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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
PositiveCynicist
Male
Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
Loc: California, Monterey Coun...
Break Them Down. (Torture)
    #4143875 - 05/06/05 07:35 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

The link has more links to verify the info the writer is talking about.
http://rawstoryq.com/news/2005/index.php?p=75

5/5/2005
Break Them Down
Filed under: General Nancy Goldstein Writers? site admin @ 12:42 am

by Nancy Goldstein, for RawStoryQ

In a country where people driven into bankruptcy by job loss, medical catastrophe, or even the failure of a spouse to pay alimony will now be held responsible for their debts, it seems reasonable to wonder when a single senior official of the Bush administration will be called upon to pay for the horrors at Abu Ghraib.

Reasonable, but na?ve.

Last week marked a year since the world first learned of the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib by their US liberators through a series of incriminating photos taken by MPs extolled to ?take the gloves off? when dealing with detainees and ?soften them up? for interrogation. This order came down to the ranks via General Geoffrey Miller during his visit to Iraq in the summer of 2003.

Miller, the commandant of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Coalition commander in Iraq, to ?Gitmo-ize? intelligence gathering there on orders from Donald Rumsfeld. Apparently the Secretary of Defense was very pleased with the intelligence that Miller had been gathering in Guantanamo with the assistance of a variety of Geneva Convention-bending techniques that Rumsfeld himself had approved earlier that year. And he and his higher ups were anxious to have more to show for their efforts in Iraq than a climbing death toll and an ever higher number of days gone by without the discovery of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or any weapons of mass destruction.

Sanchez was apparently impressed with Miller as well, so much so that he signed a memo one month after the commandant?s visit authorizing 29 interrogation techniques from the Guantanamo playbook, including stress positions, isolation, and the use of military dogs. The rest, as they say, is history.

Fifty-three weeks and nearly as many tons of paper later, it is clear that until an independent counsel is appointed to investigate human rights abuses by or on behalf of the US military and intelligence services, an enormous amount of US time and taxpayer money is being wasted on one whitewash after another ? the predictable result of a system investigating itself. None of the seven or so reports commissioned by the administration has been charged with looking up the chain of command to discover where ultimate responsibility for these atrocities lies. All of the reports exonerate higher-ups of any serious wrongdoing, blame enlisted men, and deny systematic abuse in favor of the ?bad apple? theory.

The most recent travesty, issued by Lt. Gen. Stanley Green, the Army inspector general, in late April, cleared Sanchez and his top three officers of all wrong-doing in connection with Abu Ghraib, overriding two earlier reports. Which means, as Helen Thomas reminds us, ?Among the military hierarchy, only Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve officer who commanded the military police unit at Abu Ghraib, has paid a price.? This brings the total number of people found accountable to seven: Karpinski, plus six low-ranking servicemen who have been convicted or pleaded guilty to abuse-related charges.

While the Bush administration perpetuates its see-no-evil strategy, recently issued reports by Human Rights Watch (Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees) and Physicians for Human Rights (Break them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces), and a lawsuit by the ACLU (Ali et al., v. Rumsfeld) continue to press for visibility and accountability. They have to, because, as Reed Brody, General Counsel for HRW, and the lead author of its report, says, ?The Democrats aren?t kicking and screaming for an independent counsel.?

And then there?s the bigger problem: the architects of the system of torture that began at Guantanamo and migrated to Iraq and Afghanistan are the very people in charge of insuring that such abuses do not occur. Our Secretary of Defense ? the guy who sits at the top of our entire military hierarchy ? personally approved two separate lists of torture techniques for use at Guantanamo. And it was, famously, then White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzalez, who concluded that nothing so quaint as the Geneva Conventions need apply when one was fighting a war on terror. Gonzales, as you may recall, is now our Attorney General ? the guy you might reasonably expect to investigate a scandal of this magnitude.

If, again, you?re na?ve.

In the absence of a US attorney general who defends human or constitutional rights, the ACLU has brought a lawsuit against Rumsfeld in Federal Court on behalf of eight men who were tortured by US forces under his command in Afghanistan and Iraq. ?The purpose of the suit is to hold the Secretary of Defense and high-level commanders legally accountable for gross human rights abuses that violate the most fundamental norms of international law and the U.S. Constitution,? says Lucas Guttentag, lead counsel in the lawsuit and Director of the ACLU?s Immigrants? Rights Project.

