our "sensitivity" will be the end our US supremacy

[hardertr]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03395909.htm

I just read the above article, and it makes me sick.  When will folks in the US ever learn that a "gentlemen's war" is a thing of the past, and the Geneva Convention is a joke.

Sure, I don't want to be tortured if I'm ever captured, but I wouldn't expect anything less.  If I were captured, treated with "respect and dignity", and given the RIGHT to make demands of fair treatment(as guaranteed in some stupid written set of Fairytale Rules of War document my country laughs at) I would be that much more motivated to fight for my cuase.

[hardertr]

Like making sausage---not pleasant to watch but the result is pretty good.

.................TM7

I like that analogy!  If only we could keep the UN and the press out of our kitchen.

[Casull]

TM7, that's as close as we have ever come to being in perfect agreement.

[Mikey]

Fellas:  it isn't so much the notion of our 'supremacy' that bothers me as much as it is the idea given to our enemies that we are now more vulnerable because we and our armies are somehow weaker now that we have to be so 'sensitive' to the concerns of the rest of the world and the 'needs' of our battlefield (wherever) enemies.  If they come to realize that, under a newly elected government, we will be treading more lightly on their throats rather than just crushing their adam's apples we will see more and more terrorist activity directly to our homeland. 

And, of course, let's not forget that those who show less committment to a total destruction of our enemies on the battlefield will not show the same lack of zeal if they feel the need to quell internal strife.  JMHO.  Mikey.

[Casull]

Thanks TM7, and you have a great Thanksgiving too.  BTW, I think it would be better if you found yourself agreeing more with me.

[ggeilman]

We got our supremacy at least in part by keeping our moral supremacy also. Something that has been lacking the last few years. I must respectively disagree and state that we can only benefit by reattaining it.

[nabob]

I agree.

When and if we regain our bearings about what is right and what is wrong, we'll likely find ourselves leading by example again and other nations will follow.

[alsatian]

It is just a little ridiculous.  Amend that, a LOT ridiculous.  You know, there is a lot of partisanship involved in this.  Democrats are trying to make Republicans look bad, and it doesn't matter that the security of the US citizen and the health of the United States is damaged thereby, so long as the political prospects of the Democrats are enhanced.  It may be that the Republicans seek their political self-interest with such disregard of national interests, but I don't think so.  I guess part of the issue is that silly Democrats actually buy this stuff.  More important to guarantee the rights of some dastardly monstrosities than to attend to the safety and security of the nation.  Not in my book.

The whole context of the Geneva Convention accords is "orderly war," war where combatants wear uniforms, where leaders wear insignia, where the enemy is also signed on to the Geneva Convention.  I fail to see how this applies in this case.  What army does Sheik Mohammad whatzisname a soldier in?  What nation-state claims him as a member of its military?  What consideration does Al Quida provide to the enemy combatants it captures?  Does it guarantee that it will behead its prisoners with a well sharpened sword to diminish pain?

And let's be serious, suppose it is "bad" and "naughty" to "mistreat" these prisoners.  Remember, we aren't attaching arc welding electrodes to their twig and berries.  On the continuum from good (Jesus Christ and/or Mother Teresa and/or Mahatma Ghandi) to evil (Adolf Hitler), where does this action sit?  I would guess a lot closer to the good than the evil of, for example, the holocaust and killing 3 million jews in concentration camps or waging aggressive war of conquest destroying vast personal property and leading to the death of 20 million Russians.  Come on!!!  It ain't a big deal!

[hardertr]

Something else to warm your hearts...

We are now training our troops to avoid cross-sex searches and questioning out of respect for THEIR customs if at all possible.  You should see our poor troops faces when they realize a "suspect" is a woman.  They almost trip over themselves trying to get a female soldier over to resume the search.

On the more "humorous" side, my wife is in charge of this type of training on our base.  I have watched her take advantage of this insecurity on more than one occasion.  The troops learn pretty quickly when a WOMAN throws them to the ground and put them in a choke hold    We have to teach them that "higher" suggestions should be taken into consideration, but SAFETY and SECURITY need to be considered before everything else.

