Hate torture? Consider boot camp

"HOLD THE PRESSES. I've discovered that the use of torture by the U.S. government is far more pervasive than previously believed. There are major facilities all over the country where thousands of men and women who have not committed any crime are held for prolonged periods while subjected to physical and psychological coercion that violates every tenet of the Geneva Convention.

They are routinely made to stand for long periods in uncomfortable positions. They are made to walk for hours while wearing heavy loads on their backs. They are bullied by martinets who get in their faces and yell insults at them. They are hit and often knocked down with clubs known as pugil sticks. They are denied sleep for more than a day at a time. They are forced to inhale tear gas. They are prevented from seeing friends or family. Some are traumatized by this treatment. Others are injured. A few even die."

Link

I was waiting for this garbage to begin........................McCain is having flashbacks and should be removed. The media should just shut-up.

America is doomed from the insanity within...................


[edit on 15-12-2005 by thermopolis]

[edit on 15/12/05 by JAK]

Are you sure this isn’t a parody intended to make the torture allegations look silly. Oh wait this is the La times im talking about here.

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What allegations?

Look back when T-Rex ruled when I went through both Marine boots, training was harsh but was nothing compared to actual combat. If the flower children take over military training it's time to check-it-in.

Military training can't be PC...............but then again maybe thats is Mccains ultimate goal, commie that he is.............

Step one "kiss the bad guys and everyone play nice.........

Step two hand over all your guns

Step three The hanoi hilton "Liar" runs the world from the oval office........

Wasnt she prosecuted and is currently in jail?

yeah, i must have pointed this out about ten times already. the torture buffs are just too clueless to actually understand the concept.

Torture to the flower children and their evil spawn (the media) is not being allowed to inhale............

The article is clearly sarcasm. McCain is hardly to be faulted for trying to do something to prevent further criminal abuse by servicemen, even the pentagon agrees that what was going on at garaib was illegal.

Hate torture? Consider boot camp

Come on man! If my little brother can make it thru boot camp as a Sand Flee in 1989 and Me thru USAF in 1986 without going A-wall or crying home about it. It was not bad at all if you ask me. What is this world coming to ??

Mod Edit: Civility & Decorum.

[edit on 15/12/2005 by Mirthful Me]

Torture in Boot Camp? Not really... If you want to know how it is through there, just ask someone that's been. That goes for any service. I do admit most of my time in the Air Force boot camp of 99 was boring. The hardest part was pushing myself to do more and more pushups, situps, and lowering my time on the running.

Odd thing is, when you ask people about it, you're informed of the conditions there, yet volunteer to go anyway?

McCain is a good man, who happened to experience true torture. Though I do agree he is taking this too far. If we cant take the kid gloves off for a bit with these guys, they will know how far we can go and just wait it out. Its a tough call, finding middle ground between human rights and necessary roughness.

USAF "boot camp" does not really count here, no disrespect. The fact that you said you were bored is the giant red flag. You wont find any marines or army guys say they were bored, dead tired maybe, but not bored

[edit on 15-12-2005 by zoso28]

There's a real big difference between volunteering for military training and being arrested and tortured by a foreign entity.

after volunteering to fight against the american military. how convenient that you leave that part out.

Even if this was the case, and it seems that a good few of those caught up in the system are innocent, it doesn't matter which way you cut it,

TORTURE IS WRONG

Comparing it to Boot Camp? Come on! Do detainees get paid and helped with their college education? Do detainees have a choice in the matter?

Never mind that, do they strip you naked and humiliate you with sexually perverse acts in front of your families or peers? (Oh wait, I just remembered the whole Royal Marine debacle, maybe they wait until after Boot Camp to do the perverted stuff!!!)

Comparing being stolen away from your family and native country to a far away secret prison. You don't even know where you are, you are being beaten and tortured, humiliated and abused.

Recruits know they can wash out. Detainees don't even know if they will live to see another day, never mind live to see their families and friends again.

Comparing a few weeks of character building and exhausting physical and mental exertion to being kidnapped and tortured by a foreign entity is just plain naive.

Stop! Just stop trying to justify torture! Never mind your "bomb in the crowded city with 20 mins to go" scenario!! Never mind saying the cry-babies should try a bit of good all-American Boot Camp.

