President above the law?

raid517

Anyway I still contend that building a nuclear bomb is something that is outside the scope of most terrorists. I majored in physics at University - and I assure you it is not just a case of buying some plutonium on the black market. There is an awful lot more to it than that.

A dirty bomb is feasible I guess - but it is still a long leap from that to openly advocating torture.

If we were attacked we should adopt the normal response, which is a) use good police work in order to try to prevent it - and b) if all else fails and the terrorists succeed in their goals, track them down and blow them and preferably their country off the face of the planet.

That is more than enough justice for me.

GJ

malkor

That completely contradicts everything you have been saying. Anyway....


This thread isn't funny, it's depressing.

raid517

Well I only mean screw it in the sense that it needed replacing. In the meantime it's the best measure of a moral yardstick that we have. Clearly it is possible to come up with something better that reflects the new realities of the world in which we live - and which embraces those people and those individuals that are currently excluded.

The question is whether the American right would agree to this - or whether they prefer to embrace the moral ambiguities as they currently stand. To be honest however these are not 'moral ambiguities' in the true sense of the word - as clearly we all know it is wrong to torture. What they are are merely legal technicalities - and as such it is something we should certainly seek urgently to clarify.

I personally like the idea that America was/is one of the good guy nations of the world. It would be a shame to throw that away just so you could spite a few fanatical Arabs.

GJ

raid517

Why?

If a group attacks you with nuclear weapons - be it via a dirty bomb (or less likely) by another means and you can prove it was them - and that this action was state instigated - then that is clearly an act of war. I wouldn't advocate if something like this ever did happen that all we should do is shrug our shoulders and say 'ho hum.' What I do advocate is we do everything in our power to prevent it - and if we do catch the perpetrators we should treat them with the same respect that we would treat our own. At least if there was a war they would be covered by the Geneva convention - which is what you appear to support.

I am of course going on the basis that any substantial nuclear weapon would have to be state sponsored - as quite literally most ordinary terrorists lack the practical and scientific resources to do it on their own.

I am also making a distinction between a proactive and reactive defense. You don't go routinely attacking or mistreating people just because you think there is a vague chance that one day, they might attack you. You just make attacking you a very, very tough thing to do.

GJ

bluelight

Well...no matter which way one looks upon it..Usa is and have been violating international agreements on how to conduct on issues like this.

International agreements to which they themselves have signed both the Geneva convention and other conventions that applies.

So if anyone here feels torture is motivated isnt really relevant in any other way that that it shows that some people are in favour of using "evil itself" as a tool.Hardly surprising when it comes from a citizen of a nations that still maintains the death punishment.A punishment abandoned by a majority of all nations and almost exclusively only maintained in third world low level education and extreme politics dictatorships.

Usa´s government is currently having BIG problems in hiding the fact that they have ORDERED the use of torture despite that Usa has agreed on paper (like 99 percent of the globes nation) as a demonstarion against evil forces who continually use torture, that they will not use torture.

Now...when all is revealed (which it will be) about this then the responsable for this will have to take the consequenses.


Im currently ...eagerly waiting for Cheney to critizise China,Libya,Saudi Arabia etc etc etc for not submitting fully to international law and agreements when it comes to basic human rights in THEIR fight against terrorism.


Somehow...you cant speak in two voices and be credible can you..?

Should he however still do so...then of course everyone knows that what he says is bullshit since he himself does not abide to the use of basic human rights.



Bluelight

raid517

Well as I recall it's an old Hollywood phrase blue, "Me think he speaks with a forked tongue!"

A similar logic was used to conquer the West - now it looks like it might soon be used to conquer the world.

Human rights used to be something that the American government cared about. Now all it cares about is world economic and military domination.

That's quite a fall by any standards...

