US 2008 Presidential Campaign Discussion Thread - Part 9

[Vincent Vega]

Don't get caught on a battlefield against the U.S. and you won't get picked up.

McCain attacks Guantanamo decision - 2008 Presidential Campaign Blog - Political Intelligence - Boston.com

McCain is complaining here about some of the released prisoners. Some have attacked American soldiers. What we are worried about is these people being released and then having to battle them later.

Supreme Disgrace by Peter Wehner on National Review Online

This is the legal point of view.

Vanessa Redgrave thinks it's kidnapping but what are you supposed to do when you rout an enemy and catch prisoners? Send them back to meet them again? If soldiers then get killed won't there be criticism of Bush then? Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Is it such a great surprise that someone who spent time in Guantanamo might hate the US and is ready to take revenge? Ever thought of the possibility that Guantanamo is turning people into terrorists who before didn't even hate the US, or at least weren't the least bit interested in fighting it?
And what would be the solution to the dilemma of releasing them and fighting them later? Incarcerate 'em til kingdom come or kill them right away?

 

[purpleoscar]

As I said, it's impossible to take you seriously anymore, purpleoscar. So go ahead and continue with your rantings against those damn commie liberals, and how all of the media is anti-conservative, and about your wish for more extreme torture of suspects who you aren't even sure have knowledge of a crime or even committed a crime. It makes you look great.

I'm not trying to look good to anyone. If I wanted to look good to you guys I would just be bashing Bush for everything including standing up and sitting down.

BTW it's been known that the minimum torture like waterboarding and cold rooms has saved American lives by helping with locating enemy combatants. Torturing is not for fun. Talking harshly doesn't get terrorists to fess up information. Now with the Supreme Court ruling enemy combatants have the same access as U.S. citizens. and if they don't succeed killing U.S. soldiers they will now have more chances.

 

[purpleoscar]

Is it such a great surprise that someone who spent time in Guantanamo might hate the US and is ready to take revenge? Ever thought of the possibility that Guantanamo is turning people into terrorists who before didn't even hate the US, or at least weren't the least bit interested in fighting it?
And what would be the solution to the dilemma of releasing them and fighting them later? Incarcerate 'em til kingdom come or kill them right away?

Win the war and send them back to the new governments. Certainly the government's intent was to process them eventually but it will be slow no matter what. The life of soldiers is first.

 

[phillyfan26]

BTW it's been known that the minimum torture like waterboarding and cold rooms has saved American lives by helping with locating enemy combatants. Torturing is not for fun. Talking harshly doesn't get terrorists to fess up information. Now with the Supreme Court ruling enemy combatants have the same access as U.S. citizens. and if they don't succeed killing U.S. soldiers they will now have more chances.

Some conservatives and a few military members say so, but all it really does is encourage false confessions to avoid the torture. It absolutely doesn't work.

 

[Diemen]

I'm not trying to look good to anyone. If I wanted to look good to you guys I would just be bashing Bush for everything including standing up and sitting down.

Ok, so it's not really about looking good to anyone. It's about holding rational arguments with decent evidence. When you make blanket statements that liberals all read marx and engage in communist intimidation tactics against conservatives and then bring up one class you took as evidence, then yes, your argument is weak and doesn't really hold up well. Same thing with statements that lawyers love socialism. Except you didn't bring up any evidence to actually support that one.

BTW it's been known that the minimum torture like waterboarding and cold rooms has saved American lives by helping with locating enemy combatants. Torturing is not for fun. Talking harshly doesn't get terrorists to fess up information. Now with the Supreme Court ruling enemy combatants have the same access as U.S. citizens. and if they don't succeed killing U.S. soldiers they will now have more chances.

Pardon me if I don't take your word as expert opinion on torture and its efficacy. The majority of the military seems to disagree with your assessment that torture is the way to go. It has also been shown that torture isn't a reliable source of information. It has been shown that some people will say and admit to anything to get the torture to stop. If you were innocent, but you were tortured so that you feared your life may be in immediate danger, do you think you might be willing to admit to something you didn't do in order to get the torture to stop?

