2/13    Thought Abu Gharib was bad? Just wait until the Gitmo stuff
        starts to hit the news:
        http://csua.org/u/b1m
        \_ The NYT continues its slide downhill.  I love the allegations of
           cruelty which we are supposed to connect to Guantanamo but actually
           could have happened in Pakistan before the US had custody (e.g. the
           wired helmet).
           \_ Do you categorically deny that torture is taking place at
              Gitmo?
              \_ Let's say that it is. Why is that a problem?
                 \_ Because we're supposed to be the good guys, and good
                    guys don't torture people, you thick fucking muppet.  Nor
                    are we supposed to provoke wars, bomb civilians, hijack
                    and enslave children, rape women, raze undefended towns,
                    etc. etc. etc.  And before you come up with some slimy,
                    ill-informed, weak-gutted reasoning, yes, it's all the
                    same reprehensible thing engaged in by thugs, tyrants, and
                    bad guys.  Not good guys.  Bad guys.  Why is this so
                    goddamm difficult to understand?  -John
                    \_ What might shock you is that even if we are
                       torturing those people we are *still* the good
                       guys. It's all relative. They decapitate our
                       people. So we torture some of theirs. BFD. If you
                       want to argue that people are there that should not
                       be that is different. Torture in itself, however,
                       is a non-issue. Only people from touchy feely
                       countries like Sweden and Switzerland worry about
                       this. World powers should not.
                       \_ Whoop, almost caught me on that one, 2nd rate troll.
                          Tip for the aspiring troll-in-training:  the last
                          2 sentences give it away.  -John
                    \_ I think this is a little simple.  What about WWII?
                       Lots of very unsavory things went on during WWII.
                       These unsavory things could not have been avoided by
                       conducting the war in a different way (without making
                       warmaking far less effective), or by avoiding warmaking
                       altogether (which would make us complicit with Hitler).
                       I am not an apologist for torture or immoral things,
                       but the 'good guys/bad guys' dichotomy is silly in this
                       case.  War is inherently immoral.  You need to either
                       be a ruthless utilitarian in war, or abandon war
                       altogether to people with stronger stomachs (or weaker
                       consciences, depending on how you want to look at it).
                         -- ilyas
                       \_ We didn't provoke WWII.  We didn't (on the whole)
                          condone unsavory actions in WWII, and when we did,
                          such as being prepared to use mustard gas, it was
                          wrong, and no I'm not willing to get into a
                          discussion about nukes as, being a military history
                          buff, as well as an intl. relations grad, I'm not
                          sure where I stand on that.  War is not "immoral",
                          it is bad and to be avoided when possible.  Re. the
                          "silly" good guys/bad guys analogy, being seen by
                          poor unfortunate SOBs around the world as a paragon
                          of liberty, truth, and all that jazz is one of the
                          main things the US has had going for it throughout
                          history.  We lose that, we lose a large part of what
                          I personally believe is our identity, idealistic and
                          naive as that may sound.  -John
                          \_ I find this particularily amusing on the
                             anniversary of the bombing of Dresdan. Sweet.
                             \_ "Dresden".  And Hiroshima.  And Nagasaki.  And
                                handing Vlasov army POWs back to the Soviets.
                                And a host of other pretty shitty things.
                                Interesting straw man, equating prison torture
                                with something seen at the time as a military
                                necessity, but pretty horrible in retrospect.
                       \_ What about slavery?  We enslaved black people,
                          thought it was fine, then they got their freedom, and
                          thought separate but equal was fine.  Why can't we go
                          back to slavery or separate-but-equal segregation?
                          Lots of unsavory things happened in America.
                          You need to be either a ruthless utilitarian in
                          domestic policies, or abandon politics altogether to
                          the Democrats! -!John
                       \_ It's pretty questionable whether torture adds any
                          sort of "effectiveness" to our warmaking.
                       \_ "The problem is, this kind of thing occurs in
                          prisons across the country and across the world. And
                          you have to know it's going to be a possibility. And
                          therefore the training and the discipline and the
                          doctrine has to be such that you anticipate that
                          risk. And clearly, that wasn't done to the extent it
                          should." -Rumsfeld, Feb 3 2005