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ScavengerType
Registered: 01/24/08
Posts: 5,784
Loc: The North
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: Official Gitmo/Tribunal/Obama Watch thread [Re: THE KRAT BARON]
#9737518 - 02/04/09 09:52 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
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Zappa the UN wasn't writing about the incident they were writing about earlier incidents like continued reports of torture after abu Graib and from other US prisons like Guantanamo bay.
I don't think you guys get it, it's not like the government is torturing Ossama Bin Laden or even a few if any people that are close enough to him to help the US in any way. If they were I think many human rights watch organizations would turn a blind eye. They did for Saddam, who disappeared into US interrogation systems with no concerned press coverage by anyone (likely with very high level interrogators) only to reappear on his way back to Iraq to stand trial and not one human rights source gave one shit. However as is current a large minority or a small majority in US custody are people who have been falsely turned into the US authorities, were suspected of something they didn't do or were mistaken for someone else. Usually (from accounts of released prisoners) it takes a year for the US to figure this out, while these people are being tortured or in some cases where supervision of interrogators and captives is not sufficient it results in torture to death.
It is not a matter of the government policy, it is a matter of what is happening in these prisons. The policy is set on an absolute area of legal greyness and it doesn't take much to go over the line. This is the primary problem with the administration's torture policies. Furthermore being in a gray area of torture anyway it doesn't exactly seem wrong to many interrogators to cross "the line" especialy when in reality they have already crossed it.
I've heard stories from before 9/11 from a Canadian soldier who said he was in a war games exercise with US forces and he said that he was tied to a chair and coerced violently. In a fucking war games exercise. Not only that but nobody stopped it until he was returned to his unit (after the exercise) and reported it to his superior who reported it to the American superior and presumably this guy was disciplined (he never knew). So excuse me if I think this is likely an endemic problem in the military and is likely being covered up.
-------------------- "Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war?" "The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God. Montesquieu said, "There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of God." And I begin to feel that’s true. The shareholder is the excuse for everything." - Author and former M6/M5 agent John le Carré on Democracy Now. Conquer's Club
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zappaisgod
horrid asshole
Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
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Re: Official Gitmo/Tribunal/Obama Watch thread [Re: ScavengerType]
#9739763 - 02/05/09 09:24 AM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
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Rikers Island is a whole lot nastier than Gitmo. That is a fact. It is also a fact that the nastiness at Rikers is not any US policy. Do gung ho soldiers sometimes go too far? Yep. That doesn't make it policy. I think that considering the circumstances the US does an incredibly good job of curtailing this stuff. Whereas every enemy we have ever had does nothing of the kind and they all in fact actively have a policy of torture. The UN and the Geneva Convention are both bunk. As is any organization that remains silent on, say, Iranian abuses while condemning much less in the US. I remember Eason Jordan defending Time magazine's failure to report on Saddam's abuses under the dubious rationale that they would no longer have access. Hey Eason, what's the point of having access if it isn't to report on this?
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ScavengerType
Registered: 01/24/08
Posts: 5,784
Loc: The North
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: Official Gitmo/Tribunal/Obama Watch thread [Re: zappaisgod]
#9757428 - 02/07/09 09:33 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
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see this list of UN Convention Against Torture signatories and you may understand why the UN doesn't bother Iran about these things. Because the US did sign the treaty it is the UN's job to notify them when they are in violation of it. Until Iran is a signatory nation there is no reason for the UN to publicly notify them about their torture practices. However I know Human Rights Watch does on a regular basis as with other nations that are and are not signatories of UNCAT, so it's not likely that Iran is any less aware than the US that it practices torture. The only difference is that Iran hasn't signed any document claiming that it wouldn't torture.
-------------------- "Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war?" "The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God. Montesquieu said, "There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of God." And I begin to feel that’s true. The shareholder is the excuse for everything." - Author and former M6/M5 agent John le Carré on Democracy Now. Conquer's Club
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ScavengerType
Registered: 01/24/08
Posts: 5,784
Loc: The North
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
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Re: Official Gitmo/Tribunal/Obama Watch thread [Re: ScavengerType]
#9972985 - 03/14/09 08:43 PM (15 years, 18 days ago) |
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Torturing Democracy pt. 1/10
pt. 2/10
pt. 3/10
pt. 4/10
pt. 5/10
pt. 6/10
pt. 7/10
pt. 8/10
pt. 9/10
pt. 10/10
pretty detailed film about the abuses at gitmo.
-------------------- "Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war?" "The things that are done in the name of the shareholder are, to me, as terrifying as the things that are done—dare I say it—in the name of God. Montesquieu said, "There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of God." And I begin to feel that’s true. The shareholder is the excuse for everything." - Author and former M6/M5 agent John le Carré on Democracy Now. Conquer's Club
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