To Save America

[gaijindabe]

Ugg. I did not think this up, I heard Alan Dershowitz of all people talk about it. Basically, he said that if someone knows something (like a capured al Quida bigwig) and was not talking, things were going to be tried to make him talk. And you can create all the protocols and guidelines in the world, but the reality is, you are going to try.

Now who really thinks this has anything to do with fighting crime? Please dont bring that up as it is plain silly.

[Rodeo]

We need to differentiate between what may happen in the field under combat conditions on the one hand and American policy on the other. I hope that everyone sees and understands the difference. Mr. Cheney sure does, and he is lobbying Congress with all his might for an American policy that permits lawful torture.

This is our vice president. Our president has threatened the very first veto of his presidency -- of an anti-torture bill!

We are going down the rabbit hole, and the pres and vp are leading the way.

Stay the course?

[gaijindabe]

Originally posted by Rodeo
We need to differentiate between what may happen in the field under combat conditions on the one hand and American policy on the other. I hope that everyone sees and understands the difference.

Please explain.

[Rodeo]

Originally posted by gaijindabe
Please explain.

Debating whether America permits, as a matter of law, the torture of foreign "detainees" is not the same as asking me, as a person, whether I would take extraordinary measures to, say, save a building full of schoolchildren. Maybe I would, and then I would then turn myself into the authorities to face whatever consequences resulted from my activities.

Setting up a system whereby I can legally bring someone to a torture chamber and, under supervision of the CIA and my commanding officer, extract information using torture is not the same. Now I have American society, and the American legal system, in the room with me as I torture. I have a torture manual, I have guidelines and standards, I have government-issue torture devices. And I have the protection of the American people, the backing of the American people, for my heinous activities.

[gaijindabe]

You may need the room and the devices to get the information. You taking "extraordinary measures" might not get too far. Where does that leave the schoolchildren?

Dershowitz is right, we are kidding ourselves to think we would not do it. I am no expert, but I see it as the kind of thing that can create more problems than it solves. But we need to retain the option, if needed.

[Rodeo]

1. Some "options" are off the table to civilized people.

2. It's not a particularly effective option anyway. Torture is a way to control people, not get actionable information from them. Its much closer to terrorism than it is to information gathering. Saddam knew this.

3. The situation I descried is one in a million, maybe less. It might make a good action movie, but you don't build policy around a cowboy fantasy. The likely uses of torture are much more mundane.

[gaijindabe]

And the mundane and cruel should be done away with. But it is a tool. And one that should not be given up so easily.

Civilized people protect their own. Or they will be beated down by those less civilized.

[Superman]

Might makes right. We should do it, because we CAN and we WANT TO.

[RoninLB]

afaik if a prisoner is stressed correctly you can get all kinds of info from him. Not torture per say, but stressed and disassociated from his reality.

A formal prisoner of war is not allowed that kind of treatment.

Then again the biggest gangster in the whole world may have responded to hugs and kisses a couple of years ago. They should have offered Saddam a part in Bay Watch and given him mid east distributorship.

[Superman]

No Ron. Coercion is too easy to label as "diplomacy" and therefore way too wimpy to apply. Not even if it works.

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by Superman
No Ron. Coercion is too easy to label as "diplomacy" and therefore way too wimpy to apply. Not even if it works.

Oh.

How about if Saddam was offered Diplomatic Whore Master of the mid East ?

[rrpjr]

Originally posted by Rodeo
Some would find a lot in common between the religious zealots in charge of our country and other brands of religious zealots.

If we would torture in the name of democracy, is it that much of a leap to start cutting off heads to please this same ideal, this same god? Maybe cutting off heads is more humane than torturing someone for 2-3 years before killing them. Read the papers. America is doing that now.

Now that the president of the United States has started claiming that critics of his administration give aid and comfort to the enemy, another shoe has dropped. We are headed down a dark, dark hole if people allow this to continue.

Pastor Niemoeller offers lessons for our society as well as others.