Furthermore, I can't believe you're honestly arguing that we should be going beyond light torture to get information from people who may or may not have any information and who may or may not actually be terrorists, criminals or involved with terrorists and/or criminals. I'd like to think that we should hold ourselves to higher standards. Once again - not everyone who is detained is guilty of a crime. It's quite civilized of you to basically be advocating a 'shoot first, ask questions later' approach to intelligence gathering.

And you seem to be conveniently ignoring the case of Maher Arar, despite numerous posters in here bring it up. Care to comment on how that fits into your "Torture, torture, torture!" strategy?

 

[purpleoscar]

So you think that this little anecdote demonstrates that conservatives are consistently discriminated against in the classroom?

I'm liberal. I have a very similar story about an ethics prof I could tell. I guess I was discriminated against, too?

No. It's meaningless.

I was wondering the same thing. I've never heard of it before. A quick google and scan of the CBC websites, both television and corporate, showed nothing regarding their solicitation or acceptance of donations.

It's well known guys. Lots of people have gone through it. Even liberals who aren't left wing enough have to go through it. I have had some good experience with left wing teachers who did not do that to me. My political science teacher was left wing in private conversation but tried to hide his point of view in class. He tested based on the knowledge in the book and not on opinions. So the bias wasn't as bad as it was in the late 1960's and 1970's with teachers and students wearing Mao suits. My Dad had to go through that. I had some teachers who remembered fondly their Communist teachers when they were in university who would give 100% if they didn't argue with them. I know it's easy marks but it seems pointless where everyone gets 100% no matter how hard you work.

Look at Al Gore's movie being pushed on students. At least in Britain they made a law saying the movie can be showed but the errors must be mentioned before seeing it.

BBC NEWS | Education | Gore climate film's nine 'errors'

David Horowitz is on the forefront of it, but of course he used to be a communist and changed his mind. Left wing people who move to the right not surprisingly understand what's going on better than some on the right.

YouTube - Kids Assignment:Tell me Y U hate Sarah Palin
This reminded me of my professor.

 

[Diemen]

It's well known guys.

Oh well in that case I'll take your word for it.

Did you hear that it's also well known that students don't have the most objective views on professors they have strong ideological differences with?

Wow, I can over-generalize, too!

 

[Vincent Vega]

Win the war and send them back to the new governments. Certainly the government's intent was to process them eventually but it will be slow no matter what. The life of soldiers is first.

Cool, it's that easy. Torture them, treat them as subhumans, don't show a minimum of human decency to them, ignore any findings that the person is not guilty of anything and then just send them back after you simply won the war and let the newly set-up government handle the rest.
What process in the many cases of innocent? And how can Iraq's or Afghanistan's (or all the other government's of nations from which people are incarcerated in Guantanamo) intent have certainly been to process any person the US at one point detained? Especially when Bush's plan was to set-up a military tribunal which orders the sentences without due process or (sufficient) legal representation?

 

[phillyfan26]

Funnily enough, the only class I've ever had where anyone felt political views were forced upon them was run by, you guessed it, a conservative. The head of ours school's Young Republicans club. It was almost constant reading of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham.

Oh, wait, scratch that, it's all liberals, all the time. Never mind.

 

[purpleoscar]

Some conservatives and a few military members say so, but all it really does is encourage false confessions to avoid the torture. It absolutely doesn't work.

The confessions that aren't false are the ones that help. We should use many methods at the same time including local informants. I'm aware that torture isn't the entire war. To me any information that can help the soldiers on the battlefield has some worth.

To you it's not enough value to be worth it. We agree to disagree.

 

[phillyfan26]

I still don't understand why, to you, it has to be a "torture and imprison" or "let them go free" question, with only two options. It doesn't have to be.

