And for those of you that think I’m talking about being forced to stand or to stay awake, again, that’s not what I have a problem with. I have a problem with Material Witness warrants, which allow any citizen of the US to be indefinitely imprisoned ,incommunicado. I have a problem with “secret” prisons INSIDE of the US and secret prisoners. And secret trials of US citizens. Or the right of any US official to arbitrarily “revoke” citizenship from anyone deemed a terrorist. I’m no left-wing nut. I just have a healthy respect for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And arbitrary government is anathema to those goals; hence the Constitution.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Moriarty wrote:
Giving a prisoner a lap dance or forcing them to listen to rap music (or even forcing them to stay awake, up to a point) are not “torture”, in the context of my post.
I agree with that. Although, it would seem like lap-dancing-as-interrogation would entice people to be arrested…[/quote]
Depends on who’s doing the lap dance, huh?
I mean, what if it’s ProteinPowda in a wig and nylons?
[quote]vroom wrote:
Rainjack, unfortunately all you see when you read my writing is what you think I would say or represent.[/quote]
We’ve been through this about a million times before, so instead of just getting into a pissing contest with you, I’ll just show you why I have a problem with and your little ‘cone of objectivity’.
[quote][i][b] …the article claims that these supposed terrorists were simply released after being held a while.
If they were dangerous terrorists, or guilty of something, would they not have been likely to hold onto them?
What if, and I don’t claim to have the full facts, but what if these are just people pulled in and tortured – without being guilty of anything? Would you really consider that justified?
If so, we might as well torture everyone… there are some terrorists out there somewhere… I’m sure. This is why I keep asking about ideals and whether or not the ends justify the means with respect to this issue.
What does it mean if we resort to such tactics? [/b][/i] [/quote]
You don’t sound very impartial, or objective. You seem to be taking the side of the ACLU right off the bat. No comment on if these accusations are trumped up. No benefit of the doubt. You admit to not having the full facts, yet you are all too ready to question the U.S. This isn’t the first thread you’ve blamed the U.S. first. This is the problem I have with your self-declared open mindedness.
And I’m wrong for thinking you are a blame-the-U.S. first guy? You said it with your own words, vroom. You are as biased as you accuse me of being. The questions you raise are those that you feel impune the reputation of the U.S. I’m not picking on you. I disagree with you.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Moriarty wrote:
Giving a prisoner a lap dance or forcing them to listen to rap music (or even forcing them to stay awake, up to a point) are not “torture”, in the context of my post.
I agree with that. Although, it would seem like lap-dancing-as-interrogation would entice people to be arrested…[/quote]
While, some of the things that the ACLU and others mention as torture are things that hardly deserve to be defined as such, there are others, when taken in context that can be harmful to some people.
Imagine being an innocent Iraqi citizen. You are very devout religiously so far as your brand of Islam goes, and are used to living in a small town atmosphere. You are not desensitized to the graphic nature(especially so far as sexual things go) of things that is standard in the West. Since you take your religion very seriously, and have little exposure to such things, being teased or mocked sexually, or being forced to listen to rap(assuming here its “gangsta” rap with lots of violence and bitch slapping) is like a form of psycological torture. To you its like being made unclean and/or having been forced to sin and/or having been extremely shamed.
This sort of treatment is not appropriate for those that are innocent.
If we really want to make sure noone “out there” is out to get us, why not go ahead and nuke the rest of the world? Take care of Canada first, its just a redundant country anyway, USA2: Lite…
Maybe you should learn to read Rainjack… I’ve taken just about every precaution to ensure that the reader can tell I’m engaging in speculation for the point of conversation.
If you can’t fathom that, it’s not my problem.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Maybe you should learn to read Rainjack… I’ve taken just about every precaution to ensure that the reader can tell I’m engaging in speculation for the point of conversation.
If you can’t fathom that, it’s not my problem.[/quote]
My reading skills aren’t the problem. There’s been plenty of discussion on here, if you haven’t noticed.
You say you take ‘every precaution to engage in speculation’ - what the hell does that mean? If I’m reading it right, you are saying that you are purposely crying fire in the theater in order to spark debate.
That’s fine by me - but I have the right to call bullshit on your calls for debate when, at the same time, you are leveling backhanded insults at the United States and those who want the facts to come out before grabbing a rope.
You’ve done it too many times in too many threads for this to be a coinky-dinky.
[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
While, some of the things that the ACLU and others mention as torture are things that hardly deserve to be defined as such, there are others, when taken in context that can be harmful to some people.[/quote]
Oh man… with a caveat/segue like this, I better strap myself in pretty tight.