Guttentag explains that the suit is meant to counter the ?concerted effort by the Administration to pin the blame on low-level enlisted personnel and to distract attention from the responsibility of high-level officials who set the policy that resulted in torture and who knowingly turned a blind eye to persistent, overwhelming and widespread reports of abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq.? Like HRW and PHR, the ACLU is stepping in where elected officials have failed. Guttentag notes that ?Congress still has not acted and the courts now present the last best hope to enforce the prohibition against torture and to hold those leaders accountable who have violated this country?s historic commitment to human dignity and the rule of law.?

Through the personal stories of the plaintiffs in the ACLU case, we watch the rape rooms of Saddam Hussein, which so obsessed Bush in his public statements, transform under US policy into the rape rooms of the US military. Anal probing and threats; beatings alternating with being shocked; denial of medical treatment; gauntlets run while being beaten by 10-20 soldiers with wooden batons; outdoor shackling in 120+ degree weather for hours at a time; vomiting from being fed spoiled food. At least half of the forms of torture the men were subjected to fall under the category of psychological torture, the topic of PHR?s report. During one of the mock executions the soldiers staged with Thahe Mohammed Sabbar and other detainees, he and others ?were forced to stand against a wall in front of a firing squad.? The squad simulated gunfire and then laughed as the detainees lost control of their bladders.

None of the eight plaintiffs was ever charged with a crime. All still suffer from the effects of being tortured.

Said Nabi Siddiqi, who was stripped naked and photographed, ?has suicidal thoughts and nightmares, is quick to anger, and suffers from memory loss.? Arkan Mohammed Ali, who was ?repeatedly locked in a wooden coffin-like box for several days, sometimes after having been stripped naked and left with a hood tied over his head, has frequent traumatic nightmares and episodes of shortness of breath.?

?Not losing one?s life is irrelevant,? says Leonard Rubenstein, the Executive Director of PHR. ?Torture is about the infliction of severe pain, and the report shows how devastating and painful psychological torture can be, often with long lasting impact. My sense is that the common view of what happened is that interrogators were allowed to be more coercive than in the past, and that led to abuse; what this report shows is a fairly explicit policy, with accompanying legal backup, to use methods that amount to psychological torture.?

The US?s human rights abuses don?t end at Abu Ghraib, or with torture, or even in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. ?It?s important for Americans to realize that Abu Ghraib is just the tip of the iceberg,? HRW?s Brody notes. ?Throughout the world, in recognized and secret detention centers, Muslim prisoners are being brutalized by the US. And the Muslim world knows that.? HRW?s report documents 100-150 cases of ?extraordinary rendition,? in which the CIA transfers ?detainees to countries in the Middle East, including Egypt and Syria, known to practice torture routinely.? And at least 11 al-Qaeda suspects in US custody have ?disappeared? to undisclosed locations, beyond the reach of their families, the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the protection of the law.?

Brody warns that while the Bush administration?s attempts at damage control may succeed domestically, repairing the harm that Abu Ghraib has done to the US?s international reputation will take something far more substantial than a good public relations effort. ?The pictures of Abu Ghraib have become symbols of the US to much of the rest of the world, and something must be done about it if the US is to regain its moral authority. If Americans appreciated that more, they might be more adamant about the US clearing its name through the appointment of an independent counsel. In the Sudan they?re saying, ?Who is the US to give us lessons???

Who indeed? A White House that is still too pissy to host the French President Jacques Chirac welcomes with open arms President Karimov of Uzbekistan. As the New York Times reported this past Sunday, the US State Department issued a report on Uzbekistan that read like ?a litany of horrors? not seven months before 9/11. As recently as three months ago, in its latest report, the State Department noted ?Torture was common in prisons, pretrial facilities, and local police and security service precincts.?

But now that the US has discovered how handy Uzbekistan is as a place to ?render? terror suspects, our appreciation for their facility with ?using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers? makes us willing to overlook their unfortunate habit of sometimes boiling to death the people we outsource to them for torture.

