More/Latest Torture News--From the CIA's secret prisons
POSTED BY: R1Z
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 2, 2025 07:01
VIEWED: 4479
PAGE 5 of 6
Quote:As can be my way, I posted off the top of my head. If I thought through the political and social ramifications of my posts as intensily as I think through my favourite science fiction.....
Wars are like natural disasters. They happen, but they don’t happen every second. So we don’t need a president with emergency management experience. We just need one who can appoint decent advisers--which Bush apparently can’t.
It just seems to me that America is at war all (no exaggeration) the time. I can't think of a year we weren't somewhere shooting (I include 'police action' and training and arming puppets-sorry- allies in warfare as war). And we don't seem to actually vote on who gets to be prez anymore, we just pick from a short list of a keepers of the status quo buffet line (would you like corn with your corn?)
And the prez can't appoint decent advisors if his main goal is to give his pals work, and further the Corporate American goal of making the economic climate of Robocop a serious reality.
Okay, now I'll read more than post for a while, I have much more to learn from you, Citizen, AND Dreamtrove than I have to offer right now.
Thanks for these little bits of education, guys.
Chrisisall, professional fanboy, part-time political analyst
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I have to admit the Lurker seems knowledgable. I was thinking from a point of Russia, which certainly had more than 15M deaths all by itself, but perhaps they're counting the russian "civil war" as a separate conflict, and not counting the associated disease and famine in russia and worldwide. War brings many non-combat deaths to town.
I still disagree. I'm the first to admit lincoln was a f^&kup, but that aside, I still disagree.
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He isn’t fighting a war all the time (unless he’s GWB).
This again is simply not the case. If he is Bill Clinton, Harry Truman or JFK/LBJ, then he is also fighting a war all of the time.
But it's having knuckleheads that is the problem. Today, you can do a lot worse than Japan as a society. That may not be relevant, but I just wanted to say it :)
But you are missing two very important points that I made:
1. Military is an experience, any one could go and get that experience if they objective enough. True, some folks are disabled, but even so, they could have some equivalent experience. My sister for instance is disabled but has worked 9 years in a VA hospital. As such, it is her job to help veterans re-adjust to society, and she is in many ways more familar with war than some of the veterans who have never seen it. I think this is an acceptable level of military experience for a president. I'm simply not going to hire anyone for the job who has no experience, or like Mr. Kerry who has 4 months experience, or Mr. Bush who was a jackass on the job. And I said one of the two.
2. The military DOES answer to a civilian authority which is the congress. What you are saying is that of our three separate but equal branches of the govt. none should be required to have experienced military leaders at the helm. I simply don't think this is wise.
BTW I happen to think MacArthur was right that the US should go to China to aid Chiang Kai Shek, against Chairman Mao Tse Tung, but he should have sought US congressional approval before doing it. This, as an action, could have easily fit the "least death" rule, since chinese communism was in it's infancy and Mao and his successors would slaughter millions (5 million of so for the cultural revolution, over a million in it's westward expasion through tibet and qiangxang, plus totals for its support for wars in SE Asia, clearly brings it over 10 million.)
I just disagree. I think the bungling we see now is a total mess. Finally, that's not a fine tradition we have, but a long line of f^&kups. I think that particularly, the US in the 18th century there were some serious problems. America was often the dealer out of genocide, rather than the queller of it. And sure, there were instances when it worked. To the best of my knowledge Coolidge had no military service, but was a good president. Of course, he also wasn't attacked. I'm just thinking that it's not really a great safety tool to put people in charge of something who don't really know how to do it.
And of course anyone might fill the cabinet with yes men. The point is even if Dwight D. Eisenhower, he didn't, but if he had done so, he'd still have skills of his own. Bush filled his cabinet with yes men and if they advised him other than his gut, or Cheney's wallet, he fired them. Clinton's military staff was more competent, but still he didn't come close to the minimum death rule.