Didn’t you start off this thread by saying something to the effect of you “didn’t want to sound too liberal, but…” Please re-read what I quoted above, and tell me with a straight face that this is not the most ultra-hyper-affinity times-liberal, flippin’ bleeding-heart crap you’ve ever posted. Please.
[quote]This sort of treatment is not appropriate for those that are innocent.[/quote] Oww… trying not to heckle you without remorse or mercy is making my brain hurt.
Seriously now, I’m asking you:
Do you honestly think our military/police aren’t doing their best to avoid imprisoning/interrogating innocents?
Or is the problem here that you feel we shouldn’t even have been over in Iraq in the first place, and no matter what we do it’s not going to be good enough?
P.S. If we nuke the rest of the world, how are we going to steal their oil? That’s why we’re in Iraq, remember?
Do you honestly think our military/police aren’t doing their best to avoid imprisoning/interrogating innocents?
The military is, we know that Powell was outraged at the torture policy set forth by the whitehouse, and most of those in uniform at the pentagon
were against it. Look if your in the military you’d be against torture. That’s why we have those darned genava conventions and shit, to protect our guys.
Its the white house and rummy that aren’t doing their best, in fact they are doing the opposite.
Look, a big part of the war on terror in addition to removing terrorist, is preventing new terrorists, right now even the cia says we are creating more terrorists than we are eliminating. Since we know that U.S. policy is a prime motivator for Osama, you’d think the pres. would care about giving them more recruiting material. When we are now saying that we went to Iraq to “shut down Saddam’s torture chambers” and then they see us torturing innocent muslims, well thats bad.
now we are exporting torture and that gets air in the mid-east
And worse the vast majority of these people are totally innocent.
Not to mention torture is a horrible way of gathering accurate information, and that none of it is admissible.Look at the conviction rate! We even have to let some actual bad terrorists off because of witnesses that have been tortured! And in other cases we can’t bring forth witnesses, because we can’t reveal that they may be in Syria or something being tortured! How freaking stupid!
So you have our president saying our troops are committing war crimes, but promoting Gonzales. Great PR!
(What’s really gross is Mcain confirming gonzales)
I don’t see how this is a liberal/conservative thing. It really is just commonsense.
Saying things like “crusade”, “Bring it on”
or “God is on our side”, and torturing innocent muslims(The perception of…),
and the whitehouse not firing or even promoting people involved with the torture policy is just stupid.
It is about as dumb as saying the war on terrorism should be handled as a law enforcement matter.
Or better yet we should be more subtle about fighting terrorism. Now that was dumb!!!
lothario, I have to admit, you’re right, thats probably the most liberal thing I’ve ever posted, I felt awefully creepy writing it.
That said, I’ll make my personal opinion a bit more lucid. No, my problem is not with us being in Iraq. No I am not of the mind we went over there for oil or some other silly leftwing conspiracy theory.
I, in all honesty, feel that most of our personel ARE trying their best to only round up innocent people.
However, I think that certain interrogation tactics are a step too far, especially when there has yet to be proof of the guilt of the person being questioned. I think some people see the tactics in the light of our culture, not theirs.
[quote]100meters wrote:
now we are exporting torture and that gets air in the mid-east
And worse the vast majority of these people are totally innocent.[/quote]
Prove that the vast majority of 'these people are innocent. Just because your poly-sci prof says it doesn’t make it so, Lumpy.
We’re not trying to win a freakin trial, shithead. This is WAR!!! Like it or not - we are winning. We are killing way more of them than they are of us.
Please, please please don’t delude yourself into thinking that you are in a postion to make any judgemnts on common sense.
[quote]Saying things like “crusade”, “Bring it on”
or “God is on our side”, and torturing innocent muslims(The perception of…),
and the whitehouse not firing or even promoting people involved with the torture policy is just stupid. [/quote]
Except for the Abu Grahib situation - which at best was a witch hunt, and had little to do with torture - prove that innocents were tortured. Just because the ACLU says it, and you close your eyes and click your heels together three times does not make your idiotic allegations true. You have to prove it - something that liberals have trouble doing in many many areas besides this whole torture myth.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
100meters wrote:
now we are exporting torture and that gets air in the mid-east
And worse the vast majority of these people are totally innocent.
Prove that the vast majority of 'these people are innocent. Just because your poly-sci prof says it doesn’t make it so, Lumpy.
Not to mention torture is a horrible way of gathering accurate information, and that none of it is admissible.
