Torture? I went through worse in basic training

Originally posted by Exuberant1

Originally posted by Question

I have plenty of swords and knives, know how to use them and use them well, and trust me, would have no qualms with cutting someone's genitals and giving them a taste of a living hell before turning them to the police (if they manage to survive that long)

Such acts are criminal and you would risk prosecution for committing them.

Why do you boast about your theoretical potential to inflict torture?

Breaking into my home to torture, harm and potentially kill me and my loved ones is a criminal act. If you think I'm gonna sit down and take it like some whimp you're damn wrong! I will protect my home and my loved ones with my life if I have to! Get a clue and get a spine while you're at it!

If you break my home to harm other people, you should know that you run the risk of being shot at or worse, I have no remorse for people who are blood thirsty criminals because I know they won't return the same compassion back. I'm sorry kid, but sometimes violence IS the only answer and trust me, I've had enough experience to know. Sometimes talking diplomatic gibberish doesn't work... ask the british when they tried it with Hitler

To answer as to why I would harm the criminal even when "subdued"? Because it will give him something to think about next time he tries to pull off the same stupid stunt. It will make them think "s**t! I lost my balls last time I tried to break into this house, do I REALLY want to try breaking in again?"

It may be against the law in your hippie state, but here we still have the "home is your castle/fortress" law, or some such thing, I can't remember the actual name, the only thing I remember is that basically if you break into my home and I kill you, I won't get prosecuted since I was protecting my property and my loved ones.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Question]

It was torture having to read through your post! Seriously it was your choice to be in the army you knew the risks and what you were signing up for!

reply to post by Poet Of Deception


Are you saying that terrorists did not know or sign up knowing that they too might get tortured? are you saying that because they might not have gone through the same rigorous training as our military men, that somehow that absolves them from being tortured? Are you seriously THAT naive that you're willing to protect enemy soldiers/combatants? So you're saying it's ok for OUR military men and women to go through it because they "signed up for it" but not for the terrorists? My god what a ridiculous flawed way of thinking! No wonder. I'm starting to agree with Obama that america has become a nation of cowards... but I think he's got the reasoning wrong though.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Question]

Originally posted by Exuberant1

Originally posted by mmiichael
... the US had to show him and by inference the other bad guys in the region that they were deadly serious. Deadly.

It worked.

They scared North Korea into building The Atom Bomb - to boost their deterrence capability.

Kim Jong Il saw what happened to countries who lack a nuclear deterrent, and then expedited the development his own countries deterrent.

North Korea is in closest proximity to South Korea, Japan, and China - none of who are exactly allies. The pipsqueak nuclear capability they have, which many think may not even be fully functional, is not a direct response to the US massive build-up.

NK would buy at most a couple hours grace in a nuclear conflagration with everything they have. More an intimidation factor for SK and Japan, who the US wants to protect. And now a source of exporting technology and expertise to the Middle East.

The US did not need to scare NK. They have always known the score.

As much as I dislike nuclear proliferation, exacerbated by the Cold War, we've seen no atomic weapons used in warfare for 64 years. No one wants to incur the serious wrath of the US.


Mike

Originally posted by mmiichael
As much as I dislike nuclear proliferation, exacerbated by the Cold War, we've seen no atomic weapons used in warfare for 64 years. No one wants to incur the serious wrath of the US.

It's got nothing to do with not wanting to " incur the serious wrath of the US". It has got everything to do with the fact that once one bomb goes off, that's pretty much it for human civilisation.

Say for instance NK nuked Los Angeles, the US nuke Pyongyang as a response. The Russians and the Chinese then come along and start tossing nukes left, right and centre at all their enemies and bobs-your-uncle we have nuclear annihilation.

Originally posted by Kryties

It's got nothing to do with not wanting to " incur the serious wrath of the US". It has got everything to do with the fact that once one bomb goes off, that's pretty much it for human civilisation.

Say for instance NK nuked Los Angeles, the US nuke Pyongyang as a response. The Russians and the Chinese then come along and start tossing nukes left, right and centre at all their enemies and bobs-your-uncle we have nuclear annihilation.

Do you really think NK has the capability of delivering a nuke across the Pacific undetected? Do you think Russia or China would want to jeopardize their existence because nutty NK did something rashly insane?

No want to protect or assist NK in any way, least of all their immediate neighbours. They've made it abundantly clear. And Kim does not want his country and himself wiped out in an instant.

Making noise is the only way he gets attention and concern and he does it all the time. Make threatening sounds and a load of food, fuel, and aid are shipped to you. That's it.

