Drawings, seized from Iraq safe house

[cobalt]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Warning, graphic
<snip>

i have the same pen!

[August]

Originally Posted by Letum

I am comparing deaths under Al Qaeda torture to deaths under US torture. That makes sense right? Im not saying they are the same, I am just comparing them.

Exactly and i'm saying there is no comparison.

It's .002% btw, but that's irrelevant, there is no acceptable rate for violent torture and abuse of prisoners by AQ or the US and both should be bought to account.

.00166 actually, and it is highly relevant. You'll never see any army ever that won't have some of its members cross the line but unlike our enemies the US has little tolerance for it and punishes the transgressors when we catch them. AQ on the other hand glorifies torture and murder.
You don't see a basic difference in that?

[Frau_Phillips]

Question: Why is the horrific image of a man plummeting to his death not worthy of a warning? That one disturbed me more than the undescriptive muck.

[Iceman]

Originally Posted by Heibges

I would not base my code of conduct on that of the terrorists.

Yea waste gate...wow...

to post that pic of the man falling in my opinion is poor judgement and lack of respect for the victums.


I haven't forgotten a thing since 9/11 and in fact have become more enlightened about Islam and or terrorists from AL and Skybird as well as making my own judgements from what I have read and observed.To let this act dictate the way we act in the future is folly.We "re-acted" just as humans do, but I think after the years now as Americans are about to reach "graduation" in the school of war and terror to simply act without consul is not smart.Half this country wants to try to forget and half wants blood for the blood spilled.America can not go it alone...

I never really grasped how big of a web of history is entangled in the countrys of the middle east...the history of Iraq,Iran and Israel and Egypt....the whole area there is the history of the world.I look at all sides of the coin...including Americas evoultion and the rise of our "military industry". I watch as our ships now stand poised off the shores of Iran and can only wonder really what the hell is my country thinking?I know what they are thinking....I am an American too....

I understand your anger waste gate I really do....but I don't think the way to honor the fallen is to potray they're actual deaths online...I do not need this as a reminder of what is going on.Sorry for the ramble but that pic I have never forgot and brings great saddness to me.

[jumpy]

'Do unto other's' eh waste gate?

Nobody is denying that the bad guys are doing some bad things to us and our allies and those we are meant to be protecting, but that doesn't give us the right to follow the same lines with those in our captivity otherwise we start to become no better than the animals we're fighting against.





Using the image of the guy falling to his death and the remains splattered over the pavement to prove a point about the legitimacy of tourturing detainees in our custody is a pretty low blow, even for you waste gate.

[robbo180265]

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

[August]

Originally Posted by robbo180265

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.

[jumpy]

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.

[August]

Originally Posted by jumpy

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.

[AntEater]

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.

[Chock]

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.

Chock

[tycho102]

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.

[Heibges]

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.

[jumpy]

Originally Posted by waste gate

I've seen a number of posts telling me how terrible it was for me to post the pictures from Sept 11.

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

Originally Posted by waste gate

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.

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.