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Posted By Spadecaller 7 months, 3 weeks ago in News

Disagreements continually arose among U.S. military personnel in 2002 and 2003 over which harsh interrogation techniques used on detainees at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan and Iraq were legally permissible, according to a report released last month by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The questionable interrogation methods employed were supplemented by Defense Secretary – Donald Rumsfeld’s guidance, according to the Senate report.

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    Spadecaller7 months, 3 weeks ago

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    FTA

    "How differently individual Defense Department personnel viewed interrogations is vividly illustrated by the conflict in the fall of 2003 among three specialists sent by the Pentagon to Baghdad to assist a U.S. Special Forces group called the Special Mission Unit Task Force. That group was responsible for carrying out interrogations of highly valued detainees.

    The three specialists were associated with the Pentagon's elite Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), which previously had trained U.S. military officers to resist harsh enemy interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. Beginning in 2002, some JPRA personnel had switched to training special American military and intelligence personnel in "offensive interrogation," using the enemy's techniques against detainees brought to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or held in Afghanistan and later Iraq."

    Will we become the next nation that "saw nothing wrong" with crimes against humanity?

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      hyperbola7 months, 3 weeks ago

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      Well Spade, we have "help" from a nation that "sees nothing wrong" with crimes against humanity working hard to ensure that. Indeed, the influence of "israel-firsters" in our universities, media (e.g. NY Times) and government (both parties) means we are well advanced along that path.

      How Alan Dershowitz Misstates, Misrepresents and Misapplies the Law

      As an ultra-Zionist, what he insists is akin to "the law is what I tell you it is! And why can't the World understand that!" While cherry picking, mischaracterizing and misapplying International Law, Professor Dershowitz ignores what every Law School and University teaches on the subject.

      Should he spend more time in the Harvard Law School library, and less in TV studios, he would surely learn that an objective application of international legal norms to the conduct of Israel is Gaza would result its leaders being indicted and brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague....

      http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/01/09/how-alan...

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      not2needy7 months, 3 weeks ago

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      The issue of torture is so depressing. I hate to think that we have devolved into a new state of Barbarism (is that a word?)..

      I realize that some of the people we're dealing with are of a Barbaric nature, but does that mean we have to lower our standards to theirs?? It appears that our last administration thought that taking us back into the middle ages was a good way to get and keep control over the masses. It's just sick and i believe they will answer for that things they have done..
      Cheney's being vocal now, trying to exonerate himself from being brought up on war crimes, still trying to scare people into thinking they were right in what they did, and that Obama is going to get everyone killed.. He knows what they did, and he's scared.

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        Spadecaller7 months, 3 weeks ago

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        "I realize that some of the people we're dealing with are of a Barbaric nature, but does that mean we have to lower our standards to theirs?"

        How true. And it is those that remain silent in the face of overwhelming undeniable evidence that the former administration had broken both constitutional and international laws and in so doing are responsible for heinous crimes against humanity. We must denounce that conduct to the world to elevate ourselves to the moral high ground.

        What bothers me almost as much as those that have perpetrated these crimes, are those that know it was wrong and now choose to pretend that it doesn't matter. The hstory of pre-nazi Germany is about a nation of people most of whom claimed after the deaths of millions that "we knew nothing". Not only was that not true, it was a lie that too many people participated in. When our nation stood by and remained silent when we imprisoned Japanese Americans, there were also too many who claimed that they knew nothing.

        The truth is that we did know and that we allowed it. Now we must help our nation stand up and face the truth and to clean up the wreckage that we have brought upon the world. Those guilty of war crimes must face a tribunal and those politicians on both sides of the aisle that were complicit or supportive of these atrocities must be held accountable. Most of us already know who were the key players. There time to face their crimes has arrived. The entire world is waiting for our nation to do the right thing.

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          not2needy7 months, 3 weeks ago

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          You know Spade, i can't even stand the thought of an animal being abused.. I don't think God put any living creature on this earth to be abused. Therefore you know i completely agree with you, Turning a blind eye isn't the answer anymore than attempting to justify this kind of thing.

          It's unthinkable that Americans would condone or participate in this kind of behavior, but when you have a nation of people who think it's necessary to have an arsenal in their homes to keep themsleves safe from imaginary evil doers, then anything is possible.. When education became the most unimportant thing to many Americans, our way of life and quality of life changed on a national level. We began to devolve. Americans need to start using the resources available to them, get in and stay in school, educate themselves and stop being afraid of their shadows. Until that happens, things aren't likely to change much!

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            Spadecaller7 months, 3 weeks ago

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            Nothing but frightened hoodlums...afraid of their own shadows.

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              Will13137 months, 3 weeks ago

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              but when you have a nation of people who think it's necessary to have an arsenal in their homes to keep themsleves safe from imaginary evil doers, then anything is possible..

              ---

              I gave you a pos on the overall content...

              imaginary indeed..

              4 home invasions within a mile of my house. . in the past 18 months. and I live in a fairly affluent area.. on an ocean access canal.. as did the others .. 2 of the women were sexually assaulted..

              1 police officer gunned down in the parking lot of a CVS pharmacy less than 2 miles away. and the CVS 3 blocks from my house was robbed 3 times..

              1 police officer transporting a prisoner to court .. killed..

              1 police officer serving an arrest warrant at a home.. shot and killed.. the guy also wounded 2 others..

