Thread: Interesting Documentary

TORTURINGDEMOCRACY.ORG

One of the interviewees, Malcolm Nance, I worked with while an Intelligence Instructor - I taught Russian linguist, he taught Arabic. He is one of the few people I have known whom I would consider to be incorruptible.

The documentary is shocking, and embarrassing for the US. It shows Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld (with their minions) as sadistic, arrogant, power-mad individuals; shows how they have damaged the US's reputation in the world for decades to come and placed our military at risk by disregarding the Geneva Convention; how they have placed the US in the same class as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, North Korea, North Vietnam and many of the other regimes we heretofore considered "evil", with regards to the use of torture; how they disregarded the recommendations of intelligence professionals as to what interogation techniques produced intelligence versus propoganda, and entrusted the detention and interrogation to amateurs.

However, I doubt we will ever see Bush, Cheney, or any of their "flying monkeys" in the dock in the Hague.

It's obviously completely objective...just like all the other information we have been fed this election season!

Not that I agree with everything the Bush admin. has done, but I don't know that I believe the Geneva convention has done our troops any good when they've been POWs.

Jordan

This may be true, however it is not a justification to break it, no more than it is a justification to go on a killing rampage, just because somebody in your family was killed.
I believe we all strive primarily for moral power.

Originally Posted by JMS

It's obviously completely objective...just like all the other information we have been fed this election season!

This has nothing to do with the election.

This has to do with our having potential war criminals in DC - guilty of doing things that they accuse other leaders of doing and send our military to capture them and bring them to trial.

Just because you have lawyers "skirt the edge" of legality, does not make something right. Cheney and Bush went directly against respected experts in the field of interrogation and HUMINT, as well as military leaders (Powell and others) and military law experts.

While US forces may not always enjoy the protections of the Geneva Convention, that fact was not even used as an excuse in this case. This was simple hubris and revenge.

I wonder if the world would be a better place if we had just given Cheney and Bush some Viagra? Maybe then they would not have to have done everything they could to prove themselves....at the expense of the US's reputation and the lives of our troops.

The Constitution, the Geneva Convention, the UCMJ...is there any legal document that Cheney will not use for toilet paper?

Shameful.

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
- Edward R. Murrow

"The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers"
- Carl Jung

Right or wrong, this has nothing to do with justice. This has to do with revenge, pure and simple! The left has never gotten over the fact that they were beat out in 2000 and 2004 by a"stupid hick redneck christian republican"!

Many of you on the left feel you were cheated, feel the elections were stolen from you and will do anything for your revenge!

Let it rest

IIRC the Geneva convention has never been signed by a whole host of countries.... China, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam.... and I'm sure there are others. However it relates only to the rights of soldiers not "enemy combatants" or terrorists.
like spies these can simply be shot without pretext.

when we try to assign rights to people who are striving to deprive others of the basic right to life, we are no better than they.

let's bring it home... it is nighttime... i break into your occupied dwelling, armed and with the intent to commit various felonies (burglary), say robbery arson and murder... you shoot me causing me to fall and break my leg... you are all for me being able to bring suit against you for the shooting and the broken leg, as well as just compensation fort he the loss of earning i would normally make from these enterprises?

no real difference when you scale it up to the national level.

one other thing... lawyers are paid very well to "skirt the edge of legality" it is one of their more endearing qualities.

Originally Posted by JMS

Right or wrong, this has nothing to do with justice. This has to do with revenge, pure and simple! The left has never gotten over the fact that they were beat out in 2000 and 2004 by a"stupid hick redneck christian republican"!

Many of you on the left feel you were cheated, feel the elections were stolen from you and will do anything for your revenge!

Would you care to argument this statement? I just read it as 'This has to do with the Loch Ness monster, pure and simlpe!' and made as much sense as before.

Originally Posted by JMS

Let it rest

Actually this is a rather interesting and in my opinion very serious topic, and I personally prefer to see more viewpoints.

Originally Posted by syslight

let's bring it home... it is nighttime... i break into your occupied dwelling, armed and with the intent to commit various felonies (burglary), say robbery arson and murder... you shoot me causing me to fall and break my leg... you are all for me being able to bring suit against you for the shooting and the broken leg, as well as just compensation fort he the loss of earning i would normally make from these enterprises?

Hmm, I think that I would go with that - I think you should have the right to bring a lawsuit if you wish, and I believe that you will loose it (probably at a very early stage, as I'd expect such glaring things to be dismissed very very early on in the process). It seems to me that independent justice is a rather critical component of a civilized society. Otherwise what's the difference with a dictatorship, or totalitarianism?

I'll think more about the granting of rights, to me the problem seems that without having an independent judgement of who is guilty and who is not, everybody can be gulty. Seems like a vicious circle that shouldn't be.