Goodbye America.... (Page 2)

Freedom for the American people to feel safe in their own homes and securtiy from those that will slit our throats because we come from a country west of the middle east.  It is time to stand up, be tough about who is out to kill us and quit worrying about wether we are going to offend someone who would slit my throat if I handed them a box cutter. Why do they deserve the freedoms my grandfather faught to protect.  Enemy combatitants don't deserve to have access to my court system I don't care how you slice it.  We are at war.  They are the enemy.  We put them in a nice cell.  We give them their Quran.  We give them their special meals.  We give them their privacy.  The ACLU should be no where near Quantanimo as far as I am concerned.  This is all part of the wusification of America.  I don't want to be apart of that, do you?

Ummmm, OK, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but you might want to read your own words and realize that your post could be taken as exactly drawing that parallel:

Yes I would rather them do that to me or my son.  Rather than parade me in front of a camera before they slit my throat so that I could wach my own son die on the internet.  Please.  It is a psycological trick to make you think you are drowning.  No harm comes of the person who has it performed on them.  In most cases the procedure doesn't even last for more than 20 seconds.  The longest the procedure has taken place to date has been two minutes.  Perhaps we should set them all free so that we can let them kill our soldiers  standing in line at the market and innocent civialians who are simply trying to visit the embassy, or get jobs defending their own country.

Perhaps if you had another suggestion.  A solution that would win the war, restore America to their rightful place and save innocent Iraqi citizens and american soldiers.  I am not singleing you out, but the problem is everyone has critisicms but those same people don't have solutions.  We can't blame the people who are trying to get it done, because someone on the other side of the isle doesn't have a suggestion they just know that is wrong.

That is why he can appeal to the Military court, and on up to the supreme court. 

If you do not draw a parelle between them then whay are you comparing the way they have obtained power.  The fact of the matter is that Hitler was preaching to a desperate and hungry people, and giving them a scape goat for their problems.  This was a time when a loaf of bread cost a wheel barrow full of money, and paper currency was worth more to burn than spend.  Hitler, I believe, was also well liked and very charasmatic, and bush is not.  The thing is is that while both of these acts are wrong, they happened in two different worlds and the effect of one will not nessisarily corelate with the effect of the other.

OK...for purpose of clrification, let me state that I believe there are some parallels between the German Enabling Act and the Military Commissions Act.  In both cases, the "congress" of each nation granted powers to it's leader to usurp "consitutional" law.  For the Germans it was allowing their leader to bypass sending each new law he wanted to their "congress" for approval.  In the US case, it's the striking down of habeus corpus and allocating the definition of "enemy combatant" to the President and 3 people of his choosing....which in turn allows them to apprehend and detain anyone who they feel meets this definition and can try them in their absence.

I draw no parallels between the repective leaders of each country, only the policy that each country adopted.  I think I stated initially that congress granted W virtually the same "powers" that were granted in Germany...NOT that the two men are alike.

phoenixazul - 2006-10-19 12:26 PM

C-Ray - 2006-10-19 1:21 PM

phoenixazul - 2006-10-19 12:13 PM

C-Ray - 2006-10-19 11:30 AM

So you don't know what waterboarding is?

 

Strapping someone down to a board.

Laying a wet rag over their face

laying them back at an angle with their head below their feet

pouring water over the rag

 

Doesn't sound like torture to me.

 

 

Um...yes it does sound like torture to me. Would you like to have someone do it to you? To your son? To your brother? What if it were (insert enemy country) soldiers doing it to Americans?

 

Yes I would rather them do that to me or my son. Rather than parade me in front of a camera before they slit my throat so that I could wach my own son die on the internet. Please. It is a psycological trick to make you think you are drowning. No harm comes of the person who has it performed on them. In most cases the procedure doesn't even last for more than 20 seconds. The longest the procedure has taken place to date has been two minutes. Perhaps we should set them all free so that we can let them kill our soldiers standing in line at the market and innocent civialians who are simply trying to visit the embassy, or get jobs defending their own country.

Perhaps if you had another suggestion. A solution that would win the war, restore America to their rightful place and save innocent Iraqi citizens and american soldiers. I am not singleing you out, but the problem is everyone has critisicms but those same people don't have solutions. We can't blame the people who are trying to get it done, because someone on the other side of the isle doesn't have a suggestion they just know that is wrong.

my suggestion is that we don't use eye for an eye to get intel. Torturing someone (or doing a "procedure" isn't going to improve relations. It isn't going to make citizens come up to soldiers and say, "hey, i heard that these guys are planning to do this...can you help?". It will only serve to drive a wedge of distrust and hatred, and make citizens see the US as inhumane occupiers. Were we not supposed to be replacing a dictator who tortured his own people? Aren't we supposed to be showing how a democracy will improve lives? I don't get how strapping someone to a table and making them think they're drowning will help change that. It's only going to create people who want revenge for what was done with their family members, and thus the circle continues.

Everyone we have used the procedure on has given up either a location of a safe house.  Or other important intel on the war on terror.  didn't we just knock out the leader of the insurgency not to long ago?

Other than not use the eye for an eye technique do you have a suggestion that will get the job done?  That is the question.  "don't use eye for an eye to get intel" is not a suggestion that will get the job done.

I'm sorry but do you see the point I am trying to make? 

That's the problem...there is NO right answer.  Is the direction we're going in now the 'answer'?  NO.  But yet GW has chosen to 'stay the course'.  Only an idiot would say they know the way to get out.  Unfortunately, we are there now and there is no easy way out.  That's just a fact.  And YES...we can blame the people that are trying to get it done.  If they are doing a poor job, then blame them.  It's called responsability.

Now, considering the fact that I defended the US for 6 yrs with my life, I hate the fact that our soldiers are being killed.  But we ARE at war.  That means that the enemy has the same rights as we do to capture/question/kill our troops as we do of them.  Is there a difference when we send a predator drone to kill some people on a cliff that may or may not be the enemy and when they slash the throat of one of our soldiers?

War is ugly and both sides will have casualties.  Both civilian and military.  So I see no difference between us holding 450 people in Gitmo (only of which 14 are stated high level bad guys) and them parading soldiers in front of a camera before killing them.  Both are sick, but I do not see another way...I'm not dumb enough to say that I have the answer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/dojinterrogationmemo20020801.pdf#search='torture%20memo'

Um...the attorney general seems to think we torture.

(on a complete side note...let me interject that this is a great discussion on both sides...thanks to all contributing!)

The reason you would draw a parallel is to demonstrate that the powers Bush has obtained are serious and used incorrectly could be disastrous.  You draw attention to the seriousness of the situation by outlining a past circumstance in which the situation caused a horrific amount of damage.  It's called learning from past mistakes.  It doesn't mean you he likes Hitler, it doesn't mean he hates America, it's just an useful way to bring the deserved amount of attention to this issue. 

I haven't given up any of my freedoms.  What freedoms have you given up? 

Very well said sir.  And thank you for your service. 

You are right on that count.  Zark intel didn't come from that procedure.

First, thank you for your service.  Truly, it is appreciated.

That said, I am not aware of soldiers being paraded before a camera and then killed.  I am aware of journalists and other hostages to whom that is done.  I assume that is to whom you refer.  If so, do you really believe that the detention of someone at Guantanamo (including providing them with their religious texts) is the equivalent (either morally, legally, or in any other sense), of holding a journalist or other hostage and videotaping them as their heads are cut off?

Really?  I don't have the answer either, and holding detainees without legal counsel is wrong,  but I think there is a huge gap between those two.

They do have access to legal council.