The country is quietly imploding, and everyone just waits to see when and how it finally ends.



Mike

[edit on 28-4-2009 by mmiichael]

Any friend of mine who starts a fight and starts getting his ass whipped knows that I will not step in until the fight is over.

I like my friends, but if they start it, they better be able to finish it.

Same thing world-wide. China's not going to start slinging nukes around after NK is a smoking pile of rubble. There's no percentage in it.



[edit on 28-4-2009 by dooper]

Originally posted by Poet Of Deception
It was torture having to read through your post! Seriously it was your choice to be in the army you knew the risks and what you were signing up for!

It was my choice to sign up to protect and defend this nation. It was the terrorist choice to try and kill people.

You act as if the terrorist are innocent bystanders.

When KSM was asked was another attack coming and he said "soon you will see" they had to make a choice.

That's reality, not pie in the sky liberalism.

When your faced with one of the masterminds behind 9/11 telling you another attack is coming, you have to act or American lives could be in serious danger.

It's easy to live in theory from the comfort of your home or from the comfort of the White House, but the guys on the front line don't have that luxury.

They can't live in fantasy land like some liberals because if they do people will die.

Originally posted by Question

To answer as to why I would harm the criminal even when "subdued"? Because it will give him something to think about next time he tries to pull off the same stupid stunt. It will make them think "s**t! I lost my balls last time I tried to break into this house, do I REALLY want to try breaking in again?"

No offense but the death penalty doesn't dissuade people from committing crimes so I doubt you'd be able to be more effective.

It may be against the law in your hippie state, but here we still have the "home is your castle/fortress" law, or some such thing, I can't remember the actual name, the only thing I remember is that basically if you break into my home and I kill you, I won't get prosecuted since I was protecting my property and my loved ones.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by Question]

Castle Law

Most states appropriately understand the right to defend your home against intruders and have adopted the Castle Law or Defense of Habitation Law, a legal doctrine linked to the Second Amendment and The District of Columbia vs. Heller–the first U.S. Supreme Court decision that directly address a private citizen’s rights to bear arms (the debate had been whether the Second Amendment applied to individual citizens or state-run militias).

The Castle Law basically supports the idea that your home is your “castle” and that you have every right to defend it against harm (including people in your home as well as personal property).

Duty to Retreat Provision

Some states may require a “duty to flee” provision, before engaging in battle with an intruder. This is largely an unpopular law with the general population that requires that one first attempt to flee prior to the use of lethal force; in other words, it is on the burden of the defense to prove that the use of force was only used as a last resort.

My state had this particular provision when I was a child.
Here is how we were told to get around this by a law enforcement official.
There were a lot of break in's, in our neighborhood which were local kids. My dad caught one breaking into his garage and drug his stupid butt into the house and called the sherriff's dept. When the officer arrived, he told my dad that if he were to use lethal force on an intruder such as this person, make sure he does so while inside the house and put a knife in his hand so there is no question about the "duty to flee" provision.
lukevi.com...

just thought I'd post some info about a memo I came across

Senior FBI agents stationed in Iraq in 2004 alleged in an e-mail that President George W. Bush signed an executive order approving the use of dogs, sleep deprivation and other tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees.

The FBI e-mail -- dated May 22, 2004 -- followed disclosures about abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and sought guidance on whether FBI agents in Iraq were obligated to report the U.S. military’s harsh interrogation of inmates when that treatment violated FBI standards but fit within the guidelines of a presidential executive order.

So now we have evidence to suggest that bush himself is involved in the illegal torture of individuals.

According to the e-mail, Bush’s executive order authorized interrogators to use military dogs, “stress positions,” sleep “management,” loud music and “sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.” to extract information from detainees in Iraq, which would is considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Bush has never before been directly linked to authorizing specific interrogation techniques at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.

So bush ordered violations of the geneva convention.

T“We have also instructed our personnel not to participate in interrogations by military personnel which might include techniques authorized by executive order but [are] beyond the bounds of FBI practices.''

Interesting. So although the president himself signed off on torture, the FBI decided to refuse because they believed it was beyond the bounds the FBI find acceptable. Now why would they basically disobey the presidents order? Well maybe because they KNEW that it was illegal regardless of the executive order the president signed.

One month after the e-mail was sent to FBI counterterrorism officials in Washington, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales held a news conference in an attempt to contain the fallout from the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Gonzales told reporters that the abuses, which included sexual humiliation of Iraqi men, were isolated to some rogue U.S. soldiers who acted on their own and not as result of orders being handed down from high-level officials inside the Bush administration.

