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[LegoLord]

Well . . . there were a couple of wars, you might have heard of them, where people were using really nasty weapons, and then in the second of the two some guy thought it would help the situation to kill off a large number of skilled laborers.  So after those wars got all finished up, everyone decided to get together to figure out what a country shouldn't do.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Well . . . there were a couple of wars, you might have heard of them, where people were using really nasty weapons, and then in the second of the two some guy thought it would help the situation to kill off a large number of skilled laborers.  So after those wars got all finished up, everyone decided to get together to figure out what a country shouldn't do but, sadly, couldnt get everyone to agree to it.  So they wrote special wording into for those who didnt agree.

fixed! 

[LegoLord]

If some sort of written statement managed to get through, the it's an agreement.  If one country doesn't agree, it doesn't necessarily mean the whole idea goes down the pot (especially if said country doesn't even send anyone to the meeting).

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

I was just responding to:

The laws of civilization as defined and accepted internationally.

which you seemed to be adding to with

Well . . . there were a couple of wars, you might have heard of them, where people were using really nasty weapons, and then in the second of the two some guy thought it would help the situation to kill off a large number of skilled laborers.  So after those wars got all finished up, everyone decided to get together to figure out what a country shouldn't do.

and I thought I would just clarify.

[Aqizzar]

They're called the Geneva Conventions, principally written and signed by the United States, to formalize as war crimes the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the Japanese.  We used them to prosecute our own soldiers in Vietnam when they employed the same techniques being lauded now.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Edit:
erased my post cuz it was a smart ass trolling remark.

Yes.  It is the geneva conventions.

[Strife26]

Gorjo, there are fanatical terrorists who want to destroy America for little to no reason, yes. But that dosen't mean they should themselves be terrorised and scarred for life/killed. Some of them could be innocent, and just tortured because they looked suspicious. Some of them could have been brainwashed from birth. Some of them could want to kill all American scum, but we still shouldn't torture them. Two wrongs != right.

I'd argue with that. I don't like torture much (although interogations must be allowed to some point) but the claim that people who seek to destroy America don't deserve to die doesn't sit well with me. If they're taken as a prisoner of war, great, throw their asses in Gitmoesqe locations. If we find that they've commited war crimes, shoot/hang them.

[Aqizzar]

Hooray for the obvious!

Which you blithely ignore, because those damn towelheads need to be taught some respect right?

[Strife26]

Anyone want to start a pool for when this gets locked?

For my part, I agree with the whole teaching the ragheads a lesson (just got a letter from my Father, so I'm slightly more inclined to use normally unStrife26ish language). However, tortuing chaps isn't the solution. Killing them wherever they pop up is. Fuck Iraq, let's 'help' Pakistan stabilize their internal issues.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

again, edit for potential trolling.

@aquizzar:  before putting words into my mouth, please read my more serious posts.

[Aqizzar]

Strife, please don't degrade yourself like that.  If there is one true principle in this overarching conflict, it's that it is truly a battle between running society by civilized principle or barbarism.  We must maintain our civility, not for the sake of insane bombthowers, but for our sake, to prove to ourselves and all the people in caught in between which side is supposed to be the good guys.

ok, now I will be a jack ass.......why dont you read my damn posts Aquizzar!  you seem to "blithely ignore" my own disagreement with torture.

I have.  I wanted to stay the hell away from this soon to be locked thread, but now that you've called me out, I may as well defend my e-cred with the hated quote-by-quote response.

I am sure someone who really didnt belong in the camps/prisons were treated terribly by the guards, but that is just human nature in action.  Never in the history of human confinement has every prisoner been treated equally and fairly.  Humans just dont do that.  Its sad, but unchangeable.  We should do our best to minimize it and teach differently but we cant stop it and we shouldnt waste effort struggling against our very natures over much.  Some things humans have to accept as "part and parcel" of existing.  Humans mistreating humans is part of that.

"Bad things happen in bad times to bad people and there's nothing to be done about it.  Hey, called them terrorists, so it's all cool anyway."

We have laws governing how prisoners of war are supposed to be declare and treated in confinement.  Yes, sometimes the wrong people are apprehended.  Yes, sometimes guards or interrogators go beyond their rules.  Yes, bad things happen.  And when they happen, the people who did those bad things are supposed to be prosecuted and punished, or they cease to be bad things.

