It's called "torture" Mr. Bush

To Auraptor:

The threat with torture is still torture. I don't know the picture itself, so I don't know if the prisoner was blindfolded, but if he was, there was no way of knowing for him that the wires weren't connected. Even if he wasn't blindfolded, the wires might be connected at any time.

For all he knew then, his torturers might turn on the juice any moment. If these are standard, approved interogation techniques in the US, I hope they get applied to you when you get pulled over by cops when they suspect you of participating in terrorism. Of course you'll get an apology later, upstanding citizen that you are. All in the good cause for protecting US civilians, you know.

Hey, wait a minute... That would be you...

And you keep talking about this "war" thing going on in Iraq, but... I thought the war had been declared as being over? Iraqi government surrendered, Saddam in custody? The foreign nationals, soldiers and otherwise, are there to stabilise the country and allow for democratic elections. No war. Bush's point of view, as well as mine and probably of every other western government. See, the Dutch didn't went to fight the war, our government said no, but there's 1200 of our soldiers there now to help stabilise the country. They wouldn't be there if there would still be a war.

I'm not saying that for those there that the fighting has stopped, it hasn't. The Iraqis blowing up cars and planting bombs and such don't believe the war is over, they're fighting in the only way left to them to get their country back, which is a guerilla war. Their point of view. Not all Iraqis point of view. Yet.

But if you want more danger to foreigners in Iraq, more people taking up arms against the foreign occupation of Iraq, by all means, go at those prisoners with the (threat of the) cattleprod to find out where the next bomb is going to be planted. Your chances of finding the bombs will improve exponentionally since there will be more and more and more of them every time you 'interrogate' prisoners like this.



"We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill. We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, ma'am!"

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Originally posted by FlyinFree:

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Originally posted by SigmaNunki:

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Originally posted by FlyinFree:
...you need to realize they need to play outside the rules too.

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This one sings a world of truth, I'll trust that you can get what I mean here.

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Originally posted by WEERWOLF:
"How we treat our dead is part of what makes us different from those that did the slaughtering."

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High and mighty ideals are all fine and good to aspire to but as Mal and the crew demonstrate on a daily basis you do what you need to survive and when you have the luxury of a choice you try to do what's right. If setting up an agency to fight dirty, both so we don't have to and so we can survive, is the price we have to pay, I say go for it. Sitting back and saying we are better than this while our people are being slaughtered and whole nations live in starvation, ignorance and oppression, just so we can say we didn't do anything wrong is actually saying we didn't do anything and that is wrong. Fight long, fight hard, fight dirty when you have to (and Mal is certainly not above fighting dirty), but fight. In a perfect world you can afford to say things are black and white, but we live in a world of greys. Having one agency who works outside the rules to protect us against hundreds of groups that have no rules is a necessary evil and one I have no problem living with.

I should also point out what the soldiers did was just sick pranks and needless torture. The CIA were there to find information and were not just randomly torturing and humiliating prisoners for their amusement. They do a horrible job that nobody wants and nobody thanks them for so we can be safe, yes it means people get hurt, but hey war is hell and life isn't fair.

Oh, and BTW, if Bush knew about what the soldiers were doing and did nothing about it (which he probably did since he knew there were no WMDs and still invaded) then he's a scumbag and deserves to be impeached (although it will never happen, you get as much justice as you can afford and he can afford plenty).

"...we're still flyin'."
"That's not much."
"It's enough." Malcolm Reynolds and Simon Tam - Serenity

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I acknowledge the fact that the CIA and its counterparts all over the world need to fight dirty, but I don't think they'd make pictures of it and allow them to get published... I thought they'd be too secretive for that. Although I wish from the bottom of my pacifist heart it wouldn't be necessary, I do acknowledge the fact that there are wackos out there who don't think like me, and I greatly appreciate the effort people make to protect my freedom.

I quoted Book from "Bushwacked" because my impression of the pictures of torture was, that the prisoners involved were regular prisoners, and that the soldiers torturing them were not CIA operatives but soldiers assigned to guard duty until either the prisoners could be released or tried for crimes. As far as I know, there's still trials before punishment, and I didn't know torture was considered apt punishment under any western law, be they local or international.

