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im appalled

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=384604
im not sure if anyones already seen this, but i thought id post it, as im so appalled and cant believe how America can claim the moral high ground over anyone. Its one rule for them, and one rule for the rest of the world.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The US have been known to torture suspects before. Really no one should go through that; even if they have been suspected of engaging in terrorist activity.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by monocrat
    The US have been known to torture suspects before. Really no one should go through that; even if they have been suspected of engaging in terrorist activity.

    Do you really beleive that? If you live by the sword you die by the sword...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yes I do. Really NO ONE should be tortured. There is no legitimate or jusitfiable explanation for such acts.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I agree, Rainbow Brite, it is awful. I confess to being very naive about this - I wouldn't have believed it went on in the Western world now.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You are absolutely correct Lovedup, and no country lives by the sword to the extent that the US does, which means that we are far from finished seeing the consequences of Washington's arrogance, presumption, and duplicity in its foreign affairs.

    Rainbow, indeed, this is what ive been arguing all along, the enormity of my country, coupled with a overwhelming ignorance and apathy by the vast majority over what Washington does or conducts personally around the world in our name is what allows it to continue with the lies and hypocrisy at the nation's expense.

    Just like Rome though, my nation will be the cause of its own fall from preeminence in the world and I actually welcome the day when my countrymen are forced out of their smug self delusions and obligated to realise just how much damage/evil the increasingly elitest cadre that runs the US has caused.

    Just as Germany was forced for confront its evils and seek contrition for them following WWII so to is my country due to some serious atonement.

    Sounds harsh to those who wish only to wave their flags and close their eyes to the truth while chanting the all too common littany of righteousness that I like all my fellows were raised to adhere to. Nevertheless, in the end, the truth of how much greater wrong our policies have done in our presumption will become a part of the national psyche just as it has been for the Germans, even down to generations which never knew WWII except in the stories of their grandparents.

    Then and only then do I believe my country will finally sit at the table of nations as an equal and without any illusions of moral, let alone military, superiority and play a constructive role through proper multilateral mechanisms to ensure a peaceful future for the planet.

    Oh blessed day, come quickly!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by monocrat
    Yes I do. Really NO ONE should be tortured. There is no legitimate or jusitfiable explanation for such acts.

    If a person associates with such terrorists who are proven to be a liability to the world. Who are proven to commit henious crimes on humanity, I feel they really don't deserve to be considered in a humanitarian way. That is the life they chose and the direction they aimed to go in. Therefore, they must accept any retribution.

    You say no-one....Hitler, Stalin. Mussolini, Saddam....?

    Going in another direction; Ian Brady, Myra Hinday, Fred West?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yet Lovedup, if you subscribe to the same methods and means as those you believe to be so dispicable, then you become exactly the same and should be dealt with in just the same manner. Such attitudes are self defeating and only maintain the vicious cycle of violence and reprisal.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh, by no means am I saying that the US are the almighty right and great and the middle east is the wrongdoer. unlike tre, I am not so niave to the PR front America and Britain are attempting to create. All I believe is ANYONE who deals in these circles should not be given the consideration of humanity. It maybe a vicious attitude, but as a human I do not now and will never understand the need for such brutality. any person who lives the violent life will not get my sympathy for dying in the same manner.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by lovedup


    If a person associates with such terrorists who are proven to be a liability to the world. Who are proven to commit henious crimes on humanity, I feel they really don't deserve to be considered in a humanitarian way. That is the life they chose and the direction they aimed to go in. Therefore, they must accept any retribution.

    You say no-one....Hitler, Stalin. Mussolini, Saddam....?

    Going in another direction; Ian Brady, Myra Hinday, Fred West?

    Yes, NO ONE.

    Torture violates the human rights of an individual. Terrorists are still human and naturally need to have those rights upheld.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by monocrat


    Yes, NO ONE.

    Torture violates the human rights of an individual. Terrorists are still human and naturally need to have those rights upheld.

    Tell me why you think terrorists who purposely set out to maim and kill innocents should be granted human rights.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by lovedup


    Tell me why you think terrorists who purposely set out to maim and kill innocents should be granted human rights.

    Because they are human. Human rights means rights which are inherent to being human.

    By just being human, terrorists (as all other people) have no right to expect torture.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Youve obviously missed my point completely, Lovedup.

    If you subscribe to that then you are subscribing to the very thinking of those terrorists of whom you wpeak. They feel that you are less than human and thats why they feel it justified to kill you or me or any of their victims. Just as they have seen family members slaughtered, tortured, or imprisoned through war and repression.

    The sentiments you are espousing are sentiments of hatred which lies as the motivator for terrorism itself.

    That's why!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by morrocan roll
    one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

    Call them what the fuck you like. Does it still justify their acts?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Jacqueline the Ripper


    Call them what the fuck you like. Does it still justify their acts?
    ask numerous leaders of israel who are now "respectable" poloticians.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It's very simple lovedup: anyone who tortures prisoners, however despicable their crime is, is every bit as repulsive as the criminal. What is supposed to separate decent, law-abiding citizens and institutions from criminals is the ability to separate right from wrong.

