posted
"I’m sure they’ll happily use [Durbin] as a recruiting tool for more suicide bombers."
Of course, if Dubya hadn't "fixed the intelligence" to give excuse for invading Iraq, then lied to the American people about it, Dubya wouldn't have been able to get his jollies watching UStroops getting suicide bombed.
posted
Oh, one other point - my father did not vote for Bush, in fact before he accepted this deployment he worked for his state Democratic party.
Here is a line from a closing paragraph in his latest email.
quote:That's it from here at the "gulag" (hint: don't believe everything you read about this place, your father is involved in an honorable mission)
I can assure you that if he felt otherwise, he would tell me, and he wouldn't be there. This was a volunteer deployment for him. He didn't have to do it.
My father is not only involved in an honorable mission, he is an honorable man. As far from a Nazi or a terrible, depraved person as you can get.
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posted
Note that neither the Senator nor Tom made a blanket statement about what troops were doing. The Senator in no way called all people there analogous to Nazis, or even most people, merely that the things we had done there ("we" being at least some US servicemen acting through their positions of authority) would, if shown to the american public absent context, look like something out of a totalitarian regime (for which he then gave examples of totalitarian regimes). That in no way impugns the general behavior of US soldiers in guantanamo.
And I'm completely confused as to how Tom's statement could be taken as a blanket statement.
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posted
"Dubya wouldn't have been able to get his jollies watching UStroops getting suicide bombed." Do you honestly believe President Bush is getting his jollies watching US Troops die? We already a valid reason to invade Iraq. The UN and Saddam agreed to terms that Saddam repeatedly violated, for years. We had as much reason to invade Iraq as we did Kosovo.
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posted
Of course, the Senator's comments were in no way directed towards your father or any of the soldiers serving at Guantanamo. It is actually possible to disagree with the use our military is being put to (as is being done here) and not be talking about the soldiers themselves. I think it's pretty clear that this is the case here.
Of course, I also think that, if you knew them, you'd find that the average Nazi soldier had a lot more in common with our troops than you would think. They weren't monsters either.
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posted
"Of course, the Senator's comments were in no way directed towards your father or any of the soldiers serving at Guantanamo" Well, the soldiers at Guantanamo are the ones being accused of torturing the detainess so I'm not sure how that can be true. The Senator's comments have to be about the soldiers since he claims that they are torturing the detainees
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Oh yeah, I trust Time. Don’t they get their stuff from CBS?
Criticize at a time of war? As long as you’re not hampering the war effort, go for it. The time for debate about the war is till you go to war. Then it’s all about the mission. Durbin could have said this stuff without making it into a circus, he wanted the publicity and this isn’t the publicity we need. All he has done is aide the enemy here. Giving aide to the enemy is treason.
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posted
It doesn't matter what the intent was - words can hurt, and implications can be painful. In fact, if Tom said "Belle your dad is a Nazi" I would just dismiss him as a jerk.
It's the smugness of his remark that got to me, it was patronizing and quite frankly, ticked me off.
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posted
So Jay, given that the punishment for treason is death, are you arguing that Senator Durbin should be executed for his statements?
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posted
DK, he didn't say that they all were, just that if you look at incidences that HAD happened, and remove details that would give away their nationality, most Americans would have thought those actions were done by some of our favorite national boogeymen.
So Jay, if some al-qaeda guy reads your post above, and then shows it to insurgents, who use it as motivation to attack US soldiers, or the person uses it to recruit more insurgents by showing them how "we" really feel, does that mean you are aiding the enemy? Have you committed treason?
I think we both know the answer to that. IMO, it's also the answer, for similar reasons, to whether what Durbin did was treason.
quote: What I'm trying to get across is that there are hundreds (thousands?) of good soldiers down there who do not do terrible, depraved things to anyone - they are trying to do their job.
This is true. And I'm sure that your dad is among that number.
But there are also hundreds, perhaps thousands of good soldiers currently deployed whose job is to do terrible, depraved things. Should we not be concerned by this?
Were your dad ordered to do something depraved, would he decline? I like to believe that he would. But not everyone in the military is so principled, which means that we have to go after this thing at the source -- our leadership -- rather than the rank and file.
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posted
Durbin will never come up on treason charges even though he is certainly guilty of it. It’s hard to deny that his actions will give aide to the enemy.
How is me saying something against the enemy treason? I think you have it backwards. Durbin said something against our guys (an untrue statement too) which is where the treason comes in since his aide is directly against our troops.
