As far as putting naked prisoners in dog collars and walking them around I find that stupid, moronic, immature and possibly perverse.....but seriously....every college in America has a Fraternity who's initiation rituals are more barbaric.
As far as putting naked prisoners in dog collars and walking them around I find that stupid, moronic, immature and possibly perverse.....but seriously....every college in America has a Fraternity who's initiation rituals are more barbaric.
COME ON!
I'll save you and everyone else the trauma of posting photos of REAL barbaric torture.......if this gets you going the real stuff will make your head explode.
As far as putting naked prisoners in dog collars and walking them around I find that stupid, moronic, immature and possibly perverse.....but seriously....every college in America has a Fraternity who's initiation rituals are more barbaric.
COME ON!
I'll save you and everyone else the trauma of posting photos of REAL barbaric torture.......if this gets you going the real stuff will make your head explode.
Simply because something worse exists doesn't legitimize what we do to people.
As far as putting naked prisoners in dog collars and walking them around I find that stupid, moronic, immature and possibly perverse.....but seriously....every college in America has a Fraternity who's initiation rituals are more barbaric.
COME ON!
I'll save you and everyone else the trauma of posting photos of REAL barbaric torture.......if this gets you going the real stuff will make your head explode.
Simply because something worse exists doesn't legitimize what we do to people.
Here is where I have a problem......you take putting a dog collar on a naked guy and slitting a throat ear to ear in the same box and give them the same "Barbaric" title when in reality they are two very different things.
We would not treat these as the same crime in our Justice System and they would not carry near the same punishment.
and many americans realize that we should not have been in this war in the first place.
Well....not the ones who were voted into office to represent us.
And as a country we have to live with that.
but does not mean we have to support their bad decision making skills... ie. torture, ie. secret prisons, ie. falsifying information to go to war.
and having to live with who is in office has nothing to do with making anything barbaric ok, and the argument that they do it, so we should to is just immature. If they jump off a cliff, should we do it? They use suicide bombers, should we start doing that? c'mon.
I hear what you're saying but NOTHING I have read or heard about American torture is what I would call barbaric......I asked earlier for examples but got only
Understand that there are people who think that simply putting someone in a cell is "torture".
You didn't find the abuse at Abu Ghraib barbaric? You didn't find the reports fo Waterboarding barbaric? You don't find the fact that US has secret prisons in countries that are known to allow torture to be barbaric? I don't need to know every instance of torture to be able to infer from the facts that I do know that these types of abuses are disgusting and barbaric to me. And being that the "war" has changed form from WMD's to being a war "fought for civilization" as Mr. Bush noted, then what kind of civilization is OK with any kind of torture?
As far as putting naked prisoners in dog collars and walking them around I find that stupid, moronic, immature and possibly perverse.....but seriously....every college in America has a Fraternity who's initiation rituals are more barbaric.
My opinion is that there is a group of people in the Middle East and around the world who want to end the world as we know it. And I support any and all means to rid the earth of them just as we did to the Nazi's......I only wish we could do it without losing any American(or Allies) lives.
This is my opinion and the opinion of many Americans....you can ridicule it, ignore it or attack it.....but until you can convince me that I'm wrong and that my children and grandchildren will be safe from terror and terrorism, I support fighting those who perpetuate it and I believe are evil.
And I believe in fighting fire with fire.
I can appreciate your point but I think you see the conflict incorrectly. there is a big difference in fighting an insurgency/terrorist conflict and defeating a fascist state. One requires all out war and the other requires counter-insurgency methods like those used in N.Ireland by the Brits.
I think that some folks have learned to "play" the Geneva Convention rules to their advantage. A facist state can support, house and even create terrorism but as long as they don't dress it up in their uniform and play by "the rules" they create the dilemna you describe above. There is no easy answer, but at some point in history "being safe rather than sorry" becomes way too real and definitive to pussyfoot around.
Again, even if it is true that there are not playing by the rules (which they are not), defeating with sheer might will not work. This a public relations and political contest. Only shrewd playing of sides against one another will work in this situation. If we attack Iran we will be up to ears in terrorism for the next 20 years. Are you prepared for that kind of life. I think there is a smarter way to combat these guys. Think of the cold war; We never openly confronted our enemy in the plain of battle because we couldn't get a result we could live with. So we practiced containment.
First lets see what Rock has to say in favor of the US Government carrying out torture.
"I believe that there are Islmofacists, or whatever politically correct name you want to call them, that need to be killed/tortured/eliminated before they follow their dreams to do the same to us."
