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Gitmo inmate: My treatment shames American flag [W:508,759]

We are no longer a nation based on the principles of freedoms and rule of law.

We still have our principles. We just don't always live up to them. Never have. But some we're better at upholding than others.

First we kept slaves. Then we displaced and massacred Indians when they didn't cooperate with Manifest Destiny. When we decided we wanted to become an imperial power, we manufactured a war with Spain, promising the Filipinos independence if they helped us. After we reneged on our promise to our "little brown brothers" and they fought back, we massacred them, too. Next on the agenda: firebombing German and Japanese civilians. Then when the Japanese still didn't say uncle we nuked them and would have kept nuking them until we turned the entire county in a cinder pile. And we weren't satisfied with winning. We had to make an example of the Germans, so before there was a Marshall Plan there was a Morgenthau Plan that did an excellent job killing more Germans with starvation. Then toss in a few assorted CIA-plotted assassinations/coups over the decades and I have to wonder if there ever was a point in our history when we lived up to our own principles and the rule of law. Even now, liberals rationalize this president carrying out extradjudicial killings with missiles that kill every man, woman, and child in the vicinity but if they're captured we're supposed to read them their Mirandas and give them a lawyer. :doh We sign treaties on the treatment of civilians in wartime but no one should be under the illusion that we won't unleash hell on earth and decimate the cities of any country which likewise threatens us with nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, we're still the only country that's ever used them in anger.

So I'd say we're still a work in progress and we can improve our record, but if our history has proven anything there's one principle that trumps all of the others: If you're ever in a war, even one you create, just make sure you don't lose.
 
We're having a different conversation than you are, apparently. Whether it violates any law is the least of my concerns and is an appropriate discussion for the SCOTUS blog or something. As I said, and which is just obviously true, almost by definition a state sponsored act of evil or moral repugnance is often if not generally legal. I could cite a dozen examples from OUR history and so could you.

U.S. negotiators declined to adopt every provision of the Convention Against Torture, exactly because they did not want to tie the hands of any President in dealing with matters of national security. I am satisfied that section 2340 allows U.S. interrogators to deal pretty harshly with savages who have committed war crimes against this country, when the lives of many innocent Americans depend on making them tell what they know, and tell it fast. I am also satisfied that that law, which codifies such provisions of the CAT as our negotiators saw fit to agree to and the Senate saw fit to ratify, is not so broadly written as to make immoral, unconscionable acts legal.

Your assertion that the government of this country has repeatedly sponsored morally repugnant actions throughout our history is a slander against the United States that is false, disgusting and shameful. Do not try to associate me with your anti-American slurs--I could not cite even one example of any such thing, let alone a dozen.
 
We still have our principles. We just don't always live up to them. Never have. But some we're better at upholding than others.

First we kept slaves. Then we displaced and massacred Indians when they didn't cooperate with Manifest Destiny. When we decided we wanted to become an imperial power, we manufactured a war with Spain, promising the Filipinos independence if they helped us. After we reneged on our promise to our "little brown brothers" and they fought back, we massacred them, too. Next on the agenda: firebombing German and Japanese civilians. Then when the Japanese still didn't say uncle we nuked them and would have kept nuking them until we turned the entire county in a cinder pile. And we weren't satisfied with winning. We had to make an example of the Germans, so before there was a Marshall Plan there was a Morgenthau Plan that did an excellent job killing more Germans with starvation. Then toss in a few assorted CIA-plotted assassinations/coups over the decades and I have to wonder if there ever was a point in our history when we lived up to our own principles and the rule of law. Even now, liberals rationalize this president carrying out extradjudicial killings with missiles that kill every man, woman, and child in the vicinity but if they're captured we're supposed to read them their Mirandas and give them a lawyer. :doh We sign treaties on the treatment of civilians in wartime but no one should be under the illusion that we won't unleash hell on earth and decimate the cities of any country which likewise threatens us with nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, we're still the only country that's ever used them in anger.

So I'd say we're still a work in progress and we can improve our record, but if our history has proven anything there's one principle that trumps all of the others: If you're ever in a war, even one you create, just make sure you don't lose.

We used nuclear weapons on Japan because there was a strong possibility that an invasion of Japan would have failed.

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We used nuclear weapons on Japan because there was a strong possibility that an invasion of Japan would have failed.

Like I said, the first principle is don't lose.
 
We still have our principles. We just don't always live up to them. Never have. But some we're better at upholding than others.

