patrick.net

Bigsby says

No, it's a flaw in your stupidly broad brush stroke of a comparison.

I don't intent to convince you. That would be impossible, and quite frankly I don't give a damn what you think.

But I will state for the record that any decent person who reads this article on the CIA torture would conclude that everyone involved should face Nuremberg-style trials, and that is the only way America will ever be able to wipe its hands clean of these atrocities.

From Friedman's article:
I greatly respect how Senator John McCain put it: “I understand the reasons that governed the decision to resort to these interrogation methods, and I know that those who approved them and those who used them were dedicated to securing justice for the victims of terrorist attacks and to protecting Americans from further harm. ... But I dispute wholeheartedly that it was right for them to use these methods, which this report makes clear were neither in the best interests of justice nor our security nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend.” Even in the worst of times, “we are always Americans, and different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us.”

Dan8267 says

But I will state for the record that any decent person who reads this article on the CIA torture would conclude that everyone involved should face Nuremberg-style trials, and that is the only way America will ever be able to wipe its hands clean of these atrocities.

Fine. Prosecute them, but don't peddle stupid lines about genocide and Nazism. Deal with the behaviour of a presumably relatively small group of people and the institution that allowed it/down played it/covered it up.

FortWayne says

CIA is ran by assholes, no better than the terrorists they tortured.

This is a gift of the Nazis, and I'm not exaggerating to make a point.

The CIA used torture in Vietnam, and all over South America. As did the graduates of the "School of the Americas" which didn't exist to teach Latin Americans the finer points of Spanish Grammar.

Where did the sudden interest in torture come from? Gehlen and others. All the escaped Nazi rats who fled to the Allies to avoid real justice at the hands of the enraged Russians. All the intel Nazis were snapped up by the OSS, later CIA.

Dan8267 says

Torturing people to death is the worst thing a person can possibly do. The comparison is apt. Both the Nazis and the CIA have no respect for human life and take a sadistic pleasure in torturing others. Same evil.

There are many stories about CIA led teams in South America. In several incidences priests and nuns were tortured, and at least one distinctly remembers hearing the voice of "Alejandro" who spoke American-accented Spanish and English. "Alejandro" said the police made a mistake by kidnapping her, but not by torturing here. He was apparently smart enough to realize that she was the wrong person to torture, not that it was wrong to torture a person.

It already came out from Guatemalan Archives that not only was the CIA there, but that they exceeded their boundaries of actions and financing.

Sister Dianna of the Ursuline Order:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianna_Ortiz

Can we send the CIA over to the NAR Headquarters?

Two other quick points:

Mubarak, Assad, and others helped the CIA torture. The CIA sent them there with 100% full knowledge of what would happen.

Also, numerous cases of "mistaken identity", including people who froze to death. Turns out they got the wrong guys in many circumstances.

CIA Agents also got "Cash" rewards, including ones that sent the innocents by mistake.

But make no mistake: there’s still an extraordinary amount to take away from this report. If there is one tragic story, out of the many, that is emblematic of the CIA program, as its supporters defend it in the days, it’s that of Gul Ruhman. It may be two stories – it’s hard to know, so much has been redacted and the atrocities are so countless – but at least one Gul Ruhman we know was tortured at the notorious CIA black site known as the Salt Pit, chained to the floor and frozen to death. The CIA’s inspector general referred this person’s case to CIA leadership for discipline, but was overruled. Four months after the incident, the officer who gave the order that led to Rahman’s death was recommended for a $2,500 “cash reward” for his “consistently superior work”.

Footnote 32 explains why a dead prisoner ended up in CIA custody in the first place: “Gul Ruhman, another case of mistaken identity.”

Now, let's talk about Pussy Riot getting a few months in jail for causing a ruckus in a Church, real evil.

Perhaps they should have locked these folks in a cell with Martha Raddatz. I'd cop to anything under those circumstances.

thunderlips11 says

The CIA used torture in Vietnam, and all over South America. As did the graduates of the "School of the Americas" which didn't exist to teach Latin Americans the finer points of Spanish Grammar.

No one does Mad Dog better than the USA. The New World presented a huge opportunity for those with the killer gene to express their genetic endowment, as the Native Americans came to learn all too well. If you don't use it, you lose it, and so outlets for murder and savagery are necessary.

Strategist says

We can all agree ISIS is the mother of all terrorist organizations, right?

It's not.

ISIS is currently being wiped from the desert. They were never an existential threat to the United States, and never will be.

Abu Nidal was worse, but it's academic, because the Bolsheviks were worse, and the Mexican cartels are worse than all of them. I don't see the CIA torturing Mexican cartel members right now.

