MachineGhost wrote:Look at Obama and what greater speaker has there been since The Gipper?
The Gipper about the U.N. Convention on Torture wrote:The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.
"Well, if you're gonna sin you might as well be original" -- Mike "The Cool-Person"
"Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man" -- The Dude
After getting a reminder about what kind of vicious, murderous animals these Islamists are with the latest massacre at the Pakistani school which killed over a hundred school children, some by beheadings, I could care less if our CIA was a little bit rough with them. We are dealing with animals and if we can exact some knowledge to stop their next school massacre then let's do it.
Reub wrote:
After getting a reminder about what kind of vicious, murderous animals these Islamists are with the latest massacre at the Pakistani school which killed over a hundred school children, some by beheadings, I could care less if our CIA was a little bit rough with them. We are dealing with animals and if we can exact some knowledge to stop their next school massacre then let's do it.
1) Who do you all group into this group that you label "vicious, murderous animals"? The innocent 25% of men who were tortured? All Muslims? Most Muslims?
2) If you mean all Muslims, what's the big deal about killing little animals at a Pakistani school?
3) If you don't mean people as innocent as Muslim children and non-terrorists, then are you a vicious, murderous animal if you support policies that end up blowing up schools and torturing innocent people?
I'm not trying to make accusations... just hunting for what exactly you and clacy are trying to say. You seem to have trouble coming out and fully dissecting for us who fits in what box.
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
All of the detainees? You realize 25% of them were found to not know any useful information, right? How do you know they were terrorists, or are you using some other measure to determine whether they were guilty enough?
What about other Muslims in general? Are they all vicious animals?
What about the Muslim children at that school? Are they vicious animals?
If either of those groups are NOT murderous, vicious animals, but instead simply human beings, does that mean those who support torturing or killing them, by definition, are vicious animals?
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
moda0306 wrote:
I'm not trying to make accusations... just hunting for what exactly you and clacy are trying to say. You seem to have trouble coming out and fully dissecting for us who fits in what box.
I'll help! Radical Islamist Fundamentalists. Wahhabists. And I'm being nice here. It's well known around here I'm not very tolerant of religious mysticism believers.
The thing is, our Seventh Day, Jehovah's and Mormons aren't going around decapitating the Gentile's innocent children. Even Charles Manson and Jim Jones didn't try and hurt anyone but themselves. We can blame Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Obama, et al. for bringing this about, but the problem has certainly got to be dealt with or its going to get worse. That's what really sucks as it may be a war we can't win.
Last edited by MachineGhost on Tue Dec 16, 2014 8:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
moda0306 wrote:
I'm not trying to make accusations... just hunting for what exactly you and clacy are trying to say. You seem to have trouble coming out and fully dissecting for us who fits in what box.
The thing is, our Seventh Day, Jehovah's and Mormons aren't going around decapitating the Gentile's innocent children. Even Charles Manson and Jim Jones didn't try and hurt anyone but themselves.
I'm not good with names... what is a "Radical Islamist Fundamentalist"? Behaviorally, what does someone have to do to become one, where if he didn't do it, he wouldn't be one?
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
moda0306 wrote:
I'm not good with names... what is a "Radical Islamist Fundamentalist"? Behaviorally, what does someone have to do to become one, where if he didn't do it, he wouldn't be one?
It's the equivalent of Christian Fundamentalism, i.e. a highly distorted viewpoint but in the case of Islam, they believe in violence to bring about a Holy War, imposition of their version of Sharia Law and the restoration of the Caliphate. Of course, historical facts or otherwise don't matter to them any more than it does to Christians Fundies. You cannot reason with whackjobs like that. So Kill 'Em All?
Last edited by MachineGhost on Tue Dec 16, 2014 8:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
moda I've violated my own ban on talking to you but very few of these animals have undergone our enhanced interrogation techniques. Only the most deserving. I will now resume my policy of avoiding you like the plague.
Reub wrote:
moda I've violated my own ban on talking to you but very few of these animals have undergone our enhanced interrogation techniques. Only the most deserving. I will now resume my policy of avoiding you like the plague.
