American Torture in Iraq

[AKULACLASS]

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/torture/

The story is too long to post. The link above should take you to the article. Comment on it.

Moral, Immoral? Justified or not? Are the Americans now no better than the "terrorists"?

[Dark Razor]

While I am fairly disgusted with the CIA-Gulag system, of which Guantanamo is only the most visible and most accomodating place, I am actually more concerned about the laws which allow this to happen, such as the Military Commissions Act and the Patriot Act which toghether with signing statements and executive orders could be used to essentially turn the US into a fascist country, one could argue that it has already entered a proto-fascist stage, especially if you take a look at some of the FEMA executive orders, such as those(which are not new though):

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation.

[demagogic_schizoid]

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/torture/

The story is too long to post. The link above should take you to the article. Comment on it.

Moral, Immoral? Justified or not? Are the Americans now no better than the "terrorists"?

Surely the difference is that America tries to limit these occurences and prosecute the perpetrators, whereas under Saddam these things would never have been reported, let alone punished. The very fact you are making this post could be seen as a sign of progress, because if it was happening under Saddam you wouldn't even know about it.

[Samurai Drifter]

I have no problem with torture as an interrogation method, as long as the person you're torturing is a perpetrator, accomplice, etc, and aside from the problems with its effectiveness.

[demagogic_schizoid]

I have no problem with torture as an interrogation method, as long as the person you're torturing is a perpetrator, accomplice, etc.

But surely the point is that if you turn a blind eye to it, you run the risk of allowing the torturing of people who are not any of those things, either by accident or because of corruption.

[Samurai Drifter]

That's the issue alright, and why I specified the "as long as..." part.

[C.J.Woolf]

Caveat: I don't have time to read the article right now, but I have read about torture in other sources.

Torture is bad in many different ways.

1. You're not likely to get good intelligence (i.e., the truth) through torture. What you will get is what the victim thinks you want to hear (i.e., confessions). People rat out neighbors they don't like, etc. I conclude that people who favor torture don't want the truth, they want confessions.

2. Most Iraqis who are arrested tortured are not enemies -- but torture makes them enemies.

3. Officially-sanctioned torture drives out good intelligence officers and promotes bad, sadistic ones. It's a vicious cycle: the more you torture, the worse your intelligence gets. Ask yourself: do you want the CIA to become the KGB and US military intelligence to become the GRU? That's what is happening now.

[demagogic_schizoid]

2. Most Iraqis who are arrested tortured are not enemies -- but torture makes them enemies.

You sure about that? I honestly don't know what level of competence there is out there, but "most" sounds quite a strong claim to make,

[C.J.Woolf]

You sure about that? I honestly don't know what level of competence there is out there, but "most" sounds quite a strong claim to make,
I don't have a link handy, but I read that as one of the findings in the Abu Ghraib scandal of years ago. The US forces and Iraqi cops would sweep random men off the streets. Perhaps they were the "usual suspects", perhaps they were ratted out by their personal enemies. In any reign of terror petty people take the opportunity to settle old scores with the help of the authorities.

If torture isn't state terror, it's an expression of frustration. The US forces have no idea who's against them and who's just trying to lay low.

[AKULACLASS]

Surely the difference is that America tries to limit these occurences and prosecute the perpetrators, whereas under Saddam these things would never have been reported, let alone punished. The very fact you are making this post could be seen as a sign of progress, because if it was happening under Saddam you wouldn't even know about it.

You believe that the most powerful country in the world got there by being interested in the spreading democracy and peace to other countries? Or by paying more attention to the consolidation of its economic and military hegemony by all means necessary?



I don't have a link handy, but I read that as one of the findings in the Abu Ghraib scandal of years ago. The US forces and Iraqi cops would sweep random men off the streets. Perhaps they were the "usual suspects", perhaps they were ratted out by their personal enemies. In any reign of terror petty people take the opportunity to settle old scores with the help of the authorities.