 

[purpleoscar]

Funnily enough, the only class I've ever had where anyone felt political views were forced upon them was run by, you guessed it, a conservative. The head of ours school's Young Republicans club. It was almost constant reading of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham.

Oh, wait, scratch that, it's all liberals, all the time. Never mind.

What class was this?

 

[phillyfan26]

What class was this?

It was an English class that mixed in a lot of current events for discussion and reaction.

I think the all-time low was her giving us four separate articles defending Joseph McCarthy as a purely good senator who is only mentioned in a negative way because of the liberal media elites.

Nice woman. Biased, biased approach to teaching.

 

[deep]

Biblical imagery

 

[ntalwar]

No surprise here.

 

[Irvine511]

David Horowitz is on the forefront of it, but of course he used to be a communist and changed his mind. Left wing people who move to the right not surprisingly understand what's going on better than some on the right.

do you know much about Horowitz?

 

[Irvine511]

The confessions that aren't false are the ones that help. We should use many methods at the same time including local informants. I'm aware that torture isn't the entire war. To me any information that can help the soldiers on the battlefield has some worth.

do you know about the time, effort, money, and manpower that have been spent chasing down "information" that came from tortured suspects?

 

[purpleoscar]

Ok, so it's not really about looking good to anyone. It's about holding rational arguments with decent evidence. When you make blanket statements that liberals all read marx and engage in communist intimidation tactics against conservatives and then bring up one class you took as evidence, then yes, your argument is weak and doesn't really hold up well. Same thing with statements that lawyers love socialism. Except you didn't bring up any evidence to actually support that one.



Pardon me if I don't take your word as expert opinion on torture and its efficacy. The majority of the military seems to disagree with your assessment that torture is the way to go. It has also been shown that torture isn't a reliable source of information. It has been shown that some people will say and admit to anything to get the torture to stop. If you were innocent, but you were tortured so that you feared your life may be in immediate danger, do you think you might be willing to admit to something you didn't do in order to get the torture to stop?

Furthermore, I can't believe you're honestly arguing that we should be going beyond light torture to get information from people who may or may not have any information and who may or may not actually be terrorists, criminals or involved with terrorists and/or criminals. I'd like to think that we should hold ourselves to higher standards. Once again - not everyone who is detained is guilty of a crime. It's quite civilized of you to basically be advocating a 'shoot first, ask questions later' approach to intelligence gathering.

And you seem to be conveniently ignoring the case of Maher Arar, despite numerous posters in here bring it up. Care to comment on how that fits into your "Torture, torture, torture!" strategy?

Arar was an RCMP screw up where they looked at him as a person of interest and gave that info to the U.S. who naturally wouldn't ignore it. The members of the RCMP were fired, and Arar got millions. I'm talking about people caught on the battlefield. If we stop catching prisoners because we are afraid of mistakes we'll be handcuffed in fighting the war.

I don't sympathize with enemy combatants. If I was a soldier I wouldn't want face those guys again. If I could get more information from torture than never torturing I would prefer that. I mean it's an old story now and my point of view has lost, but it gives me shivers to think that we are releasing people who will join the Taliban and start again.

 

[purpleoscar]

do you know about the time, effort, money, and manpower that have been spent chasing down "information" that came from tortured suspects?

War costs time effort and money. Informants could also be wrong or have old information but not following up would also be criticized.

I don't know guys how to fight a perfect war. Certainly Petraeus has got a clue on how to in Iraq. Tipoffs on Saddam yielded nothing for a long time until it did. I'm sure it did cost lots of money and manpower.

 

[purpleoscar]

Cool, it's that easy. Torture them, treat them as subhumans, don't show a minimum of human decency to them, ignore any findings that the person is not guilty of anything and then just send them back after you simply won the war and let the newly set-up government handle the rest.
What process in the many cases of innocent? And how can Iraq's or Afghanistan's (or all the other government's of nations from which people are incarcerated in Guantanamo) intent have certainly been to process any person the US at one point detained? Especially when Bush's plan was to set-up a military tribunal which orders the sentences without due process or (sufficient) legal representation?