How quickly we forget. In an article from the Wall Street Journal this past month, Jess Bravin reminds us that during WWII the Japanese, who had never ratified the Geneva Conventions, tried to break POWs through a series of interrogation techniques that sound remarkably familiar: solitary confinement, blindfolding and compulsory calisthenics, being shaved and stripped, made to stand at attention or assume uncomfortable positions for interrogation. But when Tokyo surrendered, the US ?declared that international law did apply ? and held accountable much of the Japanese hierarchy, from prison guards to cabinet ministers.?

At the time, the US decided that even mistreatment that fell short of torture merited punishment. ?For conditions that fell short of torture, prosecutors brought charges under the sweeping Geneva provision that barred ?any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.??

How quaint. Or na?ve.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nancy Goldstein, pictured above, lives and writes in New York. She earned her doctorate from Brandeis University, and has taught at Harvard, MIT, and Connecticut College. She is the co-editor of ?The Gender Politics of HIV/AIDS in Women? (NYU Press, 1997).


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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OfflineJesusChrist
Son Of God
Registered: 02/19/04
Posts: 1,459
Last seen: 11 years, 6 months
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #4145199 - 05/07/05 05:58 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Who broke the story on Abu Garib? The Pentagon.

It only became news once they got pictures from the cock mongering whore. It wasn't investigative journalism, the press didn't care until they got some photos that made good copy. The guilty parties would have been tried and sentenced anyway.

blah blah blah. Rumsfeld. blah blah blah.

Wake me up when it is over.


--------------------
Tastes just like chicken

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #4145485 - 05/07/05 09:30 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Psychoactive1984 said:
The link has more links to verify the info the writer is talking about.
http://rawstoryq.com/news/2005/index.php?p=75

5/5/2005
Break Them Down
Filed under: General Nancy Goldstein Writers? site admin @ 12:42 am

by Nancy Goldstein, for RawStoryQ

In a country where people driven into bankruptcy by job loss, medical catastrophe, or even the failure of a spouse to pay alimony will now be held responsible for their debts, it seems reasonable to wonder when a single senior official of the Bush administration will be called upon to pay for the horrors at Abu Ghraib.

Reasonable, but na?ve.

Last week marked a year since the world first learned of the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib by their US liberators through a series of incriminating photos taken by MPs extolled to ?take the gloves off? when dealing with detainees and ?soften them up? for interrogation. This order came down to the ranks via General Geoffrey Miller during his visit to Iraq in the summer of 2003.

Miller, the commandant of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Coalition commander in Iraq, to ?Gitmo-ize? intelligence gathering there on orders from Donald Rumsfeld. Apparently the Secretary of Defense was very pleased with the intelligence that Miller had been gathering in Guantanamo with the assistance of a variety of Geneva Convention-bending techniques that Rumsfeld himself had approved earlier that year. And he and his higher ups were anxious to have more to show for their efforts in Iraq than a climbing death toll and an ever higher number of days gone by without the discovery of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or any weapons of mass destruction.

Sanchez was apparently impressed with Miller as well, so much so that he signed a memo one month after the commandant?s visit authorizing 29 interrogation techniques from the Guantanamo playbook, including stress positions, isolation, and the use of military dogs. The rest, as they say, is history.




Actually, if you read the Sanchez memo she links to you will find that on the second page Section 2 subsection c he specificly does not authorize these techniques. "Use of techniques B,I,O,X,Y,AA,CC on enemy prisoners of war must be approved by me personally prior to use. Submit written requests for use of these techniques, with supporting rationale, to me through the CJTF-7C2. A legal review from the CJTF-7SJA must accompany each request." He may later have authorized these techniques but this memo does not do so.

Quote:



Fifty-three weeks and nearly as many tons of paper later, it is clear that until an independent counsel is appointed to investigate human rights abuses by or on behalf of the US military and intelligence services, an enormous amount of US time and taxpayer money is being wasted on one whitewash after another ? the predictable result of a system investigating itself. None of the seven or so reports commissioned by the administration has been charged with looking up the chain of command to discover where ultimate responsibility for these atrocities lies. All of the reports exonerate higher-ups of any serious wrongdoing, blame enlisted men, and deny systematic abuse in favor of the ?bad apple? theory.