Yeah, those poor poor psychotic murderous fanatical terrorists Allah fearing innocents who were unaware that taking part in terrorist training camps muslim boyscout activities could be construed as a threat.  Because of course they were all innocent until we started rounding them up and torturing them for fun.  They were all loving, decent peoples.  They and their comrades hadnt ever done enything to anybody before!

I called you a bigot because that's what comments like that are.  But beyond the Muslim-bashing, you're presenting the highest of strawman portrayals of the opposing side of the argument - that opponents of torture et al hold so out of personal sympathy for the likes of Khalid Shiek Mohammad.  Maybe someone like Cheeetar does, but a staunch supporter of capital punishment, I don't, and I appreciate it if you stopped painting us all as bleeding hearts.


The impression I draw from your comments is that, like so many other people more interested in flags than facts, you've placed the people labeled Terrorists on some outer plane of evil, beyond the realm of existing law.  People so utterly bad that we can't afford to give them the same treatment domestic, non-muslim terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson got.  I too support harsh punishment and even death of people committed to atrocious acts of violence.  I'm also committed to doing so through the proper use of law and legal measures, which have in fact served us quite well in the past, instead of blowing holes in treaties and our moral highground.

No one is suggesting we stop torturing people to score points with Al-Qaeda's inner circle.  It's to prove that we're not the dictatorial tyrants they paint us as to the vast majority of people whose support we need to eradicate the ideological underpinnings of the current crop of terrorism.  And so long as you hold to this America vs Muslims mentality, and say anything less than "all people involved in torturing and ordering torture must be held publicly accountable to the law", you are complicit in the barbarity that has earned us the ire of all the rational bystanders in the world.  There is no middle ground, no excusing on the basis of hard times or hard enemies.  Either we are a nation of laws or we are not, and so long as any crime by our own agents goes unpunished, America is the latter.

[Strife26]

To clarify my comments, it more or less goes with never giving them a reprieve anywhere.

USA Ambassador: Hello country X. We have found pretty good evidence of lots of terrorist activities area Y. It would be greatly apreciated by the United States is you were to take action against this. We would be happy to coraborate militarily.

Or do it without your help, of course.



America can smash terrorism wherever it pops up. It's the best we can do for now, I guess.

[Aqizzar]

Strife, I get that your heart's in the right place, but I'm trying to tell you that it's not that simple.  America's "enemies" don't walk around with big Terrorist badges, and they don't all come in one, mad-bomber flavor.

I know Iraq is big in your mind.  Virtually all of the people attacking Americans in Iraq do so for more temporal reasons than Al-Qaeda.  Namely, that we were lobbing cruise missiles into their country for fifteen years, and have ruled it as a vassal state for the past six.  There's plenty of arguments to justify that history; their anger is not necessarily rational or properly placed.  But it is what it is and, to whatever end but still understandably, they attack American servicemen because they'd like to have their country back now.  And virtually all of them have no intention of going anywhere else once we leave.  For all our other enemies, we have plenty of means of combating them besides leaving soldiers to stand on far-flung streetcorners.

This is wandering way off point, but your fervor worries me sometimes.  I respect your spirit, but I just fear it's directed in a destructive manner.

[Strife26]

Step one in Strife's global reorganization plan is to get the fuck out of Iraq. Nation building is very rarely a good idea. I'd also contend that, to a large extent, terrorist areas are visible.

I define four or so types of terrorists (in order from most to least hostile)
1) Homegrown types - like those idiots who tried to buy a missile from the FBI. Very dificult to spot before they're compromised. Hopefully, they'll lack the resources and know-how to be a threat. Purview of law enforcement mostly.

2) People who don't like us - The 'Imperialist scum!!' types. The people, who like in your previous post, would be fine if we left them alone. Therefore, leave them alone.

3) Terrorist proper - Non-governmental organization who wants to hurt us wherever possible. Al Qaeda. To be targeted with extreme wrath. Primary problem from their standpoint becomes staying unnoticed. Do we know that there are AQ types in Pakistan? Yep. With power comes visibility. It takes people to plan an attack on a superpower, and the more people that there are, the more visible they are. Find them, then send my earlier message to the country where they reside.