I'm really trying to look at recent history here. The best executed war in my lifetime by a US president was pretty clearly the Gulf War executed by a veteran. The worst were the later Iraq conflicts orchestrated by a bunch of intellectuals and executed by first a draft dodger, and second a deserter.
Just not buying it. And since I vote, I'm just not voting for the 'no military' ticket. I think military service also needs to be scrutinized, of course. And this isn't just military experience, but that's one of the areas of expertise I would like a commander in chief to have. I'm also not voting for the 'no education' ticket.
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I agree basically with this R1Z post. I would only argue that I am coming to think that someone who posted "Cheney leaked this too," or words to that effect was correct.
The DoD also has detainment centers and has been getting a lot of flack for them, "outsourcing torture" and all. So they want to say "look, the CIA has them, we want some."
But there's still no evidence that the CIA is out of line here. I would need better evidence that they had mistreated detainees, etc. Most of what I hear from the agency is pretty anti-torture.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
We cut down who can operate on patients the same way by saying only people who have gone to medical school. If someone wants to, they can join the military whenever. But I think the either Pres. or VP would work.
You're comparing apples to Oranges. The individual in charge of a hospital at the top level seldom has any medical training what-so ever. They have experience in managing people and budgets, which is what they need to run a hospital. They don't need to know how to perform a coronary by-pass simply because they'll never have to perform one.
Adversely stick you average surgeon in charge of a hospital and you'll soon find that hospital falling apart. A Surgeon may be able to manage a hospital, but managing a hospital does not require a surgeon.
Likewise the individuals in charge of a civilian authority are responsible for controlling the militaries budget, managing the top-level people, and 'rubber-stamping' the militaries ultimate plans, not coming up with them.
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Also, the military is already responsible to a civilian authority. At least in theory. Congress. Right at the moment congress is saying "You can't torture people."
Is not an indication that the individuals ultimately in charge of civil authority should be military, but that you guys don't have enough civil control over the military at the moment, and need to do something to 'get you house in order'.
The military is kinda like an attack dog. You point it at a target, it'll bring it down. You take it off its leash it'll run riot unless the owner controls it. Maybe it's time to put the military back on its leash.
As per your congress comments, I agree. You also need to make it a lot harder to amend the constitution, perhaps requiring a full general referendum in order to implement an amendment.
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President is commander in chief of the armed forces. I'm not going to hire someone to be head of General Motors on the grounds that they were once on a TV show.
Maybe not but I doubt there's many car companies that have a CEO that could design and build a car, or has done these things themselves.
Commander in Chief means the president has the ultimate yes or no, not that it's up to the president to make the decisions on tactics for instance.
Here's how I see the process working:
The civil authority decides if an action should be taken. That would be on a very much far removed level. We're talking should we invade Iraq or not, not do we go into Baghdad or Basra first. This is a civilian issue, as your looking at international law, the economy and political relationships with other nations and yourself.
The civil authority then asks the military authority whether they are capable of undertaking a given operation.
The military would have to look at some civil aspects, mainly the political relationships between the 'target' and other nations, and whether the conflict would be likely to spread. That's part of the initial Military planning, a 'could we handle it' decision.
If the Military says no, obviously a new plan has to be drawn up.
If they say yes it's then a military matter, plans must be drawn up, and then rubber stamped by the civil authority, to ensure that public opinion is still in control of the military.
In essence the Civil Authority should be deciding should we (not could we or how we) and that is entirely a civil decision.
The military decides could we and how we do it, not should we.
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I was thinking from a point of Russia, which certainly had more than 15M deaths all by itself, but perhaps they're counting the russian "civil war" as a separate conflict, and not counting the associated disease and famine in russia and worldwide. War brings many non-combat deaths to town.
The Russian revolution was not part of the First World War. I don’t think you can bring Russian deaths during the revolution to support the argument of the incompetence of those in charge during the First World War.
The subsequent deaths are lar
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Citizen,
I'm sick of arguing and you seem to argue every point said, so I'll be brief, and just skip any areas of simple disagreement and stick to facts.