The most recent travesty, issued by Lt. Gen. Stanley Green, the Army inspector general, in late April, cleared Sanchez and his top three officers of all wrong-doing in connection with Abu Ghraib, overriding two earlier reports. Which means, as Helen Thomas reminds us, ?Among the military hierarchy, only Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve officer who commanded the military police unit at Abu Ghraib, has paid a price.? This brings the total number of people found accountable to seven: Karpinski, plus six low-ranking servicemen who have been convicted or pleaded guilty to abuse-related charges.

While the Bush administration perpetuates its see-no-evil strategy, recently issued reports by Human Rights Watch (Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees) and Physicians for Human Rights (Break them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces), and a lawsuit by the ACLU (Ali et al., v. Rumsfeld) continue to press for visibility and accountability. They have to, because, as Reed Brody, General Counsel for HRW, and the lead author of its report, says, ?The Democrats aren?t kicking and screaming for an independent counsel.?

And then there?s the bigger problem: the architects of the system of torture that began at Guantanamo and migrated to Iraq and Afghanistan are the very people in charge of insuring that such abuses do not occur. Our Secretary of Defense ? the guy who sits at the top of our entire military hierarchy ? personally approved two separate lists of torture techniques for use at Guantanamo.




Curiously, she provides no link for this one

Quote:


And it was, famously, then White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzalez, who concluded that nothing so quaint as the Geneva Conventions need apply when one was fighting a war on terror.




Gonzalez said that some of the provisions of the Geneva Conventions are quaint, not the Convention itself. And he is correct, some of them are. There is certainly an argument that can be made either way about the applicability of the Geneva Convention in many of these instances. Misrepresenting the statements of Alberto Gonzalez does not, however, further that argument

Quote:


Gonzales, as you may recall, is now our Attorney General ? the guy you might reasonably expect to investigate a scandal of this magnitude.

If, again, you?re na?ve.

In the absence of a US attorney general who defends human or constitutional rights, the ACLU has brought a lawsuit against Rumsfeld in Federal Court on behalf of eight men who were tortured by US forces under his command in Afghanistan and Iraq. ?The purpose of the suit is to hold the Secretary of Defense and high-level commanders legally accountable for gross human rights abuses that violate the most fundamental norms of international law and the U.S. Constitution,? says Lucas Guttentag, lead counsel in the lawsuit and Director of the ACLU?s Immigrants? Rights Project.

Guttentag explains that the suit is meant to counter the ?concerted effort by the Administration to pin the blame on low-level enlisted personnel and to distract attention from the responsibility of high-level officials who set the policy that resulted in torture and who knowingly turned a blind eye to persistent, overwhelming and widespread reports of abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq.? Like HRW and PHR, the ACLU is stepping in where elected officials have failed. Guttentag notes that ?Congress still has not acted and the courts now present the last best hope to enforce the prohibition against torture and to hold those leaders accountable who have violated this country?s historic commitment to human dignity and the rule of law.?

Through the personal stories of the plaintiffs in the ACLU case, we watch the rape rooms of Saddam Hussein, which so obsessed Bush in his public statements, transform under US policy into the rape rooms of the US military. Anal probing and threats; beatings alternating with being shocked; denial of medical treatment; gauntlets run while being beaten by 10-20 soldiers with wooden batons; outdoor shackling in 120+ degree weather for hours at a time; vomiting from being fed spoiled food.




Curiously, there is no link for these allegations.

Quote:


At least half of the forms of torture the men were subjected to fall under the category of psychological torture, the topic of PHR?s report. During one of the mock executions the soldiers staged with Thahe Mohammed Sabbar and other detainees, he and others ?were forced to stand against a wall in front of a firing squad.? The squad simulated gunfire and then laughed as the detainees lost control of their bladders.




Curiously, Physicians for Human Rights only seems to have found elements of psychological "torture". None of the above physical abuses were addressed by them

Quote:



None of the eight plaintiffs was ever charged with a crime. All still suffer from the effects of being tortured.