I realize there are "some" who "find a lot in common" between a jihadist and George Bush (or the "religious zealots in charge of our country.") These are not serious people, and with all hope shall remain among the politically powerless margins of non-seriousness. For it is wickedly flippant to make such a comparison. Either that or profoundly abstracted from the world; even a remote observor of the practiced and remoreseless barbarity of Islamicism would realize there is nothing on earth "in common" with it.

I suppose it is waste of time to point out the extent to which our "religiously zealous" leaders have gone to name and isolate fanatic Islamic extremism as the enemy, as distinct from wider Islam. Or to point out the extravagant liberalness of our nation to all peoples within our borders, and our equal generosities to Muslims around the world (rescuing millions in the Balkans, giving aid and comfort to millions more in Indonesia). Or to point out that torture has been an occasional tool of American warfare since the beginning of our nation, and that its use, under exigent circumstances of war, has not led, and will not lead, to "beheadings." Such claims are either plainly irrational, or the sort of rancid anti-Americanism that wafts out of ideological salons, and would waft out no matter what the facts or truth. They betray not merely a total lack of faith in the American conscience, but a willful attack on that faith.

We face an enemy who violently rejects all basic assumptions of Western ethos. This will test us as never before. And so it is good to have debates and shape policies with regard to torture. I believe there will be many cases of men in the field acting in ways soldiers have never acted before. But given the pressures they are under, living under a literal "sword of Damacles," the reality that capture means a brutal death as opposed to the guarantees of anything like a "Geneva Convention," I think we need some leniency and understanding.

We'll figure it out, muddle through, according to the lights of our good consciences. It is a shame we must fight two wars, though. This is a handicap the enemy does not suffer.

By the way, Bush never questioned the patriotism of those who criticized the war. He asserted that "rewriting history" for political gain during a war was bad faith, and undercut morale. I completely agree. Democratic leaders are behaving right now in the basest manner that leaders can possibly behave in these circumstances -- opportunistically and deceitfully. They are doing so because they can. They know the media will run cover for them.

[911pcars]

Does this mean you agree with what happened in Abu Gharib, Guantanamo and elsewhere? If so, our administration does too. However, our judicial system apparently doesn't. Better yet, let's ask Cheney as he and GW are sending mixed messages. Bush says no, Cheny says ........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501388.html

Will this be considered part of revisionist history as well?

Sherwood

[Joe Bob]

What I was trying to imply in my earlier post about the 13th Century.....is that it never changes. The Knights were over kickinazzes in the Holy Land and came back to a change in gubmint....they were sent to secret prisons, tortured and lost their lives and property......

Stuff never changes...just the list of characters...

[john walker's workshop]

oh please mister terrorist, tell us about the plot to nuke LA. we have more chocolate chip cookies.

[Rodeo]

Originally posted by rrpjr
I realize there are "some" who "find a lot in common" between a jihadist and George Bush (or the "religious zealots in charge of our country.") These are not serious people, and with all hope shall remain among the politically powerless margins of non-seriousness. For it is wickedly flippant to make such a comparison. Either that or profoundly abstracted from the world; even a remote observor of the practiced and remoreseless barbarity of Islamicism would realize there is nothing on earth "in common" with it.

I suppose it is waste of time to point out the extent to which our "religiously zealous" leaders have gone to name and isolate fanatic Islamic extremism as the enemy, as distinct from wider Islam. Or to point out the extravagant liberalness of our nation to all peoples within our borders, and our equal generosities to Muslims around the world (rescuing millions in the Balkans, giving aid and comfort to millions more in Indonesia). Or to point out that torture has been an occasional tool of American warfare since the beginning of our nation, and that its use, under exigent circumstances of war, has not led, and will not lead, to "beheadings." Such claims are either plainly irrational, or the sort of rancid anti-Americanism that wafts out of ideological salons, and would waft out no matter what the facts or truth. They betray not merely a total lack of faith in the American conscience, but a willful attack on that faith.