    I guess you don't see any problem either with loyalist or republican scumbags firing 8 bullets into the elbows, knees, ankles and wrists of petty car thieves... :rolleyes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    lovedup:

    These people are suspects, they are no more guilty of terrorism than yuo are until it is proved, i would not condone torturing you.....;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The US doesn't torture prisoners...it's even illegal to stand there while someone else. For one thing it doesn't work...people give false information.

    But that's not the point. The point is you want to claim the moral high ground by not being an American. It's the point of all of your posts in politics.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You are indeed naive if you think illegality on paper ever stopped our government from carrying out whatever it so wished however it deemed necessary.

    Frankly pnj, you take far too much at face value and need to start examining things far more deeply than youve shown yourself capable of to date.

    I have little doubt that Washington not only supports brutal regmines with the latest CIA investigative methods but actively employs whatever brutality they wish to further its own ends. That people like you are so ready to gullibly believe Washington to be a bastion of ethical and moral behaviour only proves how easily and effectively the public can be lied to.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I agree....

    Yeah I'm back, blah blah.

    Anyway, avoiding the political debate of whether war is just (I shall save my opinions for another post), the whole thing about torture...

    Personally I am thoughrally against it. A person is a human being before they're of any religion, creed, sexual orientation, political belief and I quote from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

    "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhaman or degrading treatment or punishement"
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If what the article says is true (and I admit I have no prior knowledge of it) then I too am appalled.

    I do not condone the torture of anyone, be they people convicted of actual crimes or those who are simply suspected.

    In all seriousness if this was being carried out by another country the USA would stand up and ask for the leader to be tried on issues of human rights. Will Bush be on trial? I very much doubt it.

    pnjsurferpoet when you say that "the US doesn't torture prisoners..." did you actually read the article? Do you refute what has been said on official death certificates?

    I wonder why we do not hear such reports on the news? Is it because not a word can be said against the US by our media for fear of reprisials? It is quite disturbing.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Pnj seems to think it is OK that the US exports its suspects to places where they can legally be tortured, i have no idea how he can support that, you will have to ask him..........:confused:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Great... let's all hire a boat, invite those we don't like on a sailing trip and kill them on international waters.

    No laws broken in home soil, nothing wrong about it eh pnj?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by morrocan roll
    one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter.

    Most overused statement in the history of the world....

    Its also one of the most false...a terrorist is a terrorist.

    All of you who say torture is a violation of human rights and totally awful, what do you think of prisons? Many people would see being locked up in a cell for their entire life as far worse than having their bones broken by captors. Presumably you are all against that as well?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Not quite. I do believe in punishment for crime. And in extreme cases such as racially motivated or other vicious pre-meditated murders, I can accept a full life sentence without parole.

    But there is a moral threshold of what is acceptable. Physical punishment or other forms or torture are not. Anyone who engages in such practices is every bit as evil and senseless as the terrorist/murderer at the receiving end.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I do as it happens consider the prison system to be an ineffective way of dealing with the majority of criminals.

    I also do not think that being in prison is comparable to torture, assuming decent prison conditions...

    Considering that torture is normally whilst in prison or captivity anyhow.......
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Actually BD, the term terrorist is often applied by those who hold the power to isolate those who would overturn their rule. It is anything but cut and dried as you claim.

    Similarly, you would no doubt be intrigued to see how many times in the history of US foreign policy that Washington has backed insurgencies and called them freedom fighters whilst those in power in such countries were calling them terrorists.

    So are terrorists only those whose causes we dont agree with and freedom fighters those with whom we do agree?

    If so then when insurgents backed by the US kill civilians its not terrorism but merely the sad fact of war?

    You see how slippery that slope gets?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Who decides on which is worse? For example, I would far rather take corporal punishment for a minor crime than spend a year or two in prison.

    I see removal of freedom as a far greater infringement of my human rights than the inflicting of temporary pain.

    Why is it more less 'evil' to lock someone away from the rest of humanity for the rest of their lives than it is to inflict pain and torture upon them?

    Just seems a little odd to me. I wonder if its just that people locked away in faceless cells, away from everyone else allows people to forget what they are doing as a society whereas torturing people is more blatant.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Clandestine
    So are terrorists only those whose causes we dont agree with and freedom fighters those with whom we do agree?

    It doesnt matter what labels a government gives to a group, if they carry out terrorist acts, they are terrorists. If they fit the definition of terrorist, they are one.

    No, I wouldnt be intrigued because I know full well about the history of the US and yes, I know they support terrorists regardless of the name they attach to them.

    It is very cut and dried..

    and as MR mentioned up top, many leaders of Israel were terrorists, as was nelson mandela.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Balddog
    Who decides on which is worse? For example, I would far rather take corporal punishment for a minor crime than spend a year or two in prison.

    I see removal of freedom as a far greater infringement of my human rights than the inflicting of temporary pain.


    I think that is an example of different types of punishment where as I would consider torture to be part of punishment that would include prison etc...

    Also the pain may not be temporary, tortue is likely to leave permanent injuries that remove your freedom in different ways...
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