Said Nabi Siddiqi, who was stripped naked and photographed, ?has suicidal thoughts and nightmares, is quick to anger, and suffers from memory loss.? Arkan Mohammed Ali, who was ?repeatedly locked in a wooden coffin-like box for several days, sometimes after having been stripped naked and left with a hood tied over his head, has frequent traumatic nightmares and episodes of shortness of breath.?

?Not losing one?s life is irrelevant,? says Leonard Rubenstein, the Executive Director of PHR. ?Torture is about the infliction of severe pain, and the report shows how devastating and painful psychological torture can be, often with long lasting impact. My sense is that the common view of what happened is that interrogators were allowed to be more coercive than in the past, and that led to abuse; what this report shows is a fairly explicit policy, with accompanying legal backup, to use methods that amount to psychological torture.?

The US?s human rights abuses don?t end at Abu Ghraib, or with torture, or even in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. ?It?s important for Americans to realize that Abu Ghraib is just the tip of the iceberg,? HRW?s Brody notes. ?Throughout the world, in recognized and secret detention centers, Muslim prisoners are being brutalized by the US. And the Muslim world knows that.? HRW?s report documents 100-150 cases of ?extraordinary rendition,? in which the CIA transfers ?detainees to countries in the Middle East, including Egypt and Syria, known to practice torture routinely.? And at least 11 al-Qaeda suspects in US custody have ?disappeared? to undisclosed locations, beyond the reach of their families, the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the protection of the law.?

Brody warns that while the Bush administration?s attempts at damage control may succeed domestically, repairing the harm that Abu Ghraib has done to the US?s international reputation will take something far more substantial than a good public relations effort. ?The pictures of Abu Ghraib have become symbols of the US to much of the rest of the world, and something must be done about it if the US is to regain its moral authority. If Americans appreciated that more, they might be more adamant about the US clearing its name through the appointment of an independent counsel. In the Sudan they?re saying, ?Who is the US to give us lessons???

Who indeed? A White House that is still too pissy to host the French President Jacques Chirac welcomes with open arms President Karimov of Uzbekistan. As the New York Times reported this past Sunday, the US State Department issued a report on Uzbekistan that read like ?a litany of horrors? not seven months before 9/11. As recently as three months ago, in its latest report, the State Department noted ?Torture was common in prisons, pretrial facilities, and local police and security service precincts.?

But now that the US has discovered how handy Uzbekistan is as a place to ?render? terror suspects, our appreciation for their facility with ?using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers? makes us willing to overlook their unfortunate habit of sometimes boiling to death the people we outsource to them for torture.




Oops, another outright lie. The article she links here is from the NY Times dated 5/1/05. I quote,"Seven months before September 11,2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.
The police repeatedly tortured prisoners......Separately international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts........Two prisoners were boiled to death." This was prior to 9/11. There is no indication that any prisoners we may have sent there have been boiled to death. In fact, the whole Times article is devoid of any relevant on the record statements. Every source is anonymous and not one concrete incidence
of rendition is mentioned is cited. The boilee mentioned was an Uzbek and he was cooked some time before.


Quote:



How quickly we forget. In an article from the Wall Street Journal this past month, Jess Bravin reminds us that during WWII the Japanese, who had never ratified the Geneva Conventions, tried to break POWs through a series of interrogation techniques that sound remarkably familiar: solitary confinement, blindfolding and compulsory calisthenics, being shaved and stripped, made to stand at attention or assume uncomfortable positions for interrogation. But when Tokyo surrendered, the US ?declared that international law did apply ? and held accountable much of the Japanese hierarchy, from prison guards to cabinet ministers.?

At the time, the US decided that even mistreatment that fell short of torture merited punishment. ?For conditions that fell short of torture, prosecutors brought charges under the sweeping Geneva provision that barred ?any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.??

How quaint. Or na?ve.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nancy Goldstein, pictured above, lives and writes in New York. She earned her doctorate from Brandeis University, and has taught at Harvard, MIT, and Connecticut College. She is the co-editor of ?The Gender Politics of HIV/AIDS in Women? (NYU Press, 1997).




There are bona fide arguments that can be made about what went on and what is going on but this woman's lieing is not helpful. Look at her profile just above. She is clearly from the left wing fringe and has no problem with lieing and distortion to back up her hatred of Bush and America.


