Waterboarding

So you admit to being both!

I'm not convinced that waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and loud music constitutes torture in the sense that slicing eyeballs, cutting off toes, and crushing testicles do.

I am also not convinced that torture doesn't work. Certainly it is not the equivalent of a truth serum, but the example of KSM would seem to indicate that harsh interrogation (or torture, if you prefer) works. He may have confessed to killing JFK in the process, but clearly he also provided actionable information....

Sometimes I just would like to see people acknowledge the full measure of their beliefs.

If you believe that torture is unacceptible in any situation than you should be willing to acknowledge that you accept that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocents may die as a direct result of that absolute ban, and when it happpens those for the ban will grieve as much as the rest of us, but they will also accept some measure of a burden uniquely theirs.

blatham wrote:

Roxxxanne wrote:

blatham wrote:

Why try to reason with these two, folks? It won't work.

I notice that there are only a handful of delusional folks left who still drink the Bush kool aid here and across the country. Recent polling shows that Bush is even losing the hard-core. It appears to me that the only remaining enthusiastic support for his policies comes from the pathological.

Yes, and that small percentage (perhaps 20% or a bit higher) remain ardently supportive. nimh asked at one point recently how low we all might estimate Bush's ratings would/could drop. I suspect it won't drop much lower and I think that is because of some set of factors about any human population...something like one in five are mostly unable to change their minds or allegiances. Mind you, I don't think this is a partisan or left/right matter. I think this would be true if it was a Dem president equally incompetent.

Actually, in all candor, it is pathological, these people (mostly middle-aged to older men) just can't admit they were wrong. They are in complete, lock-down denial.

... The US bears no fault for 9/11. We have certainly pursued policies that were not favorable to certain groups or regions, but the crime of 9/11 is the full responsibility of those who planned and executed it. It wasn't the FBI's or CIA's fault, ...

Look how quickly, though all too often, errantly so, the US retaliates for perceived wrongs.

JTT,
Please give a list of all the "wealth" we have stolen from all of the other countries on earth.
If we are doing whatyou claim,it shouldnt be very hard to provide such a list.

mysteryman wrote:

JTT,
Please give a list of all the "wealth" we have stolen from all of the other countries on earth.
If we are doing whatyou claim,it shouldnt be very hard to provide such a list.

List what you can JTT, I think MM is prepared to point out what you missed.

parados wrote:

mysteryman wrote:

JTT,
Please give a list of all the "wealth" we have stolen from all of the other countries on earth.
If we are doing whatyou claim,it shouldnt be very hard to provide such a list.

List what you can JTT, I think MM is prepared to point out what you missed.

Nope, I want him to back up his claim, thats all.
EVERY time someone on the right makes a claim, those on the left demand proof.
So,lets apply the same standard.

What "wealth" have we stolen from other people or countries?
If it is happening, it shouldnt be hard to prove.

JTT,
Please give a list of all the "wealth" we have stolen from all of the other countries on earth.
If we are doing whatyou claim,it shouldnt be very hard to provide such a list.

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940), nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye," was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.

I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.

In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Claims_of_the_Business_Plot

engineer wrote:

... The US bears no fault for 9/11. We have certainly pursued policies that were not favorable to certain groups or regions, but the crime of 9/11 is the full responsibility of those who planned and executed it. It wasn't the FBI's or CIA's fault, ...

You can't go around the world mistreating people and stealing their wealth without expecting that someday, someone is going to retaliate. Look how quickly, though all too often, errantly so, the US retaliates for perceived wrongs.

If I use my wealth or connections to get ahead of you at the workplace, I can see why you might dislike me, refuse to cooperate when I need help, passively resist my efforts just for spite and laugh at my misfortunes. But if you decide to murder me, you are completely in the wrong.

Not at all, engineer, in cases like that, but if you used thugs to advance your position, I'm sure that you can see that that is both immoral and illegal. I'm afraid that the "murders", proportionately, have come from "you" rather than from others.

Sorry. I don't doubt that the US has pursued paths that benefited the US at others' expense, but if you defend the perpetrators of 911 based on that, we disagree.

I made no defence of any person or persons or any action. [and by the way, I liked most of your post]. I merely pointed out that 9-11's have to happen. They will happen again, some probably much worse than the first and the only way that it will ever end is if the US stops hurting both people and their countries simply to advance their selfish interests.

It's so self evident. I don't know why so many turn a blind eye to it.

engineer wrote:

If I use my wealth or connections to get ahead of you at the workplace, I can see why you might dislike me, refuse to cooperate when I need help, passively resist my efforts just for spite and laugh at my misfortunes. But if you decide to murder me, you are completely in the wrong.

Not at all, engineer, in cases like that, but if you used thugs to advance your position, I'm sure that you can see that that is both immoral and illegal. I'm afraid that the "murders", proportionately, have come from "you" rather than from others.

Sorry. I don't doubt that the US has pursued paths that benefited the US at others' expense, but if you defend the perpetrators of 911 based on that, we disagree.