"I believe in fighting fire with fire"
"at some point in history "being safe rather than sorry" becomes way too real and definitive to pussyfoot around."
The topic is torture. He is arguing in favor of it. When we commit acts of torture that means members of our government must commit those acts. That is not the kind of government I want. It is not the kind of government that the US military wants. Sadly, it would appear that it is the kind of government that Rock wants.
But wait! Now he is denying that the US has ever committed torture:
"Someone please detail the inhumane torture that has been documented....and who specifically is performing it."
"I hear what you're saying but NOTHING I have read or heard about American torture is what I would call barbaric"
"As far as putting naked prisoners in dog collars and walking them around I find that stupid, moronic, immature and possibly perverse.....but seriously....every college in America has a Fraternity who's initiation rituals are more barbaric."
Is he for torture? Is he against it? Does he think that pledging to a fraternity is the same as having the US military kick your door in, lock you up for months on end naked in stress positions while being denied sleep? Lets hope not.
Here is a conundrum:
"Most Americans, including myself don't "like" killing either.......and I believe we could/should have won this war along time ago....it just would have been very ugly and uncomfortable to most Americans.[/b]"
Is he arguing that we are doing the right thing by engaging in a long and drawn out war with no victory in sight so that it is not "ugly and uncomfortable"?
Who knows?
"And many "innocent" people would have lost their lives just like in every other war ever fought."
Why is innocent in quotes? Does he believe there are no innocent people? Does he think the way things are going in Iraq now that innocent people are not losing their lives?
Who knows?
Here is his justification for torture using his lack of historical knowledge:
"My opinion is that there is a group of people in the Middle East and around the world who want to end the world as we know it. And I support any and all means to rid the earth of them just as we did to the Nazi's"
We did not use "any and all means to rid the earth of them". We fought with in the rules of the Geneva Convention. Today the GC is a dirty word to people like Rock, but during WWII it was part of the ideals we were trying to uphold. In 1938 - 1945 Germany and Japan had the most powerful army in the world. The US entered the war with almost no standing military or weapons. The Pacific fleet had been destroyed. Russia's likewise entered with almost no modern weapons. Their entire industrial capabilities were destroyed at the start of their entering WWII. France was fighting with rakes and scythes. In comparison the terrorist have almost no capacity to inflict the kind of harm that would "end the world as we know it". I repeat we did not use torture to win WWII.[/b]
Does Rock support the use of torture? It's hard to say. Sometimes he says he does, sometimes he says he doesn't.
At least with Saba and Yolo you know what they believe and they stand behind it. I have far more respect for them than for some Texas big mouth who has no good information about the struggle we are in and how to win it.
There are 2 things I find inexcusable. The defense of torture and insulting our troops. He has done both.
From the several books I've read on the topic FBI and CIA interrogators did not want to use torture even on captured Al Qaeda operatives. They simply didn't think it was effective. Techniques that they had used before and found most effective were in fact based upon gaining the captured person's trust and then manipulating that to gain information.
The White House was the group that wanted to use torture and pushed it through by writing a couple legal findings about how treaties and such did not apply to the U.S. and that the president as the chief executive during war could do whatever he wanted.
The information that was gained by torture was pretty spotty. In fact in two cases Al Qaeda prisoners gave information that they later recanted and said was false because they were tortured, and that was corroborated by U.S. intelligence.
The White House's rhetoric did trickle down to the troops in Iraq as almost every single unit that has been sent over there has cases of abuse and killing of captured Iraqi prisoners. Foot soldiers hearing the White House talking about how we're fighting terrorists and that the Geneva Conventions didn't apply anymore decided they could do anything they wanted to Iraqis. Most of those Iraqis were simply people rounded up in mass raids where any fighting age male was detained. In the case of Abu Ghraib, 90% of the prisoners there were completely innocent. While Rock has said nothing they did at Abu Ghraib was worse than a fraternity hazing, the abuse there and throughout Iraq increased Sunni resentment against the U.S. and the insurgency. If you read my Iraq report there are two whole sections on abuses of Iraqis and the Abu Ghraib scandal, which I'll add in the next post.
The whole eye for an eye, they don't play fair so we don't is a bunch of macho bullshit to me. If U.S. interrogators don't want to use torture, and when people who have been tortured turn up bad intelligence why use it? Not only that but by the White House's rhetoric and its interpretation early on in Iraq by U.S. soldiers we have increased those who are fighting against us in Iraq. How can anyone say that's an effective tool then?