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quote:Originally posted by Jay: Average Nazis weren’t monsters huh? Yeah, tell that to millions of Jews.
The average KKK guy is really nice too. Plays pool, enjoys a good game of hang man.
The average Al Qaeda guy is great too. Loves flight simulators, little puppies, a good game of head knocking.
Get real. Evil is real.
It's no that simple, and if you'd read more than Sean Hannity, you'd understand this. There have been many people who started off as decent, honourable people who love their children who for whatever reason get involved in a war, with Nazis or terrorist groups because they agree with their principals. Next thing you know, they start doing things which are wrong, convincing themselves that they are fighting a horrible enemy that needs to be fought, that these people are interfering with their way of life. Look, for example, at these photographs of lynchings. The most painful thing is how many people would bring their kids to stuff like this. How, until they grabbed some innocent man and hung him from a tree, they were decent regular people who love their kids and pay their taxes and happen to hate black people so much that in their mind it becomes ok to kill them. That's the agonizing thing. That anyone, without much thought can become no better than people who lynch or take pleasure in torturing a person.
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quote:Originally posted by adam613: The war in Iraq has done more to increase terrorist recruitment than any speech could ever do, which is why the insurgency continues years after we toppled the Iraqi government. Does that mean Bush is guilty of treason?
No, but it does mean he's guilty of deceiving the public and should be, in an ideal world, impeached and jailed.
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posted
Oh come on people. The treason thing is a new Godwin. It's not something even worthy of debate.
I've never liked the Godwin thing. People get the idea that the offense is mentioning the Nazi's specifically, instead of making a terribly shaky analogy for the purpose of an emotional appeal. When the Catholic Church said that gay marriage is like marrying a cockroach, that was a Godwin. When someone says that any criticism of the way people are handling a war is TREASON (bump bump bum!), they're pulling a Godwin.
---
Jay, Do you have some strange view of history that leads you to believe that the average Nazi soldier was involved in killing the Jews? And, are you familiar with the Milgram experiment, which strongly suggests that the average American would behave quite similarly as the Germans did when put into a similar situation? Or are you just throwing around the evil label?
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quote:The vast majority of the people in Guantanamo don't even have even occasional contact with prisoners, but I guess that doesn't matter to you. To you and Durbin it's okay to insult them all, say they are terrible depraved people like Nazis. That's despicable.
I'm sure that Durbin's remark, and every one the civil libertarians here have made about torture, have to do only with those people who are in contact with the prisoners and have tortured them.
quote:My father is not only involved in an honorable mission, he is an honorable man.
While I'm sure the latter is true, I can't but disagree with the former. Even if there is no torture going on at Guantanamo, I believe that the rights of those prisoners are being violated simply by holding them without right of appeal or the protection of relevant treaties.
The disanalogy with the Nazis, and the reason that Durbin shouldn't have made the comment, is that it seems quite possible for a rational person with certain sentiments about America's worth and the danger facing our country to believe that what's going on at Guantanamo is morally OK. (I still think these people are making a moral mistake, but that doesn't mean they're immoral people.) By contrast, I don't think any German could rationally have agreed with concentration camps.
quote:Criticize at a time of war? As long as you’re not hampering the war effort, go for it. The time for debate about the war is till you go to war. Then it’s all about the mission.
This point of view is nonsensical for many reasons. Surely there will be many decisions made about policy even after a war has begun -- for example, Truman's decisions about whether to nuke Japan in WW2, and later whether to nuke China in the Korean War. How should public discourse about these sorts of decisions proceed? If it's all about the mission, it sounds like the public (and even the US Congress, apparently) should be left out of the loop.
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posted
There’s a difference between discussion and being harmful. Durban’s remarks are harmful.
I’m speechless and in shock of the defense of Nazi’s. I know history keeps getting rewritten all the time by the educators, but this one really is out there. Oh well. I don’t plan to comment or debate it since it’ll speak for itself on its own.
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posted
I like how the links to the Milgram experimant and Stanford Prison Experiment are largely ignored. People SO don't want to acknowledge the ugly tendencies inherent in people , including in American citizens and soldiers.
Milgram's original plan was to do the experiment in America and then do it again in Germany to show that the Germans were morally weak, It never got to Germany because the results in America were so distressing.
posted
HMM, poor choie of words. I don't "LIKE" it... that was ironic. I guess it would be better to say I am struck by how the links are largely ignored
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posted
Jay: So since terrorists also sieze on our denials of doing bad things as reasons to attack us, does this mean its treasonous to make those sorts of denials?