4) Governmental Terror - AKA bloody messes. Sudan. If it isn't directly affecting us, don't get involved (this REALLY goes against my grain, just to say. I'd love to have tanks shoot up some certain Islamic Militias in Africa, but we have our own problems). Urge the UN to take action, offer to supply a reasonable amount of military aide. If they are directly affecting us, demand UN action, then when someone vetoes it on the security council, take action.


The major problem we have here is that we want to kill off the 3's while not getting into trouble with the 2's or the UN. We do this by leaving quickly. We have our billion (b!) dollar Spirits. Use them. This must be accompanied by increasing homeland defense (national guard especially) to prevent against 1's. I don't foresee 4's as being much of a problem. We still defend Israel if (God forbid) they need it, but the UN won't get their heads out of their asses to send troops, and we can't go unilaterally. Cut the UN's funding too, while we're at it. The intelligence apparatuses will need serious restructuring (looking at you desk-bound CIA types). The NSA needs to quadruple or so their internet types. The FBI needs to be expanded somewhat for homeland stuff.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

Your still not reading it, just reacting, cuz you want to flame back.

I am sure someone who really didnt belong in the camps/prisons were treated terribly by the guards, but that is just human nature in action.  Never in the history of human confinement has every prisoner been treated equally and fairly.  Humans just dont do that.  Its sad, but unchangeable.  We should do our best to minimize it and teach differently but we cant stop it and we shouldnt waste effort struggling against our very natures over much.  Some things humans have to accept as "part and parcel" of existing.  Humans mistreating humans is part of that.

"Bad things happen in bad times to bad people and there's nothing to be done about it.  Hey, called them terrorists, so it's all cool anyway."

read it

Yeah, those poor poor psychotic murderous fanatical terrorists Allah fearing innocents who were unaware that taking part in terrorist training camps muslim boyscout activities could be construed as a threat.  Because of course they were all innocent until we started rounding them up and torturing them for fun.  They were all loving, decent peoples.  They and their comrades hadnt ever done enything to anybody before!


I called you a bigot because that's what comments like that are.  But beyond the Muslim-bashing, you're presenting the highest of strawman portrayals of the opposing side of the argument - that opponents of torture et al hold so out of personal sympathy for the likes of Khalid Shiek Mohammad.  Maybe someone like Cheeetar does, but a staunch supporter of capital punishment, I don't, and I appreciate it if you stopped painting us all as bleeding hearts.

I didnt.  You interjected that upon yourself.
Also, I was terrorist bashing, not Muslim bashing.  That is quite obvious to me.

The impression I draw from your comments is that....

you get impressions b insinuating your own hangups over what people actually say.  If, when i said that "torture is wrong" or "Also, I do agree that the USA should have taken the moral high-ground on torture" you got the impression I said we should "blow(sic)hole in treaties and our moral highground" then I am baffled at what you actually want.

No one is suggesting we stop torturing people to score points with Al-Qaeda's inner circle.

ummmm, why didnt President Obama release those photo's........?  People are suggesting that every day.  Now, yes, the USA didnt stop to score points.  But the politico's are using the idea of not inflaming anti-western hatred in terrosits as a tool to prosecute personal power struggles using water-boarding as an excuse.

_______________________________

Seperately, "virtually all the people attacking Americans in Iraq" are doing so for the power and profit for their leaders who are jockeying for position.  Cruise missiles and vassal state blah blah is just overt excuse to hide a power grab.  Osama bin Laden at least actually believed his rhetoric.  "they attack American servicemen because" its working.  The Iranians and Syrians will go home afterwards, because they will be too dangerous to the ruling Iraqi's (by that I mean those leaders I mentioned earlier because once we are gone the current goverment is toast) after we leave and the Iraqi's have taken charge.

I will say this for the last time for the visuall information receiving impaired.  I think torture is wrong.  I think terrorists are very bad people.  I think that killing innocent civilians in a market place on purpose with a suicude bomb puts someone into a "outer plane of evil, beyond the realm of existing law".  Especially when those people are not citizens of our country and the crime didnt take place in our country so our laws are immaterial and illegal to attempt prosecution under them according to our "treaties".  I think torturing human beings is never ok.  I think the people who did it are reprehensible.  I think the leadership of those people was misguided and mal-informed.  I think the law analysts who OK torture should be prosecuted.  I dont feel the faintest bit sorry for the terrorists.