???Take them [Iraqi prisoners] out back and beat the fuck out of them.??? Commander 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Summer 2003
As a result of Gen. Sanchez???s policy abuse of Iraqis became systematic throughout Iraq. The initial abuse was the result of troops who were not trained well, weren???t prepared to interrogate or detain prisoners, didn???t speak Arabic, and were frustrated by the insurgents??? attacks. Many units weren???t even frontline combat ones, so they were not use to the stress. They too had to conduct operations because of the lack of troops. Almost every unit in Iraq had cases of abuse. In one incident, the commander of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment told his troops to, ???Take them [Iraqi prisoners] out back and beat the fuck out of them.??? A sergeant refused to carry out the order because he thought the troops were better than that. Instead he had the prisoners stripped naked and let loose. The 1st Armored Div. decided that captives that cried would not commit crimes or attacks, while those that didn???t would. Each time they detained Iraqis they tried to make them cry to teach them a lesson. There were two incidents where they took Iraqi prisoners and carried out fake executions to make them cry. In one, they told a father they were going to shoot one of his two sons and he had to pick which one. They arbitrarily took one behind a truck and fired a shot by his head to fake an execution. When the father and other son started crying, all three were released. A colonel in the 101st Airborne Div. became suspicious of abuse after a detainee was reported to have a broken jaw after his arrest. An investigation was launched finding that, ???Detainees were being systematically and intentionally mistreated.??? The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment had a company that was known for beating and abusing detainees. One prisoner was tortured, beaten and killed in custody leading to three soldiers being charged with murder. The 82nd Airborne Div. allowed its soldiers to get out their frustrations by beating Iraqi detainees. ???Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration you show up at the [detention facility]. In a way it was a sport,??? a sergeant in the unit said. The 4th Infantry Div. was again the worst offender. The commanding general sanctioned the abuse. He said that the U.S. was fighting terrorists and that they should be treated as such. This was when Washington was saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to captured terrorists. Their treatment of Iraqis was so bad that other units filed formal complaints about the 4th. There were several charges of murder of Iraqis within the division.
Gen. Sanchez directly contributed to the abuse when he issued an order in August 2003 saying, ???The gloves are coming off regarding these detainees.??? Gen. Sanchez said the military needed to protect its soldiers and asked for suggestions on interrogation techniques. The vast majority suggested beatings and abuse. That same month, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the Guantanomo prison came to give his advice to Iraq. He suggested that Iraqi prisons needed to be like Guantanomo where the conditions helped break detainees even before they were interrogated. By September, Sanchez issued a list of 29 approved techniques. The memo even said that some were violations of the Geneva Conventions. The next month 10 techniques were taken off the list because CENTCOM thought they were too extreme.
Because there weren???t enough troops many of the detainees swept up in Sanchez???s sweeps were sent to Abu Ghraib prison where they disappeared into the system for months because there were not enough guards, interpreters, interrogators, or intelligence officers. All of these would lead to the prison scandal. Like many things, U.S. war planners did not think about prisons because they thought that an Iraqi government would be able to handle the problem. Prisoners were suppose to be turned over to the Iraqis, but there were no Iraqis to do the job. The CPA took over the job, but didn???t want it so it was given to the military that didn???t have the personnel to effectively carry it out. Sanchez???s policy led to a swelling of the Iraqi prisoner population. From the end of the summer to the fall of 2003 10,000 Iraqis were detained. That led to 7,000 prisoners in Abu Ghraib with only 360 military police. By Autumn there were 10,000 detainees there and growing. Military intelligence would later say that 90% of them were innocent who were just caught up in indiscriminate American sweeps.
The overcrowding and lack of staff led to reports of abuse for months. In October 2003 the 372nd Military Police Company took over and the abuse went to a new level. The unit was made up of Army Reserve units with low morale. Two of the unit???s soldiers led the abuse that would later become public such as stripping prisoners, putting them in homoerotic poses, using dogs to intimidate them, forcing them to masturbate in front of female guards, sodomizing one with a stick, and killing another before interrogation and hiding the death. The prison was also subsumed in violence. There were constant mortar attacks by insurgents, prisoner escapes, no leadership or supervision, and a riot in November 2003. It was these conditions and practices that would be exposed in the prison scandal in 2004.
