I'm sorry Wastegate, but all the time this is going on

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4422825.stm

and this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ld/6683467.stm

Then I think that America (and Britain for allowing it to happen) is just as bad as the enemy - sorry

Then you are blind imo.

Regardless of guilt or innocence, allowing a prisoner in your custody to die through neglect or abuse is blind too; it doesn't have to be a sanctioned policy or accidental either for it to be wrong on all counts.

That is what robbo180265 means, I believe.

Does a duty of care ring any bells here, or doesn't that apply in places like guantanamo bay? iirc the lawyers had a field day, prompted by various administrations, trying to remove all legal rights of these prisoners, military, international or civilian in nature.

No one is saying that torture (real torture not witholding cupcakes on Fridays) and murder is not wrong, but to try and equivalate the actions of a few rouge elements with an organization like Al Quaeda who glorify torture and murder is highly unfair and inaccurate.

Show me the nation that NEVER has had those who've abused their power! It has never existed in the history of mankind. The important thing is how a nation or group deals with these incidents when they happen and those that cannot see the difference are blind.

These captured drawings look to me (judging from style of clothing etc) as if they date back to Saddam's apparatus. The torturer look more like secular Arabs in 70s style clothing than like jihadis.
Maybe they just took over training material from Saddam's "security" forces.

I'm not surprised that the UK and the US (probably others too) have allegedly resorted to tactics such as 'rendition' in recent years. It's kind of hard to fight an enemy that has no rules holding them back, if you impose them upon yourself.

The US did that in Vietnam, by placing restrictions upon themselves with regard to the targets they would bomb, based on political considerations, and the war dragged on for years. But when they removed them and resumed unrestricted B52 bombing over Hanoi, the North Vietnamese were falling over themselves in the rush to go to the peace negotiations.

Now, since Al-quaeda is something of a nebulous organisation, it's unlikely that they could be brought to some kind of negotiated settlement, even if their doctrines allowed it. So you are left with doing what you can to fight such a thing.

The vast majority of people siezed in Afghanistan and subsequently brought to Guantanamo, were not over there on a Club 18-30 holiday. And since they were not officially combatants of a recognised army, or even an army that was a signatory to the Geneva Convention (or any other agreement on the treatment of prisoners for that matter), to then start bleating on about mistreatment and violations of international law is somewhat ironic to say the least. Violating international laws didn't seem to bother them when they were nipping over there to fight in a Jihad and train themselves up to carry out attrocities along the lines of the WTC attacks or the Madrid and London transport bombings.

One of my friends was killed in the attack on the World Trade Centre (I'm one of the Godparents of his daughter). And my family was threatened by the IRA many years ago as a result of something my father said in an open letter to the Times newspaper. So as you can imagine, I'm not a huge fan of such terrorist tactics, but to fight such tactics while following the Marquis of Queensbury rules is not going to result in much progress.

It's a popular thing in movies to portray the Gestapo torturing prisoners of war and members of the civilian resistance for information, and it certainly happened. But anyone who thinks that the Allies never did this sort of thing to prisoners in World War Two when they needed vital information, is sadly misguided. They were in it to win it, and they did what it took to achieve that.

Yes there may be some innocent people in Guantanamo Bay, but I suspect not very many. So I've got no sympathy whatsoever for any terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay, or anywhere else for that matter. They willingly picked their side, made their bed, and now they must lie in it, and if that bed is in Guantanamo Bay or some torture chamber in a mysterious Eastern European location - tough.

:D Chock

The Geneva Convention. The interesting thing is, as a nation reliant on neutrality to support their banking system, Switzerland makes money as long as people are alive to support them. Even more money when there is a war on and their secretive accounting methods will allow trade that would otherwise be impossible. So it's in their best interest, financially, to have long term conflicts going on. They sweat being invaded, but that's why they've got such an extensive militia and restrictive citizenship requirements.

I've absolutely had it with the Geneva Convention. I've had it with limited warfare.


In related news, the Lebanese Army has been getting good results with artillery. I've been saying this for years. When they ship you ten quassams, you ship them 1000 rocket-assisted artillery shells for $7000 apiece, and you make sure you draw out the bombardment so people never get the chance to sleep.

I've seen a number of posts telling me how terrible it was for me to post the pictures from Sept 11. Perhaps if you were less protected from reality the more you would be willing to see that sometimes hard decisions have to be made and hard men have to do things which are unpleasant.

Non-uniformed Combatants are tricky in the Geneva Convention. Like spies, paritsans and saboteurs have traditionally been shot. As the werewolves were shot in Germany after WWII.