So now, being caught, gonzales had to get up and lie and blame some soldiers who "did it on their own" ???? A few soldiers were able to pull off many abuses on their own in a prison???? And nobody noticed but the few rogue soldiers????
Seem plausable to ANYONE so far???

Gonzales also said the White House defined torture as a “a specific intent to inflict severe physical or mental harm or suffering. That's the definition that Congress has given us and that's the definition that we use.”

And here we have it. Gonzales admits what was happening was torture.

However, on March 8, 2008, Bush vetoed congressional legislation that called for a specific ban on waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques, including stripping prisoners naked, subjecting them to extreme cold and staging mock executions.

"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," Bush said in a radio address explaining his veto.

A proven track record ??? Here is a good point which bush should have proven his statement... but wait... we're supposed to just go ahead and trust him AGAIN. Maybe this time he wasn't lying ???

"We created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland." Bush said. "If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the [Army] field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al-Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives."

Notice the important conditional phrase here?
Could cost American lives...Not WILL cost American lives.

now here's an interesting part
This is the part where bush explains we will treat these enemy combatants humanely and give them protections under the Geneva Conventions.

Gonzales added: “But the president also determined -- and this is quoting from the actual document, paragraph 3; this is very important -- he said, ‘Of course, our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment. Our nation has been, and will continue to be, a strong supporter of Geneva and its principles. As a matter of policy, the Armed Forces are to treat detainees humanely, and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.’”

www.pubrecord.org...
I could go on and on.

My point?
This is a lot of detail and agrevation to go through:
Press conferences.
Executive orders.
Agency infighting.
FBI utilizing their polices over the presidents own orders.

According to the OP, this isn't any worse then basic training. Seriously, if it really was so easy to compare to basic training, surely all these people would have done so by now to shut this whole thing down. Why haven't they?
Because the reality is, torture has NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING to do with basic training and is in no way comparable to basic training.

Of course, for someone to know about what goes on in basic training, or AIT, or any of the other military training programs, one would have had to experience it.

My first week in SF training, we lost eight men killed in an explosion. Before that in Jump School, we lost one who died. The training was brutal. That's probably why only a few could get through the program, and why some of the finest specimens of manhood would fall out of the Special Ops programs every single day.

But, what the hell does anyone in the military know?

I will defer to the experts.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by dooper]

Originally posted by dooper
Before that in Jump School, we lost one who died.
[edit on 28-4-2009 by dooper]

Its a helluva way to die...

If someone has wings they know what that means..lol

Torture? Please give me a break; have we forgotten exactly WHAT real torture is? Anyone who thinks that ‘water boarding’ is torture is a politically correct bleeding heart who has suffered reeducation at the hands of historical revisionist. Pliers and other such mechanical instruments applied to sensitive body parts are examples of torture; dear Lord the ‘Worm Pit’ suffered upon arriving at Ranger training is more horrible than the “torture” of water boarding and the other mentioned examples of such terrible treatment of our sworn enemies.

Do any of you KNOW how the British SAS interrogated IRA terrorist THEY captured? No? (Probably because they had no whining sniveling bleeding heart liberals to second guess them. I had nothing but admiration for the effective and obviously successful methods they used to keep British civilians safe.) If you did you would laugh at what you think now as so horrible, so cruel as 'water boarding'.

For all the bleeding hearts, if WE HAD followed the Geneva Convention we could have lined all non-uniformed combatants against the wall and shot them OR hung them on trees. I have no sympathy for simplex strapped suicide bombers or their trainers and handlers; kill them all and let God sort them out.

Everyone must know about the classic psychology experiment where students were in a set-up test for tolerance of an electric charge applied to subjects in another room.

The prof would tell the students to up the charge while the subject would fake screams of "Stop it. It hurts too much!"

The students would look in askance to the prof who would tell them to proceed. And most of them did.

It was all faked to really test how far the student subjects would go. Trying to see if an authority command overrode their concern for administering pain to innocent other students. It did.

So those kids, thinking they were actually causing pain and suffering were knowingly contravening the Constitution and Geneva Agreements. Right?

Something to consider.


Mike

Originally posted by mmiichael

So those kids, thinking they were actually causing pain and suffering were knowingly contravening the Constitution and Geneva Agreements. Right?

Something to consider.

Wait, what?

You're comparing kids in a classroom to the United States Government? How is that something to consider?