XL. Can Things Get Worse? The Abu Ghraib Scandal Breaks
???Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib confinement facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.??? Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba???s report on Iraqi prisoner abuse, 2004
Just as Fallujah and the Shiite rebellions were taking off the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib broke, destroying much of America???s already tarnished image in Iraq. Bremer had known about abuses in the prison system, but Gen. Sanchez had stopped the CPA from trying to change things as it was seen as interference in military affairs. An investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba into the scandal found, ???Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib confinement facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.??? The negative image of America both internationally and domestically caused by the scandal even made Rumsfeld offer his resignation to Bush twice, but he was turned down. Never ones to admit their mistakes, Gen. Myers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Rumsfeld told the media that the U.S. had not committed any major mistakes in policy that could have led to the prison abuse. In fact, after 9/11 White House lawyers led by Cheney???s office had drafted a series of memos saying that the Geneva Conventions and other restrictions on torture did not apply anymore in the war on terror. U.S. soldiers, already stretched out by troop deployments, stressed out by insurgent attacks, and lacking proper training, saw the White House???s moves as okaying the abuse of Iraqis. After all, didn???t Bush continually say that Iraq was part of the war on terror? The government blamed low ranking soldiers, and let them take the fall with prison sentences, but the abuse was widespread and systematic throughout Iraq, with inspiration coming from the White House. An administration official and Vietnam veteran admitted, ???There???s no doubt in my mind as a soldier that part of the responsibility for Abu Ghraid and for Afghanistan belongs with the secretary of defense and the president of the United States. There???s an old aphorism: Keep it simple, stupid. ??? You always have personalities in uniform ??? who will take advantage of any ambiguity, any lack of clarification in the rules of engagement, and kill people. ??? You don???t have rules for your good people. You have rules for that five or six percent of your combat unit that are going to be weird. ??? And when you make any kind of changes in them, any relaxation of even hint o
f it, you???re opening Pandora???s box. And I fault Gonzalez [the president???s lawyer at the time and later Attorney General], the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chain of command, Myers, Abizaid, Sanchez, the whole bunch of them.??? Later investigations would come to the same conclusions. The August 2004 Schlesinger report blamed Rumsfeld for not providing clear leadership on interrogation techniques. An internal Army report found Gen. Sanchez also culpable.
Even after Abu Ghraib problems would continue with Iraqi prisoners. During the scandal it was discovered that the Justice Department allowed the CIA to transfer Iraqi and other prisoners to third countries to be tortured. After the scandal this practice continued. The U.S. also continued to hold mass detainees. By December 2005 there were 14,000 Iraqis held by underfunded and understaffed army personnel in overcrowded prisons.
^^^^^^ I can appreciate your opinion on the torture (and it's completely wrong in my opinion) but isn't the real issue the war itself? The off shoot and splinters and semantics is what's kept Bush in for so long. He has lied again and again, and I feel sorry for people who believe ANYTHING that comes out of his mouth.
Face it, Bush and his buddies don't care about you, your family, your "freedom" or your way of life. If he did, Katrina wouldn't have been the bloodbath it was. How can anyone support a President that let its own people suffer, while it speaks of equality and civilisation?
He has changed the world more than any terrorist could ever hope to, and no one can deny that. I'm ashamed to say that my country has been taken along for the ride too.
Here is where I have a problem......you take putting a dog collar on a naked guy and slitting a throat ear to ear in the same box and give them the same "Barbaric" title when in reality they are two very different things.
We would not treat these as the same crime in our Justice System and they would not carry near the same punishment.
Not "two different things" but varying degrees of the exact same thing.[/b]
Whether or not you give fuck that torture "is not a good look", evidence from research and applied settings overwhelmingly shows that torture is ineffective[/b].
1) the information is not reliable and often false
2) alleged "islamo-fascist terrorists" that may have been no more than outspoken in their political views are radicalized b/w they head straight to al qaeda-type training camps the day they are released.
The logic is tantamount to prescribing cigarettes for the treatment of emphysema.
what is important is that competent people hold elected office no matter what party affiliation. you fuckers really need to stop with this sports team rivalries flavor. this is about significant public policy. you know, life and death, lots of money...stuff like that. not whose team wins "the game."
Asked if he dreads the prospect of being ???Swift-Boated??? all over again, Kerry counters that he would relish such a fight.
???I???m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other,??? he declares. ???I am so confident of my abilities to address that and to demolish it and to even turn it into a positive.???
Way to go John, three years too late. He could start by releasing all of his military records, not bloody likely.[/b]
and then of course there is this.[/b]
Air America Files For Chapter 19, Combined Financial & Intellectual Bankruptcy Women, Minorities, Al Franken Hardest Hit
The real reason Air America failed is that there was already an Air America on the dial, NPR.
Yup. Its a beautiful morning. Oh and Bush's poll numbers are at 42, up 10 points in the last four months.
what is important is that competent people hold elected office no matter what party affiliation. you fuckers really need to stop with this sports team rivalries flavor. this is about significant public policy. you know, life and death, lots of money...stuff like that. not whose team wins "the game."