--------------------

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
PositiveCynicist
Male
Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
Loc: California, Monterey Coun...
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4145906 - 05/07/05 11:34 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

I suppose that leaves the government officials completely and utterly absolved of the issues... ~rhetoric. :whatever:

I'm not going to bother arguing with you zappaisgod... it's a wasted cause. You just keep thinking the government can do no wrong, and that the incidents were wholly isolated.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4146672 - 05/07/05 01:31 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:

There are bona fide arguments that can be made about what went on and what is going on but this woman's lieing is not helpful. Look at her profile just above. She is clearly from the left wing fringe and has no problem with lieing and distortion to back up her hatred of Bush and America.




I put forth no argument. I merely pointed out that this woman is a liar and a distorter and a left-wingnut. I sincerely doubt that you can refute those particular assertions. She has been discredited and your post has been discredited. Did you, yourself, Psychoactive, actually check her links or just assume that they backed up her assertions because she included them? I did not thoroughly fisk this because I had already spent a lot of time checking the links, I had things to do and places to be, and I thought I had cut off her nonsense well enough.


--------------------

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4146699 - 05/07/05 01:37 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

I do not think that the government can do no wrong. I just think that blindly assuming the worst without any factual evidence is ignorant. My idea of government wrongdoing is no doubt wildly divergent from yours, and we can argue those some other time, but you really need to check out your sources better (see other thread you unwittingly started with a satire on the "No Death Bill").


--------------------

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
PositiveCynicist
Male
Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
Loc: California, Monterey Coun...
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4146774 - 05/07/05 01:50 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

It's just surprising that you check and research links when it doesn't support your political affiliations, yet you don't seem to have such a fervor when something is proposed that you find agreeable.

....um, that was satire. Seriosly, get real, I use that site over in S&P a lot, it was completely intentional, if you don't believe me, PM smallwords and ask about our little discussion.

Did you not see the last message to that thread as well? I essentially suggested that people should be more circumspect of what they read, and accept.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #4147008 - 05/07/05 02:31 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

I thought that was a mea culpa. My mistake. Now I find that you were deliberately misleading. Is that what you were doing here as well?

Why would it surprise you that I check the facts of people who I think are full of shit? I don't mean you specificly but this cunt is clearly a dissembler and a liar. Her mistake was supplying links. Which was refreshing in a leftie. Usually they just spew. Now you know why.


--------------------

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
PositiveCynicist
Male
Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
Loc: California, Monterey Coun...
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4147314 - 05/07/05 03:20 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Oh! Ok, thought it was a universal issue, as opposed to those misleading only on one side of the political spectrum... my mistake.

No wonder I'm wrong all the time, perhaps I should take sides like you do, and be anal and refute the perfection of my ideology over others. Categorize me as a republican from this day onward :smirk:.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse
I'll start getting news articles from this site if it pleases you. I'm all about humoring peoples biases and all.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #4147563 - 05/07/05 04:10 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Psychoactive1984 said:
Oh! Ok, thought it was a universal issue, as opposed to those misleading only on one side of the political spectrum... my mistake.

No wonder I'm wrong all the time, perhaps I should take sides like you do, and be anal and refute the perfection of my ideology over others. Categorize me as a republican from this day onward :smirk:.




I love you.  No wonder you think rhetoric is a bad word

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse
I'll start getting news articles from this site if it pleases you. I'm all about humoring peoples biases and all. 




From a cursory examination it seems like a dry news cite to me.  Certainly a better source than Raw Story, which I don't think actually pretends to be a news source.  At least, I hope they don't.


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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
PositiveCynicist
Male
Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
Loc: California, Monterey Coun...
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4147614 - 05/07/05 04:19 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Look it up as a definition, and how it applies in usage in the vernacular. You can hold whatever views of me you wish, I'm fully aware of what I'm speaking about, unlike some people I don't have my head up my ass....

Argue the perfection of an idealogy over other idealogies? Sorry, fail to see why you take issue with that.

Look up Ad Hominem's I think you'll enjoy it. It's a good definition and one of your primary debating tactics.

I'm not suggesting anything in regards to rawstory beyond bringing news articles from their site.