GJ

me.myself.&.ATi

i really think you should consider some psychiatric help dude....
don't forget kids below 13 might read this & get some sort of twisted vision out of what you think/say
it is not what i would call a mature & impartial decision

EDIT:

by this i mean that perception is everything
& that a kid in no way perceives things as a adolescent/adult
so grant them the time to make out their own opinion

kp59583

Making a low level dirty nuke is not as hard as you think it is. As for as the guns I think you may be wrong. Most terrorist use ex soviet arms like the SKS, AK47 and various other arms. Some of them may have been designed in the 1930's but they will still kill you.

dj_stick

dirty bomb - radioactive material surrounding any decent explosive

zerodamage

I would never say that. It is because of the Geneva convention that those fool soldiers who abused those prisoners are being prosecuted and delt with.

While I was not serious about the heads of terroristss being put on pikes, I am serious about tortuting them if needed to obtain information. They didn't hesitate to torture and slowly behead one of our civilians.

zerodamage

Raid, i agree with you but I would rather blow them off the face of the planet BEFORE they cause more harm, not react to something which seems to be the case all too often.

me.myself.&.ATi

"judge not lest ye be judged..."

sounds familiar, no?

zerodamage

It's not about judging. It is about self preservation. US Americans are hated more than anyone else, all because we are Americans. (How's that for some bigotry) Their goal is to destroy us. I would not want POW's, enemy soldier's who wear uniforms to be treated that way. Just the fanatical terrorists who only understand fear and brute force.

JavaFox

Implicit in your arguement is that America and American ideals are something worth defending. I agree with you on that. So again I pose the question: if we resort to torture, what are we fighting for?

bluelight

Well you are out in the ditch with your theories just as Ashcroft Rumsfeld and the others.

They obviously havent got a clue why the current international legislation is written the way it is.

Nor do they understand that their way of dealing with this (allowing torture) opens the door for everyone else to use it.

Also...agaisnt Us military in future conflicts.

Today a very known Chinese "dissident" has disapppeared because he has offficially demanded that the authoroties make a survey about the student massacres in Peking.

The Chinese government looks upon this man as a terrorist and has said he will be taken to a mental asyalum.

Now...IF Cheney ...endorses the use of torture...What weight will his words about human rights....have with the Chinese leaders when he sends his complains to them?

None.Of course...since they play in the same league.

Basic human rights is something you either HAVE or something you ignore.

There is no inbetween.

Bluelight

zerodamage

Sorry you see it that way Java. I find the well being of America and its citizens over a few scum bag terrorists who would not think twice about being nice to you, even if you stood up for them. Why? Because you are an American and they do not give a crap.

JavaFox

Sorry I see it WHAT way? I asked you a question and you didn't answer it.

mike2h

you guys should get your definitions sraight. those prisiners were abused(wrongly) they were not tortured. torture is what those terrorists did to that civilian. talk to pows from vietnam & korea to find out what 'torture' is.that female pfc that was captured early in the war was harmed far more than these guys.
as far as the geneva convention goes, well, it takes to sides honoring an agreement to make a mutually binding pact. it is pretty hard to make the 'rules' make sense when the other side is laughing at you for doing it & twisting them for their exclusive advantage.

raid517

I think going by most of ZD answers, his only motivation for fighting is simply military supremacy. Unfortunately military supremacy in the absence of any kind of moral imperative is little more than another form of tyranny. And if tyranny really is all you are fighting for then as JavaFox said, what on earth is the point?

Part of the responsibility of power is to show the world that there is a better way, that they needn't resort to terror and brutality in order to see progress in their societies and in their own lives. You can't shout about human rights, law and freedom out of one side of your mouth, while out the other side of it you instruct your nation's representatives to abuse them.