We’re not trying to win a freakin trial, shithead. This is WAR!!! Like it or not - we are winning. We are killing way more of them than they are of us.
I don’t see how this is a liberal/conservative thing. It really is just commonsense.
Please, please please don’t delude yourself into thinking that you are in a postion to make any judgemnts on common sense.
Saying things like “crusade”, “Bring it on”
or “God is on our side”, and torturing innocent muslims(The perception of…),
and the whitehouse not firing or even promoting people involved with the torture policy is just stupid.
Except for the Abu Grahib situation - which at best was a witch hunt, and had little to do with torture - prove that innocents were tortured. Just because the ACLU says it, and you close your eyes and click your heels together three times does not make your idiotic allegations true. You have to prove it - something that liberals have trouble doing in many many areas besides this whole torture myth.
[/quote]
If the U.S. army says at least 60 percent at a.g. are innocent or not a risk to society, thats a majority. If the Red Cross says 70-90 percent are innocent thats still a majority. Who does it take to make it so for you?
“We are killing way more of them then they are of us?” I’m not sure our definition of victory is bodycount. And as I assume you actually know that even the cia doesn’t agree with you(Report:Iraq breeding ground for terrorism)and its impossible to calculate how many muslims in the middle-east will be inspired to take action against us.
Iraq has nothing to do with our previous war on terror (ala afganistan), If there were no terrorist in Iraq before we got there (or in the best case scenario for conservatives, one or two al-queda guys) and there is now 10s of thousands terrorists, and a now real connection with Osama and Al zaquari, and Iraq has replaced afganistan as a terrorist haven (according to cia) then its really hard to say we are winning the war on terror…(in iraq)
It is commonsense, I mean c’mon its not that hard.
pre-invasion: no terrorists, no attacks on americans
post-invasion: thousands of terrorists, over a thousand americans killed by terrorists,thousands horribly injured. Iraq breeding ground for terrorism.
On the plus side Democracy for iraqis.
Your totally clueless, but I’m clicking my heels? And your the guy that believes the SVT(but maybe you believe them when they were formerly singing Kerry’s praises which would be o.k.)? It’s pretty obvious that you’ll beleive anything
What lie could the president tell to make you stop supporting him?
social security(lies every damn day to good american voters) doesn’t bother you?
war in iraq reasons don’t bother you?
lockbox doesn’t bother you?
taxcut lies?
campaign lies?
speech at the convention?
Dick Cheney’s lies?
no? you’d think some of it would bother you.
I think liberals are kicking ass in the proof dept. Conservatives can’t ever seem to prove shit, you sure haven’t.
[quote]100meters wrote:
If the U.S. army says at least 60 percent at a.g. are innocent or not a risk to society, thats a majority. If the Red Cross says 70-90 percent are innocent thats still a majority. Who does it take to make it so for you? [/quote]
When the U.S. says that detainees are not a threat to society - they are not saying that they are not a prisoner of war, or an enemy combatant, or a person of interest. You are confused. Again - we are at war. We are not so much interested in rounding up bank robbers and rpaists as we are finding folks who know folks that are conspiring to commit acts of terror on the U.S. There is a huge difference, Dorothy.
The Red Cross says so? When did they become a judge and jury?
Killing more of them than they do of you is the traditional scorecard of war. Not how many folks like us. Not what the latest report from an agency that is rife with disgruntled employees has to say. I don’t know how many muslims will be ‘inspired’ to take action against us - but I know how many we plan on killing.
These are tired old arguments that have been rebutted ad nauseum elsewhere. I think the fact that we had a resounding victory Afghanistan, and now Iraq, has caused the terrorists to consolidate. This is a very good thing. Let them come to Iraq. They’ll have lot harder time getting to the U.S. if they are being mowed down in Iraq.
[quote]It is commonsense, I mean c’mon its not that hard.
pre-invasion: no terrorists, no attacks on americans[/quote]
I really like how you conveniently leave out the 3000 dead in the rubble of the WTC. But that’s okay - liberals tend to look at only the facts they want to, and make the rest up. You have the makings of a wonderful elitist.
Do you realize that in the span of 113 days over 100 million people on 2 continents have cast votes in free elelctions held in nations that have never before tasted true democracy? (paraphrased from Victor Davis Hanson at National Review online). Your party has been against freedom at every turn. But that’s to be expected from the party of racists and murderers.