Im glad you feel that way .... now.
Lamont defeats Lieberman!!! #703258 - 08/09/06 08:22 AM (70.105.13.31)
Way to go John, three years too late. He could start by releasing all of his military records, not bloody likely.[/b]
at least he has military records, unlike our commander in chief.
Bush actually has two sets of military records. His national guard records and the fake set of national guard records dummied up by Mary Mapes and Dan Rather.
what is important is that competent people hold elected office no matter what party affiliation. you fuckers really need to stop with this sports team rivalries flavor. this is about significant public policy. you know, life and death, lots of money...stuff like that. not whose team wins "the game."
Im glad you feel that way .... now.
Lamont defeats Lieberman!!! #703258 - 08/09/06 08:22 AM (70.105.13.31)
Remember posting that?
Always felt that way. I have made that clear on here many times. But it's probably too much to expect you to actually read what I'm saying.
But let's assume I'm from the radical left that seeks to throw out the "best" Democrat in the Senate if that makes you feel safe.
How is this relevant to competence? Ned Lamont is an extremely successful businessman. While Liebermann spent his entire life as professional politician. To me the former is a better indicator of abilities in this real world.
what is important is that competent people hold elected office no matter what party affiliation. you fuckers really need to stop with this sports team rivalries flavor. this is about significant public policy. you know, life and death, lots of money...stuff like that. not whose team wins "the game."
Im glad you feel that way .... now.
Lamont defeats Lieberman!!! #703258 - 08/09/06 08:22 AM (70.105.13.31)
Remember posting that?
Always felt that way. I have made that clear on here many times. But it's probably too much to expect you to actually read what I'm saying.
But let's assuming I'm from the radical left that seeks to throw out the "best" Democrat in the Senate. How is that relevant to competence? Ned Lamont is an extremely successful businessman. While Liebermann spent his entire life as professional politician. To me the former is a better indicator of abilities in this real world.
Yes, Ned certainly showed a lot of intelligence and foresight in picking the right last name to have. Thats like saying Bush was a successful businessman and Clinton was a career politician.
Yes, Ned certainly showed a lot of intelligence and foresight in picking the right last name to have. Thats like saying Bush was a successful businessman and Clinton was a career politician.
No it's not. They were both born with a silver spoon, but Bush was unable to achieve any real business success other than the Rangers. And that's being very generous.
Way to go John, three years too late. He could start by releasing all of his military records, not bloody likely.[/b]
at least he has military records, unlike our commander in chief.
Bush actually has two sets of military records. His national guard records and the fake set of national guard records dummied up by Mary Mapes and Dan Rather.
oh yeah, he had to protect Alabama from the Viet Cong, I forogt about his glorious military past.
Comments
COME ON!
I'll save you and everyone else the trauma of posting photos of REAL barbaric torture.......if this gets you going the real stuff will make your head explode.
Simply because something worse exists doesn't legitimize what we do to people.
El correcto!
Here is where I have a problem......you take putting a dog collar on a naked guy and slitting a throat ear to ear in the same box and give them the same "Barbaric" title when in reality they are two very different things.
We would not treat these as the same crime in our Justice System and they would not carry near the same punishment.
Again, even if it is true that there are not playing by the rules (which they are not), defeating with sheer might will not work. This a public relations and political contest. Only shrewd playing of sides against one another will work in this situation. If we attack Iran we will be up to ears in terrorism for the next 20 years. Are you prepared for that kind of life. I think there is a smarter way to combat these guys. Think of the cold war; We never openly confronted our enemy in the plain of battle because we couldn't get a result we could live with. So we practiced containment.
The topic is torture. He is arguing in favor of it. When we commit acts of torture that means members of our government must commit those acts. That is not the kind of government I want. It is not the kind of government that the US military wants. Sadly, it would appear that it is the kind of government that Rock wants.
But wait! Now he is denying that the US has ever committed torture:
Is he for torture? Is he against it? Does he think that pledging to a fraternity is the same as having the US military kick your door in, lock you up for months on end naked in stress positions while being denied sleep? Lets hope not.
Here is a conundrum:
Is he arguing that we are doing the right thing by engaging in a long and drawn out war with no victory in sight so that it is not "ugly and uncomfortable"?
Who knows?
"And many "innocent" people would have lost their lives just like in every other war ever fought."
Why is innocent in quotes? Does he believe there are no innocent people? Does he think the way things are going in Iraq now that innocent people are not losing their lives?
