Supreme Court ruling on Gitmo prisoners and Padilla

[ThreeCircles]

Originally posted by dmadman43
Well, I'm not the only one. One of the left's most ardent water carriers, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, wrote an opinion piece in the Nov. 5th 2001 edition extoling the value of torture.

http://conversations.tamu.edu/topics/2001fall/torture.html

And then we have that other liberal mouthpieces, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, put forth the concept of a "torture warrant" in Nov 8th 2001 LA Times opinion piece.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-000089139nov08.story?coll=la-headlines-oped-manual

He wrote:


So, get off your high horse there, pal. As you can see, the issues are not all black and which. Even YOUR liberal cronies understand that.

Sorry, "pal," when it comes to torture and human rights, it is indeed black and white. Perhaps you can somehow in your mind and world justify the use of torture. That really doesn't surprise me in the least.

It's interesting that you also think that simply because someone who you identify as a liberal supposedly supports the possible use of torture that I would too. Sorry, they are just as wrong as you.

 

[AirForceRocks]

Originally posted by Arabella Figg 2003
Obviously Atta was guilty.

Yes, he was. But we didn't know that until afte 9/11, did we? I used him as an example of why your ridiculous "we didn't know about Hamdi/Padilla until their arrest, so they probably aren't guilty" assertion.

You stated that you would rather kill someone rather than give him or her the chance to surrender.

Hmmm...kill them or let them surrender so that they can be freed to come back and fight another day?

Yeah, kill them.

Better we should just "shoot them and get it over with"...

And you think it's better to let them go so that they have another chance to kill American troops? For someone that claims to have been in the Army, you sure don't seem to have much of an idea of what goes on in war - we kill the enemy before they kill us.

Brenda, you are scary. Isn't this the same thing that the Nazis did in WWII with their prisoners?

No, the Nazis killed the prisoners as they surrendered and after they had been captured. I've already said that once the enemy tries to surrender, there is no choice but to let them do so. But I would do whatever I could to prevent them from being able to surrender.

 

[vernon]

Brenda, what you seem to be missing is there is a possibility that some of those "arrested" were not guilty of any terrorist activities. Even if you choose to ignore that possibility there are probably a larger number that fought to "defend" their territory after we invaded Afghanistan. This was not because they were anti West as individuals, simply that they were either

1) Uneducated/ illinformed by their command chains and told that the US/UK troops were invading their homeland and threatening their families. or
2) Forced to fight against their will under threat to themselves or their families.

Unless we are prepared to give those individuals due process we can not know if those we are holding (illegally) are innocent or guilty. For those that are guilty, lock em up, throw away the key. Those that are innocent ( or we are unable to prove their guilt) we have to release. What we do by a blanket arrest and hold is to alientate the families and friends of those that are indeed innocent and for every one innocent we hold, we create 5 malcontents driven to "even the score". Our actions, far from protecting our troops at the front line, place our troops in greater danger from an increased and strengthened enemy.

Brenda we all want to protect our troops and get them home safely, but IMHO you are looking at a three dimensional problem with two dimension glasses.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

Originally posted by ThreeCircles
And the "water" comment was in return for your original post. Perhaps I read too much into it but it seemed that your intentions were to be derogatory. If I was incorrect in that assumption too, I again apologize.

I wasn't being derogatory, I was simply pointing out that different people have different views on what they feel is right and wrong (immoral or moral). Sorry that it was you who said it, I figured you might think I was "picking" on you.

 

[wvrevy]

Originally posted by vernon
Brenda, what you seem to be missing is there is a possibility that some of those "arrested" were not guilty of any terrorist activities.

Actually, Vernon, I think you are missing the point....She obviously doesn't care that anyone at Gitmo could be innocent. I think she's made that pretty plain.

She appears to be advocating the old Vietnam strategy: In order to protect our constitution, we had to destroy it.

"Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out"

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by ThreeCircles
Sorry, "pal," when it comes to torture and human rights, it is indeed black and white. Perhaps you can somehow in your mind and world justify the use of torture. That really doesn't surprise me in the least.

It's interesting that you also think that simply because someone who you identify as a liberal supposedly supports the possible use of torture that I would too. Sorry, they are just as wrong as you.

so you would let your adopted kid die if you had the kidnapper in your hands and he refused to give you the information you needed to save the child?

You would let 3,000 of your fellow citizens die if you knew that administering truth serum or some other torture would give you the information needed to prevent planes flying into buildings?

So, to be honest, yes I can justify the use of torture in some situtaions.

Just trying to understand where your "morals" lay.

 

[wvrevy]

Originally posted by dmadman43
so you would let your adopted kid die if you had the kidnapper in your hands and he refused to give you the information you needed to save the child?

You would let 3,000 of your fellow citizens die if you knew that administering truth serum or some other torture would give you the information needed to prevent planes flying into buildings?

So, to be honest, yes I can justify the use of torture in some situtaions.

Just trying to understand where your "morals" lay.

Just for the record, in the case of the kidnapped kid, I wouldn't advocate the use of torture...I'd do it myself.

But, this is NOT a fair comparison AT ALL. In your hypothetical, you have an acknowledged guilty person in custody...You KNOW you have the right person. In the case of the prisoners, that's not the case, regardless of how many times you or AFR or anyone else say that it is. You have no way of knowing if those people are guilty of being enemy combatants or if they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the possibility exists of torturing an innocent person into a confession, then no, torture is not AT ALL justifiable.

 

[AirForceRocks]

"Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out"

Nope, not at all. Just kill the ones that are trying to kill us. That seems fair to me. You don't agree?

 

[wvrevy]

Originally posted by AirForceRocks
Nope, not at all. Just kill the ones that are trying to kill us. That seems fair to me. You don't agree?

Of course I do...right up to the point that you become more interested in killing them than in ending the conflict. That's where I differ from your comments, AFR....I want to end the conflict without losing sight of either what it means to be an American or our humanity itself. Lowering ourselves to their level does more good for them than it does for us.

 

[kbeverina]

Originally posted by ThreeCircles
It's interesting that you also think that simply because someone who you identify as a liberal supposedly supports the possible use of torture that I would too.

OMG...I'm on punk'd, right? There's no other explanation...

Still waiting for you to respond to the question asked:

I'm sorry , but I'm having trouble finding in the opinion pieces you posted were the IRC makes charges of abuse or disregarding their human rights. Care to point out the specific statements regarding confirmed abuse cases at Gitmo?


or just admit that you were wrong when, rather than admit Oops! My mistake, those cites don't respond to your question at all, so sorry... you said that dmadman couldn't find the references because he didn't want to complicate or damage his beliefs.

I happen to think it's not very moral to try to paint someone else in a bad light when you yourself are wrong. I wouldn't do that to someone else to save my own face. Not worth it to me. But, as we discussed, people do have different views on what they think is moral.

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by wvrevy
Just for the record, in the case of the kidnapped kid, I wouldn't advocate the use of torture...I'd do it myself.

But, this is NOT a fair comparison AT ALL. In your hypothetical, you have an acknowledged guilty person in custody...You KNOW you have the right person. In the case of the prisoners, that's not the case, regardless of how many times you or AFR or anyone else say that it is. You have no way of knowing if those people are guilty of being enemy combatants or if they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the possibility exists of torturing an innocent person into a confession, then no, torture is not AT ALL justifiable.

it wasn't my hypothetcal, it was Dershowicz's