The United States of Torture.

Perhaps if you had an ounce of critical rationale youd be asking why none of England's superiors who orchestrated and authorised the torture (right up to the Joint Chiefs and Rummy's cabal at the Defense Dept) are serving any prison time.

Obviously you are too busy defending the admin's criminality with every post to comprehend the diversionary tactic of "scapegoating". A practice in which our MIC has long excelled.

A puppet regime installed through a fraudulent and corrupt electoral process devised by Washington, not the Iraqis, is not a democracy. Keep clinging to that lie though, no sense spoiling your track record.

Always looking for the lamest excuses to avoid holding our government accountable for its criminality. Once again with the entirely mistaken WWII analogy as well.

US involvement in WWII was in response to German (indeed Axis)transnational aggression and a formal declaration of war against us by Hitler. Iraq/Afghanistan were our own acts of unprovoked illegal transnational aggression against two sovereign states which neither threatened nor attacked us. The principles breached by the current admin in these examples are the very same according to which the allied powers tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. I suggest you look them up if in any doubt.

 

Thanks. I ask again, if torture is permitted, why is Lynndie England in jail?

Iraq is a real democracy. It is a democracy recognised by the UN, by its neighbors, and by its citizens who have risked their lives on multiple occassions to vote. On the other side we have LickHerish and Saddam who says he is still the rightful ruler of Iraq. Guess what - I do not and have never cared what the "mossad was behind 9/11" brigades think of Iraqi democracy.

I didn't bring up WWII, Skip did, so tell him he lacks "an ounce of critical rationale", although this phrase has no actual meaning, it is just randomly assembled rhetoric.

 

Several years ago I warned on these forums that this US government was in danger of repeating many of the mistakes in its ‘war on terror’ that British governments made in it’s war against the terrorist IRA.

One of those mistakes was resorting to torture.

The British army and intelligence services were involved in many acts of torture in the 70’s and 80’s and if I remember correctly were even prosecuted a couple of times in the European court of Human Rights.

It began as a way of extracting information but was later used as punishment meant to deter people from joining the IRA and therefore halting the ‘war’. Instead it had the opposite effect. The tortures enflamed peoples passions and made them more likely to undertake terrorist acts or assist the terrorists. It made Catholic Irish people hate the British which were seen to be collectively responsible for allowing it to take place. The testimonials of the tortured were used to raise money amongst American citizens of Irish descent who paid for the terrorists guns and explosives allowing the ‘war’ to go on.

As a human being I think torture is sick, but even people that think it useful must try and realise that torture is counterproductive.

The perception of many people about the trials such as the one for Lynndie England was that their was a cover up with a few minor characters being thrown to the wolves while the more senior personnel and the ‘attitude’ of acceptance went unchecked. There should have been a complete and independent inquiry by a non-American third party and the non-military and intelligence personnel should have been questioned and were applicable prosecuted.
Now it might have been all above board and all the people involved might have been punished but it just didn’t seem like it and there are those that were involved that seem to hint that it isn’t and wasn’t.

As I’ve commented elsewhere this ‘war’ is as much about perception as it is about reality. The British did not deserve to be terrorised by the IRA many were as appalled by the torture conducted in their name as any other compassionate human being would be. But in the view, the perception, of many Catholics it was different. To them we were involved and many American citizens were willing to pay for the explosives used to kill British people because of that perception.

 

Skip I agree with you on most things. We share a lot of the same opinions But "Cunteaser Lice " that is not only a personal attack it is sexist and demeaning. I was disappointed to hear you say that. I feel that the members of the current administration are evil, greed driven, liars, who are engaged in criminal acts. However, I think calling them vulgar names should be beneath us.

 

Only if conservatives do it.

Meanwhile I'm not the least bit surprised to see Skip call the press "completely compromised" and "muzzled", nazi germany etc on one thread and then on the next its "Hey look at this story on ABC news revealing secret CIA prisons!"

 

I think in the Lyndie England case it was after some photos were slipped under the commanding officers door. Then a investigation was started.. the only reason we got to see and read about it was after this investigation had started and certain evidence came into the public domain.

How come this highly inflammatory selection of photos managed to slip through 'US censors' i would have thought it would have been covered up.. I guess only storys that have a longegevity manage to get through the MEDIAS censor.. not the other away around.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,1589442,00.html
· Extracted from One Woman's Army by Janis Karpinski,

 

I saw him on Newsnight last night... what he fails to say is that he apposed the war and is biased.

it says in that article

Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'. In Morocco he claims he underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA officer was a regular interrogator.

He stated last night it was not him who suffered this torture but somebody else.. if it actually happened at all.
He also said he was in Guantanamo for i think 18 months.. rather than the alleged ''spent nearly three years in the CIA's network of 'black sites'''

I can fully appreciate somebody being pissed off at being locked up...but please i wish he could get his story straight... Just because he has been through a ordeal , does not make him a paragon of the truth or untouched by bias..


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4507010.stm

You might just be able to watch it again...

The programme was really a damp squib.. us lot could have done better.

It has to be seen to be believed..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4507010.stm

 

Matt's favorite denial line "biased". Couldn't be opposed to the war and reveal the dirty truth now could he. No, regardless of the facts to which he had access, you dare not realise how deeply you've been betrayed by a concerted ideological agenda of lies and militancy in the planning for more than a decade by the same folks who brought you death squads in Honduras/Guatemala/El Salvador and Columbia as well and the Iran/Contra scandal during the Reagan Era.

Every revelation, simply falls upon matt's deaf ears while he recites "bias" "bias" "bias" like a schoolboy having face some unbearable news.

Good critical reasoning there matt. Keep it up!

 

I just got mixed up .... Moazzam Begg [i never caught his name on the programme] story seemed almost plagarised [so shoot me for thinking he had added certain elements from somewhere else] Both were mentioned...Both have remarkably similar storys to tell .. Hasty conclusions from myself granted..

I see i am not the only one jumping to hasty conclusions...

I was not trying to discredit..i was 'just saying' thats all.. now we all are on the same page [or should that be now i am]...

I'll remember to trot out the same stuff at every opportunity regardless of the actuality of the situation and evidence in front of me... I can admit to being wrong ... when you gain this humilty i will raise a glass.

 

It is wiser too read everything.. rather than geeting a glimpse at what is being said... think what you wish... but it is better too read everything and ask if certain elements are troubling you....

Seasons Greetings..

P.S

you could always just stay pissed off and not grasp/ask what others are thinking.. but hey thats your privelage.

 

If you read any of my posts at all, you know that I do not condone the actions of the US. However, can anyone name one war or one country in which torture did not occur? I am not condoning it and I think if we stood to our professed ideals, we would be above it. But lets be real here One of the many reasons that wars suck so bad is that they all involve torture. I saw a man pushed out of a hovering chopper he fell all of 3 feet. However, He was blindfolded and believed that he was falling to his death. That man was broken and will carry that with him for the rest of his life. I do not know what became of that man. I was standing with a stick waiting for MI to get finished with the bird. But believing you are going to die is about as bad as it gets.