Vroom
I hear you man and I don’t think we should target innocents. What I advocate is if we catch them and we are pretty sure they know something…well hey whatever it takes is fine by me.
The hard part is figuring out who is innocent and some of them will get caught up in it. That sucks. I guess I would rather see innocent Iraqi’s, who support terrorists, get caught up in it, then innocent New Yorkers.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Harming innocent people in Iraq is no different than terrorists harming innocent people in New York, is it? How can you imagine everyone in the Middle East is a terrorist?
[/quote]
Because they allow it to flourish. You are too quick to believe the ACLU’s banter. Do you have proof that they were innocent? What is your definition of innocent? The ACLU’s? the defender of child molesters and terroists? Why not just subscribe to Al Jazeera, and let them tell you who the bad guys are?
Combine your posts on this thread, and the tripe you posted wrt racial problems in the U.S., and one might think that you are employed by the ACLU.
Joe, did I say that the US has always lived up to the standards invested in us by the founding fathers?
Just because FDR or Truman’s administrations made mistakes, that does not change the standard that we should be striving for. “He did it too” is not an excuse. Additionally, the question arises whether those attacks were inherently wrong. In those instances we were fighting wars against nations which had the backing of the people in the nations. Currently, we are fighting a war with a people without a nation. It is a different paradigm entirely.
BTW, being charged with something or not…doesn’t mean much. After all, what do we do with terrorists? We have court decisions that say we can’t hold “terrorists” as enemy combatants–this also means they aren’t actually bound by the Geneva Convention.
And, more to the point Vroom, you’re not there. You don’t know what’s going on, you only know what makes it to a slanted press and then is read by you–and you also have a slanted view (as do I).
And it’s not that I can’t imagine there are innocent people caught in the crossfire as you say, I simply do not care.
I have confidence in the military and government of this country to do the best it can to minimize pure civilian suffering. How can you look at a country that’s done so much to avoid civilian casualties–as Moon Knight has mentioned–and still talk about how evil the country is RE these few buggers at Gitmo.
And another thing: Vroom, you’re Canadian. You can stand for ideals in Canada. Don’t start on this country.
No offense.
Rainjack, I hate to be on the seemingly liberal side of things in this debate, and, I hold little love for the ACLU, BUT, in this case, I think there’s a very valid point, which Vroom has repeatedly brought up, which seems to escape notice by others; the persons in question were released.
Why would the US government, having in its hands terrorists, when it consistantly shows it will deal sternly with them whenever possible, then releases them free? The only explanation that can be drawn from this is that they were never terrorists to begin with. IF these same people were tortured, then something was done wrong.
[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
Joe, did I say that the US has always lived up to the standards invested in us by the founding fathers?
J.[/quote]
Are those the standards that led the founding fathers to give blankets infected with TB and Cholera to the Native Peoples?
Or the standards of the founding fathers that bought and sold other human beings?
Different times, different places, different problems. You can’t justify or condemn one by the other.
My only point in bringing it up was to show that excessive shit had been done before.
And how do you know about the citizens of the country? Supposedly the entire population of Saudi Arabia wants to kill Americans.
According to the same media that prints crap like this torture story.
[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
Rainjack, I hate to be on the seemingly liberal side of things in this debate, and, I hold little love for the ACLU, BUT, in this case, I think there’s a very valid point, which Vroom has repeatedly brought up, which seems to escape notice by others; the persons in question were released.
Why would the US government, having in its hands terrorists, when it consistantly shows it will deal sternly with them whenever possible, then releases them free? The only explanation that can be drawn from this is that they were never terrorists to begin with. IF these same people were tortured, then something was done wrong.[/quote]
We don’t know this.
Crap, Moon, we don’t even know for sure these people were in Gitmo. Pretty good trick for Osama or whoever’s in charge now, dig up a few followers with some scars and then parade them out with the story of how they were tortured by Americans.
And perhaps the US government let them go because they were minor terrorists, and Gitmo was getting crowded with the real terrorists?
Don’t be so quick to jump on the Vroom side here.