If torture isn't state terror, it's an expression of frustration. The US forces have no idea who's against them and who's just trying to lay low.

Joe Lagounis statements confirms yours. He believed that 90-95% of the people he interrogated were innocent or only indirectly connected to Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athists.

[demagogic_schizoid]

You believe that the most powerful country in the world got there by being interested in the spreading democracy and peace to other countries? Or by paying more attention to the consolidation of its economic and military hegemony by all means necessary?

That's not my point, I am not talking about the motivations for the war in Iraq, I am talking about a consequence of it. Do you deny that what I said is true?

As for the motivations, I started a thread on whether the war was about oil, it's on this board, on this page I believe.To this day I have not seen a convincing argument that it was.


Joe Lagounis statements confirms yours. He believed that 90-95% of the people he interrogated were innocent or only indirectly connected to Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athists.

This is standard, surely? When we say "interrogated", this isn't the same as torture.

BTW I hope you realise that I'm not trying to deny that wrongdoing and mistakes have occurred in Iraq. I'm just questioning the evidence we're getting, that's all. At the end of the day, we are all simply taking shots in the dark, because none of us really know what's going on out there. Well, in any case, very few of us do. FWIW, the reports I've heard from people who've been there are much less negative than the reports we get in the media.

[AKULACLASS]

Surely the difference is that America tries to limit these occurences and prosecute the perpetrators, whereas under Saddam these things would never have been reported, let alone punished. The very fact you are making this post could be seen as a sign of progress, because if it was happening under Saddam you wouldn't even know about it.


That's not my point, I am not talking about the motivations for the war in Iraq, I am talking about a consequence of it. Do you deny that what I said is true?

As for the motivations, I started a thread on whether the war was about oil, it's on this board, on this page I believe.To this day I have not seen a convincing argument that it was.



This is standard, surely? When we say "interrogated", this isn't the same as torture.

BTW I hope you realise that I'm not trying to deny that wrongdoing and mistakes have occurred in Iraq. I'm just questioning the evidence we're getting, that's all. At the end of the day, we are all simply taking shots in the dark, because none of us really know what's going on out there. Well, in any case, very few of us do. FWIW, the reports I've heard from people who've been there are much less negative than the reports we get in the media.

If you are trying to argue that America does not generally engage in torture on a massive scale reminiscent of totalitarian countries, you are correct. But that is because America, for now, is democratic and a lot of citizens would not be happy to find out that America is engaging in such a cruel activity. But now we're talking degrees of evil. Is America less evil than say, the Soviets or the Nazis because it tortures fewer people? You miss the point: torturing people is evil. Magnitude is another, but related, issue.

America, more than any other country on Earth, has a lot to lose if it can't hang on to its position in world affairs. Mr. Lagounis himself acknowledges that it is well-known in miliary circles that the CIA engages in torture. Not interrogation, but outright torture. And even if he remained tight-lipped on the extent of CIA torture, I don't think anybody would be surprised if it came out that a black-outfit like the CIA tortured people.

As a part of the regular (media-accessible) military, his "intelligence" unit only interrogated people. Sleep deprivation, Painful positions for extended periods of time, Psycological torture, exposure to the elements, Round-the-clock Heavy Metal music at high volumes are all part of the drill. Read the article, you'll find it all there. Mr. Lagounis describes how a healthy ex-military Iraqi left the place in pieces after just 30 days of this treatment.

It's not just interrogation, demagogic_schizoid, being subjected to this kind of "interrogation" for even relatively short time periods can scar a man for life. Constant pain, exhaustion and tension without letup is torture just as much as using thumbscrews or electrocuting a person's privates. And please note that the measures I mentioned have been authorized at the highest command levels. So I don't think that you can argue that these are isolated Abu Ghraib type incidents. These torture sessions have been as systematically ordered as Hitler's concentration camps. I just can't agree that America "tries to limit these occurences and prosecute the perpetrators". I believe otherwise, and I have every reason to do so. I do believe that torture is not as widespread as in say, China. But that is little consolation.