Nothing, and I mean nothing justifies torturing and inflicting mental and physical anguish on a fellow human being.

Say it with me again, slowly.

TORTURE..............IS...............WRONG

End of argument. No if's, but's or how's about it.

Wrong.

i agree completely. the point is that the bar representing what is torture and what is simply well proven interrogation techniques keeps getting lower thanks to the media. torture is what the nazis did to prisoners to extract information. sleep deprivation and standing for hours on end is not torture.



they most certainly have a choice in the matter. they picked up the weapon and shot at US troops, while wearing civilian clothing. enemy combatant? civilians carrying weapons used to be called spies and could be legally shot. yet we incarcerate them and give them three squares a day. tough life.



oh yeah, lets take a small percentage of acts that were very wrong, in which the aggressors were properly punished, and apply it to the entire system.



again, they didnt have to pick up the weapon. they made their bed, now they are lying in it.



oh, cut the melodramatics. the US has a very very good record compared to most other countries around the world in regards to how it treats prisoners. these people will see their families again eventually, just as many former gitmo prisoners are back with their families today.



a few weeks? maybe you should do some more research on how many different types of survival training special forces get and how long they actually last. as well as some of the techniques that are used to prepare them for actual combat and escape and evade and interrogation resistance.

kidnapped? no, kidnapping is what these people are doing to innocent civilians who are trying to help their people. they get their heads chopped off for their good efforts at humanitarian aid. its kind of hard to kidnap someone who is carrying an ak47.



your right. furthermore, nothing justifies dumming down torture so that just the act of causing people to loose sleep so that you might get some info that will prevent further death and bloodshed is included in the definition in order to make our men and women in uniform look like dogs and warmongers while they are trying to do their duty to this country.

i'd say you are the naive one.



[edit on 15-12-2005 by snafu7700]

When I went through Marine Boot Camp at MCRD, San Diego, in 1967, "torture" was widely employed. Not the kind that one would compare to a enemy prison camp, but the infliction of pain was a common form of punishment. Hanging off a wall locker by one's elbows for extended periods, supporting oneself in one's elbows and toes for extended periods, blows to the head and solar plexus, doing push ups on one's fists on pebbled blacktop for extended periods, lean at rest on concrete for extended periods, doing calisthenics in a cloud of dust so thick that breathing is next to impossible for extended periods, holding a rifle out in front of one's body with elbows locked for extended periods are just a few of the methods employed by Drill Instructors in my day.

Clearly, lethal force was not used, as the goal was for us to survive so we could go overseas to face lethal force. I broke my left fibula during one period of extensive calisthenics and was out of training for about a month. Some recruits have "nervous breakdowns" because of the emotional and psychological stress.

It was a very tough twelve weeks, but having endured all those and more, I wouldn't trade that experience for any other experience in all the world.

That doesn't make any sense. It's just double standard reasoning at it's worst. It works the same both ways using your thinking.

The American Military Volunteered to go invade a country and tell people how to live their lives backed by deadly force. So under your rationale it's justifiable for U.S. soldiers to be tortured or burned in the public square then I guess?!?!? But if that's the case why the hell do so many complain when our soldiers are abused??

Plus, I fail to see how resisting an invasion from a superior outside military entity that is pre-emtively going to occupy and change your home, culture, Gov., structure, beliefs, traditions, etc. etc. makes for much of a choice. There was no option for "No Invasion" just the choice between how and in what manner you are to be chewed up and digested by the machine of war which is about to mow you down. With or Without Fighting Back.

Amen to ya.

Although I went through a few years after you, my drill sergeants made life hell for all of us. It was a tool to teach survival skills, not an excuse for a Drill to blow off steam, and I appreciate it now - hell, I did even then.

I got hit by my Drill once - very hard - and I thank him to this very day for that hit. It woke me up and showed me that I was no longer sleeping in till 10am and sassing my folks. And it was one hell of a lot better than the fire ant hills.

I think it is a real shame that the lesson of "sweat in training saves blood in war" is being forgotten right now.

But anyway, I suppose that I am digressing.

Some of the Special Operations training comes pretty close to torture IMHO. With the SEALs for example they dont call it "Hell week" for nothing. But it pretty much has to be like that seeing as to what you are going to ask these men to do in the real world.