It's always "so-and-so is the worst - an unprecedented villain - and deserves no mercy" - and has been so for thousands of years. Whether it's the Judean People's Front, or the People's Front of Judea, or the Carthaginians, the struggle against the newest, most-awful ever enemy gives people the excuse to hack, torture, dismember, freeze, starve and castrate until they sink below the enemy they've demonized.

A good example is the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden in 1745. The English convinced themselves of the moral inferiority of the unprecedentedly vicious Jacobite supporters of Charles Stuart. How the English behaved after the victory has left a stain on the nation that persists - it is not regarded as an honorable victory. Hunting down the wounded for days is really not something to be proud of.

Be wary whenever you hear about the newest villain's rape rooms and beheading lust. Think about the motives of who is feeding you such stories, and the human tendency to exaggerate and conceive of the end times.

HydroCabron says

Be wary whenever you hear about the newest villain's rape rooms and beheading lust. Think about the motives of who is feeding you such stories, and the human tendency to exaggerate and conceive of the end times.

Bayonetted babies ripped from incubators! Hill & Knowlton.

Save the chilluns'! Pweeeeaaase!

"In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where ... babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."

"At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony."

http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

HydroCabron says

ISIS is currently being wiped from the desert.

I think you're underestimating the impact of Daesh on the region. And it is very far from being wiped from the desert.

HydroCabron says

Be wary whenever you hear about the newest villain's rape rooms and beheading lust. Think about the motives of who is feeding you such stories, and the human tendency to exaggerate and conceive of the end times.

They aren't squeamish about printing such stuff in the Middle East. It is happening. Obviously there is propaganda on both sides, but make no mistake about it, they are an extraordinarily brutal group.

Bigsby says

Fine. Prosecute them, but don't peddle stupid lines about genocide and Nazism.

Just because you don't see the point doesn't make it stupid. It's the exact same damn philosophy. Red-white-and-black or red-white-and-blue doesn't make a difference. What matters is what values we live by.

WWII wasn't a war against nations. It was a war against ideology. Yet the very ideology of the Nazis has been incorporated into our government and for the EXACT same reasons it was adopted by Germany in the 1930s.

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

If you don't see the parallels between that and the past 14 years, then you are illustrating the principle that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Dan8267 says

Just because you don't see the point doesn't make it stupid. It's the exact same damn philosophy. Red-white-and-black or red-white-and-blue doesn't make a difference. What matters is what values we live by.

I do get the point. You are unnecessarily exaggerating for impact. And of course it matters what values we live by. That doesn't require you to start blathering on about genocide and nazism.

Bigsby says

I do get the point. You are unnecessarily exaggerating for impact. And of course it matters what values we live by. That doesn't require you to start blathering on about genocide and nazism.

a href="http://www.amazon.com/Juan-Ricardo-Cole/e/B001IOH4SI">Juan Cole author of various books regarding the Middle East and professor of history at the University of Michigan writes

So the US polished off about a million Iraqis from 1991 through 2011, large numbers of them children. The Iraqi population in that period was roughly 25 million, so the US killed or created the conditions for the killing of 4% of the Iraqi population.

If Iraq had killed 4% of Americans, it would be 12 million people dead.

Exactly how many people must die for it to be considered a genocide? I say a million qualifies.

And if your complaint is that the CIA isn't directly responsible, just consider the CIA to be America's equivalent of the SS. The point is that the CIA and our government in general have adopted the values and ideology of the Nazis.

Nazism rears its ugly head throughout history. It just goes by different names and waves different flags. But at the core is the same damn, evil ideology:
- everyone we don't kill is a threat to us
- the ends justify the means (we're saving people by torturing and killing others)
- some people deserve to be tortured and killed
- some people have no rights
- the state must take drastic measures to stop attacks
- the state cannot be burden by legal restrictions or liability for its actions for doing so will compromise the ability of the state to provide safety and security to its civilians

Sound familiar? The Nazi doctrine and the Bush/Obama doctrines are the same.

Dan8267 says

Sound familiar? The Nazi doctrine and the Bush/Obama doctrines are the same.

Yet another exaggeration.

Dan8267 says

Exactly how many people must die for it to be considered a genocide? I say a million qualifies.

Eh? Would you like to quote how genocide is defined in Article II? You can talk about how many people needlessly died in Iraq, but what the US engaged in wasn't genocide.

bob2356 says

stop dishonouring all the people who fought for what america really stands throughout our history.

