Once again when the US Govt Does something wrong...

Oh don't worry, we're sure to get around to 'liberating' your country in time. Got oil?

blame Canada

Lots of it. You guys get most of it already.

Hehe, USA is the one of the biggest countries in the world and is unable to secure one of the smallest countries in the world.

did we attack vatican city?

Yeah he did, Old Testament. All over the old testament... I think instead of white phosphorus it was flaming rocks from the sky or some such though...

The problem is that we're not securing a country; that's the traditional mindset of war - that you're taking over a geographic location.

Unfortunately we're fighting a war against extremist Islam, which does not have defined borders. Bush made the mistake of opening up Iraq as a battlefield. Iraq was clearly not about terrorism, and now, very unfortunately, it is because we made it.

...

Back on topic:

One radio DJ had the idea - would the leaker of this secret be protected uner whistle blower law?

that was fire and brimstone, and that vengful God went away with the New Testament in the peace movement started by that hippie, Jesus

maybe I should have said "Jesus never blasted civilians with white phosphorus"

and God didn't do it himself anyway, he sent the Angel of Death. Didn't you ever see Dogma?

Now rub your lambs blood on your door and build a big boat if Old Testament still concerns you and your beliefs.

well it's just that Christians confuse the old and the new a lot. You wind up getting something like this.

LOL.. if Chomsky's the conscious of America, we're doomed.
Out of curiosity, do you know who funded pretty much Chomsky's entire career?



On topic though, I still haven't heard any specifics about any of this torture and mayhem that's apparently running while.... Do we have any idea what's actually going on, or are we assuming that torturing of civilians is taking place?

Well, the 2004 election was mass torture of civilians, and so is American Idol, but only one is government sponsored ...

... OR IS IT?!?!?!

You've been quoted relevant sources on this and won't review them, so you must not actually care.

Siro, when there are so many threads moving so fast, I can't always keep up with every single one.... especially when you are giving me two hour long audio feeds to listen to, as a "source".

Could you perhaps point out some specific source relating to this? I'm listening to your Teenage Embed feeds right now.

Awesome, the reason I gave you the audio was it was the source, (the only other source is a book and that would take considerably more time to review). Related sources are just opinion pieces on the audio or book (and as such inject their own slant on it). So as far as Afghanistan and the discussion we have been having about it is concerned, that's the best source/example I could find. I would be very hard pressed to find something more specific or relevant to the topic.

In the immortal words of two great Americans YOU Jamie do your country a great disservice with your blind patriotism and yammering jingoism.



I love my country, which is why I oppose torture. The bottom line is that I believe that it is morally the wrong thing to do to anyone for any reason.

That said, I think that it's a bad policy in particular when dealing with terrorists because terrorists are different than soldiers. You see, soldiers want to live. Terrorists on the other hand, are living to die. Torture, makes a martyr of them - it justifies to other terrorists what they have done.

It also further erodes global support against terrorists.

It makes America look bad.

It puts our own soldiers in danger of having the same thing done to them.

Overall, the negatives do not outweigh whatever positives might be found in torturing a human being for whatever reason, even to save lives. Ultimately, others will be lost later down the road because of it.

I love the "you have no concrete information." Defense.

"You're torturing civilians!"
"You have no proof that we are doing so."
"Ok then, tell us what IS going on at your secret jails where you admit you are holding people without charging them."
"Uh, no."

I thought it was funny that Rose quoted Teddy Roosevelt in this context.. as his adminstation used torture. Worse stuff than is going on now, most likely.

I also thought it was funny that it "put our soliders in danger of having the same thing done to them."

Guess what? Our own guys already suffer MUCH WORSE stuff when they're captured.. pretty much EVERY TIME they're captured. No one else really cares about the "rules". Ya ever see pictures of our own POW's? They tend to look like they had more important issues than not being allowed to read their bibles.. It tends to look like they were beaten pretty bad.

I mean, come on.... some of the absolute WORST stuff that our guys have been accused of doing, is taken from the training that our own guys endure. Why are they trained like that? Because those things are the weaker forms of torture that our guys have actually been subjected to while imprisoned.

It's not nice, or pretty, or even necessarilly justified.... But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that other countries actually follow the rules. Go check out how the Chinese treat their own people, every day, in their government prisons.

No one seems to really care about that though. I wonder why.

Oh, I know.

Because it's not on TV.

Or because it's happening in a country outside of our own that does not advertise itself as a beacon of freedom to the world. Hm?

~Ulrika~

Hmmmm China's human rights abuses are pretty well known... we do care about that - just that no one does anything about it because if we did, Walmart would just go out of business. OK not really, but the US military is VASTLY outnumbered by the Chinese military. Not only that - the US holds China in a most favored nation trading status. The Bush Administrations worked hard to get China into the WTO (joined Dec 2001) - why would you want to do that with a country you know treats their own people poorly? Shouldn't we be making China safe for Democracy or some such?

Exactly.. they're "well known".

China's gross human rights abuses have gotten to the point where they're simply accepted. We're all like, "Oh... those crazy chinese with their wacky oppression and torture of their own people!"

People go and protest the US, but there seem to be a lot less folks over here protesting China's policy. Is it that we just think it's a lost cause at this point? It's a good thing the Chinese themselves are still protesting.

Right, Chinese people are protesting against the Chinese government, just as US citizens are protesting against the US government. Many citizens of the US would prefer that the US government first handle things on the homefront rather than go start wars with countries smaller than our own for reasons that are, putting it mildly, suspect.

While I agree how China treats its people is reprehensible, look at the history - all of our most recent Presidents have sharply criticized China for it's human rights abuses - then they reward China with Most Favored Nations trading status.... doesn't make sense to me...

I thought it was because they weren't on TV.

~Ulrika~

That's why they're not on TV.

They have 1.5 billion people and capitalism has this tendency to make people want stuff.
When people want stuff, they start questioning why they can't have things. Then it extends past stuff to things like "40 hour work weeks" or "labor unions" or "standards of livings" and eventually "freedom of expression" and "human rights".

That's right, capitalism breeds desire for democracy.

I think the Republicans are all betting that China starts waking up to wanting *stuff* and then bam - you have all this buying power who wants trendy, American items.

...

That counter-argument being said, i think it's reprehensible what we let China get away with. What they've done to Buddhism alone is incomprehensible. If China had done to Cathlocism what they did to Buddhism, it would be World War III, easily.

They are actually doing bad things to Christians... Do a google ("China Christian" martyr). It turned up quite a few...