Crosswords5 mins ago
Waterboarding
If we assume, for the sake of the argument, that George Bush is telling the truth in his memoirs where he says the use of waterboarding prevented a number of terrorist attacks, including attacks on Canary Wharf and Heathrow, then the ends justify the means, don't they?
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The ends do not justify the means in my book. I see a clear distinction between acceptable interrogation and torture. I can't define it but I know when something is morally wrong. I do accept that some people have a different moral compass to me, that's ok, but just don't ask me to condone their actions.
<<it turns out that Wikileaks and Channel 4 are the ones who are privy to the secrets of US intelligence. >>
well it appears they are on the basis that wilkileaks has thousands of pages of US intelligence data and C4 have trawled through it.
Rather worryingly the data also revealed the extent that coalition forces are exacerbating and at the very least turning a blind eye to the horrific militia anarchy that is now killing and injuring thousands of Iraqis
- including one of the oldest christian communities in the world who have survived 2000 years and were secure under Saddam Hussein's regime but now fear for their lives.
Well done George and Tony - I can't imagine how you sleep at night.
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well it appears they are on the basis that wilkileaks has thousands of pages of US intelligence data and C4 have trawled through it.
Rather worryingly the data also revealed the extent that coalition forces are exacerbating and at the very least turning a blind eye to the horrific militia anarchy that is now killing and injuring thousands of Iraqis
- including one of the oldest christian communities in the world who have survived 2000 years and were secure under Saddam Hussein's regime but now fear for their lives.
Well done George and Tony - I can't imagine how you sleep at night.
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mc mouse # I see a clear distinction between acceptable interrogation and torture. I can't define it but I know when something is morally wrong.#
I think that's a cop out # acceptable interrogation and torture# Now what is acceptable ?
We can all say that ?
Would your level of acceptability be different to saving your own family as opposed to someone else's . # I know when something is morally wrong.# Do you ? It's either wrong or it's not .
Nothing to do with what is acceptable. or as you say # The ends do not justify the means in my book#
I think that's a cop out # acceptable interrogation and torture# Now what is acceptable ?
We can all say that ?
Would your level of acceptability be different to saving your own family as opposed to someone else's . # I know when something is morally wrong.# Do you ? It's either wrong or it's not .
Nothing to do with what is acceptable. or as you say # The ends do not justify the means in my book#
Gromit
It was you who assumed that if we hadn't gone into Afghanistan there would have been no terrorist attacks.
I was merely pointing out that the terror started first.
/// Depends who you mean by 'we' were attacked.///
The UK, the USA it matters not, ask any family of someone that was murdered in the twin towers.
It was you who assumed that if we hadn't gone into Afghanistan there would have been no terrorist attacks.
I was merely pointing out that the terror started first.
/// Depends who you mean by 'we' were attacked.///
The UK, the USA it matters not, ask any family of someone that was murdered in the twin towers.
I've often thought that societally we've progressed, it appears I'm wrong to an extent.
Years ago there used to be a T.V show called 'Rough Justice' in it were cases of wrongful convictions obtained through torture, which demonstrates the reliability of the practice.
We now have people who support protective custody (for life), torture, dress codes for women, restrictions on religious expression and restictions on political expression, a bit like our erstwhile foes.
I've often heard that britain is being 'Islamised', in a way we are, we're justifying the self same measures they utilise, but apparently we're right to do so.
Years ago there used to be a T.V show called 'Rough Justice' in it were cases of wrongful convictions obtained through torture, which demonstrates the reliability of the practice.
We now have people who support protective custody (for life), torture, dress codes for women, restrictions on religious expression and restictions on political expression, a bit like our erstwhile foes.
I've often heard that britain is being 'Islamised', in a way we are, we're justifying the self same measures they utilise, but apparently we're right to do so.
The USA have been under attack for longer than 9/11/01
The WTC was attacked years before as were US embassies around the world.
However, these were directly connected to their foreign policy in the Gulf and their arming and bankrolling of Israel.
Bin Laden - a Saudi - is particularly annoyed by US involvement with the regime there.
UK however had not been attacked. Probably because our foreign policy in the middle east was more even handed and less aggressive than the US.
The rationale for Gulf War 1 was understood by the arab world and some of them joined the coalition. The vindictiveness and stupidity of Bush's Iraq 2 was transparent and it is Tony Blair's bid for status as an international 'player' that has opened us up to retaliation by militants.