I dunno Bob - did you ever serve? If so, thanks for your service. If so, were you in any conflicts? I served, I served in Vietnam and it sucked. But it was kill or be killed. Your enemy be it a soldier directly across from you or some terrorist looking, waiting to attack you (via a bomb) from 500 ft or 200 miles away - they only want one thing, for you to die. You can't reason with them. When you 'show mercy' they take it as weakness and wait for the chance to harm or preferably kill you.

I have a son-in-law who is finishing a deployment at Gitmo. He will tell you that the folks there only have our deaths on their minds. They will die, and die happily trying to kill you (and me) in any way possible.

1942 - It's Different this Time!

“A Jap’s a Jap. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not. I don’t want any of them... Racial affiliations are not severed by migration. The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second - and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become 'Americanized,' the racial strains are undiluted."

"It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at large today. There are indications that these were organized and ready for concerted action at a favorable opportunity. The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken"

-- General DeWitt (referred to by Gen. Joe Stillwell as a blockhead)

Dan8267 says

- some people deserve to be tortured and killed

HydroCabron says

Gen. Joe Stillwell

Good old Vinegar Joe.

His name for Chiang Kai Shek was "General Peanut" because:

He used to write lengthy reports about how WW2 US aid to the nationalists was sold to the Japanese, the tires on jeeps and trucks sold on the black market, how the Generals stole their own troop's food and equipment, down to the socks, for sale.

He was a guy who wanted to WIN, so he advocated giving more help to Lin Biao, which didn't go over well in DC. Got sacked due to pressure from "Green Gang" Daughter Madam Chang, who was the Connie Corleone of one of the Shanghai Triads.

BTW, one other WW2 Fact, Carlson's Raiders was inspired by the 8th Route Army, where he had spent the interwar period (also high opinion of Lin Biao but not Mao). "Gung Ho" = "Work Harmoniously". Very Communist.

Evil is evil, no matter what color, stripe, creed, flag, ideology, party, or country. Torture is inhumane and evil.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

The CIA does not torture terrorists for pleasure you nitwits. They torture these assholes to extract critical information that can save innocent lives.

And the Nazis tortured the Jews to protect the Aryan race. Same difference. The bad guys will always justify their actions.

I know. I'm looking at a bad guy named Dan do exactly that by making it easier for terrorists to kill us.

Dan8267 says

Oh, and by the way, torture has made us LESS safe.

Silly myth. Lots of terrorist acts have been stopped because of torturing terrorists. We found Bin Laden from information got from torture.

Dan8267 says

Just remember, countries who do not live by International law and the Geneva Convention are not protected by those things either. Anyone who supports torturing our enemies tacitly supports letting our enemies torture OUR soldiers when they are captured. It's tit for tat. The only way to protect our soldiers from atrocities is to not commit those atrocities ourselves.

LOL. You really think it will stop the likes of ISIS from taking off the heads of Westerners who have nothing to do with the military. What about the children they behead? Bad people will do these things no matter what. Grow up.

Dan8267 says

No nation will hold back torturing captured soldiers from a nation that routinely tortures its captives. If we waterboard prisoners, our soldiers will be waterboarded as well. So those who advocate torture do not support our troops; they endanger our troops.

You're dreaming.

Strategist says

Silly myth. Lots of terrorist acts have been stopped because of torturing terrorists. We found Bin Laden from information got from torture.

No, we didn't. This is a common misconception, thanks to Zero Dark Thirty.

The report issued yesterday, as well as publicly-available information prior to the report, made it clear that this is not the case.

mmmarvel says

I have a son-in-law who is finishing a deployment at Gitmo. He will tell you that the folks there only have our deaths on their minds. They will die, and die happily trying to kill you (and me) in any way possible.

Well, shit, torture me and I'll want to kill the torturers too. Torture my brother/uncle/aunt/friend, and I'll want to kill.

Giving the enemy stronger morale by torturing his guys creates more enemies, not less.

Why do you think the Soviet Union in WW2 never collapsed? Because the average Russian loved the NKVD and preferred 200grams of bread a day?

G.W. Bush & his bring it on BS may lead to some of those Brown People saying, We will bring it to Americans all over the world.

Wonder if it would be wise to stay in the U.S.

Strategist says

Dan8267 says

Oh, and by the way, torture has made us LESS safe.

Silly myth.

I've quoted a multitude of evidence that says torture gained us nothing and instigated more terrorism. You choose to ignore evidence that is contrary to your agenda.

Strategist says

LOL. You really think it will stop the likes of ISIS from taking off the heads of Westerners who have nothing to do with the military.

I think that Russia and her allies will use the same "intensive interrogation" on our soldiers as America uses on its captives and Putin will justify those means by citing the U.S. as precedence.

