USA's history of torture

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I meant in the end, that is all (or almost all) interrogation in such a context is, either physical or mental abuse.

I'm not saying interrogation, if done properly, isn't itself a useful tool. However, one shouldn't stoop to that sort of level.

That tends not to do well when they've already been brainwashed since they were 8 years old, even younger, and they're in the hands of the very people they hate. That and even if you could do that it would take years if possible, months if they just cracked easily - either way you'd be getting information that might have saved a couple dozen or even a couple hundred lives if it had been pulled from them maybe within a few weeks of when they were picked up. It's an ugly world and when dealing with the ugly sometimes you need to get a bit ugly yourself. True, you might be able to work it quicker with a good hallucinogen but that would fry the Geneva convention much harder than anything we might have been accused of at Guantanamo.

There has been research to prove that torture is not a reliable way to get truthful information out of people, since people will say anything to make the torture stop - if the interrogators have some preconceived idea of the truth - they won't get the real truth by using torture. They will get what ever the person who is being tortured thinks they want to hear.

Gitmo bay is bad. I still don't understand why they keep David Hicks when they let go various members of the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden's family and a whole lot more people they have actual evidence for doing bad things. I think they torture him now just because they can and for some obscure reason he symbolises everything they see as wrong with the world. And no matter how much they torture him, he's never going to think the USA is miles better than everywhere else - because he's Australian.

In my opinion torture is the greatest of all evils, in any form, for any reason. It is simply not justifyable. I have a particular hatred for the kind that is done just for the enjoyment of the torturer.

on the subject of guatanamo bay, i am of the opinion that its publicly declared existence is nothing more than a declaration of US global sovereignty and impunity to international law, alongside its obvious connotations of ensuring adherence to the moral and normative codes of behaviour in the so called liberal democracies of western civilisation, ie michel foucaults ideas as expressed in the book discipline and punish.

http://www.libertysecurity.org/article199.html

in case anyone is interested

I don't care much for muslim extremist idiots, but it's a shame that America let go of the really bad guys and catching (and torturing) the small fish. It's unworthy the land of the free and the home of the brave.

George W. Bush is the mightiest idiot on this planet.

Have you ever read Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn? You can get a pretty good idea of what constitutes the American population. It's quite similar in most nation states. 20% of the population make the major decisions, and the rest, the other 80%, are sheep. That is why people in America have lined themselves up with the American work ethic and the notion that we are the best country there is. You can get similar statistics in Russia, when they were communist. There is a large percentage of people who will adhere to their nation, because it provides a safety net for them.

The United States may very well be better than many other nations, but we are currently the most bigoted country there is. It may be possible for the US to have the highest rate of hatred and disorder than many other nations. It is the only country where you can find a high percentage of people willing to commit mass murderer, with many of them being children. In fact, if you think real hard about it, we come quite close to much of the Middle East, which is what the US seems to try to be fashioning itself after. It is just much harder in the United States to introduce totalitarian-like legal structures without whipping up public panic. The US seems to actually be doing this by influencing disorder among its own population, since now talks of the senseless shooting and slaughter of Muslim populations tends to be a past-time talk at the dinner table amongst seemingly innocent American women and children. The US is literally waiting for the population to turn towards its ethos in throes of approval, such that the elite will have little to no protest, other than stalwarts like Michael Moore who will never adhere to US legality, so then you can influence a typical person to possibly go gunning for Michael Moore. Sure, such a person will be tried in the court of law, but then such a person would be a martyr in the eyes of a large percentage of the American population. See, they did this in the 1960s, with Hoover at the head of the FBI, by influencing phony claims of Martin Luther King's alleged cheating on his wife. Then came the shot. You know how it all works.

- Ray M -

I am HIGHLY suspicious of Michael Moores motives.

In hindsight his 9-11 film was amore of whitewash than an expose. Nearly all of the key issues, inconsistancies and unanswered questions asked by other people in the 9-11 truth movement (those suggestive of 'false flag' or passive state terrorism/foreknoledge) were completely ignored.

Instead, he chose to focus only on the petty scraps of evidence that supported his narrow agenda: that it was all the fault of Republican incompetance, Bush is an idiot and if only we could elect his cousin John everything will be ok again

5 years later, these issues have entering public awareness and remain unanswered, ignored by the commision and inadeqauetly explained by the official theory. Where is Michael Moore now -our champion of truth and justice? does he not care about the truth? perhaps hes lost interest? Why are the real 9-11 issues NOWHERE to be found on his website? He looks more like a NWO shill everyday.