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The WTC was attacked years before as were US embassies around the world.
However, these were directly connected to their foreign policy in the Gulf and their arming and bankrolling of Israel.
Bin Laden - a Saudi - is particularly annoyed by US involvement with the regime there.
UK however had not been attacked. Probably because our foreign policy in the middle east was more even handed and less aggressive than the US.
The rationale for Gulf War 1 was understood by the arab world and some of them joined the coalition. The vindictiveness and stupidity of Bush's Iraq 2 was transparent and it is Tony Blair's bid for status as an international 'player' that has opened us up to retaliation by militants.
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wiki
<<On February 26, 1993, at 12:17 p.m., a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of explosives, planted by Ramzi Yousef, detonated in the underground garage of the North Tower.[91] The blast opened a 100 foot (30 m) hole through five sublevels with the greatest damage occurring on levels B1 and B2 and significant structural damage on level B3.[92] Six people were killed and 50,000 other workers and visitors were left gasping for air within the 110 story towers. >>
Ramzi Yousef's motive "This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region."
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<<On February 26, 1993, at 12:17 p.m., a Ryder truck filled with 1,500 pounds (680 kg) of explosives, planted by Ramzi Yousef, detonated in the underground garage of the North Tower.[91] The blast opened a 100 foot (30 m) hole through five sublevels with the greatest damage occurring on levels B1 and B2 and significant structural damage on level B3.[92] Six people were killed and 50,000 other workers and visitors were left gasping for air within the 110 story towers. >>
Ramzi Yousef's motive "This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region."
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AOG, look at American foreign policy and the regimes it's supported, then you begin to understand 9/11.
Terrorists and 9/11 were not created in a vacuum.
When you look at Noriega, Pinochet, Batista and Galtieri, when you look at it's support of the Nicaraguan contras, Israel and the recent attempted coup in Venezuela, then you begin to realise that there is a wealth of world opinion that differs from the U.S, that is, was and will always be suppressed by U.S foreign policy and it's attendant corporations.
They don't have cruise missiles that can strike from 100s of miles away, they don't have I.C.B.Ms, they don't have heavy armour or artillery, they don't have massive news corporations on their payroll to show their dead and dying, all they've got is Al-Jazeera, whose journalists the U.S have killed many times.
None of this condones 9/11 but helps explain it, when we accept that foreigners have a right to freedom, and to disagree with us, when we accept that Palestinian children have as much right to life as ours, we'll make progress towards peace.
It won't come via torture, war or violent suppression.
Terrorists and 9/11 were not created in a vacuum.
When you look at Noriega, Pinochet, Batista and Galtieri, when you look at it's support of the Nicaraguan contras, Israel and the recent attempted coup in Venezuela, then you begin to realise that there is a wealth of world opinion that differs from the U.S, that is, was and will always be suppressed by U.S foreign policy and it's attendant corporations.
They don't have cruise missiles that can strike from 100s of miles away, they don't have I.C.B.Ms, they don't have heavy armour or artillery, they don't have massive news corporations on their payroll to show their dead and dying, all they've got is Al-Jazeera, whose journalists the U.S have killed many times.
None of this condones 9/11 but helps explain it, when we accept that foreigners have a right to freedom, and to disagree with us, when we accept that Palestinian children have as much right to life as ours, we'll make progress towards peace.
It won't come via torture, war or violent suppression.
Modeller, it is a paragon of conceit to presume that the only victims of torture are guilty of something.
That was the argument the police used up to the late 80s.
The most obvious outcome of our torturing people is the Iraqi insurgency, how many of our own soldiers were killed or wounded as a result of that?
How many Iraqis died in the crossfire as a result of the insurgency?
Torture will not make us safer, on the contrary, it makes us more of a target.
It also takes away from us the moral imperitive of creating justice, peace, safety and democracy in the middle east.
That was the argument the police used up to the late 80s.
The most obvious outcome of our torturing people is the Iraqi insurgency, how many of our own soldiers were killed or wounded as a result of that?
How many Iraqis died in the crossfire as a result of the insurgency?
Torture will not make us safer, on the contrary, it makes us more of a target.
It also takes away from us the moral imperitive of creating justice, peace, safety and democracy in the middle east.
