I did not call you a war criminal. I pointed out statements from those who said they committed war crimes, and I pointed to evidence of such. I don't need to be an American soldier to know this is wrong. Stop with this lane bulls**t. you don't need to have done the crimes themselves to know this is wrong. Otherwise, if that's your debate style---ignore testimonials from people on the ground while purporting to be some authority on the topic, I would kindly ask you to confine yourself to Second Amendment and detainee op threads, unless you're going to conjure a masters in Econ and public policy from LSE, and a spot on multi-stakeholder consultations with the WEF, you are clearly out of your league on any public policy pronouncement, and must invent the proper internet credentials.
The entire episode was RIDICULOUSLY overblown, and many of the statements reported by soldiers turned out to be false. The people who had panties plpaced on their heads and had to sweat a dog's presence were the war criminals. Those people targeted civilians ON PURPOSE. I never shed a tear for their humiliation, you shouldn't either. They deserved a bullet in the head. The big mistake was taking pictures and causing an international incident. modern warfare is a bi%ch. No, I will NOT stop with this "lane BS". You know NOTHING about firearms or personal defense issues, but you feel you are qualified to wade into an argument and comment on them. You know NOTHING about what went on in Iraq or any of the TIFs there. You LITERALLY are completely ignorant regarding both of these issues and are doing nothing but cherrypicking bogus left wing talking points and BS studies that fall apart at the slightest application of logic. You keep talking about things that you know absolutely NOTHING about. You may be an expert at something, but none of the things I have argued with you about are it. You have no expertise here. You'd be better served to listen than talk. I may occasionally chime in on things I am not an expert on but I will not try to sustain an argument on them because I realize that I am not an expert in those areas. You should do the same.
are we so sure about that? detainee policies are spotty the American way. We know, for example, in Gitmo, that federal appeals courts have ruled that quite a few are there without cause---and who can forget Khalid El-Masri? methinks the record would be even more spotty for prisoners toiling in relative obscurity, especially with reports of frequent journalist arrests in Iraq. Modern warfare is a b*tch ain't it? especially with the torture chambers that encouraged descent into civil war. anyways, you're getting heated. I'd encourage you to relax. I'm not a rabid dog chasing after you. As for your last point, duly noted. Please retract statements you had made indicating that blue-state economic polices were damaging---you are better served to listen then to talk in those topics---you have no expertise there. Never sustain an argument on these issues, or people will have to start demanding why a BSc. in psych should feel so audacious as to comment.
Treeman, I think that's a little bit of a whitewash there. What happened went beyond a "humiliation." It was sadistic, it was torture, and whether or not they were bad guys has nothing to do with it, as it only happens when people have absolute power over other humans. Take this guy for instance, who was subject to the humiliation of death: You pride yourself on being a scholar and reading the founders, but is there a more critical, more defining event for what this country stands for internationally than the Nuremberg Trials? Supplement your Madison with some Judge Jackson.
Again, and I don't know how many times I will have to say this, but YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. No one ends up in Gitmo "without cause". Their case may later be adjudicated positively for them but there is something about every single person who ends up there that sends up all sorts of flags, and most of them were caught red-handed in some sort of act or are verified as being a high ranking BG. You generally don;t get a trip to Gitmo unless you are special, otherwise you will end up in a TIF if caught in an area with fighting. This statement doesn't even make sense, but you are again calling people like me torturers. Again, you have NO CLUE what you're talking about. At this point I am pretty sure you're just trolling. No, I will not. You admittedly don't even live in the USA and didn;t grow up here, so I am quite a ways ahead of you on the curve already on whether I am qualified to comment (you see, we don;t much care what foreigners think here, as they have a very poor understanding of this country in the first place). But you are referring to my quib yesterday about the connection between blue (liberal) policies and crime... I'd like to hear you explain to me why you DON'T think that the liberal policies of the '60s that led to the destruction of the previously coherent African-American nuclear family, and led to generations of people being raised without fathers and mothers in the same household, led to an increase in crime? On second thought... Haven't we derailed enough threads already? I have as much as you do if I remember your educational background correctly. It actually matches somewhat with mine, which is why I remember it. So I will continue to comment on it, thank you very much. But I don;t consider myself an expert, just a bit knowledgeable. I will not push arguments in that sphere as I will in other spheres where I have more expertise. Have you not noticed that? Seriously, you know NOTHING about this one. Leave it alone.
Taking an inappropriate picture next to a body does NOT amount to torture. We had detainees die somewhat regularly, not because of anything we did, they did it to each other. We spent quite a bit of time trying to weed out the Takfiri, who were responsibly for most of these deaths. These people would kill other detainees for shaving their beards, talking about a woman, missing a prayer - anything they deemed un-islamic. It happened all the time. It was inappropriate for a guard to take a pic like that, but our people didn't kill them. This is a PRIME example of how pics taken from TIFs got blown out of proportion. After Abu Ghraib all personal cameras in TIFs were banned except for S2 use. And even those pics were heavily restricted and monitored. If you weren't there you have NO IDEA what went on there. The context is completely missing from most of the pics that came out of there. You see "US military killed old guy", I see "US military took a stupid pic with old guy who was killed by other detainees".