[quote]Your totally clueless, but I’m clicking my heels? And your the guy that believes the SVT(but maybe you believe them when they were formerly singing Kerry’s praises which would be o.k.)? It’s pretty obvious that you’ll beleive anything
What lie could the president tell to make you stop supporting him?
social security(lies every damn day to good american voters) doesn’t bother you?
war in iraq reasons don’t bother you?
lockbox doesn’t bother you?
taxcut lies?
campaign lies?
speech at the convention?
Dick Cheney’s lies?
no? you’d think some of it would bother you.
I think liberals are kicking ass in the proof dept. Conservatives can’t ever seem to prove shit, you sure haven’t.
[/quote]
Your still re-hashing the election, and I’m supposed to take you serious? Have you been in a coma for the last 4-months? You lost. No matter how many times you bring up the swifties, your cowardly candidate, or Gin-Nosed Ted’s talking points - you still lose. You lost the Whitehouse. You lost seats in the House. You lost seats in the Senate. You lost every which way you could lose - yet you still bring up the past and blame Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, the Swifties, and the flat out ignorance of at least 51% of this country. When will you wake up and realize that you lost because of piss poor ideas, piss poor leadership, and piss poor candidates? You won’t see the elitist left holding the gavel for quite sometime. And that thrills me to death.
On what rainjack wrote:
Again you can’t prove shit, you never have anything but juvenile chest thumping.
These are tired old arguments that have been rebutted ad nauseum elsewhere. I think the fact that we had a resounding victory Afghanistan, and now Iraq, has caused the terrorists to consolidate. This is a very good thing. Let them come to Iraq. They’ll have lot harder time getting to the U.S. if they are being mowed down in Iraq.
rebutted by whom? Even the pres. has shifted away from the war on terror lie, its about freedom now. Consolidate? The terrorist that were in afganistan are now in pakistan, the al queda in indonesia are still in indonesia, the terrorist in yemen, africa, saudi arabia,etc. etc. are all still there. The new terrorists in Iraq, I guess are sometimes getting “mowed down” but it in no way prevents al queda from coming here.
I really like how you conveniently leave out the 3000 dead in the rubble of the WTC. But that’s okay - liberals tend to look at only the facts they want to, and make the rest up. You have the makings of a wonderful elitist.
Iraqis didn’t do 9/11. Osama did. Is that elitist to remember i want revenge on the guy responsible? Is that liberal, I don’t know, I’m from New York and looked at those towers from my office on 22nd st. and I want the fucking guy that did it.
[quote]100meters wrote:
On what rainjack wrote:
Again you can’t prove shit, you never have anything but juvenile chest thumping.[/quote]
It’s not chest thumping if you back it up. Are you calling the lives of American soldiers juvenile? That sounds about right coming from a liberal spouting the same tired crap post after post after post.
Like I told you when you first started ejaculating your Teddy-boy talking points - read the threads on this forum. I can’t do it for you.
You have no idea how much of an idiot you are making out of yourself by just being too ignorant to use your public education for something besides making an even bigger ass out of your self. But you won’t read what has been written here. You won’t cite sources. You won’t even use actual facts. But you already know that.
It is elitist to say that before we invaded Irag, no one died. It is the war on terror. We are fighting one of the members of the Axis of Evil. It’s part of the plan.
You don’t want Usama any worse than the French do. You want to allow those that might know something the right to lawyer-up, have trials, and have our own service men cross-examined. You embrace the terrorists as if you were piloting one of the planes yourself. You say you want Usama? Bullshit. Do you spend much time at the bars in Mass.? You sound just like Ted Kennedy’s drunken bitch. Be sure not to ride home from the bars in the same car with Teddy.
[quote]100meters wrote:
Iraqis didn’t do 9/11. Osama did. Is that elitist to remember i want revenge on the guy responsible? Is that liberal, I don’t know, I’m from New York and looked at those towers from my office on 22nd st. and I want the fucking guy that did it.[/quote]
Just curious:
You think that the Iraq invasion
was bad because it wasn’t part of the War on Terror, right? So how do you classify Saddam taking money he embezzled from the Oil for Food program and using it to pay the families of suicide bombers? You do realize that there is more going on here then just getting Osama bin Laden, right? You make it sound like we’re letting OBL get away with it because we went in to Iraq. That’s not true, buddy. We are systematically wiping out Al-queda, other terrorists, and all who support them.
If you’re going to hold up all the other AQ factions in the world as evidence that we aren’t doing anything about the War on Terror, I’d just like to say “patience, grasshopper.” All things in good time. Let’s finish up one war before we friggin’ start two more, okay?
On what rainjack wrote:
It’s not chest thumping if you back it up.