Regarding the reason for the war in Iraq, I don't know what the reason was. I don't think that the idiots running the country truly thought there were WMDs in Iraq though. And whatever the prime reason behind this godforsaken war, can we agree that it was not a benevolent one? Can we agree that the well-being of the Iraqi people was not Bush' greatest concern? I think it is clear this reasons for this war had nothing to do with democracy, peace or WMDs and a lot more to do with US interests. We lack sufficient information to determine what drove the planners of Gulf War II, though the abundance of oil in Iraq was surely not missed by the ex-oilmen running America.

[demagogic_schizoid]

If you are trying to argue that America does not generally engage in torture on a massive scale reminiscent of totalitarian countries, you are correct. But that is because America, for now, is democratic and a lot of citizens would not be happy to find out that America is engaging in such a cruel activity. But now we're talking degrees of evil. Is America less evil than say, the Soviets or the Nazis because it tortures fewer people? You miss the point: torturing people is evil.

Killing people is evil too, but it can't always be avoided, sometimes you have to fight a war to save lives. Torture is part of war. Are you saying the allies did not torture anyone in their fight against the Nazis? Hell, they made a pact with Stalin! But do we blame them for it? Not many people do, because exceptional circumstances call for exceptional actions, and sometimes it is is necessary to support the lesser of two evils. I'm not saying that going to war in Iraq is necessarily the lesser of two evils, but at least from the point of view of numbers of people being tortured I would guess it is, as there is more constraint and less willingness to torture on behalf of the US and the current regime with it's pretensions of democracy, relative openness to the international media (compared to Saddam's regime), and desire for international support than there was under Saddam. Now if in time these factos contributed to a state where torture was persistently low and political freedom was persistently high compared to what it would have been had Saddam been left in place, I would think that even an ardent opponent of the war would have to pause for thought.




As a part of the regular (media-accessible) military, his "intelligence" unit only interrogated people. Sleep deprivation, Painful positions for extended periods of time, Psycological torture, exposure to the elements, Round-the-clock Heavy Metal music at high volumes are all part of the drill. Read the article, you'll find it all there. Mr. Lagounis describes how a healthy ex-military Iraqi left the place in pieces after just 30 days of this treatment.

It's not just interrogation, demagogic_schizoid, being subjected to this kind of "interrogation" for even relatively short time periods can scar a man for life. Constant pain, exhaustion and tension without letup is torture just as much as using thumbscrews or electrocuting a person's privates. And please note that the measures I mentioned have been authorized at the highest command levels. So I don't think that you can argue that these are isolated Abu Ghraib type incidents. These torture sessions have been as systematically ordered as Hitler's concentration camps. I just can't agree that America "tries to limit these occurences and prosecute the perpetrators". I believe otherwise, and I have every reason to do so. I do believe that torture is not as widespread as in say, China. But that is little consolation.

The comparison with China is little consolation, because it's irrelevant in the case of Iraq. The comparison with Saddam Hussein's regime would be very, very relevant.


Regarding the reason for the war in Iraq, I don't know what the reason was. I don't think that the idiots running the country truly thought there were WMDs in Iraq though. And whatever the prime reason behind this godforsaken war, can we agree that it was not a benevolent one? Can we agree that the well-being of the Iraqi people was not Bush' greatest concern? I think it is clear this reasons for this war had nothing to do with democracy, peace or WMDs and a lot more to do with US interests. We lack sufficient information to determine what drove the planners of Gulf War II, though the abundance of oil in Iraq was surely not missed by the ex-oilmen running America.

