided to shoot & torture all suspects as a part of DEPARTMENT POLICY, then where would ya be?

Didn't really mean that 'dolt' thing.

Well, not fully...

Chrisisall

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 6:59 AM

SERGEANTX


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
It's almost like you want us to be the most evil. Why is that?



Don't fling the America-hater crap in my face. I never said we were as evil as the KGB or the Nazis. I said that the tactic of using terror, that our government's public, tacit approval of torture, is borrowing the tactics of enemies we once despised. Enemies we despised because they used such tactics.

It's been stated here many, many times: I, and most of the other Americans raising a fuss about the torture policy, don't hate America. We love her too much to see her drug through the slime in a fit of fear and panic. Do you really think we want to see Amercia fall? Honestly, if that was the case, I'd be all for the torture, the asinine foreign policy, the police state domestic policy - because that's the very crap driving our country into the ground.

This isn't a PR campaign, Geezer. It's not one group of us trying to make America look bad vs. another group trying to make her look good. It's about our patriotic duty to steer our nation down the virtuous course. We can't just give up on that, we can't be afraid to criticize of our leaders and their decisions because of some misguided "for us or against us" demagoguery.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:03 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by citizen:
If your yard stick is the most fucked up people you can find, more power to you



Sorry Cit, I didn't mean to slight Olde Blighty.

How about conquering half the world, setting native americans against unarmed women and children during the Revolution, massive nightime incendary bombing of population centers, a few little atrocities during the Indian colonial period, the treatment of politicial prisoners in Northern Ireland (through several governments from both sides of the aisle).

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:07 AM

SERGEANTX


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
January. Can we give the dead horse a break then?



I certainly hope so. But only if the new boss takes the steps that our current one stubbornly refuses. That's why it's so important to maintain the horsebeating until then.

Believe it or not, I'm as sick of hearing about it as you are. Which is why it's so upsetting that our leaders can't bring themselves to deal with it forthrightly. Hopefully the next crew will have backbone to do so.



SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:15 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SergeantX:
Don't fling the America-hater crap in my face. I never said we were as evil as the KGB or the Nazis.



"But I don't recall my nation ever being so brazen and proud of it's mistakes... Like the Nazi SS, or the Soviet KGB, we now wield a reputation for evil as a tool for political control."

Quote:

We can't just up on that, we can't be afraid to criticize of our leaders and their decisions because of some misguided "for us or against us" demagoguery.


Sorry, but it's you I see as being the demagoge. I say waterboarding, to the extent it's been used, is not good, but not the worst thing we could have - or ever have - done. You say it's the most shameful thing ever, and that it puts us in the same category as the worst in the world. There's really no way for me to argue that, since any thing I say to the contrary brings out the both the "You Support evil" and the "Don't call me anti-American" rants, followed by peersonal insults. Not a good way to establish dialog.

Off to buy plants now.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:17 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

January. Can we give the dead horse a break then?
No.

People continue to die, our Treasury continues to bleed, our military continues to suffer, and our standing in the world continues to decline the longer we keep rationalizing and tolerating. I know... it's a drag. People just want to forget what's happening. But unless we as a people acknowledge the evil that we've tolerated, we'll keep making the mistake over and over. And then, one day, we'll wake up to yet another attack ... or nations will gleefully knife us in the economic back... or we'll find that we have few allies to help us do pretty much anything... and we'll wonder Why does everyone hate us so much?

http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/2008/02/29/the-abu-ghraib-horrors/48
63
/

---------------------------------
Never let is be said that Geezer plainly endorses what he so clearly defends and excuses.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:23 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Sorry Cit, I didn't mean to slight Olde Blighty.

How about conquering half the world, setting native americans against unarmed women and children during the Revolution, massive nightime incendary bombing of population centers, a few little atrocities during the Indian colonial period, the treatment of politicial prisoners in Northern Ireland (through several governments from both sides of the aisle).

What about it? I get why you bring it up, you're hoping to be insulting and devolve this down to a flame war, which is your standard OP when you can't come up with an argument. Britain has a less than sterling record in areas, but right now we're not building an Empire, we've recognised that we were wrong, so throwing past transgressions in my face to legitimise what the US is doing right now is hardly a strong argument, in fact it's not an argument at all.

But hey, if your yardstick for American behaviour now is the construction of the British Empire, that would explain a lot. Dragging up the British Empire here and now to throw at me, is nothing but petty and moronic, but if that's working for you...



More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 7:32 AM

SERGEANTX


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:

Originally posted by SergeantX:
Don't fling the America-hater crap in my face. I never said we were as evil as the KGB or the Nazis.



"But I don't recall my nation ever being so brazen and proud of it's mistakes... Like the Nazi SS, or the Soviet KGB, we now wield a reputation for evil as a tool for political control."



Which reiterates what I said. We're using the same tactics as those regimes. Try understanding what you read.

Quote:

You say it's the most shameful thing ever, and that it puts us in the same category as the worst in the world.


No, I didn't say that.

Listen, you keep trying to divert the argument. The issue is not whether waterboarding is the worst thing ever, nor how the US compares to the Nazis. The issue is whether we're on the right path. The fact that keep ignoring that, and focusing on tit-for-tat nonsense, indicates that you recognize how pointless it is to defend our current policies. I guess that's a good sign.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 8:07 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Hey Sarge, welcome to Geezerland. It's nice to see someone else experiencing Geezer's "intellectual honesty" for a change.

---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 8:17 AM

HKCAVALIER


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:

Originally posted by SergeantX:
But I don't recall my nation ever being so brazen and proud of it's mistakes.



Stop and think about this statement for a moment, Sarge. Do you really consider waterboarding a few folk, none of whom dies, as being superior in brazen evil to the killing fields of Cambodia, the gas chambers of the Nazis, the 60 million or so killed in various Soviet terror campaigns, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.?

It's almost like you want us to be the most evil. Why is that?


What? Hold up, Geez. What do the killing fields of Cambodia have to do with our nation taking pride in it's terroristic tactics? Think about what you're saying and get back to me, would ya?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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