Who knows?
Here is his justification for torture using his lack of historical knowledge:
We did not use "any and all means to rid the earth of them". We fought with in the rules of the Geneva Convention. Today the GC is a dirty word to people like Rock, but during WWII it was part of the ideals we were trying to uphold. In 1938 - 1945 Germany and Japan had the most powerful army in the world. The US entered the war with almost no standing military or weapons. The Pacific fleet had been destroyed. Russia's likewise entered with almost no modern weapons. Their entire industrial capabilities were destroyed at the start of their entering WWII. France was fighting with rakes and scythes. In comparison the terrorist have almost no capacity to inflict the kind of harm that would "end the world as we know it". I repeat we did not use torture to win WWII.[/b]
Does Rock support the use of torture? It's hard to say. Sometimes he says he does, sometimes he says he doesn't.
At least with Saba and Yolo you know what they believe and they stand behind it. I have far more respect for them than for some Texas big mouth who has no good information about the struggle we are in and how to win it.
There are 2 things I find inexcusable. The defense of torture and insulting our troops. He has done both.
The White House was the group that wanted to use torture and pushed it through by writing a couple legal findings about how treaties and such did not apply to the U.S. and that the president as the chief executive during war could do whatever he wanted.
The information that was gained by torture was pretty spotty. In fact in two cases Al Qaeda prisoners gave information that they later recanted and said was false because they were tortured, and that was corroborated by U.S. intelligence.
The White House's rhetoric did trickle down to the troops in Iraq as almost every single unit that has been sent over there has cases of abuse and killing of captured Iraqi prisoners. Foot soldiers hearing the White House talking about how we're fighting terrorists and that the Geneva Conventions didn't apply anymore decided they could do anything they wanted to Iraqis. Most of those Iraqis were simply people rounded up in mass raids where any fighting age male was detained. In the case of Abu Ghraib, 90% of the prisoners there were completely innocent. While Rock has said nothing they did at Abu Ghraib was worse than a fraternity hazing, the abuse there and throughout Iraq increased Sunni resentment against the U.S. and the insurgency. If you read my Iraq report there are two whole sections on abuses of Iraqis and the Abu Ghraib scandal, which I'll add in the next post.
The whole eye for an eye, they don't play fair so we don't is a bunch of macho bullshit to me. If U.S. interrogators don't want to use torture, and when people who have been tortured turn up bad intelligence why use it? Not only that but by the White House's rhetoric and its interpretation early on in Iraq by U.S. soldiers we have increased those who are fighting against us in Iraq. How can anyone say that's an effective tool then?
I'm flattered that I was worth the work.
???Take them [Iraqi prisoners] out back and beat the fuck out of them.??? Commander 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Summer 2003
As a result of Gen. Sanchez???s policy abuse of Iraqis became systematic throughout Iraq. The initial abuse was the result of troops who were not trained well, weren???t prepared to interrogate or detain prisoners, didn???t speak Arabic, and were frustrated by the insurgents??? attacks. Many units weren???t even frontline combat ones, so they were not use to the stress. They too had to conduct operations because of the lack of troops. Almost every unit in Iraq had cases of abuse. In one incident, the commander of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment told his troops to, ???Take them [Iraqi prisoners] out back and beat the fuck out of them.??? A sergeant refused to carry out the order because he thought the troops were better than that. Instead he had the prisoners stripped naked and let loose. The 1st Armored Div. decided that captives that cried would not commit crimes or attacks, while those that didn???t would. Each time they detained Iraqis they tried to make them cry to teach them a lesson. There were two incidents where they took Iraqi prisoners and carried out fake executions to make them cry. In one, they told a father they were going to shoot one of his two sons and he had to pick which one. They arbitrarily took one behind a truck and fired a shot by his head to fake an execution. When the father and other son started crying, all three were released. A colonel in the 101st Airborne Div. became suspicious of abuse after a detainee was reported to have a broken jaw after his arrest. An investigation was launched finding that, ???Detainees were being systematically and intentionally mistreated.??? The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment had a company that was known for beating and abusing detainees. One prisoner was tortured, beaten and killed in custody leading to three soldiers being charged with murder. The 82nd Airborne Div. allowed its soldiers to get out their frustrations by beating Iraqi detainees. ???Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration you show up at the [detention facility]. In a way it was a sport,??? a sergeant in the unit said. The 4th Infantry Div. was again the worst offender. The commanding general sanctioned the abuse. He said that the U.S. was fighting terrorists and that they should be treated as such. This was when Washington was saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to captured terrorists. Their treatment of Iraqis was so bad that other units filed formal complaints about the 4th. There were several charges of murder of Iraqis within the division.
