Well its always good to have a person to debate a different point of view. Hehe Goingnova hates me sometimes for taking the other perspective in my favorite role as Devil's Advocate. Its good someone else gives Goingnova a good fight.
Black Mage said:Oh, Chris, next time you mention Allied war crimes, might wanna leave the Russians out. The Gulags were nearly as bad if not worse that concentration camps. It brings up the average quite a bit considering Stalin has the all time death rate, not Hitler.
A good debater never gives up, but I believe wisdom should prevail. There sometimes comes a point in a debate when the facts are all laid out, both sides are factually correct, and opinion is the deciding factor.SISTER_KATE said:Nova seems to do an excellent job of holding his own in a debate. I'm just waiting for the opportunity to disagree with him but so far I back most everything he has said. Never thought I would be so agreeable. LOL
GoingNova said:
Or, since they are not soldiers, as defined by the Geneva Convention, and they are more than just "criminals" we could simply establish a new way of dealing with them, which is what we are in the process of doing now. I believe the Supreme Court has just decided to hear the case.
Because I believe what someone is accused of and how they should be treated by our legal system should have as little correlation as possible. At the point where they have not received trials, have not been convicted, have not even been given counsel or been brought up on charges, it's pretty hard to argue that they are all guilty. Guilty of what? They HAVEN'T BEEN CHARGED WITH ANYTHING.Jatkins, and all others who defend these people, I just don't understand it. These people are part of an organization that has no qualms about murdering children, and yet you defend them as though they were just ordinary criminals.
I will defend human rights for every person on this planet. They reject human rights, and argue that we really don't uphold them either: we just use them as a cover for our real brutality. I will not give these people the satisfaction of being right about us.These people, if given the chance, would walk into a shopping mall, and slaughter as many men, women and children as they could, and yet you defend them.
Okay, you have a strange definition of torture. I'm not going to explain again why I think this is torture and also why I think torture is bad. Instead, I will again refer you to my comments on the thread I mentioned above.Don't me wrong, if we were subjecting them to torture, I mean REAL TORTURE, as in the kind that John McCain was subjected to, I could maybe understand your objection. But they are not. Sorry, I think what was done in Abu Grav was misconduct, I would not call it torture.
The organization responsible for reporting these complaints is the very organization being accused of the mistreatment. The CIA, DIA, and DoD's internal investigations are not credible at the point where they are the ones engaging in these questionable actions.Overall, we have detained more than 68,000 people since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and there have been 325 complaints of mistreatment. 68,000 people, and only 325 complaints, does that sound like we are mistreating them?
You haven't established that that's the same 100 people. And the "further investigations" were done by the very same agencies that were accused of mistreatment. Again, not exactly credible. When the government refuses full-access to non-partisan and cross-partisan observers, its "investigations" become completely worthless.Further investigations have found that of those 325 cases, 100 were legitimate. Guess what? 100 people have been punished. Doesn't sound like torture to me.
They're not capable of much when starved, tired, beaten, overheated, and lying in their own feces.Given the circumstances, and what these people are cable of doing, I see absolutely nothing wrong with what we are doing.
I refer you for the fourth time to the earlier thread, where I discuss how torture doesn't work, and is actually detrimental to the war effort.Further, I think treating them as soldiers or criminals would endanger the lives of our soldiers and our citizens, and frankly, they come first.
My opinion is just this:Just my opinion. I respect yours, I just don't understand it.
jatkins said:My opinion is just this:
1) Human rights are human rights. You either respect them in all cases or recognize that they are a sham. Not respecting them proves our enemies right about us: we don't really believe in the moral principles we espouse, we just claim to in order to justify our imperialism. It also reduces our capacity to lobby other countries to do better in the field of human rights, by destroying our moral credibility. Human rights abuses in China are harder to get outraged about when we don't respect rights either. And it doesn't matter that they violate them much much more: rights are not a matter of degrees. They either exist or they don't.
2) Torture doesn't work. People will say anything. These people don't have current information. Terrorist organizations are cell-based so these people didn't know anything to begin with. They are likely to lie just to get the pain to stop. That causes us to divert resources to cover non-existent threats, increasing the likelihood of a successful attack in a different place.
3) Torture and abuse cause outrage in the Muslim world, leading to a greater proclivity to join and endorse terrorist groups. Recruitment pamphlets from terrorist organizations recovered during the war have listed abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay as justifications for violence against the United States.
4) People are not guilty until a court says they are. They are not implicated until they are charged. It is unacceptable to prevent any findings of fact in this matter. The power to suspend all legal rights is not a power the government should ever have in any case. The precedent it sets is terrible.
That, put very, very briefly, is the outline of my argument. Even if you don't agree with the points I make, I'm not sure how you could possibly misunderstand it.
Choscura said:as far as i can tell, you can be a patriot or you can be a good muslim. you cannot be both.
A place to debate everything and anything!