First we kept slaves. Then we displaced and massacred Indians when they didn't cooperate with Manifest Destiny. When we decided we wanted to become an imperial power, we manufactured a war with Spain, promising the Filipinos independence if they helped us. After we reneged on our promise to our "little brown brothers" and they fought back, we massacred them, too. Next on the agenda: firebombing German and Japanese civilians. Then when the Japanese still didn't say uncle we nuked them and would have kept nuking them until we turned the entire county in a cinder pile. And we weren't satisfied with winning. We had to make an example of the Germans, so before there was a Marshall Plan there was a Morgenthau Plan that did an excellent job killing more Germans with starvation. Then toss in a few assorted CIA-plotted assassinations/coups over the decades and I have to wonder if there ever was a point in our history when we lived up to our own principles and the rule of law. Even now, liberals rationalize this president carrying out extradjudicial killings with missiles that kill every man, woman, and child in the vicinity but if they're captured we're supposed to read them their Mirandas and give them a lawyer. :doh We sign treaties on the treatment of civilians in wartime but no one should be under the illusion that we won't unleash hell on earth and decimate the cities of any country which likewise threatens us with nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, we're still the only country that's ever used them in anger.

So I'd say we're still a work in progress and we can improve our record, but if our history has proven anything there's one principle that trumps all of the others: If you're ever in a war, even one you create, just make sure you don't lose.

You do realize that you just mischaracterized, or misrepresented that whole string of American history right?
 
You do realize that you just mischaracterized, or misrepresented that whole string of American history right?

It's difficult to properly summarize more than two centuries of American history in a paragraph, but all too often I've seen a Fractured Fairytales version of American history that tends to gloss over the fact that throughout our history we've done what we felt we needed to do to survive and prosper, even if that meant we didn't always act like a saint. But if you want to give a specific example of how I've mischaracterized or misrepresented those aspects of American history I touched upon I'd be happy to indulge you.
 
I recently came across this article of Samir Naji's 13 year incarceration at Gitmo. Obviously, this is a pretty convienent time for him to tell the tales of his cruel and unusual punishment. Which made me think; isn't that exactly what's being clamed here? Cruel and unusual punishment on United States territory. I've heard from my professor that an obvious consequence of closing Gitmo would be that if we brought these inmates back to the United States we would have to give them due-process. Well...I may be mistaken, but last time I checked, Guantanamo Bay is United states territory. I found it interesting how this man's story was written. Check it out if you wish to.

Gitmo inmate: My treatment shames U.S. flag - CNN.com

Last I heard a bunch of Cubans dumped here by plane by Castro years ago are still in Federal prisons with no release date.

So there's precedent for holding people on US soil without due process.
 
It's difficult to properly summarize more than two centuries of American history in a paragraph, but all too often I've seen a Fractured Fairytales version of American history that tends to gloss over the fact that throughout our history we've done what we felt we needed to do to survive and prosper, even if that meant we didn't always act like a saint. But if you want to give a specific example of how I've mischaracterized or misrepresented those aspects of American history I touched upon I'd be happy to indulge you.

It was really in how you characterized it...The point of wars is to win, if we aren't in to do that then don't do it...That many believe is the problem with how we approach them today. Also, considering the bombing of Japan, an argument can be made that in dropping those bombs that ended the war, actually in the long run saved lives.
 
U.S. negotiators declined to adopt every provision of the Convention Against Torture, exactly because they did not want to tie the hands of any President in dealing with matters of national security. I am satisfied that section 2340 allows U.S. interrogators to deal pretty harshly with savages who have committed war crimes against this country, when the lives of many innocent Americans depend on making them tell what they know, and tell it fast. I am also satisfied that that law, which codifies such provisions of the CAT as our negotiators saw fit to agree to and the Senate saw fit to ratify, is not so broadly written as to make immoral, unconscionable acts legal.

Your assertion that the government of this country has repeatedly sponsored morally repugnant actions throughout our history is a slander against the United States that is false, disgusting and shameful. Do not try to associate me with your anti-American slurs--I could not cite even one example of any such thing, let alone a dozen.

Obviously you're an American white male, right? The USA has been pretty good to you.

I didn't catch your full justification of slavery or of the Trail of Tears. Please explain it more fully.
 
Obviously you're an American white male, right? The USA has been pretty good to you.

I didn't catch your full justification of slavery or of the Trail of Tears. Please explain it more fully.

:doh Really?
 