There is legal representation but it's done through the military so critics want a civilian system. I just don't care about people trying to kill our soldiers on the battlefield. If you get caught on the battlefield then what were you doing there?

I don't want our soldiers to have to face them again when they get released.

 

[Irvine511]

War costs time effort and money. Informants could also be wrong or have old information but not following up would also be criticized.

I don't know guys how to fight a perfect war. Certainly Petraeus has got a clue on how to in Iraq. Tipoffs on Saddam yielded nothing for a long time until it did. I'm sure it did cost lots of money and manpower.

you realize that pretty much all that has gone wrong has been due to bad people wanting to believe in bad intelligence?

i'm sorry, you're very polite and well spoken, but this comes off as incredibly, incredibly naive. there is only so much blood and treasure to go around, empires are expensive to maintain. this seems like a very easy way to cut costs. we know torture doesn't work. we know it gives you false information. we know it makes it more dangerous for our soldiers. we know it reduces us to the level of those we're fighting. we know that once you let the sadists in, the whole system collapses into totalitarianism. ask yourself why they are now using the very techniques used on John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton. John McCain made and signed false statements and even attempted suicide.

it doesn't work. period. and it makes us all worse.

 

[Irvine511]

If you get caught on the battlefield then what were you doing there?

don't know much about guerrilla warfare and occupations, do you.

 

[diamond]

do you know much about Horowitz?

yes, his changed his orientation, political orientation.

 

[diamond]

nevermind.

 

[purpleoscar]

don't know much about guerrilla warfare and occupations, do you.

Petraeus certainly does.

 

[purpleoscar]

do you know much about Horowitz?

Last I knew (I haven't read his articles since university years) he was trying to get accountability for hiring in schools so that it would be more balanced without trying to push liberals completely out either.

I don't know if he has succeeded anywhere. Let's check the net:


He has replies to critics on his Academic freedom campaign so he looks like he's still working on it.

FrontPage Magazine

 

[purpleoscar]

Oh well in that case I'll take your word for it.

Did you hear that it's also well known that students don't have the most objective views on professors they have strong ideological differences with?

Wow, I can over-generalize, too!

I hope you agree that marks should be allocated to knowledge of the material. I certainly don't want courses where you must agree with conservatives only. That would be boring. Any conservatives that push their agenda in classes are hypocrites and should be hung out to dry the same as the left wing ones.

 

[Irvine511]

Petraeus certainly does.

and ...?

what does this have to do with the fact that torture doesn't work?

 

[Irvine511]

Last I knew (I haven't read his articles since university years) he was trying to get accountability for hiring in schools so that it would be more balanced without trying to push liberals completely out either.

I don't know if he has succeeded anywhere. Let's check the net:


He has replies to critics on his Academic freedom campaign so he looks like he's still working on it.

FrontPage Magazine

he's a well paid right wing shill.

he has an agenda to promote just like Rush, Coulter, etc.

he's more intellectual than they are, yes, but he's offering the same straw men and working under the same false assumptions and trying to manufacture the same false outrage.

 

[purpleoscar]

and ...?

what does this have to do with the fact that torture doesn't work?

Well then it means you don't think the military got any information out of it then. They said they did but it's very unpopular. Certainly I can say this here because I'm not a politician. If I was I would be forced into that same point to be politically viable and McCain doesn't believe in it due to his experience but I'm trying VERY HARD to look at the point of view of the guy on the battlefield who didn't get killed because of good information. I'm looking at the guy who didn't die because terrorists and supporters were in Guantanamo Bay instead of the field.

The conversational topic I think can't continue because I think that some of the information is of value and you don't and we'll be spinning wheels on an issue that is not up for election. I'm aware a war isn't won or lost on torture but at minimum keep them locked up until the war is over in 2011. I hope the civilian style trials last long enough that it won't be an issue and Afghanistan is mostly running their own government.