Torture and College Life

[MaggieMae]

Don't care, head on a pike for him. Nobody knows what actual crimes any one individual commits. The point is to scare the utter fuck out of whomever sees the result. Didn't you learn anything from Vietnam?

The side that tried to win the "hearts and minds" of the people lost. It's a LOSING STRATEGY. The side that went into villages pulled the chieftain's daughters out of the hut and gang raped them then impaled the chief and his whole family in front of the village won.

You starting to get it yet?

That you are ok with torturing and massacring innocent civilians? Yeah, I get that you are a fuckhead thats no different than those who committed 9/11. Go fuck yourself.

I'm thinking we can be much better at it than them. See if we are only "no better than them" we might lose. It is within the American spirit to be much harsher then our foe. It's not pretty and it's not easy, but it must be done!

And, I'll fuck you instead, you're much better pussy.

You're obviously pathetically misguided. It is within the American spirit to be SMARTER than our foe.

 

[MaggieMae]

Sounds to me like you lack the heart to win. Sounds to me like you just want to be told what to do by anyone. Sounds like you lack the balls to keep yourself free.

You should keep this quote in mind:

No, I'm just not terrified by a ragtag group of pretty incompetent terrorists. Yeah, we aren't gonna be free....cause OBL is gonna come over to America and conquer us and enslave us all. Or, you know, not.

You might be too stupid to reform. But I'm not a quitter. You mind taking a head count of how many muslims there are in the world? Now, most of them are not radicalized, but did you happen to notice just how quickly they became radicalized in Iraq, just cuz AQ settled into their area? No probably not, you were too busy shouting invectives at Bush. Grow up dumb shit, this is a big bad world and if you don't want to defend your country adequately, do not be shocked when you find out other people want it worse than you do.

You're problem is you are so fucking complacent you think your world can never change. You think the land of milk and honey is just here at your beck and call and you don't have to lift a finger to help. Your such a pansy ass that you don't even want your morals to get dirty let alone your hands. Fine, then, shut the fuck up, get in the corner and hide your face while the real men do the work. We'll tell you when you can look again.

I can see why you never made it as a lawyer. At what point after your military service did you start losing your mind?

 

[MaggieMae]

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Go thru some military training and get back to me

The same training of our military can hardly be compared. They know they're not going to die.

Same with the detainees.. the rules are known

Sure they do. And I think that bridge in Brooklyn is still for sale.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Dilawar and Habibullah. Oh wait, they weren't terrorists tho, just Arabs who got swept up in the US dragnet.



Senate Panel's Report Links Detainees' Murders to Bush's Torture Policy

Still think its all fun and games, dipshit?

Now, now, girly-man, watch your language, after all you're not talking to your mom.

So you contend that the interrogation techniques listed in my college-prank post caused the deaths that you note?

Have someone more literate read the report that you link to you, since your hate of America is clouding what abiltiy at comprehension you might have, in a calmer state.

"Indeed, a report into detainee abuse completed in 2004 by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, the former Naval inspector general, who conducted an investigation into detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan at the request of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, specifically cleared Pentagon officials stating they “did not promulgate interrogation policies . . . that directed, sanctioned or encouraged the torture or abuse of detainees."

A declassified version of the 360-page Church report, delivered to Congress in March 2004, said there was "no policy that condoned or authorized either abuse or torture," which critics of the Bush administration believed was a cover-up."
Senate Panel's Report Links Detainees' Murders to Bush's Torture Policy


The operative phrase: "did not promulgate interrogation policies . . . that directed, sanctioned or encouraged the torture or abuse of detainees."

Further, it is telling that 'news' of the deaths of prisoners resulting from the listed techniques appears in this 'pubreport,' or 'impeachbush,' or 'islamicblog,' but not splashed on the front pages of the oh so 'conservative' NYTimes, or the LATimes, or the Washington Post, or the Boston Globe, or even the WSJournal.