              3 women seemingly at random.. abducted at the Boca Raton Mall a very upscale mall.. all made to withdraw money from an ATM.. and then shot in the back of the head.. within the past 3 years..

              at least 3 gang members (they were the ones caught) of just shooting people to UP THEIR NUMBERS..

              there are many areas here in south Florida.. the police will not respond to after dark.. NOT RESPOND..

              south Florida is a cesspool of immigrants .. gangs... and they have easy prey.. in the older population.. this is a major import center for illegals and drugs...

              IMAGINARY INDEED..

              glad you feel safe where you are.. and if I could I would move... but it is MY OBLIGATION to keep my wife as safe as possible..

              not paranoid.. just prepared. at least as much as possible..

              there are little things we do and take for granted in our daily routine .. ... that criminals look for to make you a target.. i

              I'd bet you didn't read the link I posted when we had this conversation the other day.. but the essence was the "potential victim" was targeted simply because he bought his granddaughter an Xbox.. which reminds me 2 people killed in a Walmart parking lot. .. about 3 miles from my house.. in the last year..

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            Natureboy7 months, 2 weeks ago

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            "I realize that some of the people we're dealing with are of a Barbaric nature, but does that mean we have to lower our standards to theirs?"

            That suggests that there was a previous time when our standards were higher.

            Lets try pinning that down.

            It wasn't when we were engaging in genocide against first nation peoples.

            It wasn't when we were waterboarding and butchering Filipinos during the Spanish-American war.

            It wasn't when we were subjecting suffragettes to torture while in confinement.

            We can scratch the Korean and Vietnam conflicts - we sure weren't a shining beacon of human rights in those days.

            So, unless we can find a little sliver of light in there somewhere, I have to say that we have not devolved into a new state of barbarism so much as we have simply carried on with the same old barbarism.

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            Spadecaller7 months, 3 weeks ago

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            WE certainly have enough chicken Littles running around screaming about the terrorists coming to attack us. These nutjobs are willing to trash the constitution and the Geneva conventions hoping to save their sorry asses.

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              hyperbola7 months, 3 weeks ago

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              Where were you when your "israel-first" buddies started this process in both the US and Israel?

              Sderot - A town built on the ashes of an ethnically cleansed and defaced Palestinian village

              We’ve been hearing a lot lately about Sderot, a town that has become the centrepiece of Israeli propaganda. Israeli spokesmen, and Israel’s stooges in the media and among politicians in Britain, the European Union and the United States, repeat ad nauseum the mantra about Palestinian home-made rockets "raining down" on Sderot, although only 1 in 500 causes a fatality. It is a mantra that has been used to justify the countless thousands of Israeli bombs, missiles, grenades and tank shells that are blasted into Gaza's tight-packed humanity. Bu what do we know about Sderot? Below is an insight into the town's history.

              Israeli land thieves built Sderot on the ashes of an ethnically cleansed and defaced Palestinian village called Najd.

              Sderot was settled by Jews in 1951. In All That Remains, Walid Khalidi says that Sderot, along with the settlement of Or ha-Ner, founded in 1957, were established on the village lands of Najd, which means "elevated plain" in Arabic.

              According to Umkhalil, Najd's Palestinian villagers, approximately 620 in 1945, were expelled on 13 May 1948, before Israel was declared a state and before any Arab armies entered Palestine. UN Resolution 194 and also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13, Section 2, stipulate that the villagers of Najd have a right to return home to their personal property and to their native village.

              Najd is 14 kilometres from Gaza. Palestinian Arabs own 12,669 dunums in Najd, although Israel refuses to honour their rights to their personal property, and refuses them their inalienable right to return home. In 1945 Jews owned 495 dunums of land in Najd and public lands consisted of 412 dunums.

              In short, Sderot is an illegally occupied territory stolen from Palestinians.

              Israeli Goebbels: Stop lying to the world about needing to defend what is not rightfully yours. You're worse than bank robbers saying they have a right to defend their loot!

              http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/01/29/sderot-a...

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              skeptic2717 months, 3 weeks ago

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              What is this talk about "harsh interrogation"? It's either torture or it isn't.

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                Natureboy7 months, 3 weeks ago

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                Indeed. But that is a point that torturers aren't avid to make. So the Nazi SS called busting someones shins with a sledgehammer or crushing their balls with a pair of pliers "enhanced interrogation," and the U.S. followed suit.

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                Charlson7 months, 3 weeks ago

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                What's so sad is that in fighting scum, some find no problems becoming scum.

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                  Natureboy7 months, 2 weeks ago

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                  Jung claimed that this phenomenon was group possession by the shadow self.

                  We all have a dark side. BUT when we deny our own darkness, and project it onto others, as the Germans did to Jews, Slavs, communists, gays, etc, and as many Americans do to Arabs and Muslims, then while we see ourselves as somehow being the good guys who are warring against the evildoers, the fact is that we have become possessed by our own evil impulses. While we think we are the shining beacon of light unto the world, we are in fact wholly given over to authoritarianism, violence, sadism. And when it is pointed out to us, we say "no, that's not us, we're GOOD, we just have to do these things because we are fighting the evil _________ . (insert "Jews," "Muslims", "commies," "Al-Qaeda," "Taliban" or other scapegoat du jour.) They're BAD, we're not bad."

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                  bgamall7 months, 2 weeks ago

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                  If we don't stop it now it will happen again. If they don't go to trial we look like a bunch of appeasers. We need to prosecute our own if they are guilty of torture.

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