Says---the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhdar_Boumediene http://rt.com/usa/steele-iraqi-death-squads-527/ You don't remember it correctly at all, in that case (though I am pretty sure I did not specify educational level or alma mater), and unless you also have the experience on top of the degree, you are grossly under-qualified, so I see no point in sustaining an argument with you on that topic, or derailing this thread. I know more about public policy in America than most people do, including most Americans---that's just an occupational hazard of mine, and I've never been particularly proud of my policy nerd outlook, but if you're racking qualifications as your thannnng, well, I'M QUALIFIED MOTHERF**KA and you ain't.
Your qualifications are ZERO on this subject if you have no personal experience with it. ZERO. You know less about this than you do about personal defense and firearms issues. I don't know what you do for a living. I don't really care. But you haven't deigned to say. Just a post saying the above, which means nothing. You know, anybody can look s*it up on Wikipedia and post it on an internet forum. At this point you are just trolling. I thought you were a better debater than that.
wait, so what you're trying to say is that instead of relying on DOJ reports, Supreme court rulings, and federal appeals court rulings, internal CIA documents, and declassified autopsies I have to torture a motherf**ka to debate torture on an internet forum? yeahhhhhh---very good style of debate.
Alternate quote: "The suppressed fact: ONE Death by U.S. torture" Bad stuff did occasionally happen, and some of our troops did do the wrong thing. When it happened they were disciplined - harshly - and the system was changed so that it couldn't happen again. But it was NOT widespread as you and other US military haters would make it out to be. This AGAIN comes back to the fact that you are simply randomly pulling crap off of the internet without having any ACTUAL experience with the area. I don't know how many times I will have to remind you that you really don't know what your talking about for it to sink in. Why don't I ever hear creeps like you complain about Saddam's torture rooms? You fools gave him a pass for decades. Why don't I ever hear you complain about Al Qaeda's torture rooms, where they sawed the heads off of people and sent videos of the act to their family members? Why don't I ever hear people like you complain about the REAL torture and execution that is a regular part of their mode of operation? Until I hear SOMETHING more than a canned response about that I do NOT believe in your pure motives. You have other motives than just "human rights". I know why, you hate the US military, you think it is an evil force, you think that America is an evil imperial power, you have bought the leftist caricature hook, line and sinker. Don't deny it. But you're a foreigner, so it's not surprising. You have no REAL CLUE about how America operates. Few foreigners actually do.
So you ARE calling me a war criminal? Or is that just a reading fail on your part? Or are you still just trolling? Pretty sure it's just the last one.
if you had cared enough to follow my posts, you'd see I've condemned all sorts of groups. though you bringing up Saddam is ironic---he was one of those secular dictators America loved for quite a while, especially to balance Iran. only after the Kuwait takedown were his crimes enumerated. but what the f**k is the point? Do you want to hold America to similar standards than those monstrous groups? f**k that.
if it makes you feel uncomfortable, stop asking internet people for qualifications, otherwise it's fair to assume you have quite a few---it's your lane after all.
And I've got to add... Your point here is that ALL detainees at Gitmo (and everywhere else) are there unjustly. Is that correct? Because you must otherwise admit that they are NOT all there unjustly. How many of those mother fudgers have been caught for a second time on the battlefield after being released? Answer: more than have been found to have been unjustly imprisoned. We pick up guys with some regularity that have been to Gitmo or another TIF, are released, and get caught doing the same crap that landed them there in the first place. So, are you worried about the occasional guy getting caught up in the whirlwind of a war and being unjustly imprisoned? Because I agree that that sucks and it needs to be remedied ASAP on a case by case basis. Or do you just want to shut it all down and set them all free? Because if you do, you will be freeing people who are CERTAINLY going to go back to the jihad and kill again. So, I have to ask. Are you simply pining for justice for a few wrong-place/wrong-time guys or are you just wanting the jihadists to be freed so they can get their killing on again? Are you secretly a supporter of the jihad? You do understand... that despite his rhetoric, there is a very good reason that POTUS hasn't shut it down yet. Right?
Right, because internet debates require you to actually be at world events. QUALIFICATION YO. i wasn't aware this was the equivalent of Harvard Math 55. "the hardest internet debate forum in the country"
Total revisionist BS. We never loved Saddam, we simply hated him less than we hated the mullahs in Iran, and were content to let our enemies fight each other. The point is that you don;t actually give TWO FLYING S*ITS about the Iraqis or anyone else. Your agenda is anti-US military / anti-USA. It has always been patently obvious. If your agenda was actually human rights then we'd be talking about Saddam's torture rooms and AQ's decapitation vids, because they are FAR WORSE than anything any American EVER did in that theater. But we are NOT talking about them, because you don't actually care. Spare me the human rights BS. That is not what you care about.
Yes, and I ACTUALLY DID DETAINEE OPS IN IRAQ. You didn't. My dik is MUCH longer than yours on this score.