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I just disagree 100%. Once you agree that waterboarding is an acceptable technique, you've obliterated any meaningful moral or ethical line, and all that matters is results. What you're saying, ultimately, is that after we eliminate all bounds of behavior, we're shocked that a person who is ordered to be cruel to a prisoner for purposes of extracting information is TOO cruel. That is of course the documented history of torture as a tool and why we cannot accept "a little bit of torture but not too much" as official policy.
One judge said essentially that very thing. Paraphrasing she said that while the acts themselves were not torture the very fact that we used a specific act against an individual so many times it became torture. Her reasoning, was tortured.

I believe waterboarding is fine. But it is no prohibited. That it too bad as it worked just fine with KSM. I cannot recall if it worked with the other two.

We want to break the subject's will so he cooperates with us.
 
We approved waterboarding, which we prosecuted people for as war crimes, torture. How do you make the leap that when done TO us, it is torture, but when done BY us it's not-torture "by a very long shot"?
Were the individual you speak of, Americans, prisoners of war? If so they are protected by the Geneva Conventions. If they were unlawful combatants they are not protected.

And if many of our 'techniques' were done to your son in a police station in Atlanta, you would RIGHTLY conclude he was tortured by his own government. It's impossible that any of us could see someone we love subjected to these 'techniques' and conclude anything else, but we go through elaborate self denial to avoid facing the truth of what we did to people not-like-us.

You really don't understand the difference between wartime intelligence gathering and peacetime criminal justice do you?
 
It was really in how you characterized it...The point of wars is to win, if we aren't in to do that then don't do it...

Well, that was kind of my point. But you also should admit that we haven't always dealt in good faith with parties that ran headfirst into an objective of ours, whether it was gaining territory or influence or making money. I mean, can you honestly claim that slaves or Indians got a fair shake?
 
Well, that was kind of my point. But you also should admit that we haven't always dealt in good faith with parties that ran headfirst into an objective of ours, whether it was gaining territory or influence or making money. I mean, can you honestly claim that slaves or Indians got a fair shake?

I didn't claim that, but let me ask...How long will we have to hear about the injustices of one group or another? At some point don't the descendants of these groups loose the power to be able to claim victimhood?
 
Can anyone take you seriously when you're main thesis is that you think the people you are arguing against are "******s"? You've really killed any credibility you had (I don't know if you had any before).
Bed wetters. And not all of you. But many of you. :)
 
Did you quote? Did you block indent or use quotation marks?

I am not claiming that taking a meal an unlawful combatant refuses to eat, turning it into a slushee and pumping it up their ass is a medical procedure. Nor did I play a doctor on the Internet. It seems clear to me the message to the asshole who refused the meal was very simple. We control you. Fight us and we will make it very uncomfortable for you.

What's your point then? We agree it was degradation/humiliation/sodomy etc. and wasn't done for any medical purpose.
 
Well, that was kind of my point. But you also should admit that we haven't always dealt in good faith with parties that ran headfirst into an objective of ours, whether it was gaining territory or influence or making money. I mean, can you honestly claim that slaves or Indians got a fair shake?
Individual slaves did not. But their offspring did.
Indians. Well, around here some of the tribes are deep into the gambling scene. Who can tell. All clans, tribes and people have been made slaves of other people at some point in time.
 
What's your point then? We agree it was degradation/humiliation/sodomy etc. and wasn't done for any medical purpose.

My first point was that I saw no indications that you were quoting anybody.
My second point was harsh interrogation techniques are not intended to be medicine. Both points should have been very easy for you to understand.
 
Was the individual an unlawful combatant?

It makes no difference except to the potential legality of the torture (or not-torture). You're hanging your hat on a legal technicality to avoid admitting the obvious - self denial is a good thing on this topic.
 
If they survive and do not suffer any permanent scars or disfigurements then it is not torture.

There is no definition of torture anywhere that makes that kind of distinction.

Seriously, if you attached a prisoner's testicles to a set of electrical cables and delivered debilitating shocks 100 times, there isn't a person on earth who would call that anything but torture. And yet the burns would heal and unless he had a heart attack he'd likely survive. Makes no difference.
 
I believe I answered this a post or two back. Rather than repeat what I wrote scroll back a few messages.

Ultimately it comes down to purpose.

It really does not come down to that. It's a way to justify something, or rationalize it, or to engage in self delusion about what we did, but that's not a dividing line.
 
It makes no difference except to the potential legality of the torture (or not-torture). You're hanging your hat on a legal technicality to avoid admitting the obvious - self denial is a good thing on this topic.

Of course it does. An unlawful combatant, is a war criminal. A prisoner of war is a lawful combatant and is protected by the protocols in the Geneva Conventions.

We agree. Your denial, over and over and over, is a good thing for you.
 
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