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quote:Originally posted by Jay: There’s a difference between discussion and being harmful. Durban’s remarks are harmful.
How are they harmful? By pointing out the truth? Pointing out what's going on? Or is it better for these few bad apples to keep ruining the reputation of our whole country and the whole armed forces? Exposing these people who are torturing prisoners does not count as treason and give aid to the enemy. But, letting it go unnoticed does!
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posted
I'm wondering, if you went to Iraq and asked insurgents why they joined up, how many would say "Why, I heard that American Senator talk about Nazis at Guantanamo and I signed right up!"
Somehow I'm doubting the answer is that high. And, by the way, if that is your criteria for treason and execution, you'd have to execute Bush, Cheney and Rice along with him, because their actions have done more harm to the cause than Durbin has, regardless of anything good they may have done. Acts of good do not erase acts of wrong.
As for the average KKK/Nazi being a murderer, this is ridiculous. The average Nazi had little to no real knowledge of what was going on in the camps. The average KKK member during the height of the KKK was your average house wife or husband going off to work and bringing home the the bacon to his family. To call all of them murderers is as ridiculous as me calling all Republicans Bible thumpers who want to replace the constitution with the 10 commandments.
As for the time to end debate on a war. I don't think a limit should be placed on it. Give the men the support they need so they aren't in harm's way while doing it, but a war should be constantly questioned. Vigilance in the quest for right will almost always bring more good than harm, silence for the sake of unity will almost always bring more harm than good.
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quote: There are good, dedicated Americans serving us in Guantanamo.
There have been good, dedicated servicemen on every side in every war ever fought. The most terrible thing about war is that it convinces good, dedicated people to do terrible, depraved things.
Usually before those terrible, depraved things can be done to you.
You may not live by the sword, but you can still die by it.
posted
So we're back to that weak and pathetic conservative argument that criticizing administration policies before or during war is un-American, or as you say Jay, treason?
quote:Originally posted by Jay: Criticize at a time of war? As long as you’re not hampering the war effort, go for it. The time for debate about the war is till you go to war. Then it’s all about the mission. Durbin could have said this stuff without making it into a circus, he wanted the publicity and this isn’t the publicity we need. All he has done is aide the enemy here. Giving aide to the enemy is treason.
Is calling people traitors any less inflammatory than calling them Nazis?
Apparently, we're supposed to fight to bring democracy abroad, while sacrificing our freedom of speech here at home. Not much of an example for Iraqi constitution writers. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:You may not live by the sword, but you can still die by it.
The trick as I see it is to arrange matters so it's not necessary to torture your neighbors to keep them from killing you.
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posted
Ah, so this is why the religious flamewar in the other thread petered out. Fickle and unreliable, the lot of you. Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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If my elected leaders do something I feel is wrong, especially when there may be evidence proving them wrong, I have a commitment to demand an explanation. If they refuse to examine the evidence or allow anyone else to examine it, I have a right to demand their removal. If my elected leaders embark on a program that seems, to me, to be dangerous and foolhardy, it is my obligation to speak out.
This is called being an American. Interestingly enough, there are quite a few of them around, and not all of them automatically believe every word that comes out of the White House, no matter who's curently sitting inside.
I'm interested in arguments and proofs and examinations of evidence, and I'd like to hear about anything that corroborates or disproves information set forth by people like Durbin. Attack his facts, explain his questions, answer his accusations with reason and I'll thank you.
But do not impugn his loyalty to his country, for he asks the same questions I would in his place.
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posted
Fungu – huh? Synesthesia – What Durban did is certainly harmful since it a lie that we are like Nazis. This will be used to encourage terrorists and harm our troops and citizens. Lyrhawn – it’ll certainly be added to the propaganda tape! Morbo – The treason was the Nazi gulag thing that can be used against use. Criticize all you want, but don’t do something this dumb that can be used against us. Adam – (no comment) Chris – I do impugn his loyalty when he puts troops at risk.
I really am surprised at the defense of the indefensible, been fun
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Jay, take a look at what you wrote right after: you're arguing that anything which can be used against us is treason to say. Saying we're a country where women can do what they want is used against us among many fundamentalist terrorists; should people be prevented from saying that?
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Bush's Axis of Evil comment was definitely used against us, to an extreme extent. Was it treasonous?
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posted
Well, it's probably because I don't think it's indefensible.
If some of our troops are committing acts that we abhor in others, it needs to be stopped. This administration doesn't seem to listen to claims of these actions. When they do address it, they are dismissive.