Does this not seem odd to you, Nikki, or have you not looked under each and every rock, yet?

I bet the girl scouts could come up with some more serious techniques, but then you'd claim that they were Bush-robot-fascists.

Nicht wahr?

Nice job at missing the other reports where it traced it back and found a direct link. The Army Committee report found a direct link between the interrogation techniques and their deaths. By the way, if it all hadn't been covered up, it would have been a lot easier to find records of the connections.

As for why other publications didn't cover news of Dilawars death...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html

'Taxi to the Dark Side' - Los Angeles Times

Down a Dark Road - washingtonpost.com

Oh hey, they did. It was also made into a pretty major documentary. Funny you never heard of it, you been living under a rock somewhere?

You have, accidently I hope, conflated two different aspects of the discussion. One is the unforgivable deaths of two individuals who were abused and mistreated and died as a result. The abuses were caused by untrained psycopaths, who were brought up on charges for their offenses.

"Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?_r=1

The second, and not connected to the first, is my post which is with respect to the specific enhanced interrogation techniques, carried out by trained interrogators, under the auspices of medical doctors.

Surely you see your error, and I hope I have clarified for you.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Also, is the name calling really necessary, or do you think you could discuss matters in the manner of an adult?

I just noticed, you objected to 'girly-man,' but not the appellation that Nik used toward me?

Careful introspection is in your future.

I don't have time to object every time someone on this forum descends into childishness. That would be a full time job.

"Something doesn't have to maim you to be torture...' Yeah, it does. Otherwise its enhanced interrogation.

Odd, because that's not how the law defines torture.

Inter-American Convention

The Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, currently ratified by 17 nations of the Americas and in force since 28 February 1987, defines torture more expansively than the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

For the purposes of this Convention, torture shall be understood to be any act intentionally performed whereby physical or mental pain or suffering is inflicted on a person for purposes of criminal investigation, as a means of intimidation, as personal punishment, as a preventive measure, as a penalty, or for any other purpose. Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.

As I understand it the treaty of which you speak does not apply.
"Summary: The United States has a treaty relationship only with countries which are a party to the Convention and the Additional Protocol."
Inter American Service Convention

The included countries are ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, CHILE, COLOMBIA, ECUADOR, GUATEMALA, MEXICO, PANAMA, PARAGUAY, PERU, URUGUAY and VENEZUELA.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Usually your arguments are deserving of more respect than this one, but this post is contemptable.

Drinking a lot of something is not waterboarding, being deprived of sleep for a week or more is not the same as your college all-nighters.

Not every technique on this list is a problem for most opponents of torture. To act as if they were is disengenuous. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and "walling" are what most of us take issue with.

Just so that I can judge which is actually contemptible, girl-man, please provide a list of the terrorists who were treated with these techniques and subsequently died, were permanently maimed, and/or spent time in intensive care.

Which list? The frat boys or the Muslims? If the latter, we'll really never know. Do you really think anyone is about to give up that information? Why do you think videotapes of the tortures mysterially disappeared or were destroyed?

That said, what WOULD work against Muslim extremists are things that some sick so-called Americans seek out for thrills: Observing menstrual flow from a woman's naked genitals, beastiality, kiddie porn. And then there's the threat of sexual violence to a Muslim's family members, photoshopped pictures of Allah in compromising sexual positions or even profanity used to defame the prophet Mohammed. On the other hand, by sacrificing their own bodies to physical torture or even death will be rewarded in Heaven. Those beliefs are embedded genetically by followers of ancient Islam.

Judging by the straws that you clutch at, you are unable to find fault with my list of college kid pranks as they correspond to the so-called torture list.

So let's review, the NYTimes enumeration is so flimsy, so insubstantial that it hardly approached the level of torture. Agreed?

Only the whiners and hand-wringing counter-American policy left-wing radicals find the list to be 'torture.' Further agreed?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yeah and theres already countries who think like you do. They are states like Burma, and North Korea. Great, lets model ourselves after them.