Well this has been discussed in the thread I mentioned, at great length. If you care to read it you will see some interesting arguments against this connection you have made between the war and Iraqi oil. I will not repeat them here - the polite reason being that I don't want to derail the tread, the real one being I can't be arsed to repeat myself. ;)

[Dark Razor]

Killing people is evil too, but it can't always be avoided, sometimes you have to fight a war to save lives..
You dont fight a war to save lives, you fight a war to further your national interests, what those are, the leaders of a given country will naturally not disclose, though in the case of Iraq I would assume the goal is to establish a military presence in the center of the middle east from where it is possible to excert pressure on all countries there so that they act in line with US interest, what ever those interests are.

WMDs, democrazy und FREEDOM(tm) are just what the propaganda ministry told the press they should tell you, just as it has always been.

Oh and the US does not only torture people in Iraq, but also abducts brown people from random locations like Canada or Germany and sends them to Syria and Uzbekistan where they can be interogated without inconvenient "human rights" beeing in the way. I wonder what the US would do if we abducted their citizens and send them to Iran to be tortured, huh?



The comparison with China is little consolation, because it's irrelevant in the case of Iraq. The comparison with Saddam Hussein's regime would be very, very relevant.

Well first, the Gulf War II is an illegal war of aggression because it violates national sovereingty when Iraq was not a threat to the US or any of it's neighbours. But I dont think I can convince you with anything I could write so please feel free to think that the US would spend 500 billion $ to bring democracy to an insignificant 3rd world country on the other side of the globe. To elaborate some, I dont think that the war really was about bringing Iraq's oil to the US, I believe one reason for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was the establishing of military bases in the mid-east to threaten Iran and ensure access to the caspian sea oil reserves. Another aspect is that China and Japan get most of their oil from the middle east, controling these ressources is therefor important to the US, even if the oil does not go to the US, having the power to disrupt oil supply to east Asia gives them important political leverage. The middle east is also the only region in which oil production has not yet peaked, so controling it will ensure leverage over the rest of the oil-dependant world in the future.

There is also a map I have seen that shows a scenario for a "balkanized" middle east where Iraq is broken into 3 states and Saudi Arabia and Iran are also broken up, this would make sense as those smaller countries could be more easily controled by methods of "divide and conquer", or divide and rule.
Though of course I dont know to what extent this represents official policy.

If you want to know more about US plans for world domination, just read the PNAC website, or the national security strategy of the US, or you could read some of the articles on this site and judge for yourself what parts you want to believe.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/



Of course, torture is nothing unusual in a war, however consider the incredible hypocrisy of the US who claims to be the pinnacle
of human civilisation, while externaly they behave no different from the Soviets, (yes they did and still do, you just dont see it in the news) that's what really gets me.

[demagogic_schizoid]

You dont fight a war to save lives, you fight a war to further your national interests,

But different leaders can see national interest as different at different times. It's conceivable that they can envisage an enlightened, idealistic, long-term self-interest which rests on making the world a more prosperous and stable place and therefore eventually a better place for them to live. This is not always the case, but it can be. If you read the neo-con literature, it goes along these lines, that underdeveloped states are a threat to the US because their povderty and instability will spread and destroy all in it's path, much like the Barbarians did to Rome, and their ruling classes will use anti-americanism to remain in power, therefore these states must be "modernized" and "liberated" for the benfit of both their people and America's people. This IS self-interest, but it is not the same as short-term, purely economic self-interest. You do not differentiate between the two. Also, the Allies against the Nazis saved lives by going to war. So going to war for self-interest can also coincide with saving lives. I did not say that the war in Iraq was ABOUT saving lives, I simply speculated that it could do so in the long run (or could have done had it been carried out intelligenetly).

[Zergling]

The comparison with China is little consolation, because it's irrelevant in the case of Iraq. The comparison with Saddam Hussein's regime would be very, very relevant.

It is relevant, simply for showing that there isn't as much a difference between two powerful countries as expected.

