Foxfyre wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Has the government admitted beating and torturing him? If not, could it be possible that the 'abused' person could be embellishing his experience? I honestly don't know the truth of the matter, but until both sides have been heard, neither does anybody else.
That's a fair enough position to take. But it isn't the same as McG's earlier questioning of his attitude and actions during imprisonment. Which is what I responded to. Those are immaterial to the question of whether or not the US should be in the business of beating and torturing people that we've thrown in prison without a trial.
Cycloptichorn
The point being that it is always best to hear both sides before making a judgment. People lie for advantage, for profit, for sympathy, to enhance their image, to avoid consequences of their choices and actions, etc. etc. etc. To automatically assume that a particular prisoner is telling the truth about anything just because you don't like those who have him in custody is based on ideology, not reason.
His account is consistent with many other accounts of treatment that people receive when illegally detained by the US military and intelligence services. It is hardly unique.
You take the position that those who have been held in US prisons for years, must be lying about their treatment there; and b/c the gov't will not EVER come forward with their account of what happened, well, we can never really know, right? This allows you to discount the situation without ever putting any real analysis into it; you don't want to believe that these sorts of things happen under US direction, so you use the foggy nature of the situation to deny the ability of these people to expose what has happened.
I think that someone who has been captured and tortured has a LOT less reason to lie, then those who would be responsible for doing that to him. Even if he wasn't beaten at all, his unlawful and immoral detainment is reason enough to be angry; and to the best of my knowledge, nobody is claiming that he was not, in fact, unlawfully and immorally detained for years.
What you describe is a system of thought which will allow the US gov't to do such things, in perpetuity, b/c hey - we can never really trust anyone who says anything bad about them, right? I mean, they COULD be lying. So we can discount all their tales. Right?
Let's assume for a second that he is not, in fact, lying about his abuses at the hands of US captors. Do you denounce those abuses?
Cycloptichorn
This upholds Hilter as being an angel........he was made to do the things he did 