No they don't dumb ass. I'll bet that given enough time I could teach even your sorry ass to act like a man. It wouldn't be easy, but I've done it before.

Oh, and by the way...Dilawar wasn't a "battlefiend criminal" he was pulled out while doing the really outrageous act of...driving a taxi. Yeah...real manly, torturing to death individual civilians.

As I explained earlier, Dilawar is not relivant to this discussion.

The fact that you include extraneous material indicates that you are at a loss to counter the original post.

 

[Pyrite]

Judging by the straws that you clutch at, you are unable to find fault with my list of college kid pranks as they correspond to the so-called torture list.

So let's review, the NYTimes enumeration is so flimsy, so insubstantial that it hardly approached the level of torture. Agreed?

Only the whiners and hand-wringing counter-American policy left-wing radicals find the list to be 'torture.' Further agreed?

Why does it always have to be the "list"? why is it all or nothing? maybe some things on the list cross the line, and others don't. I think that waterboarding, sleep deprevation for more than 48 hours, and walling cross the line.

 

[Tech_Esq]

Yeah and theres already countries who think like you do. They are states like Burma, and North Korea. Great, lets model ourselves after them.

No they don't dumb ass. I'll bet that given enough time I could teach even your sorry ass to act like a man. It wouldn't be easy, but I've done it before.

Good gawd, whatever did you military fringers do when we weren't at war with somebody? Must have driven you nuts. You don't need to be bloodying someone up or running around half-cocked (literally) in order to "be a man." Just ask any WOMAN!

Please stick to talking to Nik. He's the kind of guy who learns what it takes to be a man from woman. Sounds like he's learned everything he knows. I'm sure he's very gentle and sensitive.

Peace is peace and war is war. You shouldn't confuse the two. Nobody hates war more than a warrior and nobody understands what it takes out of you more than a warrior. As Mill notes, the question is whether it's worth it or not.

We needn't ask you your answer.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Dilawar and Habibullah. Oh wait, they weren't terrorists tho, just Arabs who got swept up in the US dragnet.



Senate Panel's Report Links Detainees' Murders to Bush's Torture Policy

Still think its all fun and games, dipshit?

Now, now, girly-man, watch your language, after all you're not talking to your mom.

So you contend that the interrogation techniques listed in my college-prank post caused the deaths that you note?

Have someone more literate read the report that you link to you, since your hate of America is clouding what abiltiy at comprehension you might have, in a calmer state.

"Indeed, a report into detainee abuse completed in 2004 by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, the former Naval inspector general, who conducted an investigation into detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan at the request of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, specifically cleared Pentagon officials stating they “did not promulgate interrogation policies . . . that directed, sanctioned or encouraged the torture or abuse of detainees."

A declassified version of the 360-page Church report, delivered to Congress in March 2004, said there was "no policy that condoned or authorized either abuse or torture," which critics of the Bush administration believed was a cover-up."
Senate Panel's Report Links Detainees' Murders to Bush's Torture Policy


The operative phrase: "did not promulgate interrogation policies . . . that directed, sanctioned or encouraged the torture or abuse of detainees."

Further, it is telling that 'news' of the deaths of prisoners resulting from the listed techniques appears in this 'pubreport,' or 'impeachbush,' or 'islamicblog,' but not splashed on the front pages of the oh so 'conservative' NYTimes, or the LATimes, or the Washington Post, or the Boston Globe, or even the WSJournal.

Does this not seem odd to you, Nikki, or have you not looked under each and every rock, yet?

I bet the girl scouts could come up with some more serious techniques, but then you'd claim that they were Bush-robot-fascists.

Nicht wahr?

Rumsfeld and Church. Now there's a combination worthy of oxymoronism.

I can almost guarantee you that if Rummy didn't like the results of the Church investigation, it never would have seen the light of day without heavy redaction.

Bank of America? Citi? Which bank will honor the "almost guarantee"?

