Carter: America tortures

[Urbane Guerrilla]

So how many people here pontificating want us to win and al-Q to lose? Let's see those hands.

[Aliantha]

How many people think we're all losers for being in the situation we're in? Let's see those hands.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Sitting on mine, then: the reduction of the Non-Integrating Gap is a strategic necessity to reduce the world's troubles, which are much the likeliest to come from the Gap, compared with from the Global Functioning Core, Old or New.

Yes, Thomas P.M. Barnett has made quite an impression on me.

What our present Administration is doing is an actual attempt at this. Damned if I can see any legitimate objections to it, I can tell you. I see a lot of false, communisto-fascist-symp speciousness, but nothing any too legitimate by comparison with the goal of shrinking that Gap.

[Aliantha]

would you like to translate that to simple english UG. There are morons in the house.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

So how many people here pontificating want us to win and al-Q to lose? Let's see those hands.

Define "win" in the context of this "war".

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Not everything. Torture is still wrong.

That didn't change, just the definition did. The government defined it up... and you're defining it down.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Says the fact that they're taking people to secret prisons in torture-friendly countries.

Hearsay evidence.
Not proof.
No matter how much you want to believe it.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

If they don't pay attention to our rules, why bother to change them then?

Good point. That is how we would win IMHO.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

As long as you are ok with Americans being treated that way, then fine.

To late.

Not that it is happeing... that you feel it is how they should be treated, since it is how we treat their soldiers.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That didn't change, just the definition did. The government defined it up... and you're defining it down.

I'm leaving it where it was. The government "defining it up" is an admission of guilt.

[DanaC]

If you have a suspect that's believed to possess crucial intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, do you waterboard him? What if his psych profile indicates that's the only way to get that information out of him in 24 hours?

Except that torture, or being put in fear of death and pain are notorious for producing unreliable information. Given how fucking pathetic our (US and USA) intelligence was on little matters like the WMD in Iraq, I don't trust them to have any real clue as to who they're torturing, and the likely result IMO is that innocent, or barely involved, individuals, with no real information to offer, will instead scream out whatever names they can come up with.

I don't know how much you trust your police and internal security personnel, but an innocent man was gunned down on faulty intelligence on the London Tube. In that instance the intelligence and surveillance led to a shooting: it could just as easily have led to an arrest and interrogation. If such methods as simulated drowing and sleep deprivation were employed with that innocent, and incorrectly identified man, what's the betting he'd have come up with something to tell them after a few weeks?

[Aliantha]

And now I'm wondering which was worse. Dying without being tortured or being tortured then spending the next however long in prison.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Good point. That is how we would win IMHO.

Yes well, the question has been asked, how do you define winning this conflict? When do you think enough is enough? How many more people have to be killed?

Knowing that your nation is no better than their enemy... that your pride is now misplaced.