Misguided Liberal Crap

Wow this is a hot topic. I have tons to add... I have met many people from all over the Middle East and other countries. I am not realy sure what to think. I love this country but I think we stick our noses in where we shouldn't a lot. I don't think we should be the "world police" but then again I can't say what this world would be like if we didn't do what we do. I also don't believe that most of the Arabic countries hate us. Like I said I have met many people while I was in Kuwait, UAE, Saudi, Quatar and Iraq and most were very friendly. I had lots of time to talk to them and learn their beliefs even learn a bit of Arabic. I also believe that there are as many so called Americans that hate this country as well. Any way it doen't really matter what I think or what I believe. I do wonder though...would these countries hate us so much if we didn't stick our nose in to their business so much? I also want to add that with all the problems we have here at home, spending so much time and energy dealing with the worlds problems might not be the best thing to be doing.

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Originally Posted by Ken

Let me explain how it is in terms even a liberal can understand.

If your son Johnny is shooting his .22 at my kids from your window, you damn well better stop him before I blow his head off. If he hurts one of my kids and you helped him load the gun or you try to protect him after the fact, I'll kill both of you. No, I'm not gonna' wait for the police and give Johnny the chance to take a few more shots. Get it?

We don't have a police department to call when it comes to terrorists. And if you screw with my "family", I don't give a sh!t what anyone else, or any other nation, thinks about what I'm going to do in response.

And by the way - if I see Johnny aiming his gun at my family, I'll take him out BEFORE he gets his first shot off. Don't get in my way.

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Ken, my brother and friend, this isn't the first time we've not seen eye to eye. Granted, I'll admit it is likely my liberal wrongheadedness that prevents me from seeing how simple and dichotomous the world really is. I love my country, and the freedoms being bled for right now. I would prefer that we not erode those freedoms in the name of fightin' terrists. I guess where I struggle with understanding the terms explained is that you've done a good job of explaining vengeful violence and righteous retribution. It would be awesome if we could find the right window to charge, guns a'blazing.

What if you hired these big, bad biker dudes to move into the neighborhood. Gave 'em all kinds of money and .22's. Maybe there were some Russians or something moving in to get rid of those opium fields the next block over and, well, we can't have the commies getting a leg up now can we? What would Uncle Joe think of that? Talk about an Un-American activity. But these dudes got out of hand, forgot who was feeding them and started using your money to buy more .22s and train up Little Johnny to hate you 'n yours. These are some mobile fellas, though, so when they finally do take a shot at your kids . . . they've already bugged out before the screaming stops.

But your neighbor, there, kindof looks like those guys and you never liked him much anyway. So you blame him for -thinking- about hurting your family and charge in, guns blazing, before he gets the chance. Kill most of his kids, him, his wife, his dog. Blow up part of his house. Then you bring your buddies over and give them fat taxpayer-funded no-bid contracts to remodel his house and build a new garage in his back yard so you can park your bass boat there?

That's just a crazy scenario, though.

Outrider, there's a huge difference between us and them.

We don't blow up airliners in the sky by placing bombs on board. We don't behead people because of their nationality or religon. We don't target innocents. And we don't cut off the purple dyed fingers of those who have voted.

My OP was not about fighting a culture or a nation or a religon. It was about our God-given right of self defense and bringing to justice those who do violence unto us first.

I do not believe in throwing the first punch. I do believe in throwing the last several punches.

I don't think this thread is a lesson in "I'm right, you're wrong". The fact is I don't know of anyone that has the answer including those leading us. I think it's more of a thread of "here's how I see it". To that regard, everyone ends up being right...or wrong.

The war in Iraq has cost us over $676 Billion (With a B) dollars while the war in Afghanistan has cost us over $225 Billion and likely to rapidly escalate since that's our current focus. That's over $900 Billion and Congress has already been asked for an additional $130 Billion for 2010. That would be over $1 TRILLION dollars. A trillion dollars! I can't even imagine $1 trillion dollars. Add to that over 4000 American deaths and over 31,000 Americans wounded. Staggering numbers.

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Originally Posted by Ken

I'll bring the torch oil.

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I've got a couple of old pitchforks I can re-handle

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Originally Posted by Ken

Outrider, there's a huge difference between us and them.

We don't blow up airliners in the sky by placing bombs on board. We don't behead people because of their nationality or religon. We don't target innocents. And we don't cut off the purple dyed fingers of those who have voted.

My OP was not about fighting a culture or a nation or a religon. It was about our God-given right of self defense and bringing to justice those who do violence unto us first.

I do not believe in throwing the first punch. I do believe in throwing the last several punches.

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When the news gets out of torture and secret detention centers, indefinite imprisonments without due process, and incidents/intelligence reports manipulated specifically to lure public opinion toward war - then that difference doesn't feel so huge. I still have hope that we can find our way back, that we haven't gone too far.

I'm with ya, though, so long as we go after the right folks who do unto us first. I'm not so sure we've done that just yet, I guess. We may not behead people, but we're mighty close friends with them what do. We may not cut off purple fingers, but we've funded violent governmental changes to put finger-chopping types of folk in charge. We don't target innocents, but we'll sure drop some heavy ordinance on a target right next to 'em. The fellow ordering the New York strip is on the same moral level as the butcher.

Does anyone know how to properly sharpen one?

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Originally Posted by SARKY

Does anyone know how to properly sharpen one?

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I'd say a good file should do the job.

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Originally Posted by LostOutrider

When the news gets out of torture and secret detention centers, indefinite imprisonments without due process, and incidents/intelligence reports manipulated specifically to lure public opinion toward war - then that difference doesn't feel so huge. I still have hope that we can find our way back, that we haven't gone too far.