And did you make a similar guarantee before the Iraq War along the lines of "if there are no WMD's, they'll plant some"?

Have faith, M & M, have faith.

But if you don't respect the Church report as reported in the NYTimes, do I get to say the same about any report out of, say, a Democrat Administrtion?

 

[PoliticalChic]

No, I'm just not terrified by a ragtag group of pretty incompetent terrorists. Yeah, we aren't gonna be free....cause OBL is gonna come over to America and conquer us and enslave us all. Or, you know, not.

You might be too stupid to reform. But I'm not a quitter. You mind taking a head count of how many muslims there are in the world? Now, most of them are not radicalized, but did you happen to notice just how quickly they became radicalized in Iraq, just cuz AQ settled into their area? No probably not, you were too busy shouting invectives at Bush. Grow up dumb shit, this is a big bad world and if you don't want to defend your country adequately, do not be shocked when you find out other people want it worse than you do.

You're problem is you are so fucking complacent you think your world can never change. You think the land of milk and honey is just here at your beck and call and you don't have to lift a finger to help. Your such a pansy ass that you don't even want your morals to get dirty let alone your hands. Fine, then, shut the fuck up, get in the corner and hide your face while the real men do the work. We'll tell you when you can look again.

They got radicalized because we invaded their country. That tends to piss people off, moron.

What a strange idea of a "real man". A mass murdering, torturing, fuckhead.

We all produce a slip of the tongue now and again, but you are abusing the privilege.

Do you actually want to build an argument around the concept that the terrorists were even-temper, moderate students and merchants prior to the Iraq war?

How about you simply retract and start over.

 

[Tech_Esq]

No, I'm just not terrified by a ragtag group of pretty incompetent terrorists. Yeah, we aren't gonna be free....cause OBL is gonna come over to America and conquer us and enslave us all. Or, you know, not.

You might be too stupid to reform. But I'm not a quitter. You mind taking a head count of how many muslims there are in the world? Now, most of them are not radicalized, but did you happen to notice just how quickly they became radicalized in Iraq, just cuz AQ settled into their area? No probably not, you were too busy shouting invectives at Bush. Grow up dumb shit, this is a big bad world and if you don't want to defend your country adequately, do not be shocked when you find out other people want it worse than you do.

You're problem is you are so fucking complacent you think your world can never change. You think the land of milk and honey is just here at your beck and call and you don't have to lift a finger to help. Your such a pansy ass that you don't even want your morals to get dirty let alone your hands. Fine, then, shut the fuck up, get in the corner and hide your face while the real men do the work. We'll tell you when you can look again.

They got radicalized because we invaded their country. That tends to piss people off, moron.

What a strange idea of a "real man". A mass murdering, torturing, fuckhead.

Honestly, does it hurt being as dumb as you are demonstrating on here? You should actually believe the propagandist bullshit that your side sells. That's just for confusing the masses.....oh sorry, I forgot to whom I was talking. Hey asswipe, that's bullshit just meant to confuse you.

If they were radicalized because we invaded their country, then they would still be radicalized. Instead, they turned on AQ and came to our side. In case it passed your notice when you were busy yelling about the evil Dick Cheney, AQ invaded Iraq too. AQ forced Iraqis to eat their children in some extreme cases.

The only people who say things like "real man" are people who wish they were one. It is an unpleasant task that needs to be taken care of. That's what men do. They take responsibility for the unpleasant tasks and do them. But a pussy like you wouldn't understand that.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The same training of our military can hardly be compared. They know they're not going to die.

Same with the detainees.. the rules are known

No, actually they aren't. When they placed insects on the detainees, they were told they were poisonous.

Oh, and the fact that a bunch of detainees died. Although I'd be curious if you have some actual evidence that states that the detainees must know they will survive.

Once again, are you prepared to state that " a bunch of detainees died" as a result of the enhanced interrogation techniques listed in the original post.