Gen. Sanchez directly contributed to the abuse when he issued an order in August 2003 saying, ???The gloves are coming off regarding these detainees.??? Gen. Sanchez said the military needed to protect its soldiers and asked for suggestions on interrogation techniques. The vast majority suggested beatings and abuse. That same month, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the Guantanomo prison came to give his advice to Iraq. He suggested that Iraqi prisons needed to be like Guantanomo where the conditions helped break detainees even before they were interrogated. By September, Sanchez issued a list of 29 approved techniques. The memo even said that some were violations of the Geneva Conventions. The next month 10 techniques were taken off the list because CENTCOM thought they were too extreme.
Because there weren???t enough troops many of the detainees swept up in Sanchez???s sweeps were sent to Abu Ghraib prison where they disappeared into the system for months because there were not enough guards, interpreters, interrogators, or intelligence officers. All of these would lead to the prison scandal. Like many things, U.S. war planners did not think about prisons because they thought that an Iraqi government would be able to handle the problem. Prisoners were suppose to be turned over to the Iraqis, but there were no Iraqis to do the job. The CPA took over the job, but didn???t want it so it was given to the military that didn???t have the personnel to effectively carry it out. Sanchez???s policy led to a swelling of the Iraqi prisoner population. From the end of the summer to the fall of 2003 10,000 Iraqis were detained. That led to 7,000 prisoners in Abu Ghraib with only 360 military police. By Autumn there were 10,000 detainees there and growing. Military intelligence would later say that 90% of them were innocent who were just caught up in indiscriminate American sweeps.
The overcrowding and lack of staff led to reports of abuse for months. In October 2003 the 372nd Military Police Company took over and the abuse went to a new level. The unit was made up of Army Reserve units with low morale. Two of the unit???s soldiers led the abuse that would later become public such as stripping prisoners, putting them in homoerotic poses, using dogs to intimidate them, forcing them to masturbate in front of female guards, sodomizing one with a stick, and killing another before interrogation and hiding the death. The prison was also subsumed in violence. There were constant mortar attacks by insurgents, prisoner escapes, no leadership or supervision, and a riot in November 2003. It was these conditions and practices that would be exposed in the prison scandal in 2004.
XL. Can Things Get Worse? The Abu Ghraib Scandal Breaks
???Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib confinement facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.??? Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba???s report on Iraqi prisoner abuse, 2004
Just as Fallujah and the Shiite rebellions were taking off the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib broke, destroying much of America???s already tarnished image in Iraq. Bremer had known about abuses in the prison system, but Gen. Sanchez had stopped the CPA from trying to change things as it was seen as interference in military affairs. An investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba into the scandal found, ???Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib confinement facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.??? The negative image of America both internationally and domestically caused by the scandal even made Rumsfeld offer his resignation to Bush twice, but he was turned down. Never ones to admit their mistakes, Gen. Myers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Rumsfeld told the media that the U.S. had not committed any major mistakes in policy that could have led to the prison abuse. In fact, after 9/11 White House lawyers led by Cheney???s office had drafted a series of memos saying that the Geneva Conventions and other restrictions on torture did not apply anymore in the war on terror. U.S. soldiers, already stretched out by troop deployments, stressed out by insurgent attacks, and lacking proper training, saw the White House???s moves as okaying the abuse of Iraqis. After all, didn???t Bush continually say that Iraq was part of the war on terror? The government blamed low ranking soldiers, and let them take the fall with prison sentences, but the abuse was widespread and systematic throughout Iraq, with inspiration coming from the White House. An administration official and Vietnam veteran admitted, ???There???s no doubt in my mind as a soldier that part of the responsibility for Abu Ghraid and for Afghanistan belongs with the secretary of defense and the president of the United States. There???s an old aphorism: Keep it simple, stupid. ??? You always have personalities in uniform ??? who will take advantage of any ambiguity, any lack of clarification in the rules of engagement, and kill people. ??? You don???t have rules for your good people. You have rules for that five or six percent of your combat unit that are going to be weird. ??? And when you make any kind of changes in them, any relaxation of even hint o f it, you???re opening Pandora???s box. And I fault Gonzalez [the president???s lawyer at the time and later Attorney General], the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chain of command, Myers, Abizaid, Sanchez, the whole bunch of them.??? Later investigations would come to the same conclusions. The August 2004 Schlesinger report blamed Rumsfeld for not providing clear leadership on interrogation techniques. An internal Army report found Gen. Sanchez also culpable.