By placing these prisoners outside of the bounds of the Geneva Convention, by refusing to allow due process, by denying them any legal identity at all, by suggesting to the world that this is how we treat our prisoners of war, this adminstration is placing our troops at risk a hell of a lot more than a single Senator's speech. We are saying that the Geneva Convention doesn't matter any more, not if it gets in our way, and if any of our troops are captured we'll just have to hope it's by a country with higher ideals than our own.
I would like to hear the administration's position -- or yours, for that matter -- on that point. I won't, though, all I'll hear for the next few weeks is how this guy called them Nazis, because it's so much easier to take offense at that instead of defending the indefensible.
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If the Emperor doesn't want people to announce he's not wearing clothes, he should have passed out the memo earlier.
And considering our much-vaunted, alleged moral high ground, it doesn't seem inappropriate to question acts that seem contrary to everything one claims this country stands for.
posted
Durbin's words are not putting our troops at risk! If there's anything that has done this is Bush's ill-executed, ill thought out war! Invading Iraq under such weak pretences was like stirring up a hornets nests. Besides, how the hell do you think the Nazis began? Small things like limited the rights of the Jews while convincing people that the Jews were threatening their way of life. Before long, concentration camps are set up, all because people who knew what was going on said nothing!
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posted
because i'm interested, Synesthesia, do you think Bush should be president, and if not, who else. Also, what would YOU have done in his place eh? ~Total Curiosity~
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posted
No. He should not. If he really deceived the public, fabricated evidence and planned to attack Iraq even before 9/11, he should be impeached and jailed. If Iraq had actually been a clear threat, perhaps I would not be so strongly against this war. In the president's place I would have never taken the focus off of Bin Laden and would have used international cooperation against terrorism instead of creating an ideal environment for new terrorists to be born. Just about every step of that war has been wrong, from the beginning. IF there were weapons of mass destruction, they would have been lost in the chaos of that first strike.
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posted
But who should take his place. That was my main Question. A different Republican, w/ or w/o Dick, or KERRY?
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None of them. We need someone entirely different. Someone who isn't linked with Bush, Clinton or any of those people.
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posted
I cannot believe it was one of my senators that spouted this crap. Why do they let Chicago and East St. Louis vote with the rest of the State?
I cannot believe 100 degrees is much of test to anyone, let alone anyone from here, I was out in 115 yesterday digging for weapon caches in full body armor and helmet, no hair pulling.
Any wrestler knows you train at over 100 degrees and sauna at much higher temps. Heck 100 is some peoples body temp!
Now I admit the rap music was cruel.
What it comes to is the whole irony of Cruel and Unusual taken to its logical end, all punishment, all incarceration must by definition be unusual and where cruel means uncomfortable to some degree and therefore a thing to be avoided, it must be that as well.
However where cruel means intentionally vicious out of malice, well that is to be avoided. We do not want discomfort inflicted because someone is a sadist, we want it inflicted to achieve an end, teach a lesson or obtain greater cooperation. I do not hear that they are dragging bodies out every day or even every week, so I suspect there are much worse prisons today. Places where rape and starvation and brutal punishment are just part of the routine.
Therefore this is just part of the Badwagon of America bashing that the media pushes and should be lumped in with the rest. We will keep driving even with idiots trying to stand on the brakes.
posted
Now may I ask, Tom Davison, what classifies me as newbie? And i prefer not to be paired to anyone either. Just ask King of Men
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I think he might have been thinking about things like this:
To quote today's financial times (the article about the ICRC),
quote:Prisoners were revealed to have been stripped to their underwear, manacled hand and foot to a chair bolted to the ground, while strobe lights flashed and loud rap and rock music was played through speakers close to their ears.
It doesn't sound so innocuous with all the details. Personally, I sort of have to wonder what the point was. And that there are worse places, even in the US, is not an excuse, its a failure.
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posted
You're a newbie as long as you have a problem comprehending the basic differences between Judaism and Christianity, and possibly longer.
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My friends dragged me off to a dance club once. It had strobe lights and loud music. I was a complete wreck after an hour or so. Depending on how loud "loud" is, I could see where that is torture. If it causes permanent hearing loss, it's wrong.
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posted
OK, since I can't get an answer as to why ignoring the Geneva Convention isn't dangerous because of how our own troops will be treated when they get captured, I'll try another one.
What, exactly, do US troops have to do before criticizing their actions isn't considered treasonous? Is there a line they can't cross? Or do they have total freedom to do anything they can think of (or are ordered to do), no matter how heinous or reprehensible we find those actions when other countries do them?
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