Our job of training is becoming more difficult, especially when we try to explain the concept of setting regulations aside when you feel your safety is jeopardized.  WE ARE AT WAR....our safety is ALWAYS in jeopardy 

I joke about it with my more "politically obedient" buddies.  I tell them to watch for me on CNN...I'll be the guy caught butt-stroking a kid or woman.  Of course, the press will leave out the fact that this woman or child has explosives strapped to their chest.   I joke about it, but this scenario would literally ruin any soldier's life.

This whole situation REALLY irritates me...thanks for letting me vent.

[nabob]

And let's be serious, suppose it is "bad" and "naughty" to "mistreat" these prisoners.  Remember, we aren't attaching arc welding electrodes to their twig and berries.  On the continuum from good (Jesus Christ and/or Mother Teresa and/or Mahatma Ghandi) to evil (Adolf Hitler), where does this action sit?  I would guess a lot closer to the good than the evil of, for example, the holocaust and killing 3 million jews in concentration camps or waging aggressive war of conquest destroying vast personal property and leading to the death of 20 million Russians.  Come on!!!  It ain't a big deal!

Comparative morality is not the point. That sort of rationalization has been used since the beginning of time, I suspect, to justify one's own immorality. It isn't about what others do. It is about what we as a people choose to do.

More important to guarantee the rights of some dastardly monstrosities than to attend to the safety and security of the nation.  Not in my book.

This reasoning uses a logical fallacy called a "false dilemma". You can read more about it here.

The reason this is a false dilemma is because the options given, that we either guarantee the rights of some bad people or we jeopardize the security of the nation, are not the only options that exist. Good interrogators don't need the crutch of relying on torture. And as we found out in the questioning of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the usefulness of information obtained in this way is suspect. So why do people insist on wanting to use techniques that are unnecessary and unproductive? Too many movies, I think.

The one thing in your post I agree with is that there is a lot of partisanship involved and I see Republicans just as partisan as Democrats.

[Dee]

I have a Son who is a Sgt in the 82nd Air Borne. He has been deployed to Afganistan and then to Iraq this year for special ops missions. He is now readying to go back to Iraq. He turns 23 in Feb. and has been in two wars. If he gets captured, he knows he's a dead man. I personally don't gave a you know what about the Geneva Convention, or any other agreement on prisioner treatment. If stickin a gun to an arab's head and threatening to pull the trigger for information that will save my Son's or someone else's son's life then I say unholster. All these arm chair quarterbacks that have never fired a shot in anger or been shot at themselves CANNOT RELATE to someone who has. Any moslem who shoot's an American G. I. should be embalmed with pig blood, wraped in the hide, and hung on a flag pole until they rot off.
If you ever heard the song by Merle Haggard "POLITICIANS DO ALL THE TALKIN, AND THE SOLDIERS PAY THE DUES" you would be pretty close to getting the truth of the matter.
I personally think that everybody in D.C. that voted for this war should be given an M-16 and lead the charge. It works for the 82nd. The commander is the first one off the chopper, and the last one back on. For all those arm chair quarterbacks, why don't you volunteer and go over there and be a social worker? The islamic rads will love you guys. It will give them something to do.
Let the soldiers do their job. It wasn't their idea to fight the war it was D.C.s.
There now. I feel better.

[hardertr]

I personally think that everybody in D.C. that voted for this war should be given an M-16 and lead the charge.

We don't want them.....  The last thing we need is to have to kill the cowards to get to the enemy.

[Dee]

We could call it attrition.

[Thundermaker]

All this talk about what is right and what is wrong might hold some sway if how the enemies treatment of our troops after capture were an unknown quantity. It is not. Remember a few months back when those two young troopers were taken? I read that they were so badly mutilated that the Army had to use DNA to ID them, and that they were so heavily boobytrapped that it took hours to exfil the bodies. Now I ask you is the U.S. military doing anything that even comes close? I think not. My daughter is a young PFC. (soon to be Spec.) in the Army. She has no illusions about what would happen to her if she were captured. As far as Khalid sheik mohamed goes, I dont really much mind that someone strapped him to a board and convinced him he was drowning. I do however have a problem with whoever pulled him up for air. It is my understanding that the Navy for instance does worse than this to pilot trainees during their S.E.R.E. training. Every one of these dirtbags in our custody walks away from their interrogations. Not something the enemy can say. Heck all the so and so's at gitmo are putting on wheight. When is the last time you heard of American POW's gaining wt. in captivity? Go ahead just shout it out, we all know the answer. The sooner we start letting our troops kill people and break thing in a loud grotesque military manor ,the better off we'll be. Part of our problem is nobody is afraid to piss us off anymore.
Sorrry for the rant I realize being new here I probably should have not posted this but I am just so sick of  watching some of my countrymen try so hard to lose a war and telling people how nice we are. We won WW2 because we werent nice. We were dang mean.   Again sorry if I'm out of line ERIC