I'm with ya, though, so long as we go after the right folks who do unto us first. I'm not so sure we've done that just yet, I guess. We may not behead people, but we're mighty close friends with them what do. We may not cut off purple fingers, but we've funded violent governmental changes to put finger-chopping types of folk in charge. We don't target innocents, but we'll sure drop some heavy ordinance on a target right next to 'em. The fellow ordering the New York strip is on the same moral level as the butcher.

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People who have held very high positions, and who I trust implicitly, have told me as much as they can ever say. And I can read between the lines. What they have told me was that we have only read a small fraction of the story. We have never read about the catastrophic things that were going to happen but didn't happen because they were prevented in time.

I pose the following question, not based upon anything I have been told but from my own curiosity.

Retrospectively, would torture be justified if it prevented a nuclear detonation in Chicago?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I think all of that is true, Ken. And I think it has always gone on. As I said earlier, probably from the time this country was founded. I'm back to the difference between surgery with a fine scalpel and a bulldozer. No one anywhere says anything about those quiet midnight rendezvous's that result in someone giving up some information that we urgently need. Not them and certainly not us. But when we round up several hundred and do it then it puts us, our policies and our practices under the spot light. Then everyone is upset with us, internally and externally.

The intelligence community has to operate and their clandestine activities should remain clandestine. I guess I'd prefer to hang dirty laundry in the wash room instead of the backyard for everyone to see.

To your question. I don't think so. Torture produces suspect information at best. It will produce more information but not necessarily better information. The victim will say almost anything, at some point, to end the pain. FBI Director Mueller was asked a very similar question. I've paraphrased it slightly but did not change the essence of the comment.

David Rose: So far, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”?

Director Mueller: I’m really reluctant to answer that. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

(Interview in Vanity Fair. Last two paragraphs on this page...)

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2...?currentPage=4

On the other hand, I would think our intelligence community is perfectly able to conduct fruitful interrogations without the use of things like waterboarding. I don't think the options are torture or no information.

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Originally Posted by Ken

Retrospectively, would torture be justified if it prevented a nuclear detonation in Chicago?

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The problem with that question is that it presents torture as the only option. That is a logical fallacy. You may as well insert any heinous act into the question, "Would ______ be justified if it prevented mushroom clouds over Manhattan?" There are other ways to successfully interrogate that do not involve torture.

Under the United Nations Torture Convention of 1984, torture involves intentional infliction of pain, by a public official, to obtain information.

"Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/39/a39r046.htm

"Severe mental suffering?" Please. If you believe I'm killing your brother in the next room, but I'm not, that would be inflicting "severe mental torture." So what's the problem?

The problem is not the part where we just trick 'em into having bad feelings.

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Originally Posted by LostOutrider

The problem is not the part where we just trick 'em into having bad feelings.

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Outrider, that's exactly what waterboarding is.

If you hold to that belief that those two situations are the same, then I can see how you'd feel the way you do about it. Waterboarding is a very physical form of torture. That isn't to say I condone mental/emotional torture either, only that the problem is deeper than just playing a trick on the bad guys so they'll stop a bomb.

There are lines that are not to be crossed if we want to keep wearing the white cowboy hats.

[QUOTE=LostOutrider;147557]The problem with that question is that it presents torture as the only option. That is a logical fallacy. You may as well insert any heinous act into the question, "Would ______ be justified if it prevented mushroom clouds over Manhattan?" There are other ways to successfully interrogate that do not involve torture.[/QUOTE]

Such as? Many people are quick to put in there 2 cents when they (do not know all the facts or circumstances of that given issue or topic) and others like to say there are alternative ways to do something but do not provide the alternative. Also to add to this...for those that think torture or an"eye for an eye" is wrong what about the death penalty? If you want to get into morality and what the so called "right thing to do" is this applies as well. Honestly this discussion will never be resolved, there is no compromise or middle ground on this topic. I believe what I believe and respect those that view it differently what I can not tolerate is when people disagree with small portions of it. It's all or nothing to me. You can't preach morality and humanity and then limit it to certain situations. If torture is bad on a terrorist (a mass murderer) then so is killing an American for murder.

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Originally Posted by LostOutrider

If you hold to that belief that those two situations are the same, then I can see how you'd feel the way you do about it. Waterboarding is a very physical form of torture. That isn't to say I condone mental/emotional torture either, only that the problem is deeper than just playing a trick on the bad guys so they'll stop a bomb.

There are lines that are not to be crossed if we want to keep wearing the white cowboy hats.

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Outrider, I'll be honest. Some of the folks I know agree with you and disagree with me, and, shall we say, retired in part because of such issues.

But the way I see it is that if someone, in good faith, is trying to protect American lives by employing methods which cause no physical or permanent injury, I'm not about to challenge their methods.

Doug - The earlier link to the Vanity Fair article illustrates a pretty good example of an alternative method that was far more fruitful than torture. The problem with your comparison between death penalty and torture is that the murderer on death row has had the benefit of due process. He has had a trial, legal counsel, and has had evidence brought before a judge and a jury of his peers. We had to prove he was a criminal before we made him ride the lightning. If by your comparison you wish to offer the same rights and process to suspected terrorists, then state it outright. Otherwise, the comparison doesn't work so well.

Ken - I think the only place we disagree, then, is what methods cause permanent/physical injury. Makes me a little nostalgic for the days when we were watching our leader try to define "sexual relations" instead of "torture"

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Originally Posted by LostOutrider

Makes me a little nostalgic for the days when we were watching our leader try to define "sexual relations" instead of "torture"

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And what "is" is. :innocent:

http://www.slate.com/id/1000162/