[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
Rainjack, I hate to be on the seemingly liberal side of things in this debate, and, I hold little love for the ACLU, BUT, in this case, I think there’s a very valid point, which Vroom has repeatedly brought up, which seems to escape notice by others; the persons in question were released.
Why would the US government, having in its hands terrorists, when it consistantly shows it will deal sternly with them whenever possible, then releases them free? The only explanation that can be drawn from this is that they were never terrorists to begin with. IF these same people were tortured, then something was done wrong. [/quote]
That has nothing to do with the issue as far as I’m concerned. Maybe they bribed with freedom in exchange for information. It happens. Even in our own court system. Plea bargains are made all the time. I think if these guys were truly ‘innocent’ we would have heard nothing about it.
Do we even know for sure what ‘tortures’ were implemented? Were they forced to listen to Ted Kennedy’s attempts at public speaking? If not, then if they walked out of detention under their own power, and not malnourished - where is the proof of their torture? If it is the ACLU we are to trust, I won’t.
I see some attacking style comments coming at me already, when it isn’t deserved.
First of all, there is no vroom side! I’m not representing anything. I’m asking some questions based on the information that has been presented so far.
I think it is naive to think that everything out there is merely a trick. There was never any type of abuse or torture and that nothing wrong ever occurs.
A suit was filed. We’ll have to see what information, if any, comes out. The concepts behind it, appear to point to the fact that some people are imprisoned and then released, without charges.
Sure, they could bargain their way out. Alternately, they could simply be picked up. Huge assumptions that everyone over there “allows” terrorism to flourish is just as bad as their assumption that everyone over here “allows” US imperialism to flourish at the expense of third world countries.
And for chrissake, I’m not supporting the viewpoints, I’m discussing them. There is a huge difference you folks need to learn to understand. This means, explicitly, I don’t agree with the concept of US imperialism.
There are important issues to consider, if you can get past your hatred and think rationally. If you are right, everyone in the prisons is guilty, and only the deserving are tortured, and so on and so on, then I won’t be suggesting there is anything wrong.
If, however, innocent people are getting caught up in abuse and torture for no other reason than hatred, then there is something wrong. Blind hatred and categorization of entire societies is precisely the reason that terrorism flourishes against us. Are we not above that?
Maybe not. If not, why pretend we are?
Vroom, don’t you get it? Secret trials, indefinite detention without charges, and torture are all the way to a New More Safe American World. They’re Arabs anyway, so who cares about their civil liberties? Damned sandheads shoulda stopped terrorism on their own!
The problem with your presumed neutrality, vroom, is that it smacks of your patented “blame the U.S. first” policy. You took sides immediately.
Why is it attacking you to disagree with your accusations?
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Vroom, don’t you get it? Secret trials, indefinite detention without charges, and torture are all the way to a New More Safe American World. They’re Arabs anyway, so who cares about their civil liberties? Damned sandheads shoulda stopped terrorism on their own![/quote]
I’m not sure I understand your dripping sarcasm, nephorm. We are at war. Are you saying we should give suspected enemy participants the benefit of the doubt? That, in a war zone, they should be innocent till proven guilty? Do we also need to Mirandize them? Who is the arbitor of the definition of ‘torture’? Ted Kennedy?
The last time I looked, there were around 3000 people in the bottom of Hedo’s hole that never recieved the consideration that we now owe our enemies.
Since none of the people supporting the use of torture in this “war on terrorism” bothered to respond to my question that I’ve posted several times in other posts - “How many convictions have been made in connection to 9/11 and the war on terrorism?” - I thought I’d help you out.
Taking Liberties
David Cole
October 4, 2004
On September 2 a federal judge in Detroit threw out the only jury conviction the Justice Department has obtained on a terrorism charge since 9/11. In October 2001, shortly after the men were initially arrested, Attorney General John Ashcroft heralded the case in a national press conference as evidence of the success of his anti-terror campaign. The indictment alleged that the defendants were associated with Al Qaeda and planning terrorist attacks. But Ashcroft held no news conference in September when the case was dismissed, nor did he offer any apologies to the defendants who had spent nearly three years in jail. That wouldn’t be good for his boss’s campaign, which rests on the “war on terrorism.”