If anything you've only demonstrated the "sheep" mentality that allows all of these atrocities to occur on the basis of executive decisions. The people who do the dirty work are just following their superiors orders, who take orders from their superiors, etc.. all the way up to Mr. George W. Bush who signed off on these things in the first place.

Originally posted by platosallegory
I looked at these memos and these things are not torture. I went through worse during basic training in the Army.

Really? I went through basic training too, and I don't recall any torture.

I remember doing drills in pouring rain for about 15-20 minutes. We were running in place and doing push ups. We also went on a field exercise in a storm and had to sleep on the side of the road in wet leaves and grass, It was so wet me and my battle buddy had to sleep back to back to avoid the wet ground.

Ok, so you are equating the patriotic feeling of becoming a man in a military fashion with being waterboarded and dragged around naked amongst nashing dogs? I recall singing songs like "Hey Hey Cap'n Jack... Meet me down by the Railroad track, with that seabag in your hand, I wanna be a Sailin' man!"

Are you really trying to equate these two things?

Putting someones head under water for 20-40 seconds is nothing. This only happened to 3 or 4 terrorist and it led to some helpful information that stopped attacks in LA and New York.

So if we piss on the constitution only 2 or three times because it saves lives its a good thing? If we break our promises (treaties) only a couple of times because it saves lives it's ok?

NO NO NO. What you are describing is Corruption.

Corruption: 1 a: impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity b: decay, decomposition c: inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) d: a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct
2archaic : an agency or influence that corrupts
3chiefly dialect : pus

Waterboarding, being put in a room with bugs or putting you in a cold room is not torture.

I had much worse happen to me during basic training. If you gave me a choice to be waterborded 20-40 seconds a day for 8 weeks vs basic training, you could waterboard me.

No you didn't Do you know why?

Because guess who called waterboarding torture as a justification for punishment by execution? The United States of America. The Japanese waterboarded us because they feared weapons of mass destruction. They were afraid that we were going to drop an atomic weapon on them, they believed the waterboarding would save lives.

We called it torture, and leveled harsh sentences against these people. Do you know what the opposite of corruption is? It's handing the exact same sentences to the people in the past administration or the current congress who allowed this to happen.


And why? Because we have to act as the the moral authority in the world, not some dysfunctional authoritarian alcoholic parent.



[edit on 28-4-2009 by HunkaHunka]

Originally posted by drwizardphd
The people who do the dirty work are just following their superiors orders, who take orders from their superiors, etc.. all the way up to Mr. George W. Bush who signed off on these things in the first place.

Remember what the President came on the television set to say before the Iraq War began:

"War Crimes Will Be Prosecuted. It Will Be No Defense To Say, I Was Just Following Orders"





[edit on 28-4-2009 by Exuberant1]

reply to post by HunkaHunka


I agree with almost everything you said.

We charged those in Japan with torture because they did things to our soldiers that would be impossible to imagine if it weren't for eyewitness accounts.

It wasn't because they water boarded anyone.

Originally posted by jfj123

Originally posted by Question

To answer as to why I would harm the criminal even when "subdued"? Because it will give him something to think about next time he tries to pull off the same stupid stunt. It will make them think "s**t! I lost my balls last time I tried to break into this house, do I REALLY want to try breaking in again?"

No offense but the death penalty doesn't dissuade people from committing crimes so I doubt you'd be able to be more effective.

Because with the death penalty, they know they know it will be "over soon" so to speak. But make them go through hell, and make them live to remember it, remember the pain and they'll think twice.

Originally posted by drwizardphd

Originally posted by mmiichael

So those kids, thinking they were actually causing pain and suffering were knowingly contravening the Constitution and Geneva Agreements. Right?

Something to consider.

Wait, what?

You're comparing kids in a classroom to the United States Government? How is that something to consider?

If anything you've only demonstrated the "sheep" mentality that allows all of these atrocities to occur on the basis of executive decisions. The people who do the dirty work are just following their superiors orders, who take orders from their superiors, etc.. all the way up to Mr. George W. Bush who signed off on these things in the first place.

Kids who have nothing to gain by causing pain to others in an experiment
do so as part of their education.

Officials whose sworn duty is to protect the country and it citizens would have even less resistance to inflicting pain to fulfill their obligations. Inherent in their decision is to prevent death and more pain. The students did not have that extra inducement.

The chain of command is not the issue.

A revealing insight into people's priorities in pressing circumstances.

We don't really know how any of us would act if put in similar situations.

We might think we do.


Mike