I think the argument about proactive and reactive wars is mismatched too - proactive wars (wars where we invade other countries based on predictions of what they might do in the future) is relatively new territory. Previously proactive warfare was also seen as a trademark of dictatorships and other tyrannical types of governments. Now gazing at a crystal ball and acting on the basis of this is seen by some in the US as somehow acceptable. But again I have to disagree - I think it is dangerous, misguided, and horribly counter productive - and can often seem to others like little more than naked imperialism. And really what does it gain? In Iraq all that happened is that we opened up a hotbed of terrorism - a place where every young hothead with a grudge to bare could easily travel to and take potshots at American and British forces. And with your own country already in a dire financial position - you now have possibly another trillion dollar tax bill to pay for this little piece of adventurism.

And I still contend that building nuclear weapons is no small feat. It is an extremely difficult thing to do - which is why so few countries on this earth have actually managed it.

I think the issue of a dirty bomb may be over played too. I am certain that if such a thing did happen that an 'appropriate response' should and would be formulated - but no where in that does it say that an appropriate response is to start locking people up without charge, suspend our civil freedoms and to torture our enemies.

Well I don't know how I feel about that. I'm not sure that it makes me feel very proud to know that you agree with me on something. But you should know that it is clear that we don't agree on very much - and that it is likely therefore that you misinterpreted what I said in order to serve your own ends.

What I said was that we should do things the way we have always done them (until recently perhaps) that we should struggle to preserve our values - more so rather than less so in difficult times - that we should fight the good fight and not adopt the same tactics of our enemies.

As I said when we do this, when we adopt these tactics - be become like our enemies - we in fact become our own enemy and as such ultimately we may one day face our own destruction.

I am against torture because I need to know that I am a better person than those I am fighting against - that what makes me different is that there are things I and the society I represent will not do.

I do not think that it is even remotely worthwhile to throw that away for what may be some short term and possibly misguided military goal. The job of our military should be to defend the freedoms and values that we currently enjoy - not ask us to give them up when the going gets tough. Doing this is nothing more than a failure of the military and the government to do the job it was hired to do.

If we allow it, we may find one day it is us who have to fight to recover the freedoms we have lost.

GJ

bluelight

They were tortured .Nothing else.

They were tortured according to all existing internatinal definitions.Definitions that Usa share.

Hard to take...and the Bush government has tried to sell it as abuse.....but...that is not correct.

Correct is also that it is a consequense of The Bush governments incompetence.

Bluelight

raid517

So I guess those prisoners that died, did so through being ticked to death with a feather duster?

I guess you guys just don't see it. Those values that you say the terrorists don't respect are the only real motivation to fight at all.

That's what gives us the moral authority to fight them in the first place.

Otherwise what is there that is worth fighting for? What really are we defending?

If you become like them, you are them. And if you are them - you too deserve similar treatment. It really is that simple.

Either freedom and liberty is worth fighting for or it is not.

And if it isn't, then you might as well throw in the towel, tear up the American constitution and instigate a national dictatorship now - because in choosing to do this you are choosing to discard all of those principals on which America was founded.

That's what's at stake here. That is what should take priority over our immediate concerns about a few backward facing Islamic terrorists.


Although it might seem tough now, you shouldn't let your government throw away the very foundations of America's existence, just to settle a few short term scores.

GJ

zerodamage

Sorry Java, I thought I did.
My answer: We are fighting for our safety and way of life.


Raid: Your attack will go ignored by me.

bluelight

Mmm..the general idea sold by the Bush government is that this was an isolated incident and many people beleieve it..

However the democrats do not and they are currently asking questions which will lead to the correct answers about WHERE the REAL responsability lies.That is why Ashcroft does not want to make official just exactly which 24 interrogation techniques they have given green light to.

Interrogation techniques that would raise no eyebrow on anyone ...if the were according to international standards.

But...obviously..they are not so they cant be made official..or commented at all...in case they get public in another way as was the case with the photos from Abu Grhaib.

Had these photos not been spread..then we would not have heard one word about this.


Bluelight

zerodamage

LOL. The democrats do not believe it because they are putting politics and the desire to regain power above doing what is right during this time. What the Democrats are doing is quite unprecedented.