What did you think of the link provided by a government page? You surely don't take issue with the validity of the story and the material represented in it do you? Or how about your need to debunk? Get back to me on that.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #4147728 - 05/07/05 04:56 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Psychoactive1984 said:
Look it up as a definition, and how it applies in usage in the vernacular. You can hold whatever views of me you wish, I'm fully aware of what I'm speaking about, unlike some people I don't have my head up my ass....

Argue the perfection of an idea logy over other ideologies? Sorry, fail to see why you take issue with that.

Look up Ad Hominem's I think you'll enjoy it. It's a good definition and one of your primary debating tactics.

I'm not suggesting anything in regards to rawstory beyond bringing news articles from their site.

What did you think of the link provided by a government page? You surely don't take issue with the validity of the story and the material represented in it do you? Or how about your need to debunk? Get back to me on that.




No no no. You said "refute the perfection of your own ideology."
My pointing out the absurdity of something you wrote does not constitute an ad hominem attack. And rhetoric is not a bad thing unless you are inarticulate and cannot express your views clearly. You might then think that someone skilled in rhetoric has an unfair advantage. Is that what you think? That I have an unfair intellectual advantage because of my ability to write clear and concise responses replete with brilliant and cogent analyses of whatever issue I choose to address? How is that unfair? Perhaps there should be a claxon going off in my head whenever I respond to one of your posts, just to level the playing field. Perhaps we should regulate the volume of that claxon depending on who I am responding to. In the interest of avoiding an ad hominem attack I will refrain from giving what I think should be the volume level necessary for various adversaries. (I don't think I'm unfair or mean or anything of the kind. I honestly present my own opinion and try to provide honest evidence. I think about this stuff a lot and have no use whatsoever for the brainwash nonsense. I am a far more independent thinker than the vast majority of the youthful horde, even when I was a member of the youthful horde. My holding your feet to the fire and making you back your shit up is good for you. Think critically. Doubt everything a little. Doubt extreme shit a lot. The Raw Story people are extreme.)

As to your government link I think you're talking about another thread and I responded there. It seems to be fucking up my browser.


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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
PositiveCynicist
Male
Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
Loc: California, Monterey Coun...
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: zappaisgod]
    #4147820 - 05/07/05 05:44 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Psychoactive1984 said:
No wonder I'm wrong all the time, perhaps I should take sides like you do, and be anal and refute the perfection of my ideology over others. Categorize me as a republican from this day onward :smirk:.





Ok, please point out where I said that.... We can chop sentances in half over and over and get different meanings. I think you just enjoy being daft.

As for rhetoric, do a google search, and see how it is utilized in the vernacular.... you just love playing on insignificant factors in an argument, rather then getting at the issue itself. More to the point, you could be a brilliant politician, as you are incredible at distracting issues off from the main point.

As for your nonsense concerning your anal nature... :lol: It's good for me? Nah, I know what's up, thanks for your humble dose of wisdom as usual... 

I'm the one that doubts shit, you're the one that overall has supported extremism, especially in regards to your support of the current American administration. I'm not the only one who sees it.

You are correct about the government link, my mistake again :smile:.

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat...1&fpart=all
I can bring more up if you wish.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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InvisibleSorted
Monkee
Registered: 12/26/98
Posts: 301
Loc: UK
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #4177157 - 05/15/05 02:59 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

But now that the US has discovered how handy Uzbekistan is as a place to “render” terror suspects, our appreciation for their facility with “using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers” makes us willing to overlook their unfortunate habit of sometimes boiling to death the people we outsource to them for torture.




The shooting dead of around 500 protestors in recent days will no doubt be overlooked aswell.. barely seems to get a mention on some news sites. I expect most Uzbeks don't even know about it with the way the media is controlled 100%.

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InvisibleAnnapurna1
liberal pussy
Female User Gallery
Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,646
Loc: innsmouth..MA
Re: Break Them Down. (Torture) [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #4178366 - 05/15/05 12:54 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

unfortunately..most americans either expressly support the use of torture..or at the very least the greater use of force in order to protect the public interest (the nation)...by "protect the public interest"..i mean that that majority believes that too many ppl are abusing the public trust in the name of civil liberties.. naturally at the taxpayers' expense...


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"anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...

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