I made no defence of any person or persons or any action. [and by the way, I liked most of your post]. I merely pointed out that 9-11's have to happen. They will happen again, some probably much worse than the first and the only way that it will ever end is if the US stops hurting both people and their countries simply to advance their selfish interests.

It's so self evident. I don't know why so many turn a blind eye to it.

I sure don't need to be schooled by someone that doesn't have the grasp of a first grader.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

....

Sometimes I just would like to see people acknowledge the full measure of their beliefs.

If you believe that torture is unacceptible in any situation than you should be willing to acknowledge that you accept that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocents may die as a direct result of that absolute ban, and when it happpens those for the ban will grieve as much as the rest of us, but they will also accept some measure of a burden uniquely theirs.

.

I also disagree that those who disapprove of torture "accept some measure of a burden uniquely theirs". This is the logic of the bully and the criminal. "If you don't do as I say, it is your fault that I am bad!" Sorry, I disagree. The US bears no fault for 9/11. We have certainly pursued policies that were not favorable to certain groups or regions, but the crime of 9/11 is the full responsibility of those who planned and executed it. It wasn't the FBI's or CIA's fault, not local police, not airlines, just the terrorists. Likewise, any blame for future attacks fall upon those who commit them rather than those who call for humane treatment of prisoners.

What I am saying is that if your belief is that torture, under any circumstances, should be banned and this becomes the prevailing belief, and torture under any circumstances is banned, then when a situation arises where torture might have saved lives, you and those you joined in asserting the prevailing belief bear a unique burden of responsibility for the deaths.

Can "a situation arise[s] where torture might have saved lives", Finn, or "does a situation come to light where torture might have saved lives"?

Anywoo, it's really quite fascinating how you absolutist Republicans' morals waver with but the slightest breeze, as long as that breeze blows the way of your disjointed thinking.

The line that you're ask us to swallow is a complete refutation of all that you suggest you believe in.

Do judges share a greater burden for those criminals who do their time but reoffend? There are risks in life but sensible people have realized that this world cannot afford to cast aside morality and pander to peoples' base nature.

Your arguments against torture are reasonable, but the issue doesn't exist only on a theoretical level. Unless you can mount evidence that torture will never save lives --and you most certainly cannot-- if your belief (joined with others) bans all torture, then you bear some responsibility for the lives lost that torture could have saved. It is not difficult to construct a scenario where such lives number in the thousands.

It is the same with supporters of the death penalty. We all know that innocents have and will die as a result of a prevailing belief that the death penalty is just. When they do, those who have lent their support to the death penalty will bear a unique burden of responsibilty for the death of an innocent.

There is a real price to most positions of moral absolutism. This doesn't mean we should never advance a moral absolute, but we should be honest enough to acknowledge that there is a calculus at play which involves injury to innocents.

It's easy to be against everything that is ugly, but without an appreciation that ugly is sometimes good and beauty sometimes kills, the opposition is childish.

What is your measure of responsibility now, for the lives and well-being of any captured Americans or other troops of the coalition of the easily duped?

mysteryman wrote:

JTT,
Please give a list of all the "wealth" we have stolen from all of the other countries on earth.
If we are doing whatyou claim,it shouldnt be very hard to provide such a list.

MM,

Do try to focus. I notice that you've conveniently avoided the crucial aspects of my posting and chosen this tangent as a way to divert attention from the most important portions.

There aren't enough bytes in cyberspace for me to list all that the USA has stolen from other countries.

I avoided nothing.
You made the claim, and now you are balking at backing it up.
Why is that?

I'll leave you with this;

Quote:

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 - June 21, 1940), nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye," was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.

I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.

In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Claims_of_the_Business_Plot

and ask, weren't you, until recently, one of these same gangsters, providing cover for a grand racketeering scheme that continues to this day?

No, I was a US Navy corpsman, providing combat medical care to wounded marines, civilians, and other people wounded in combat.
I took part in humanitarian missions all over the world, providing relief and medical aid to victims of natural disasters.
You apparently have total disdain for anyone and anything having to do with the military, and thats your right.
But dont expect me to go along with your comments.
You can however, expect me to challege ALL of your statements regarding the military.

And all this time, you thought what you were doing was for something principled. Boy, did they dupe you, biiiiiig time! And what did you get out of it, a chunk(s) of worthless metal to pin on your chest.

If I were you, I'd send it/them back and ask for your cut of the loot.

I am very proud of my medals, all of them.
I received a purple heart for being wounded, along with several others.
They are not worthless, at least not to me.
If you consider them worthless, then dont look at them.
As for my "cut of the loot", I get a retirement check every month, and I have the satisfaction of knowing I was part of something good.
Thats all I need.



And this; your country overthrew a legal government in Hawaii, in order to steal the wealth of that land. "In 1993, a joint Apology Resolution regarding the overthrow was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton"[1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii]

I will grant you that, that the US did invade a sovereign nation for economic reasons concerning Hawaii.
On that you are correct.

How much of what is now the US did the USA steal from Mexico in much the same manner as was done in Hawaii?