I get your point on the civillian authority. You think it would prevent massive civilian deaths. I would support creating a military civilian committee or something tha thad to address the civilian impact of each decision. I know some on the right thinks such a thing would make us weak, but I don't. It might make us weak if it were public, so I'd like to keep it within the govt. Dod or CIA, but I think that our excessive civilian deaths make it much harder for us to achieve our military objectives because it fuels the resistance. It's also just plain not nice.
Secondly, on the spanish aka bird flu, the war also created unsanitary conditions favoring the disease. But also the large scale famines created by the war killed at least ten million in europe, and who knows about africa and the middle east. The russian "civil war" which I put in quotes, because it really wasn't a civil war at all, was not the revolution. Because of the revolution, the allies towards the end of WWI invaded russia in an attempt to oust Lenin. This conflict was both contemporary with other conflicts considered to be part of WWI, and it also had obvious social and ideological connections. In history texts it's often treated as a civil was because many anti communist russians fought on the allies side, or allies fought on their side, but the clear reality is that without the allied invasion, this war could not have taken place, as the anti-communist russians had no resources with which to fight a war.
But all of this is nitpicking, the point was WWI, big massive death. Which it was by any stretch of the imagination.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
I'm sick of arguing and you seem to argue every point said, so I'll be brief, and just skip any areas of simple disagreement and stick to facts.
It's called a debate Dreamtrove, if you don't like it there's no one making you post here, and no one making you reply.
I'm getting sick of your attitude that you can post what the hell you like but if anyone dares to reply with their own opinion you start attacking them.
Quote:
the point was WWI, big massive death.
I believe your point was actually that WWI was big massive death caused by the incompetence of civilian officials which simply isn't the case, hence my replying to disagree.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Citizen,
A debate seeks to reach an agreement. Otherwise it's just mouthing off, and that is something I no longer have time for. I'm going to be involved in a project which will take a very large amount of time starting tomorrow, about 10 hrs a day, and so I really don't have time to rant, and I wouldn't even if I did. If we discuss something that heads in the direction of agreement it's worth some time, if we do not, it is not worth any time.
In russia, civilian military leadership was a disaster was my point. Major decisions everywhere in wwii though were falling on aristocrats.
I'm really not our to convince people, so I'm not continuing this argument. I just wanted to state my opinion and get out without getting slandered.
So as I said to end the discussion, fine. Have non-milirary tickets. I won't vote for them.
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Whatever Dreamtrove, I really don't care anymore, you're allowed to state your opinion, no one else is, I worked that out already.
I object to you trying to take the high moral ground and the poor little injured party act, when you're the one throwing around personal insults/accusations, and I'm really sick of hearing you're warped and baseless BS, and you're opinion, when no one else can state theirs without you getting indignant and stamping your virtual feet like some demented five year old.
Don't take the high moral ground, you don't deserve it, and you deserve the poor little injured party bit even less.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Quote:Not necessarily. A negotiation seeks to reach agreement. A debate seeks the truth.
A debate seeks to reach an agreement. Otherwise it's just mouthing off, and that is something I no longer have time for. I'm going to be involved in a project which will take a very large amount of time starting tomorrow, about 10 hrs a day, and so I really don't have time to rant, and I wouldn't even if I did. If we discuss something that heads in the direction of agreement it's worth some time, if we do not, it is not worth any time.
---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.
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Citizen,
I got lots of groundless personal attacks against me from lefties. I didn't say they were from you, and until now they weren't.
This is a typical lefty tactic, and it's pretty appalling, perhaps it's part of why they always lose elections.
I'm not usually so directly anti-left, but you really ticked me off. As I said in another post, I read the left blogs all the time. I see a lot of name calling, character assassinations and bathroom humor. This is really no kind of political rhetoric. What I never see is serious well articulated solutions to problems.
None of accusations you just made were true, and they're pretty childish. You nay-say virtually everything that's posted by anyone, so you don't get to blame me. I have to work now so no more long post. Sorry to end on such a hostile note.
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