The US secret war

[Yossarian]

It's fucking pitiful - he's waving around GDP figures and crowing about how dominant his country is, as if it made him a more impressive individual. The guy must have precious little in his life if he puts so much importance on his 1/250,000,000th stake in America...

 

[nick1181]

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]

what you going to do about china and india then?

Hopefully a lot of trading in all kinds of goods.

 

[mears]

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.

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? I'm sure the folks in Europe know plenty about category 5 storms, deal with them all the time. Hurricane Katrina was a moment for Europeans who on average have a lower standard of living than Americans to just criticize. Our standard of living is lower but look at their response to Katrina. The US army projets its power around the world but look at Katrina. No one listens or cares what the EU has to say about the Middle East, but look at Katrina .Do we look and other governments response to natural disasters? No way, only America and only when it highlights their faults.

Nothing more than sour grapes mate.

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.

And than the attack by Islamic radicals (and really what else can they do, the CIA supported them 20 years before) on 9-11. Major event that has not been repeated in the US. If you blame George Bush for everyting you must give him some credit for this. Because if there is another terrorist attack on his watch it will of course be his fault in the mind of the European left.

Kind of like the enslavement of America by Japan in the 1980's don't you know. Sure we could turn isolationist and protectionist. Keep all Chinese products out of our country. I guess thats what you think America should do. But that really doesn't benefit anyone in my book.

 

[Yossarian]

I reckon mears wrote that last post while wearing his Statue of Liberty costume and tearfully humming The Star-Spangled Banner.

 

[rich!]

but look at Katrina ... Sure we could turn isolationist and protectionist.

Funny - isn't that exactly what your president did? Turned all isolationist and refused to let any foreign aid in?

 

[ViolentPanda]

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.

How pathetic.

A liar with delusions.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I reckon mears wrote that last post while wearing his Statue of Liberty costume and tearfully humming The Star-Spangled Banner.

Leaving both hands free so he could deploy the magnifying glass and tweezers on his atrophied genitals.

 

[sleaterkinney]

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.

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.

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?

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.

 

[Kaka Tim]

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.

third time of asking mears?

 

[mears]

third time of asking mears?

I can't say I support any of those actions, and I know it has been done in the US military and intelligence circles and its wrong. I also support Congress looking into them, or the EU for that matter. Also at some point we shall see the US had cooperation with the intelligence agencies in Europe, so that will be interesting.

I don't have a problem with working with other governments to take known terrorists of the street and move them for a couple of days to a base for interrogation, secret interrogation, to confuse associates of their approximate whereabouts. But if they can't be charged in a court of law they must set free. It can only last of a limited time (lets say two or three days) The suspect can't be threatened or degraded. Maybe he chooses to say nothing. I would not have problem keeping him up to pry out information. If thats mental torture than I am sorry.

You can't close your eyes and hope Islamic terrorism just evaporates. But again who knows, if democracy is brought to Iraq and it spreads around the area maybe it will evaporate some day. A lone superpower with a plan is better than a superpower with no plan.

 

[someoneelse]

..... But if they can't be charged in a court of law they must set free. .....

like the hundreds in Guantanamo Bay?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Knight Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale Jack Balkin, is not impressed.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/

Here's his precise, analytical demolition of the "ticking bomb" argument.

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.

 

[mears]

like the hundreds in Guantanamo Bay?

Picked up in Afghanistan fighting US troops. I would call them prisoners of war.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Geneva Convention relative to prisoners of war

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.

 

[TAE]

Picked up in Afghanistan fighting US troops.

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.

 

[fela fan]

Condoning any kind of torture can only be done by those who have forfeited the humanity they were born with. Somewhere along the way they forgot what it means to live as a human and to laugh and love as a human and to be a human.

They don't realise they are worse off than the ones they choose to torture/have tortured.

Torture, rape, and capital punishment are the preserve of the most barbaric of humans. All are premeditated violence against fellow human beings. What is so insidious when it comes to the american variety is that they do theirs in the pretence that they are bringing freedom and democracy to other people.

This could be recorded as the greatest act of self-delusion on a mass scale ever. Eyes and ears have to be screwed so shut it's a surprise they can ever see or hear again.

Perhaps they can't.

 

[davekriss]

Picked up in Afghanistan fighting US troops. I would call them prisoners of war.

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?

 

[mears]

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.

Sorry, we are at war. These folks picked up in Afghanistan were fighting US troops. Thats the price they must pay.

 

[mears]

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?

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.

 

[davekriss]

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.

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?

Am I closer to understanding your ethics?

 

[someoneelse]

removed - going off topic

 

[nino_savatte]

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!

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.

 

[nino_savatte]

Sorry, we are at war. These folks picked up in Afghanistan were fighting US troops. Thats the price they must pay.

You are at "war"? Have you ever once stopped to think about that statement? You aren't "at war"; the war was an illusion created by Bush/Rove to keep the former in office.

 

[Kaka Tim]

So Mears - are you saying that anyone who picks up a Kalashnikov when the US invades their country is a terrorist and directly implicated in the attack on the World Trade Centre?

 

[snadge]

Hopefully a lot of trading in all kinds of goods.

china and india won't want any of your shite

 

[ViolentPanda]

china and india won't want any of your shite

Hey, at the end of the day (and after condoning torture while trying, with weasel words, to appear not to condemn torture, trade is indeed what it boils down to for mears, the possibility of seeing his stocks rise, and fuck anything else.

 

[ViolentPanda]

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.

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.

 

[nino_savatte]

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.

He loves to repeat that tired wee mantra of "We are at war". It's funny but I never heard this sort of language during the Vietnam War and thousands were being conscripted at the time, but I do not recall Johnson or Nixon using this line as a means of stifling debate...they used COINTELPRO instead.

 

[TAE]

These folks picked up in Afghanistan were fighting US troops.

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).

Very few of the captives in guantanamo were caught red-handed by the US military.

And those which did, have not become the property of the united states and should not be held like slaves with no prospect of release.