One last thought. Ever wonder why Jesus never tortured or killed anyone? Ever wonder why Superman does not behave this way? It's because you can't be a good guy and do such things. It takes away your moral authority.

America would be able to further a stable a peaceful world much better if it hadn't lost it's credibility in the human rights department. We can't stop Syria from committing genocide because of our own illegal and heinous actions. We can't stop Russia from taking over Ukraine territory because of the same reason. We can't even stop Egypt from falsely imprisoning journalists on clearly bogus charges of terrorism because our country does the same damn thing.

There is a very real, material cost to using any means to accomplish an end. You might accomplish that end, but you give up the ability to accomplish other ends.

HydroCabron says

Strategist says

We can all agree ISIS is the mother of all terrorist organizations, right?

It's not.

Im gonna puke.

thunderlips11 says

Well, shit, torture me and I'll want to kill the torturers too. Torture my brother/uncle/aunt/friend, and I'll want to kill.

Giving the enemy stronger morale by torturing his guys creates more enemies, not less.

Exactly. That's why ISIS rose to power. That's why there is more terrorism now than before 9/11.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Dan8267 says

Oh, and by the way, torture has made us LESS safe.

Silly myth.

I've quoted a multitude of evidence that says torture gained us nothing and instigated more terrorism. You choose to ignore evidence that is contrary to your agenda.

Lot more evidence that torturing terrorists works. Ofcourse, you disregarded that.

Dan8267 says

I think that Russia and her allies will use the same "intensive interrogation" on our soldiers as America uses on its captives and Putin will justify those means by citing the U.S. as precedence.

What? We are not at war with Russia, and there are no American prisoners in Russian hands.

Dan8267 says

One last thought. Ever wonder why Jesus never tortured or killed anyone? Ever wonder why Superman does not behave this way? It's because you can't be a good guy and do such things. It takes away your moral authority.

What moral authority? Your version? I think it's immoral not to torture terrorists in order to save innocent lives.
If I had supernatural powers like Jesus and Superman, I would not have to torture. But I don't have those magic powers, so I have to be more realistic.

Dan8267 says

thunderlips11 says

Well, shit, torture me and I'll want to kill the torturers too. Torture my brother/uncle/aunt/friend, and I'll want to kill.

Giving the enemy stronger morale by torturing his guys creates more enemies, not less.

Exactly. That's why ISIS rose to power. That's why there is more terrorism now than before 9/11.

LOL. It's all America's fault as usual.

Strategist says

Lot more evidence that torturing terrorists works. Ofcourse, you disregarded that.

The report specifically says Torture didn't work.

Again, WE sent people to Mubarak, Assad, and Ghaddafyi to be tortured.
http://t.co/xyW7BjAFKN

Now we say Assad is bad, because he tortures people - but Mubarak being let go without punishment, well, that's an Egyptian thing.

HydroCabron says

Strategist says

Silly myth. Lots of terrorist acts have been stopped because of torturing terrorists. We found Bin Laden from information got from torture.

No, we didn't. This is a common misconception, thanks to Zero Dark Thirty.

The report issued yesterday, as well as publicly-available information prior to the report, made it clear that this is not the case.

Bullshit!
Even Panetta admitted torture led to the capture of Bin Laden.

thunderlips11 says

Strategist says

Lot more evidence that torturing terrorists works. Ofcourse, you disregarded that.

The report specifically says Torture didn't work.

We know who made that report.

Strategist says

We know who made that report.

Yeah, the US Senate, that den of Radical, Ideological Pacifists. And we're seeing the highly redacted version.

mmmarvel says

I have a son-in-law who is finishing a deployment at Gitmo. He will tell you that the folks there only have our deaths on their minds. They will die, and die happily trying to kill you (and me) in any way possible.

Some people think if we are nice to terrorists, they will be nice to us.
Lets send them a Xmas gift and see what we get in return.

Strategist says

Some people think if we are nice to terrorists, they will be nice to us.

Lets send them a Xmas gift and see what we get in return.

Others say that we should give up strawman arguments, because they hate America's children and want to see them molested by rabid wombats!

Dan8267 says

thunderlips11 says

Well, shit, torture me and I'll want to kill the torturers too. Torture my brother/uncle/aunt/friend, and I'll want to kill.

Giving the enemy stronger morale by torturing his guys creates more enemies, not less.

Exactly. That's why ISIS rose to power. That's why there is more terrorism now than before 9/11.

What? That isn't the reason Daesh rose to power. You're swinging from massive exaggeration to ridiculous oversimplification now.