snadge said:what you going to do about china and india then?
nick1181 said:For me one of the most touching photos of the New Orleans floods was a shot from the air of some stranded people - who were waving American flags - hoping to be rescued.
Maybe there weren't any other flags around... I found it quite sad. It was although they were saying "Rescue us, we're American, that makes us special, that makes us important". Actually it meant fuck all. The poor were left behind. Being American meant absolutely nothing.
Mears, you've been conned mate. Your government has ransacked the treasury, sold your children into debt slavery to the Chinese and repeatedly turned America into an international embarrassment. This latest thing over torture will only blow over when the next massive fuck up comes to light. It's just one thing after another.
If you're as patriotic as you say you are, you really need to do something about the way your country is being ruined. Arguing with a load of anarchists from across the Atlantic as to whether or not it's actually happening is not only delusional but also arguably a dereliction of responsibility.
I mean don't get me wrong - I've been to America seven times - I happen to really like it. I like the music, the food, the scenery, the mythology and the people - but things are fucked at the moment, and they're not going to get better until this government is out of office and prosecutions for what's been going on these last five years get underway.
mears said:but look at Katrina ... Sure we could turn isolationist and protectionist.
mears said:No you didn't. Its OK because I know you are angry there is one superpower that calls the shots. You are angry that this superpowers standard of living is higher than your country and Europe as a whole. And Geroge W. Bush is the most poweful man in the world. Gets your blood boiling I know
But none of this will end anytime soon
I'm afraid you will have to get used to it.
Yossarian said:I reckon mears wrote that last post while wearing his Statue of Liberty costume and tearfully humming The Star-Spangled Banner.
Not really, he's just run the books at a deficit that will come back to haunt the US, it will have to be payed off some day.mears said:George Bush has dealt with the bursting of the stock market bubble and a severe recession that followed. The US economy is back on track with solid growth and unemployment numbers most European countries can only dream of.
Both of which happened with no warning, the US had plenty of time to evacuate the city but it just left the poor people to fend for themselves, because that's how it works over there.Category 5 storms are easy to deal with, really any natural disaster. How is Pakistan responding to their terrible earthquake, are people freezing to death? What about South East Asia's response to last years tsunami. Were the early warning systems sufficient?
Kaka Tim said:Oi mears!
I asked you which of the following you think are fine and dandy but you seem to have ignored my post.
being made to stand motionless for hours on end (often in the cold),
- being threatened (like with dogs) but not actually harmed.
- being sexually humiliated (i.e having female staff take pictures of you and laugh at your dick)
- being held indefinitely without charge
- not being told the evidence against you
- not having access to a legal advice
- your freinds and family not being told where you are or what you are being charged with
- being held in secret without any public knowledge of you wherabouts (i.e 'disapperared').
(edited to add these delights at Violent Pandas suggesiton)
- being awakened every time you fall asleep.
- being deprived of toilet facilities and forced to foul yourself
- being deprived of sustenance
- having pharmaceuticals or salt added to your food/water.
Kaka Tim said:third time of asking mears?
mears said:..... But if they can't be charged in a court of law they must set free. .....
Suppose you believe that there are a small number of situations posing immediate peril to a large number of people, in which torture is absolutely necessary to elicit the key information that will prevent the peril, so that every nation in the world will practice torture under these circumstances.
At the same time you wish to deter the use of torture in every other circumstance, because you are worried about descending down the slippery slope to situations where a great peril is not imminent, or where the information elicited by torture is not necessary to prevent this great peril but is merely helpful to advance national security or other important interests.
The best way to achieve this set of goals would be not to carve out a legal exception for torture in emergencies but rather to impose a total ban. If the situation is so dire that torture is absolutely necessary to save a large number of people, illegality will not be a deterrent. Government officials will still commit torture. Then, after the fact, legal decisionmakers can determine whether their actions should be excused or pardoned.
Even if you excuse or pardon torture after the fact, however, you should not make evidence obtained by torture admissible in a subsequent military tribunal or criminal prosecution. If the torture was necessary to prevent an imminent and grave peril, the information should be used for that purpose, and that purpose alone. Otherwise you will indeed descend down the slippery slope, because you have created incentives for government officials to torture in order to elicit information for the purpose of assisting military or criminal prosecutions.
someoneelse said:like the hundreds in Guantanamo Bay?
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
Bullshit. Many were captured by your friends the northern alliance, some were arrested in Pakistan, others were handed over to US soldiers in return for money.mears said:Picked up in Afghanistan fighting US troops.
If they are prisoners of war and the war is over, which is the case (the Taliban is out of power and the American puppet Karzai regime is in office), then why are they still prisoners? Shouldn't they have been released? Isn't it a violation of articles of the Geneva Convention to still hold them? Isn't it a violation of the GC to hold them in stress positions, urinate on them or their religious articles, to attempt to solicit information?mears said:Picked up in Afghanistan fighting US troops. I would call them prisoners of war.
TAE said:Bullshit. Many were captured by your friends the northern alliance, some were arrested in Pakistan, others were handed over to US soldiers in return for money.
davekriss said:If they are prisoners of war and the war is over, which is the case (the Taliban is out of power and the American puppet Karzai regime is in office), then why are they still prisoners? Shouldn't they have been released? Isn't it a violation of articles of the Geneva Convention to still hold them? Isn't it a violation of the GC to hold them in stress positions, urinate on them or their religious articles, to attempt to solicit information?
The GWB Regime long ago argued that they are NOT prisoners of war, mears, and thus not protected by the Geneva Convention; instead, they are something new, invented by the Regime, called "enemy combatants". Did you forget that?
Well, should we also lock up every American that has read the Turner Diaries then? Who knows when the next Timothy McVeigh will saunter along? It's WAR you say against them evil terrorist!! Should we also abandon to Gitmo everyone who is anti-choice? Who knows when the next Eric Rudolph's gonna' toss a bomb into an abortion clinic? I mean, lock 'em up, waterboard them all -- out of the tens of thousands you, mears, would inter, surely one or two really means to do us harm!! Better to be safe than sorry, right? No habeas corpus needed. No rule of law. Morality is a sign of weakness and sentimentality. As long as the injured party is the other guy, hey?mears said:Its not something where a government presents articles of surrender. The war against Islamic terrorism is over when Islamic terrorists stop attacking. Then the "enemy combatants" should be released. If some were released and they perpetrated acts of terrorism ,the President would never be forgiven by the American people.
mears said:Following me around again. Its sad because I think you are actually an older person and not some 18 year old anarchist which might explain your behavior.
I keep repeating it because you were unable to come up with a way to measure human prosperity, standard of living, even though you criticized my meathods. It speaks volumes, always easier to bitch than come up with something concrete.
Here come the fancy words!
mears said:Sorry, we are at war. These folks picked up in Afghanistan were fighting US troops. Thats the price they must pay.
mears said:Hopefully a lot of trading in all kinds of goods.
snadge said:china and india won't want any of your shite
nino_savatte said:You really are in a wordl of your own because, as with the previous reply, you don't deal with the point raised.
Your insults stink, like your politics.
ViolentPanda said:Please don't waste your energy, mate.
He's locked himself into his delusion, and he isn't going to shift from it.
Anyway, anyone with any sense and with any history of reading mears' posts knows all about his mendacity, so his proclaiming one thing pretty much guarantees people will know the opposite is true.
Many were not. One of the british guys who ended up in guantanamo was arrested in islamabad. Others were handed over to US troops by the northern alliance (who until the US got involved didn't wear uniforms either).mears said:These folks picked up in Afghanistan were fighting US troops.