I do strongly believe that in situations where you as a person have the upper hand on someone else, you have no choice other than to treat him decently. You won. He knows. Period. Torturing him will give him all the more reasons to try and kill you when he gets the chance.

Using your opponent's hideous crimes as a justification to stoop a few levels down and do hideous things yourself is immoral and goes against western lawmaking. Lynching was banned too.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind."

Think it was Ghandi.

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High and mighty ideals are all fine and good to aspire to but as Mal and the crew demonstrate on a daily basis you do what you need to survive and when you have the luxury of a choice you try to do what's right.

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This is not a matter of survival for the USA and we do have the luxury of other choices. Remember, WE invaded THEM, not the other way around! Mal, as I recall, never invaded a naiton.


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By now, I'm sure that you've heard that there are videotapes and "thousands" more photos, some apparently worse than what we've already seen, and the question is whether this was done as a matter of policy or whether this was just a few overzealous/ badly trained guards.

We've been raced from one news item to the next, so I think it's time for a little breather and a look at the bigger picture.

Since his appointment to Defense, Rumsfeld has had an unusual bent. His mantra has been "speed and flexibility" not massed force. Some people have interpreted this as a "Special Ops" fixation and indeed our Special Ops forces are stretched very thin. But overall, I think he has a "mercenary army" fixation, since mercs make up the third largest force in Iraq, and our regular troops are poorly supported.

He has resisted having the Red Cross inspect any of our prisons. Gitmo was set up ESPECIALLY to evade the Geneva Convention, and it took some looking to find an area that was under US control but not on US soil. (The alternative was a prison ship at sea.) Most of the prisoners at Gitmo have never even been charged.

In fact, if you look at the Patriot Act, it's possible even for American citizens to wind up at Gitmo as "detainees" on ACCUSATION. All thegovernment has to do is make it a nefarious enough accusation- being a terrorist- and you get yanked off to Gitmo as an "enemy combatant" without the possibility of even having charges filed, much less getting a judicial review.

By now, you should be sensing a pattern of evasion of both the US Constitution and international law.

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Originally posted by weerwolf:
I acknowledge the fact that the CIA and its counterparts all over the world need to fight dirty, but I don't think they'd make pictures of it and allow them to get published... I thought they'd be too secretive for that. Although I wish from the bottom of my pacifist heart it wouldn't be necessary, I do acknowledge the fact that there are wackos out there who don't think like me, and I greatly appreciate the effort people make to protect my freedom.

I quoted Book from "Bushwacked" because my impression of the pictures of torture was, that the prisoners involved were regular prisoners, and that the soldiers torturing them were not CIA operatives but soldiers assigned to guard duty until either the prisoners could be released or tried for crimes. As far as I know, there's still trials before punishment, and I didn't know torture was considered apt punishment under any western law, be they local or international.

I do strongly believe that in situations where you as a person have the upper hand on someone else, you have no choice other than to treat him decently. You won. He knows. Period. Torturing him will give him all the more reasons to try and kill you when he gets the chance.

Using your opponent's hideous crimes as a justification to stoop a few levels down and do hideous things yourself is immoral and goes against western lawmaking. Lynching was banned too.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind."

Think it was Ghandi.

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You missed my point, what the soldiers did was wrong, flat out. The CIA didn't take pictures of naked people, they interrogated prisoners for information, not amusement. The pictures are the soldiers being sickos. If the CIA had prevented another 9/11 with those interrogations it would have been more than worth it.

"...we're still flyin'."
"That's not much."
"It's enough." Malcolm Reynolds and Simon Tam - Serenity

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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High and mighty ideals are all fine and good to aspire to but as Mal and the crew demonstrate on a daily basis you do what you need to survive and when you have the luxury of a choice you try to do what's right.

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This is not a matter of survival for the USA and we do have the luxury of other choices. Remember, WE invaded THEM, not the other way around! Mal, as I recall, never invaded a naiton.