Until that reversal, the Detroit case had marked the only terrorist conviction obtained from the Justice Department’s detention of more than 5,000 foreign nationals in antiterrorism sweeps since 9/11. So Ashcroft’s record is 0 for 5,000. When the Attorney General was locking these men up in the immediate wake of the attacks, he held almost daily press conferences to announce how many “suspected terrorists” had been detained. No press conference has been forthcoming to announce that exactly none of them have turned out to be actual terrorists.
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20041004&s=cole
Ex-terror suspect freed
Moroccan immigrant is released on bond; judge tossed out his conviction last month.
David Shepardson / The Detroit News
October 13, 2004
DETROIT - Karim Koubriti, the Moroccan immigrant once suspected of being at the center of a Detroit terror cell, was freed from prison Tuesday after spending three years in custody - nearly all of it in solitary confinement.
http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0410/13/c01-302102.htm
So next time your looking at the hole where the twin towers used to be or thinking about how fighting a war in Iraq relates to 9/11 - maybe it might finally dawn on you that “9/11” wasn’t what it seemed and why you should be concerned about the torture issue.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Who is the arbitor of the definition of ‘torture’? Ted Kennedy?
The last time I looked, there were around 3000 people in the bottom of Hedo’s hole that never recieved the consideration that we now owe our enemies.
[/quote]
well, fatteddy is an expert on water torture.
Rainjack, unfortunately all you see when you read my writing is what you think I would say or represent.
In another area, I do think that the administration bears responsibility for setting the rules and seeing that they are followed – I’ve talked about that before. Who else can be responsible?
However, in the wider war on terror, you are completely off base. I appear to be asking questions that make some people upset. Maybe that is because the questions are significant?
Sweeping all this shit under the rug and ignoring it is deplorable. Nephorm is making a parody of the type of responses we are seeing on this thread already.
If that isn’t the thinking of the average poster in this thread, then lets see some thought. Lets see some consideration of the underlying issues from the die-hard right. In everything, there is balance.
I am not anti-US or blaming the US when I look into something and talk about what I might be seeing. If you don’t like what I see, don’t blame me, I’m just a messenger.
Doesn’t anyone care that there is a good possibility that innocent individuals have been torured? Does that not cause a problem with your sense of justice? Can you not say something like “if innocent people were tortured that would be wrong”? Instead, I see people get upset at the suggestion that IF something has occured, it might be a problem.
At the same time, you claim to be all about what is right. You claim to have honor and dignity and all that. I’m speaking in the larger sense, not just to you Rainjack, don’t take offense. Well, which is it? Do you care for the little guy, or only the American little guy? Is it alright to look the other way while innocent people are tortured? What, is Iraq the worlds biggest pizza shop?
It’s a question. You should do some soul searching. It isn’t an anti-US rant or a quest for the placement of blame, and it isn’t a politically motivated message. It’s about the principles involved and how people feel about them.
Anything else is your misinterpretation of what you think I might stand for. It shows your own attitudes, or perhaps oversensitivities, not mine.
nice one, Vroom!
Look…at least for me, I think I’ve made it clear (but maybe not?) that I don’t care. If there’s a good chance these people are terrorists–and I’m pretty sure there had to be some sort of compelling reason for them to wind up in Gitmo in the first place–and torture is a way to uncover more of the terror organizations or prevent attacks, then more power to go.
What can’t be discounted is that these people–and here I mean the terrorists–are savages. And you cannot reason with savages, you can only destroy them.
I also get a little irritated sometimes that there are people who don’t or won’t understand. These are the same types of people who gave Hitler Chekoslovokia and said he was a nice guy.
Ya know?