[Dark Razor]

But different leaders can see national interest as different at different times. It's conceivable that they can envisage an enlightened, idealistic, long-term self-interest which rests on making the world a more prosperous and stable place and therefore eventually a better place for them to live. This is not always the case, but it can be. If you read the neo-con literature, it goes along these lines, that underdeveloped states are a threat to the US because their povderty and instability will spread and destroy all in it's path, much like the Barbarians did to Rome, and their ruling classes will use anti-americanism to remain in power, therefore these states must be "modernized" and "liberated" for the benfit of both their people and America's people. This IS self-interest, but it is not the same as short-term, purely economic self-interest. You do not differentiate between the two.

I understand this line of reasoning, I do however not agree with the "to the benefit of it's people and America's people" part. I would say that in reality it is mostly about the benefit to American big buisness, and the way to ensure this benefit is by installing friendly governments in states which are potentially opposed to the US, or to American buisiness. The best way to do this is to install a military dictatorship in the target country, which then privatizes all relevant buisnesses and opens the market to US corporations. The evil that could spread is socialist revolution which would limit or exclude foreign buisness, which means the people of those nations need to be kept in check by what essentially is a puppet government. The dictatorship also ensures that wages and regulations are minimal and provides stability because it cannot be changed through elections. If you establish a military presence in said country and ship arms to it and encourage it to be exceptionally brutal towards uprisings, then rebellions will probably be suppressed. This scenario also represents fairly well what happend historically to states in which the US intervend, with Central America probably being the best example.



Also, the Allies against the Nazis saved lives by going to war. So going to war for self-interest can also coincide with saving lives. I did not say that the war in Iraq was ABOUT saving lives, I simply speculated that it could.

I think the French and British declaration of war against Germany had more to do with keeping the balance of power in place and preventing Germany from becoming too powerful. Had the Nazis stopped after the Munich agreement they would likely have continued to be excellent buisness partners to the western nations. Had Britain and France not declared war, Germany would still have invaded the Soviet Union, and more people would have been exterminated however no people in Britain and France had died, though maybe later we possibly would have invaded them anyway. The point is though that saving lives was the effect, but not the cause or the reason for going to war, the reason was to keep the balance of power in place and ensure that Britain and France would not become dependent on the good will of a German empire. The decision to go to war was of course still correct, though the basis for the decision was not that the Nazis were evil, but their aggressive expansionism, would they have continued to be evil in their own country then there would not have been a problem as long as they still provide oppurtunity to do buisness.

To make the long story short, morals are completely irrelevant to foreign policy decisions, and whenever a politician or the media tells otherwise it's propaganda.

[C.J.Woolf]

Torture is part of war.
NO NO NO NO NO. It doesn't have to be. That kind of thinking would make the entire world a vast Rwanda.


...therefore these states must be "modernized" and "liberated" for the benfit of both their people and America's people. This IS self-interest...
It would have been nice if it were feasible, but the neocons are such naive fools. I think one of the big lessons of the post-WW2 decolonialization is that liberation and modernization can be assisted from without, but they must start from within. Ultimately, people must liberate themselves and form their own governments if there is to be stability and peace.

[demagogic_schizoid]

To make the long story short, morals are completely irrelevant to foreign policy decisions, and whenever a politician or the media tells otherwise it's propaganda.

Let's call them ideals instead of morals. Maybe "morals" are irrelevant in that many "immoral" acts take place, but I'd say that ideals are not irrelevant. You can't tell me ideals are completely irrelevant to foreign policy decision making in all circumstance, unless you are prepared to completely discount ideology as a driving force in poltiics as a whole. So what about Bush's opposition to abortion or stem cell research? What does this rich kid have to gain from getting involved in politics and preventing these things? Do you not believe his own personal ideals play a part? It's not like he's directly making money out of this, and it's not like he needs the money anyway. As human beings we all have beliefs which are not immediately and consciously tied to our material well-being. People do things for idealistic reasons at times. So why should politicians be any different. Let's take the Taliban as another example. Do you not believe they were motivated by their personal convictions and faith in their religion?