So do you condider it totally fine that 25% of those tortured had no connection to terrorism or are you disputing their lack of involvement? If you are not disputing their lack of involvement, then I'm still not clear as to how wide the net ought to be thrown in your view. Are you advocating getting medieval on the asses of all 23% of the global population who are muslim inorder to (in your view) express our enlightenment and moral superiority or what?
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Mulla Nasrudin
Are you certain that its torture? Do we do less to our own Navy Seals during their training? Who said that the goal was our enlightenment? Maybe more like our survival and the survival of our children and peaceful way of life against a brutal enemy that honors no rules and abides by no morals. I can only imagine what you would have been saying when we were fighting the Nazis and the Japanese in WW2.
In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
And one line that caught my attention for obvious reasons:
The other technique — the one more widely used today — involves choking the victim by filling their throat with a steady stream of water — a sort of "slow-motion drowning" that was perfected by Dutch traders in the 17th century. They used it against their British rivals in the East Indies.
"Well, if you're gonna sin you might as well be original" -- Mike "The Cool-Person"
"Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man" -- The Dude
I dunno. If someone who was mistakenly identified freezes to death while in captivity, is that torture, or just murder?
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
moda0306 wrote:
I dunno. If someone who was mistakenly identified freezes to death while in captivity, is that torture, or just murder?
That's criminal negligence. There's certain conditions and expectations to be met with captive prisoners. The problem is the chain of command removes individual actor responsibility if orders (or wink-and-nods) come from above (Cheney, et al.).
Maybe Reub doesn't think having your rectum forced-stuffed with food until it prolapses is torture, but anyone want to dare imagine how painful that is? How about the testicle crushing?
Personally, I'd love to torture-which-isn't-torture Cheney. He needs a serious taste of his own medicine. But these NeoCons had their day in the sun and failed miserably; we're just cleaning up their mess now.
Last edited by MachineGhost on Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
If we're cleaning up their mess just how well are we doing? Before answering please consider the new caliphate in Syria/Iraq, recent beheadings in Oklahoma, axe attacks by Muslim extremists in New York on cops (although some of you will like that), murders in Sydney cafes, and killings of a hundred school children in Pakistan including the burning alive of a female school teacher.
Not addressing anything in particular, but isn't it marvelous when we judge events of hundreds or thousands of years ago, and events of today that happen in a different culture with a different set of morals/beliefs than ours, by our own "civilized" (hahahahahaha) progressive standards? Especially when we do not have the facts and were not present to observe the events.
... Mountaineer
Last edited by Mountaineer on Wed Dec 17, 2014 4:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 6:23
Reub wrote:
If we're cleaning up their mess just how well are we doing? Before answering please consider the new caliphate in Syria/Iraq, recent beheadings in Oklahoma, axe attacks by Muslim extremists in New York on cops (although some of you will like that), murders in Sydney cafes, and killings of a hundred school children in Pakistan including the burning alive of a female school teacher.
Those Muslims you mentioned are DIFFERENT Muslims than the 25% of people detained and tortured, including the one who froze to death.
We all agree that those are bad people (the ones you mentioned in your post). Even the one who took an axe to the cop (nice straw man there).
If you would just come out and say that you are ok with the torture of innocent Muslims if it means a more effective war on terror, then it would help us out a lot, but you seem to want to keep moving the conversation back to anything but that simple fact.
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
Mountaineer wrote:
Not addressing anything in particular, but isn't it marvelous when we judge events of hundreds or thousands of years ago, and events of today that happen in a different culture with a different set of morals/beliefs than ours, by our own "civilized" (hahahahahaha) progressive standards? Especially when we do not have the facts and were not present to observe the events.
... Mountaineer
Almost as marvelous as judging morality based on the arbitrary, often quite unbelievable, contradicting assertions of a single book.
But at least you're finally coming close to admitting that we are more moral overall today than Hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Sorry. Had to.
Last edited by moda0306 on Wed Dec 17, 2014 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
Reub wrote:
Are you certain that its torture? Do we do less to our own Navy Seals during their training? Who said that the goal was our enlightenment? Maybe more like our survival and the survival of our children and peaceful way of life against a brutal enemy that honors no rules and abides by no morals. I can only imagine what you would have been saying when we were fighting the Nazis and the Japanese in WW2.