Michael Moore is either a fraud guy in his own interest or working for the government, making it look like there is someone out there for the small man.

Aeturnus is right 80% - I would even say 90% or more - of the people of any country are really the sheeple. They would believe or at least accept almost any wrong the authorities make, just because is it safest and most comfortable.

and now we have it, even american aspies are full of sh**



How do you have it better than anyone else? Try coming to western europe for the epitome of civilisation. America is a crime ridden, racist , ret*d s**t hole of a country. This is a clear case of "you don't know what the f*** you're talking about".
Land of the free? You don't even know what the word means, it's just a meaningless platitude, a thought-terminating cliché that stops you seeing your own messed up country from a objective point of view. It doesn't mean anything, but you're all too stupid to realise. Brainwashed population anyone?




Check out the human poverty index, the us is the bottom of 17 countries. Not quite the best county when you look at the figures huh? Idiot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Poverty_Index




cue the american admins deleting my post because it's easier than considering that I could be right to some degree.

Are you RobertN posting under an alias?

If so, lame.

By the way, you DO realize it's trade with the US that holds up these European socialist nations, and that if we quit trading with them, they'd implode? And do you realize that the standard of living for people under the poverty line in the US is generally higher than people not under the poverty line in most other nations?

You are generalizing TechnoMonk. Though I expect you may have already knew that. I agree that their is some crime in america, though the people that live there are not "all" criminals. Some people are racist, not all. I do not know whether you are typical or not, though I would imagine that in the right context, "some" may view you as ret*d. I am not implying that you are.
"All" americans are not to stupid to realise, though I might agree that "some" are still in the process of educating their selves.

America is a very racist and bigoted country, but crime rates have actually decreased over the years. What has increased is the incidence of mass murder. Racism is very high in the United States, because it is encouraged through the media. All you have to do is listen to many of the conversations around you. I sort of like to eavesdrop in restaurants at times, and you can be amazed at what you can hear. It's just that I don't go turning people in like the government wants. I see a guy sitting alone with a briefcase? I surely think it is highly unlikely that he has a bomb, but if I were to listen to government bull, I am supposed to turn that guy in, because he's sitting alone with a briefcase and not talking to others. It's not just even being racist. Americans are a very terrified and confused bunch, and the government likes it that way.

- Ray M -

I contend that I am not terrified or confused, nor am I racist or bigoted, though "some" would say that I am an american. You are generalizing as well sir/mam. In my opinion generalizing assists in the promulgation of these stereotypical views. Americans are not terrified and/or confused, "some" "people" may or may not be terrified and/or confused. Division by applying locust's serves to create conflict. Unity by dissolving division serves to create positive synergistic progression of the species.

Encouraged through the media, huh? Explain. Because the last time I checked, the American media had the "one big happy family no racism allowed omg" thing going on. Remember. Even while they're slagging the Muslim extremists left and right, they make it a point to stress the fact that they're fighting Muslim extremists, not Muslims.



You're not supposed to turn people in just for carrying a briefcase. Seriously. If I were a cop and someone came up to me complaining about a guy's briefcase/overcoat/nail file I'd laugh in his/her face. I see people carrying briefcases all the time, and it never occurs to me that one of them might be carrying a weapon. You know what briefcases are usually full of? Paper. That's right, paper. Boring-ass black and white paper. Anyone who sees a guy with a briefcase and thinks "OMG BOMB!! !! !" has probably either seen too many bad mobster flicks, or is an eighty year old woman with an American flag in front of her house.

Around where I live I'd even go passed that. Especially with African Americans, our local paper keeps digging things up that happened even in the 1930's or prior - no diss to their prior plights but a lot of that is them exuming history and its almost like the paper is trying to keep people reminded that they've been wronged no matter how many decades back they have to reach.



Lol, your doing a good job of explaining it but I'm still not sure of how worthwhile the fight is. I kinda wonder, when someone's pounding that much Koolaid, if there's really much hope of straighting them out on anything. Regardless though I'll at least say that on one side people may be a lot more wary of kids in trenchcoats, not because of bigotry but thanks to Columnbine and now that POS up in Montreal - its a great way of making otherwise ordinary people with alternative tastes in music or style get classified in with being suicide killers and all that - lol, they were misunderstood bad enough before and now this.