So if you accept that ideology can play a role in politics in general, how can this then be "completely irrelevant" in international politics. It doesn't follow. All these corrupt corporate interests you believe in would surely be the work of human beings, and I find it hard to believe that George Bush would be prepared to serve them with no reference to his own personal ideals. Why would he? He's rich enough that he doesn't need to and he could make much more money doing another job. And if he's doing it for the power, well what good is power to someone who craves it if he doesn't get to impose his own personal vision on things instead of just being a puppet.

[AKULACLASS]

I don't really believe that hardcore politicians have any ideals. Politics is a job where the players are the ultimate realists. Their only objective is to survive, prosper and advance.

For instance, does Bush really care about abortion issues? Do you think a man who would order the termination of Hugo Chavez, fight a war for national and personal interest that leaves millions of foriegners dead or enslaved really cares about unformed babies? I don't really think so. And if he does, there is a large unexplained gap in his morality (killing millions of people for money is fine but when we are talking about babies, it is simply not done?). Bush is about as religious as Voltaire was.

But he has to pander to the masses who happen to believe in their own personal quests, mostly of which are hopelessly moronic. He rose to power by appealing to certain interest groups in American society, particularly the religious right and corporate entities. He doesn't have to believe anything they believe in for him to stand up and openly support them and receive their votes in return. He believes in himself and if he has to pretend to believe the personal stupidities of other people to achieve his own ends (presidency, fame, fortune, immortality etc.), then I'm quite certain that he (and a large segment of the human population) would do it.

Note that I don't really believe that Bush is devoid of all ideals, I'm just cautioning that most of the behaviours and beliefs attributed to him might be just lipservice on on his part to keep his voter base happy.

[demagogic_schizoid]

I don't really believe that hardcore politicians have any ideals. Politics is a job where the players are the ultimate realists. Their only objective is to survive, prosper and advance.

For instance, does Bush really care about abortion issues? Do you think a man who would order the termination of Hugo Chavez, fight a war for national and personal interest that leaves millions of foriegners dead or enslaved really cares about unformed babies?

yes I do! fanatical anti-abortionists can plant a bomb in an abortion clinic that will kill people and even unborn babies. It doesn't mean they don't have a trong personal conviction that abortion is wrong. Beliefs do not have to be consistent to exist. Many people have thought they are fighting noble causes for human liberty when in fact they are killing innocent people.

[AKULACLASS]

Point Taken. The million dollar question is does Bush believe it (abortion, God in school etc.)? After all, he is a politician. News reports suggest that Bush has made only half-hearted attempts to push through bills agreeable to the radical right and they feel ignored. Bush has done a lot more to support his corporate sponsors.

[demagogic_schizoid]

Point Taken. The million dollar question is does Bush believe it (abortion, God in school etc.)? After all, he is a politician. News reports suggest that Bush has made only half-hearted attempts to push through bills agreeable to the radical right and they feel ignored. Bush has done a lot more to support his corporate sponsors.

I really don't know about Bush personally. Bush is just an example. My point was really in response to DarkRazor's assertion that morals play no part in foreign policy decision making. Well, I think this is too much of a value judgement (ie judging a persons morals) to be useful to this discussion, so I took him, rightly or wrongly, as meaning "ideology". I don't know if Bush personally is motivated by ideology (but my gut-feeling is that he is, in fact far too much so - he doesn't seem at all pragmatic to me) - I just wanted to argue that you can't discount ideology as a motivation in foreign policy. I hope I've made some sense.

[Dark Razor]

I meant the moral part more as in politicians do not care if their policies kill or otherwise adversely affect vast amounts of foreign people. Like for example in a question like "should we support and cover up the Indonesian invasion of East Timor" or "should we force other nations to adopt economic policies that plunge large parts of their population into extreme poverty", even if we do not have to, but want to to maximize advantages for ourselves. I brought this up to counter the assertion that foreign policy is all about "human rights" and democracy and freedom and liberty and whatnot. In fact all those things have very little to do with what is actually happening in the world.