[Dee]

Well said Thundermaker. All the people that think war is a civil process needs to get in one. When they start prosecuting soldiers for reacting in stressful situations that THEY put them in, is absurd. This is doing what I was afraid it would do. Turn into another Viet Nam, where we had so many rules we couldn't win, and the enemy had no rules. Like I said before, break out the pig blood, and let's make some real "Pigs in a Blanket". The muslim understand's that pretty well. If they're gonna send our kids over there, let'em fight to win, and to hell with the politically correct.

[nabob]

I personally don't gave a you know what about the Geneva Convention, or any other agreement on prisioner treatment. If stickin a gun to an arab's head and threatening to pull the trigger for information that will save my Son's or someone else's son's life then I say unholster.

OK, so the ends justifies the means. Let's explore that a bit.

Suppose if by torturing a child you could force someone to cough up information. Would you do it?

The problem with torture is that you don't know if the information you are getting is any good because you can't be certain the person has the information you are seeking. If he does not, all you've done is torture an innocent person.

Kinda like the example I just gave.

One of the things people seem pretty quick to do is to give up the very humanity that makes us who we are. It comes from viewing other people as less than human. To me, that means you've bought into the same lies the government tells every time it wants us to go to war.

All this talk about pig's blood is just a way for people to vent their own hatreds. It doesn't win wars, it just makes us feel better for having humiliated and gotten back at the enemy. Does anyone believe that doing so would make the Islamic jihadists put down their weapons? Of course not. So what you are asking for is for our soldiers to become just as animalistic as those they fight, for no advantage other than to make people such as yourself, Dee, who carry around a ton of hate for Muslims, happier.

Somehow, I don't think that can be justified.

[Dee]

Your so full of crap nabob your eyes outta be brown. I have a son who has been to Afganistan, just got back from Iraq a month ago, and is going back. Those people in jihad understand one thing. Force. Black Jack Pershing said the same thing I did in his day. What I said isn't new, and has nothing to do with humiliateing anyone. It's called winning the damn war, and bring my Son and everyones home safe.  They are scared to death of such a fate. Pershing proved it. Their as supersticious as some other religions I know. Philosophy is fine if you don't have a dog in the fight. I delt with many people in a 20 year career that only understood force. Your one of those arm chair quarterbacks who sit around with idealistic ideals that don't work. That's why we're bogged down over there because our polititians don't have the stomach to fight to win. We criticize and prosecute our troops for letting a dog bark in their face, and say oh my, how barbaric, and they behead our people. Why don't you go over there and council those poor muslims, I'm sure when they see how civilized and reasonable you are they'll listen to you. What ever their reaction will be, would be a win win. This has nothing to do with hate. It's war. You haven't the foggest what I carry around and or don't carry around. You ain't that smart. You get on forums and criticize people for sniping and then go around  doing the same thingyou condem. When a fire fight starts over there many of the arab men hold their own children up in front of themselves as shields. What a great bunch of warriors. A couple of years ago a captain put a gun to an insurgents head, and then shot into a trash can. The guy spilled his guts, and saved a bunch of marines from a planned attack. The captain was raked over the coals by much of the media and clowns like you, but he still saved those marines. You sound just like one of those desk jockies that used to call my tact team out at 3 in the morning and then want to tell us how to do something they didn't have the sand to do themselves. So pull your panties up and get on over there and straighten em all out Rambo. Your wastin your time with me here, I'm too far gone. As far as the end justifying the means in a life and death fight? Hell yes it does. Iraq ain't church, it's war. You try to villafy people like me and sound so righteous and protect those poor murdering muslims rights who in many cases aren't even from Iraq. They just came over to kill some Americans and then go home.