We face an enemy who violently rejects all basic assumptions of Western ethos. This will test us as never before. And so it is good to have debates and shape policies with regard to torture. I believe there will be many cases of men in the field acting in ways soldiers have never acted before. But given the pressures they are under, living under a literal "sword of Damacles," the reality that capture means a brutal death as opposed to the guarantees of anything like a "Geneva Convention," I think we need some leniency and understanding.

We'll figure it out, muddle through, according to the lights of our good consciences. It is a shame we must fight two wars, though. This is a handicap the enemy does not suffer.

By the way, Bush never questioned the patriotism of those who criticized the war. He asserted that "rewriting history" for political gain during a war was bad faith, and undercut morale. I completely agree. Democratic leaders are behaving right now in the basest manner that leaders can possibly behave in these circumstances -- opportunistically and deceitfully. They are doing so because they can. They know the media will run cover for them.

You sound like a dangerous and paranoid man. The commonality among zealots, religious, political or otherwise, is intolerance. Intolerance of competing ideas, intolerance of thought or action not in accord with their worldview, intolerance of criticism. You are a prime example. I just hope that those who subscribe to your way of thinking never gain enough power to threaten my liberties. If so, then you will really have a fight on your hands.

If your "good conscience" leads you to promote torture an official policy of the United States, and if your political bias leads you to believe that anyone that criticizes this inept, incompetent and radical administration is doing so for political gain, then I both pity you and fear you, because you are dangerous. I believe that America is better than the narrow-minded, threatening, torturing people you depict in your post. And I believe that Americans not only have a right, but a duty, to speak against their leaders when their leaders fail to represent the will of America.

Finally, please save the “America has never fought an enemy like this before” rationale. Either you know nothing about history or are distorting it to suit your needs. Imperial Japan did not exactly embrace the “basic assumptions of Western ethos,” and Nazi Germany “tested us” pretty well. No matter what the odds, the American people have never embraced torture as accepted combat strategy, even in the face of enemies as or more vicious than the ones we now face.

Through it all, we not only prevailed, we retained our basic decency as a people. We will do the same this time.

[Rodeo]

double post

[tabs]

Extraordinary times demands extraordinary measures. Whether it be Torture, the Patriot Act or even a temporary suspension of the Constitiution it is for the GOOD of America and the Repblic. It is to maintain order and stability for business and daily commerce to continue, so that American life goes on without disruption. For if we fail to take the appropriate measures chaos and strife will surely reign supream.

[RoninLB]

Originally posted by Superman
No Ron. Coercion is too easy to label as "diplomacy" and therefore way too wimpy to apply. Not even if it works.

I just watched member Oracle's vid on his new thread and needed 2x Mezxal to relax. So,

The word Coercion used correctly might be a good politically acceptable policy to the pol Right and the pol Wro$%^&. I mean everyone?
And the "wimpy will be changed to divisive. If you discount one's position and give them both a similar Commander and Chief to believe in we'd be able to pay more attention to economic and social issues. Right now the beltway can get away with inefficent political and $ bs. And the more explosive the politics the more they'll get away with. If Bush alone could be transformed into Bush + new Fed Res Chief + Clinton's superstar stage craft + Hillary's social lib policy he'd be a winner.

I should call C-span and tell them to profile that issue, huh?

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by tabs
Extraordinary times demands extraordinary measures. Whether it be Torture, the Patriot Act or even a temporary suspension of the Constitiution it is for the GOOD of America and the Repblic. It is to maintain order and stability for business and daily commerce to continue, so that American life goes on without disruption. For if we fail to take the appropriate measures chaos and strife will surely reign supream.

Somewhere a little buzzer is going off. this last tidbit goes just a little too far. You had us for moment, it was fun while it lasted.

BTW, we've found Children's Club to be much much better than MAGIC, so it doesn't look good for coming out to Vegas in Feb. that said, hope to come out just for some BBQ if you want to fire up the grill. that ribeye thing you did looked phenomenal.