Some, or even most, politicians certainly have some sort of good intentions and are not evil in the sense that they think, "yea lets go and exterminate the Iraquis", it's just that they think "we need to invade Iraq to secure our position of hegemony and we dont care how many people die there or if we poison and irradiate their land with our nuclear ammunition", which is however just as bad.

So the consideration "should we not invede Iraq because if we do, lots of people are going to die or live the the rest of their life in misery ?" does not even come up, what does come up is "how can we sell this to the sheeple, so that they think we are fighting for a noble cause?"

Solution: Instead of "We need to invade Iraq because we need control over their oil and to establish military bases in this stratigically important region."
We say:"We need to liberate the Iraqi people from there super-evil opressors who are also developing chemical, biological and nukular wepenz that they plan to use to destroy all of civilized humanity (us) with, so we can bring those barbarians running water and electricity, watch our soldiers giving candy to Iraqi children, filmed by our totally unbiased embeded journalists."

[demagogic_schizoid]

http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19585

DR, you are cordially invirted to participate in this thread. So far, it seems the "sheeple" are the ones who parrot the "it's all about oil line" (and now apparently supporting a war which the vast majority of the world's population and governments opposed makes one a sheep)

[Dark Razor]

Nah, I need to be more specific, I meant how I think the politicians see the general population "how do we sell this to the clueless people?" or "how do we dress this up so we can air it on the mainstream media in a way that makes Joe Sixpack support us."

I'll have a look into that thread, thank you.

[meanlittlechimp]

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/torture/

The story is too long to post. The link above should take you to the article. Comment on it.

Moral, Immoral? Justified or not? Are the Americans now no better than the "terrorists"?

Terrorism is blowing up a bus. Foreign Policy is carpet bombing millions. The difference is just scale.

[Zergling]

Terrorism is blowing up a bus. Foreign Policy is carpet bombing millions. The difference is just scale.

Foreign policy is bombing someone with a laser guided smart bomb from a billion dollar Jet.

Terrorism is doing the same bombing with a homemade, jury rigged weapon.

(and yes, this is a nitpick that adds nothing to the meaning of your expression.)

[Dirty-American-Devil]

While I am fairly disgusted with the CIA-Gulag system, of which Guantanamo is only the most visible and most accomodating place, I am actually more concerned about the laws which allow this to happen, such as the Military Commissions Act and the Patriot Act which toghether with signing statements and executive orders could be used to essentially turn the US into a fascist country, one could argue that it has already entered a proto-fascist stage, especially if you take a look at some of the FEMA executive orders, such as those(which are not new though):

Fascist? You have no idea, this is especially true in the midwest.

I travel a lot for my career, a Nuclear HP contractor, so I get to see a lot of the states. One particular site location I worked at was eastern Kansas. During my stay for this contract, the group I was working with decided to break a taboo, and discuss politics. My boss came off incredibly Fascist, and I stated this to her under my breath. Well...she heard me. The next day I was released from my contract, despite more work that needed to be done.
The Patriot Act is bullshit, but what can you do? This country is not ran by 'its people' no more. Its ran by corporations and the man.

Heh, sorry, reading that just sparked a memory that I'm still receiving a bad rep with for my contract work. I simply can not proof the true reasoning behind my early ternimantion of my contract. All simply because I said something negative about Bush and all that.

Far as the topic is concern, I'm really not surprise. The big boy on the playground always breaks all the rules, and who is going to tell on him? No one, because he runs the playground. Its not an excuse by any means.

I think it would help if Americans where exposed to more media outside of whats between the Atlantic and Pacific. Give news more of a humanity feel, so your average American can see what our government truly does. I assure you that this story probably didn't get any main air time on CNN, NBC, or C-Span.