I agree. But I am arguing for a clearly defined exeption This is where having an unbreakable principle becomes immoral; when the perceived need to stick to the principle is allowed to outweigh the desire to protect life. That is NOT "civilised". It turns the notion of civilisation into a religion requiring martyrdom. What good can you possibly say about a civilisation that allowed thousands of men women and children to be crushed and burnt alive, tens of thousands to be bereaved, in Canary Warf and Heathrow Airport because it upheld a principle that prevented Khalid Mohammed from being waterboarded, when there was good evidence of an imminent attack and reasonable expectation he was the plotter. This unbreakable principle would protect the human rights of an individual who was already responsible for the 9/11 mass murder instead of the rights of the thousands not to die or suffer from a preventable atrocity. You have to ask yourself who this principle is for. Is it purely so that we can call ourselves civilised. Yet you expect others within the society, who may not even agree with the principle, to be martyrs to the cause. Or is it out of compassion for Khalid Mohammed. Then where is your compassion for his victims. You can't have it both ways. It's a zero sum game
I seen a captured insurgent get his fingers broken (one by one) .. Im not allowed to talk about it though.. so you never heard this.
Those are practical issues rather than moral principles and are a separate argument. I certainly would not condone torture other than waterboarding, and then only under official warrant, issued on the basis of suspicion supported by evidence presented by a "prudent and cautious person". As for Quid pro Quo, that cat is already out of the bag after Abu Ghraib et al, -if that made any difference. In fact Al Qaeda are well into torture anyway - blow torches to the skin, flailing flesh off with chains and plastic pipes, removing eyeballs with scalpels; and that's to punish and terrorise, not just to extract defensive intelligence. In fact, regulated waterboarding under warrant may well help to eliminate the unofficial unregulated torture that you describe.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-503746/Mass-graves-Al-Qaeda-torture-centre-US-troops-Iraq.html http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/08/21/iraq.bunkers/ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/torture-al-qaeda-style
if we don't want them torturing our people, we shouldn't torture theirs. Even if they do, we shouldn't stoop that low. It makes us look like savage idiots too. If we act inhumane it gives the rest of the world permission to do the same, and see us as violent and stupid.
Yes, but would you be prepared to sacrifice your family as part of thousands of people to be killed in a terror attack -which could have been prevented by waterboarding a suspect who was known to be involved in the plot. Because allowing thousands to die in order to protect the rights of a terrorist to me seems barbaric. What is "humane" about that, exactly?
not enough men to commit anymore tortuous acts than that of a Colombian drug lord.. lame media word play.. bet they dont even type it out any more.. copy paste sentence on the go. One thing you should remember is this. when the United States was dropping bombs on Iraq. Iraqs Army was deployed everywhere .. When their weapons became abandoned, people that LIVED there picked them up (now they are pissed off people (young people that may not even know Allah blabba allah bib.. What they do know is. Your country fucked them up and in a way some of them dont even know why, any more than they know Allah -- Any fucking Fool in battle better pray and wherever you live that happens to be your Gps, so be it.. The people of Iraq, Afghanistan and many the insurgents throughout the region are not our enemy.. If your country was being bombed, blitzed, up and raided and you got a hold of weapons, wouldnt you want to do something about it too?.. True there is a time to ceasefire, and there are many Muslim countries that not a single shot is fired in?.. So whats that tell you?...
We're talking about Al Qaeda terrorists. They are not "the people who LIVED there" when Iraq was being bombed and their only grievance is out of religious ideology. They form a FOREIGN jihadist insurgency seperate from both the local Baathist and other Sunni and the Shiite insurgencies, who are all local.
True. Iraqis (apart from the Kurds) consider themselves “Arab”, although there is no ethnic basis, and it is purely a cultural/ linguistic identity. However, as a political identity (Pan-Arabism) or even a basis of allegiance this has waned much since the last century. Much more relevant is the Islamist notion of Ummah, - the House of Allah, which comprises all Muslims and the lands they occupy. For Islamists, “Jihad” is the struggle to establish a Caliphate under Sharia law over all Muslim land. They wish to rid all Muslim land of all Western presence influence and ideas, including democracy. Sadam Hussein hated Islamists, even though he portrayed himself variously as a Muslim standing against the West and against Shiite “infidels”, and as a secular Pan-Arabist, and successfully kept Muslim fundamentalism out of Iraq. The huge irony is that many in the West supported the Iraq invasion for humanitarian reasons, to get rid of Saddam Hussein because he terrorised his people. But by getting rid of him it allowed Jihadists to flood in who took over his terror methods and his torture chambers. (This stopped only when the West allied with native insurgents against Jihadists) I completely agree that the scope for the west to improve the lives of Middle Easteners through military intervention is extremely limited to say the least. When you see polls asking Iraqis whether life is better now than under Saddam I note they do not much ask the people who have fled or been killed, maimed, bereaved or destituted.
Can't say that I really care about the torture, cause we have to protect ourselves from these extremists that will do absolutely anything to destroy us. One thing that I thing is funny is that Obama wants to be nice to these countries that don't like us, and he can't say muslim extremists or most terrorists are muslim because he wants to try and be their friend. But they hate him for who he is. He is a Muslim and the worst kind of Muslim. He may have chosen Christianity, but the fact is that doesn't matter to the extremists because he was born to a Muslim man and that will make him be a Muslim for forever. And the worst kind of Muslim is the one that denounces Islam. Normal Muslims don't really care that much, this is the view of the extremists. I took this quote and the previous one from Pressed Rat and opened another threat because this is a comment that needs to be addressed, but I didn't want to jack this thread http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=414993&f=36
i think that we should all just get together and chill.... smoke a bowl... /////////////////////////////////////////// Your nothing but a pack of cards! -- says Alice in Wonderland
The Wikipedia entry for Muslim has this: The majority of Muslims accept as a Muslim anyone who has publicly pronounced the Shahadah (declaration of faith) which states, Ash-hadu an laa ilaha illa-lah Wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah "I bear witness there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and I bear witness, Muhammad is His messenger". The Amman Message more specifically declared that a Muslim is one who adheres to one of the eight schools of Islamic legal thought. There's nothing there that says the faith is necessarily inherited from one's father. (I say father, because the ideas and beliefs of women are without value in Muslim culture.)
This isn't true at all, Saudi Arabia does not represent the Muslim world, hell the world's most populous muslim nation isn't even in the mid-east. Historically too since Islam's founding until the 19th century it's quite arguable that women had more freedom in the Arab and North African world than they did in Europe of America.
The Shahadah is pronounced on behalf of the baby as soon as it is born and it is then accepted as Muslim. Whether or not that actually happened when Obama was born I have no idea, but as his father was a Muslim I imagine the Muslim world will assume that Obama was a Muslim. And Muslims hate apostates. To fundamentalists it's a sin punishable by death.
They were doing it all wrong then. Because the Quran is a charter for chauvinism and misogyny, -not missed by fundamentalists. Check out Afghanistan Despite what muslims say, the "correct" practice of islam is very culture dependent. Misogynistic cultures find easy support in the Quran, where other cultures have a more liberal interpretation.
Right, Afghanistan represents Islam just like Mississippi represents Christianity Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kyrygzstan, Bangladesh, all muslim nations that have been lead by women, something most western nations have still yet to do.
That's hardly an outcome of Muslim culture. More a top down secular progressive force, that, for example has seen to it that a proportion of seats in government are reserved for women by statute. In fact this represents anti-Muslim culture. It certainly does not reflect how ordinary women are treated (notwithstanding the fact that, yes, Afghanistan represents an extreme case) Or are you now going to tell me that the Quran supports equal rights for women.