If not, it's time for you to admit you were wrong. Unless you're a "frightened barbarian."

 

[Kalam]

Yeah dude, I hear that Guantanamo inmates enjoy sitting on the prison green, browsing facebook on their laptops and listening to pop songs on their iPods between classes. There was a pretty wild party in cell block D the other night; Hakim did a keg stand. These kids will look back on this experience as the best years of their lives.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Fighting the enemy on the battlefield is one thing. A warped desire to sustain a war just because you get a thrill from hurting and/or killing the enemy is quite another.

Alas, you have fallen into the fallacy of assuming a 'fact' not proven nor in evidence.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The same training of our military can hardly be compared. They know they're not going to die.

Same with the detainees.. the rules are known

Sure they do. And I think that bridge in Brooklyn is still for sale.

I think this should enter into your calculation, that the terrorists understand that they can give up any intell as long as they have held out up to the point of their ability to tolerate the pressure. Therefore, they know that they will not die, since they can give the interrogator what they are after, and still be loyal to Allah.

Consider the following:
"..., as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, 'brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship."
Marc A. Thiessen - Enhanced Interrogations Worked - washingtonpost.com

 

[PoliticalChic]

Judging by the straws that you clutch at, you are unable to find fault with my list of college kid pranks as they correspond to the so-called torture list.

So let's review, the NYTimes enumeration is so flimsy, so insubstantial that it hardly approached the level of torture. Agreed?

Only the whiners and hand-wringing counter-American policy left-wing radicals find the list to be 'torture.' Further agreed?

Why does it always have to be the "list"? why is it all or nothing? maybe some things on the list cross the line, and others don't. I think that waterboarding, sleep deprevation for more than 48 hours, and walling cross the line.

I have no problem with this post. It is your opinion.

Mine is different, and the meaning of the original post is that the items claimed to be torture can be closely mirrored in mundane events in the ordinary lives of American citizens.

Do they 'torture' themselves? If not, then what is the reason that those on your side are so enraged with respect to these carefully crafted techniques designed to gain intell without real harm?

Political perspective, not objectivity. This is fair- except to the extent that it besmirches the character, reputation, and motivation of those whose only goal is to protect the country.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yeah dude, I hear that Guantanamo inmates enjoy sitting on the prison green, browsing facebook on their laptops and listening to pop songs on their iPods between classes. There was a pretty wild party in cell block D the other night; Hakim did a keg stand. These kids will look back on this experience as the best years of their lives.

Is this supposed to be an attempt at wit?

Unfortunately, only half so.

 

[garyd]

The assumed incompetence of the opposition is an absolutely lousy basis upon which to wage a war that is essentially being fought against a disparate group of people acting as freelance spies and saboteurs to further their own agenda or that of some knuckle dragging cave dweller that wishes to return us all to the fifteenth century when last Islam held the whip hand.

 

[Pyrite]

I have no problem with this post. It is your opinion.

Mine is different, and the meaning of the original post is that the items claimed to be torture can be closely mirrored in mundane events in the ordinary lives of American citizens.

Do they 'torture' themselves? If not, then what is the reason that those on your side are so enraged with respect to these carefully crafted techniques designed to gain intell without real harm?

Political perspective, not objectivity. This is fair- except to the extent that it besmirches the character, reputation, and motivation of those whose only goal is to protect the country.

Many of us feel that some of these techniques (once again, most of us are talking about sleep deprevation, walling, and waterboarding, as well as stress positions, which are somewhat mentioned on this list but not listed as a technique of their own.) cross the line into torture. The examples you gave in the OP for waterboarding and sleep deprivation are not honest or accurate examples of what those are like. Ordinary American citizens do not simulate drowning experiences for several minutes while being held down, or force themselves to stand without sleep for five days straight, or have themselves shaken violently by collars into walls. Try standing on your toes with your arms above your head, reaching as high as you can. try it for ten or twenty minutes. now imagine doing that for twenty hours. or forty, or sixty.