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We have a choice because of people like the CIA. The CIA doesn't have a choice, they have to fight dirty so that we don't have to. There is a fight for survival, the war on terrorism is far from over. The interrogations by the CIA were to find terrorists and stop more terrorist attacks. I'm not talking about the Iraq invasion or the military, I'm only referring to the actions of the CIA (who, BTW, told Bush there were no WMDs and therefore no reason to invade). Bush's invasion was his own doing, he lied to get in there and doesn't care about the Iraqi people, just their oil...and of course nailing the guy that embarassed his daddy so much was a bonus too . The CIA are in Iraq (and everywhere else) waging the neverending secret war that needs to be fought, they should not be lumped in with the sick bastards that took pleasure in torturing and humiliating prisoners for fun and took pictures. I'm not slamming the military as a whole, we all know and love Static and the other fighting men and women who have carried themselves with bravery and honour, the people who did these things for their own sick amusement don't deserve to wear a uniform...well maybe a Nazi one...

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---------------------

By now, I'm sure that you've heard that there are videotapes and "thousands" more photos, some apparently worse than what we've already seen, and the question is whether this was done as a matter of policy or whether this was just a few overzealous/ badly trained guards.

We've been raced from one news item to the next, so I think it's time for a little breather and a look at the bigger picture.

Since his appointment to Defense, Rumsfeld has had an unusual bent. His mantra has been "speed and flexibility" not massed force. Some people have interpreted this as a "Special Ops" fixation and indeed our Special Ops forces are stretched very thin. But overall, I think he has a "mercenary army" fixation, since mercs make up the third largest force in Iraq, and our regular troops are poorly supported.

He has resisted having the Red Cross inspect any of our prisons. Gitmo was set up ESPECIALLY to evade the Geneva Convention, and it took some looking to find an area that was under US control but not on US soil. (The alternative was a prison ship at sea.) Most of the prisoners at Gitmo have never even been charged.

In fact, if you look at the Patriot Act, it's possible even for American citizens to wind up at Gitmo as "detainees" on ACCUSATION. All thegovernment has to do is make it a nefarious enough accusation- being a terrorist- and you get yanked off to Gitmo as an "enemy combatant" without the possibility of even having charges filed, much less getting a judicial review.

By now, you should be sensing a pattern of evasion of both the US Constitution and international law.

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Hence my comment about Bush being a fascist idiot about 1 goose step away from Hitler.

"...we're still flyin'."
"That's not much."
"It's enough." Malcolm Reynolds and Simon Tam - Serenity

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I could't bare to read this entire thread, but the 'hazing' comments were just a little too much to take.

I'm not disputing the similarities between hazing ceremonies and what we saw in those pictures. And its no surprise that the fraternities that engage in them produce the kind of sick bastards we have running our government. Its still just as wrong and it sickens me to think of the way our leaders are acting on our behalf.

The most disturbing thing that's come out of this is Rumsfeld's admission during his Senate testimony that the conditions of a prisoners internment were known to have an affect on their willingness to cooperate during interrogation. That tells me this is likely NOT just an aberration of a few misguided soldiers but a practice deliberately promoted by the military or requested by the hired interrogators'.

EDIT: I'm no fan of the democratic party and the thought of voting for Kerry is rather irksome, but not nearly so disturbing as the thought of the neocons running rampant on a second term without the restraint of a pending election and without the moderation of Colin Powell.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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I'm not a fan of Bush. I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for him, and hope he doesn't get re-elected.

However, I come here to talk about Firefly, and perhaps related topics (such as fiction, science, and tv/movies). Political discussions are just spam.

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Originally posted by Skydance:
I'm not a fan of Bush. I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for him, and hope he doesn't get re-elected.

However, I come here to talk about Firefly, and perhaps related topics (such as fiction, science, and tv/movies). Political discussions are just spam.

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I don't mind as long as they are clearly labled as such. It's a pretty easy thing to just not click on the political threads.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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