Trying to call this a war was another boneheaded mistake Bush made. It really tied his hands. He should have said this is not a war, and the CIA will take care of those responible quietly. Then he could have taken them to secret prisons without the question of them being POW's. The more he tries to make Al Quaeda a cohesive military organization, which I don't think it is, the more he makes the case for them being POW's.

Since Vietnam all United States Military Officers receive training in Military Ethics which specifically forbids them from torturing anyone, and explains why this is totally unacceptable for a variety of reasons.

Accept for Guantanamo and secret prisons in the Soviet...I mean former Soviet Bloc, which can be blamed on cowardly draftdodgers, all instances of American attrocities I have read about in Iraq have been the result of weak junior leadership.

Some stupid Lt threatens to kill a prisoner. Two weaks later one of his squads is being Court-martialed for capital crimes. If the Platoon Leader had set a better example, none of his men would know the joys of a military prison.

And it doesn't bother you in the least, does it?

So what you're saying in essence is that if 'you' were exposed to more barbarism, then you'd be more prepared to use barbaric measures in return?

I don't find the images themselves disturbing, I have seen worse on the net and in person (rta's can get pretty messy too).
What I find distasteful is your sensationalist manipulation of the images of a man's death to reinforce your notion that unpleasant things must be done and hard decisions must be made justly so.

Good grief man, not everybody here is naive enough to fail to understand the need for more vigorous measures to be taken under certain circumstances. I will concede, as August reminds us, that at least we try and do the right thing after the event. But are we children who need to be shocked and cowed into allowing our soldiers sometime slipping of standards, though not unpunished for their transgression by the law, to be brushed away from memory in light of the fact that you can point your finger in righteous indignation at the enemy and shout 'they started it'? Because our 'minor infraction' of humanity is somehow less than theirs?
Upon what callous and coldly efficient scale do you measure that and how much is enough to get the scales to ballance, waste gate?

You do many of us here a disservice with the inference of such drivel.

Your first post was interesting and thought provoking; your second post was crass and unnecessary at the least and your third, the reposting the result of 1500 foot swan-dive onto concrete, was just taking the piss imo.


It seems you have no compunction to use the last seconds of the existence of a human being falling to his death to promote your own point of view. If you cannot see what is wrong with that, then I'll decline from further comment on what I think of that.

I've never seen much worse, I'm still young. But does that mean I have to see stuff like that for such callous reasons?

Instead of telling everyone "It sucks, get used to it" why don't you try and NOT throw that stuff at us?

Yet again people seem to be following the propaganda and linking 11/9 to Iraq.

They are and were two totally unrelated issues. The USA just managed to create a terrorist state where one didn't previously exist by invading it illegally.

Also, nobody supporting the US military has any real right to moan about treatment of its troops - both sides are capturing, torturing and murdering. Both as bad as each other.

Really now? So Saddam didn't really massacre Kurds and or use poison gas in an agressive Iran/Iraq war?

Saddam didn't murder people he suspected of disloyalty or allow his sons to rape women to their hearts' desire?

So he was a good guy after all......


And what's this about the daily torture of Al-Qaeda detainees?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/..._complain.html


http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k8.../Moredrama.gif

Wild comparison putting Al Qaida and Baathists in the same line with US. But you also seem to be supporting Iran in its attempts in warmongerin.

I stand with Chock!

People needa realise that we're fighting an enemy who refuse to accept surrender as an option even when faced with insurmountable odds. An enemy who are more than happy to resort to barbarism and unbelievable cruelty to win, and are more than happy to subject civilians and innocents alike to the same treatment they dish out to military personnel - torture and execution.

What is it going to take for people to realise that we will not win whilst we have restrictions imposed on us as to how we can fight the battles?! People might go on about lowering ourselves to their standard etc... if we dont lower ourselves to an extent, we're doomed. they see the restrictions we put on ourselves as a sign of weakness, something to be exploited. While they're in place, we cannot win.

As for the drawings being outta the 70s... well hey, thats when OBL was edumacated in the states, maybe he still thinks its the height of fashion??? maybe thats why we cant find him anywhere, cos he's wearin western clothes all the time except for his videos :lol:

hmm...

the world is getting worse all the time

no matter how many people refuse to see that

your wishing to not see this and fight against it is showing that these terrorists are correct in stating "the western world has no stomach for a fight"

besides you have to take an action (Click on it) to see the images not like there is a gun pointed at your head.

I did not allow links to the posthumous images of Saddam Hussein, and I will not allow these images to be linked either. They are far too graphic. Given the heat that this has generated, it is time to remove the links and close the thread.