Even after Abu Ghraib problems would continue with Iraqi prisoners. During the scandal it was discovered that the Justice Department allowed the CIA to transfer Iraqi and other prisoners to third countries to be tortured. After the scandal this practice continued. The U.S. also continued to hold mass detainees. By December 2005 there were 14,000 Iraqis held by underfunded and understaffed army personnel in overcrowded prisons.
Out of context? What? Are you now saying you were not talking about torture?
If you can't defend yourself just say it.
I can appreciate your opinion on the torture (and it's completely wrong in my opinion) but isn't the real issue the war itself? The off shoot and splinters and semantics is what's kept Bush in for so long. He has lied again and again, and I feel sorry for people who believe ANYTHING that comes out of his mouth.
Face it, Bush and his buddies don't care about you, your family, your "freedom" or your way of life. If he did, Katrina wouldn't have been the bloodbath it was. How can anyone support a President that let its own people suffer, while it speaks of equality and civilisation?
He has changed the world more than any terrorist could ever hope to, and no one can deny that. I'm ashamed to say that my country has been taken along for the ride too.
Far more effective. Yes.
It blows my mind that there are so many people who do not see the problem with torture.
Social security
income tax
minimum wage
foreign aid(federal funded)
Please to explain more about unconstitutional nature of the abovementioned programs.
Not "two different things" but varying degrees of the exact same thing.[/b]
Poll Date Sample Kean (R) Menendez (D)
RCP Average 08/21 - 09/10 - Kean +4.4
Strategic Vision (R) 09/08 - Kean +4.0
Rasmussen 08/28 - 08/28 +5.0
Fairleigh Dickinson 08/21 - 08/27 Kean +4.0
Slip slidin' away .... slip slidin' awaaaayyyyaaayya.
Let me emphasize the most important point:
Whether or not you give fuck that torture "is not a good look", evidence from research and applied settings overwhelmingly shows that torture is ineffective[/b].
1) the information is not reliable and often false
2) alleged "islamo-fascist terrorists" that may have been no more than outspoken in their political views are radicalized b/w they head straight to al qaeda-type training camps the day they are released.
The logic is tantamount to prescribing cigarettes for the treatment of emphysema.
slobberdobber,
what is important is that competent people hold elected office no matter what party affiliation. you fuckers really need to stop with this sports team rivalries flavor. this is about significant public policy. you know, life and death, lots of money...stuff like that. not whose team wins "the game."
My top favorite is this story on John Kerry.[/b]
Asked if he dreads the prospect of being ???Swift-Boated??? all over again, Kerry counters that he would relish such a fight.
???I???m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other,??? he declares. ???I am so confident of my abilities to address that and to demolish it and to even turn it into a positive.???
Way to go John, three years too late. He could start by releasing all of his military records, not bloody likely.[/b]
and then of course there is this.[/b]
Air America Files For Chapter 19,
Combined Financial & Intellectual Bankruptcy
Women, Minorities, Al Franken Hardest Hit
The real reason Air America failed is that there was already an Air America on the dial, NPR.
Yup. Its a beautiful morning. Oh and Bush's poll numbers are at 42, up 10 points in the last four months.
at least he has military records, unlike our commander in chief.
I like how you insisted that Joel cite his sources on his Iraq Report. That was a good call and I agreed with you.
Then, here you are, trying to slip in this propaganda as news. Your panties are showing.
Really, how fucking stupid do you think we are?
And I hope Bush's poll numbers continue to go up, but because he is doing good things for this country, not because of empty PR campaigns.
Im glad you feel that way .... now.
Remember posting that?
Bush actually has two sets of military records. His national guard records and the fake set of national guard records dummied up by Mary Mapes and Dan Rather.
Always felt that way. I have made that clear on here many times. But it's probably too much to expect you to actually read what I'm saying.
But let's assume I'm from the radical left that seeks to throw out the "best" Democrat in the Senate if that makes you feel safe.
How is this relevant to competence? Ned Lamont is an extremely successful businessman. While Liebermann spent his entire life as professional politician. To me the former is a better indicator of abilities in this real world.
Yes, Ned certainly showed a lot of intelligence and foresight in picking the right last name to have. Thats like saying Bush was a successful businessman and Clinton was a career politician.
No it's not. They were both born with a silver spoon, but Bush was unable to achieve any real business success other than the Rangers. And that's being very generous.
oh yeah, he had to protect Alabama from the Viet Cong, I forogt about his glorious military past.
That is definitely being very generous.