Your own sense of morality seems to be that when we face a brutal enemy we need to show them that we can be even more brutal than they are if we have to.
I think that this is actually a very common feeling among many Americans (and most humans) but personally I don't think it is very Christian, if you care about that sort of thing.
Oh, and I just remembered ... I don't have time to look it up but I think the first atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese landed on a Christian school ( a tie-in to the other link about the Pakistani school attack).
Last edited by madbean on Wed Dec 17, 2014 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It landed on a Christian school? How many Christian schools were saved? How many Christians? Who ultimately is responsible for the loss of that school? I guess that if we just surrender to evil all of the Christian schools would be just fine. Right?
Reub wrote:
If we're cleaning up their mess just how well are we doing? Before answering please consider the new caliphate in Syria/Iraq, recent beheadings in Oklahoma, axe attacks by Muslim extremists in New York on cops (although some of you will like that), murders in Sydney cafes, and killings of a hundred school children in Pakistan including the burning alive of a female school teacher.
I'm really out of the loop, but Oklahoma and New York? Woah!!!
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
Reub your argument seems based on the notion that this torture (or enhanced interrogation if you prefer) does help to prevent atrocities perpetrated by the terrorists.
You are making out that we have to weigh up a trade off between on the one hand doing some torture and so preventing terror and on the other hand doing without the torture and subsequently suffering more terrorist attacks.
It is far from clear that there is any such trade off. As far as I can see the amount of terror we will suffer depends mostly on how we are judged by the potential recruits for "radical Islam". Torture MAY thwart a particular terror plot but it certainly will recruit more terrorists.
You also give the impression that you view any potential recruit to "radical islam" as so irreparably evil that we may as well throw in the towel and abandon any hope of getting on peacefully with them ever and so just get as brutal as we can and flush them out or whatever. I think that is a big mistake. Most people have the capacity for good and the capacity for evil. Just look at how many people supported Nazism in Germany. They were just regular people who got caught up in an evil way of thinking and acting and then, after WWII, Germany subsequently became a population of decent people. It's the same thing with radical Islam in my view. There are millions of people who could turn either way and it is down to us whether they turn against us or against radical Islam. This is really a war for hearts and minds and the weapon that matters is the demonstration of decency and justice.
This discussion makes me think back to when in 1993 I went on a climbing holiday with some friends to a part of North West Pakistan that is now one of the worst hotbeds of "radical Islam". All the people we met were incredibly friendly and well disposed to us as westerners. I can remember some people asking us wonderingly if we were Christians, we said that none of us were actually observant but that of the five of us, four had Christian heritage and one Jewish. That was all remarked on as exotic and intriguing but certainly didn't seem to be a cause of any ill feeling towards us. My guess is that now, what with the war on terror, those people may well have become "Islamo-Fascists" or whatever you call them.
If we go in torturing willy-nilly and stopping at nothing then more and more people could turn against us and why not? Why would people treat us in a decent way if we demonstrate by our actions that we are happy to act brutally with no regard for humanity or justice?
Last edited by stone on Thu Dec 18, 2014 5:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Mulla Nasrudin
Reub wrote:
Mad scientists like you MG aren't expected to keep up with domestic beheadings and axe attacks. You are much too busy for these mundane news stories.
But thankfully, we have you to watch and protect us from all these evil threats! I feel very comfortable with you behind the wheel so I can focus on being the mad scientist. To paraphrase Yoda: Right hand man, you are!
What the frack happened in Oklahoma exactly? I'm not sure I want to know...
P.S. So I'm not so out of the loop anymore, I signed up for a daily digest of top economic and stock news aka Wall Street Breakfast. That's as far as I can tolerate the MSM.
Last edited by MachineGhost on Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
Oh it was your typical recent Muslim convert who was trying to convert people at work, got fired, and then promptly went in and beheaded a woman who worked there. Just another deranged guy. Nothing to see here so just move on.