Torture isn't used to find the location of a ticking bomb. It's used to collect background information, who supplies the arms, where does the money come from to fund the group, stuff like that.
Bush claims that he was told by lawyers that waterboarding wasn't torture. Yet after WW2 a Japanese army officer was sentenced to 7 years in prison when he was convicted of torturing an American by waterboarding.
Bush claims that he was told by lawyers that waterboarding wasn't torture. Yet after WW2 a Japanese army officer was sentenced to 7 years in prison when he was convicted of torturing an American by waterboarding.
There are better ways of interrogating people.
We cannot claim to be a civilised people with a civilised culture, preaching about the barbarous Muslims and their backward ways when we indulge in the medieval practice of torture.
If we are to wage a righteous war, with an ideology to promote then we cannot utilise, espouse or excuse torture.
I find it ironic that tourists can go to The London Dungeon and view it as an anachronism, when in fact all we've done is move it to secret locations in the world, it's even more amusing that David Cameron is now to talk to the Chinese about human rights abuses.
I'm reminded of an old saying, 'why talk about problems, when you have problems of one's own.'
We cannot claim to be a civilised people with a civilised culture, preaching about the barbarous Muslims and their backward ways when we indulge in the medieval practice of torture.
If we are to wage a righteous war, with an ideology to promote then we cannot utilise, espouse or excuse torture.
I find it ironic that tourists can go to The London Dungeon and view it as an anachronism, when in fact all we've done is move it to secret locations in the world, it's even more amusing that David Cameron is now to talk to the Chinese about human rights abuses.
I'm reminded of an old saying, 'why talk about problems, when you have problems of one's own.'
The prefix to an argument which is wildly off the point, and extreme in equal measures is "So ...".
It's along the same lines as "I'm not being rude but ..." which is a preface to being just exactly and presicely that.
In this instance modeller, we are not talking individual circumstances in which the emotional impact of pain to our immediate loved ones causes an impossible moral decision to be taken, we are talking the systematic abuse of individuals by an invading army in a cold and calculated way, so your argument, and an apparent attempt to justify the reptillian Bush's policies by bringing it down to a facile non-existent scenario realy fails to address the issue at hand.
It's along the same lines as "I'm not being rude but ..." which is a preface to being just exactly and presicely that.
In this instance modeller, we are not talking individual circumstances in which the emotional impact of pain to our immediate loved ones causes an impossible moral decision to be taken, we are talking the systematic abuse of individuals by an invading army in a cold and calculated way, so your argument, and an apparent attempt to justify the reptillian Bush's policies by bringing it down to a facile non-existent scenario realy fails to address the issue at hand.
In Liverpool we say "I'm not being funny, but..."
I'm reminded of the scene in the excellent film (lousy book) "The English Patient" when Almassy is being questioned by Caravaggio "hundreds of people died because of you!"
Almassy "hundreds of people died anyway, just hundreds of different people."
What the supporters are not contemplating is the amount of people who have died as a result of these policies.
Truthfully a soldier puts themself in harms way, but, is their life less valuable to their families than a civilians?
It's all very well and good saying what if you're family was at risk, but my family, your family, all our families are put at greater risk by these policies.
And again I reiterate, we cannot claim to be a modern, civilised, cultured, reasonable, rational decent people when we use the ancient, backward, barbaric, medieval practice of torture.
And Bush says his lawyers told him it's legal, so what, everything the N.S.D.A.P did was 'legal', (Fuhren protokol), didn't make it right.
Bush is wrong in every view point he's offered on the matter that I've heard.
I'm reminded of the scene in the excellent film (lousy book) "The English Patient" when Almassy is being questioned by Caravaggio "hundreds of people died because of you!"
Almassy "hundreds of people died anyway, just hundreds of different people."
What the supporters are not contemplating is the amount of people who have died as a result of these policies.
Truthfully a soldier puts themself in harms way, but, is their life less valuable to their families than a civilians?
It's all very well and good saying what if you're family was at risk, but my family, your family, all our families are put at greater risk by these policies.
And again I reiterate, we cannot claim to be a modern, civilised, cultured, reasonable, rational decent people when we use the ancient, backward, barbaric, medieval practice of torture.
And Bush says his lawyers told him it's legal, so what, everything the N.S.D.A.P did was 'legal', (Fuhren protokol), didn't make it right.
Bush is wrong in every view point he's offered on the matter that I've heard.
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