[quote]vroom wrote:
Doesn’t anyone care that there is a good possibility that innocent individuals have been torured? Does that not cause a problem with your sense of justice? Can you not say something like “if innocent people were tortured that would be wrong”? Instead, I see people get upset at the suggestion that IF something has occured, it might be a problem.[/quote]
Everyone knows torturing innocent people is wrong. So is blowing 3000 innocent people up with a couple of commercial airliners. That’s not the problem. The problem I have is that instead of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, the U.S. must admit that torture is wrong, even though there is absolutely no proof of wrongful torture. That’s the problem I have. I trust that we are doing the best we can to prosecute this war as justly as it can be. You don’t. Neither does the ACLU, JTF, or Ted Kennedy. All of them want the U.S. to fail. So pardon me if I don’t feel the need to wax introspective over the accusations of those that want to see America punished.
Who does Canada care for, or France, or Germany? To sit idlely by and coach from the grandstands is just plain hypocritical. Evidently your country would rather there be rape rooms, torture chambers and mass graves. I think the U.S. is doing more than its fair share of looking out for the little guy. Does Canada care for the little guy, or just the Canadian little guy? Once again, you claim this wide-eyed curiosity, but it’s laced with your own bias.
You say this here, yet in the previous paragraph you ask if our interest is only for ourselves. Which is it? I’ve told you exactly how I feel about the ACLU, and all that want to convict the U.S. on here say.
I think the general problem with the torture debate is what does it actually prove? how can you can you clarify the quality of evidence obtained ?. If like Hussain Adbulkadr Yousef Moustafa I had a stick inserted up my rectum, by US troops, I think I would confess to anything. This is the first problem with the torture, it does not always yield ‘the truth’, there are too many cases like Didar Khalan - who after having his arm broken amongst other things gave false testimony. NO matter how much Joe Weider is in denial there are too many cases of people being gathered on whims and being incarcerated in Guantanamo. How can this be possibly helping the cause against “War on Terrorism” ?.
The other problem is that the US administration can’t have it both ways, they postulate they are champions of freedoms and such ideals and then use the ‘end justify the means’ argument to support the use of torture. Which of the two does the administration stand for ?. The main thing I have picked up from this thread is the lack of honesty in some people, why don’t people like Joe hold their hands up and just say " I don’t mind killing a load of darkies, a load of rag-heads, after all they look and sound different from US Americans, IF it makes me feel safer, even if these people aren’t guilty of anything". Its not about ideals of freedom, its just about the US being the strongest nation in terms of arms on the earth and using influence to safe guard its interests, even if means coercion and killing an ungodly amounts of innocents people, after all they’re not white, just a bunch of darkies who believe in a different religion and speak differently. "most of the people on the Arab street don’t respond well to kindness, they see it as weakness. It’s some sort of cultural thing ", hey Joe is that not racial stereotyping ?. "But so many Arabic/Muslim types hate us so much, for no good reason ". On 20 August 1998, the United States launched an attack on Khartoum in Sudan, bombing the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant under direct orders from President Bill Clinton.The U.S. attack was justified on the pretext that the al-Shifa plant was not all that it seemed, but that it was actually a chemical weapons factory linked directly to Bin Laden.No exact numbers were given for the death toll but it is estimated over 2,000 people were killed. Under closer examination it was revealed that this link was false and no chemicals weopens or precursors were found in the plant.
[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
Elkhntr1 wrote:
vroom wrote:
Perhaps Joe, but I wish you’d stop using Elkhunter’s avatar… 
Vroomster, thanks for looking out, but I did submit a change due to the heist. I am not sure it went through yet.
weren’t no heist, it was out there plain in the open with the keys in it! AND the engine running.
[/quote]
Weider, just being humorous. By the by, I like your new Clock Work Orange handle. Regarding the Israeli Naval Lt. you (lifted) that from Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior didn’t you? (jk)
Yeah, and that was also the day Monica Lewinsky started her grand jury testimony. So Bill Clinton killed around 2000 people to take the worlds eyes of his own legal problems.
Wow.
Hey, I really have to take offense with your generalization of me.
I said the terrorists were a bunch of savages that we couldn’t reason with. I’ve known individuals from the Middle East who were all wonderful people, and I’m sure that goes for bunches and bunches more.
So please don’t put me in the “lets kill a bunch of darkies” crap camp, okay?
Unless those “darkies” are terrorists who want to hurt the US.