You didn’t, you don’t-
I read, it’s not rebutted, your clueless, you think the war on terror is like a traditional war on the battlefield, where the bodycount is all that matters, which is so stupid.
I cited the u.s. army and the redcross, you have nothing to cite, but you just make up stupid shit that has no basis in reality. There’s no fact I could give you that would be acceptable. Your response is always gonna be cheering the president whether he says we’re not the worlds police force, my tax cuts won’t add to the deficit(even in a bad economy) and you’ll cheer wildly when he does a 180 and does the EXACT opposite over and over and then you’ll rant on liberals for being right and telling you before the 180, but its ok cuz we’re mowing them down in Iraq. The truth is your rove’s bitch and you love getting slapped in the face over and over again.
We are fighting one of the members of the Axis of Evil
And I’m using talking points…
like i said your rove’s bitch.
You don’t want Usama any worse than the French do. You want to allow those that might know something the right to lawyer-up, have trials, and have our own service men cross-examined.
Here we go with the French…you wanna “mow them down in Iraq” and I want to “mow them down” in Pakistan. Trials…Well if you don’t want them to have trials, you’ll have to tell rummy to stop capturing them, because those captured are either gonna be released or eventually have a trial, and a lawyer.
And its your guy Bush who blamed the torture on service-men, and promoted those that wrote the policy. That’s some sick shit.
No, I don’t drink much here in mass. Let’s see Bush and Cheney, both arrested drunk drivers(Family Values) Laura Bush runs stop sign, kills boyfriend…conservative mindset go for Teddy joke…clueless.
100meters wrote:
On what rainjack wrote:
It’s not chest thumping if you back it up.
You didn’t, you don’t-
I read, it’s not rebutted, your clueless, you think the war on terror is like a traditional war on the battlefield, where the bodycount is all that matters, which is so stupid.
I cited the u.s. army and the redcross, you have nothing to cite, but you just make up stupid shit that has no basis in reality. There’s no fact I could give you that would be acceptable. Your response is always gonna be cheering the president whether he says we’re not the worlds police force, my tax cuts won’t add to the deficit(even in a bad economy) and you’ll cheer wildly when he does a 180 and does the EXACT opposite over and over and then you’ll rant on liberals for being right and telling you before the 180, but its ok cuz we’re mowing them down in Iraq. The truth is your rove’s bitch and you love getting slapped in the face over and over again.
We are fighting one of the members of the Axis of Evil
And I’m using talking points…
like i said your rove’s bitch.
You don’t want Usama any worse than the French do. You want to allow those that might know something the right to lawyer-up, have trials, and have our own service men cross-examined.
Here we go with the French…you wanna “mow them down in Iraq” and I want to “mow them down” in Pakistan. Trials…Well if you don’t want them to have trials, you’ll have to tell rummy to stop capturing them, because those captured are either gonna be released or eventually have a trial, and a lawyer.
And its your guy Bush who blamed the torture on service-men, and promoted those that wrote the policy. That’s some sick shit.
No, I don’t drink much here in mass. Let’s see Bush and Cheney, both arrested drunk drivers(Family Values) Laura Bush runs stop sign, kills boyfriend…conservative mindset go for Teddy joke…clueless.
100meters, you need a hug.
I’m not surprised you live in Mass.
Have a pleasant four years (and beyond).
JeffR
You engage in creative quoting much like some other forumite.
What it means is that I’m playing what if. I’m curious. How far do we have to go before some people find that something being done isn’t right.
Indeed, we have had some good conversation in here, unfortunately it really hasn’t come from you. You are busy looking around for reasons to find attacks or some other strange motives.
Have you never played what if? Have you never been curious? Do you mind if I try to probe the limits of peoples acceptance or expectations? It’s simply a conversation – no need to look for stupid ulterior motives, I don’t have any.
You keep attacking when there is absolutely no need. As I keep saying, your bias is showing.
[quote]vroom wrote:
What it means is that I’m playing what if. I’m curious. How far do we have to go before some people find that something being done isn’t right.
[/quote]
I am biased, vroom. So are you. the difference is that I admit to mine, and you won’t admit to yours.
The premise of your ‘what if’ is biased in and of itself. You assume that there are things wrong - whether or not they have substance. You’ve set up a loaded discussion. Kind of like Lincoln’s “Have you beat your wife yet today?” question.
To answer that question would be to admit guilt - regardless of the fact that you may not beat your wife at all.
How far down the line ust we go before we realize that we’ve done something wrong? There’s no answer to that question without indicting yourself.
That’s my problem.