I don't think you could determine that. That's what a civil trial is for.

Are you even aware of the fact that your kind of reasoning has resulted in violation of the Geneva convention and other international conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war, to which the US is bound by international law?

Check out the links I provided in my last post.

The Geneva Convention applies to uniformed members of a country's armed forces, not people who dress in civilian clothes and blow themselves up to kill as many people as possible. Does this mean the Geneva Convention needs to be updated? Probably.

Also, international law, as nice as it is, is about as effective as a verbal agreement. There's no way to properly enforce it.

You just don't get it, do you?

The Supreme Court agrees with me

The whole Gitmo deal created a gray area that had never been covered in any armed conflict before, which has had to be dealt with on the fly. And frankly, if they need to bend the rules to get intel to save people's lives, then so be it. The world is not a buddy budy place.

...so the end justifies the means eh? That kind of attitude creeps me out. No offense, but it really does.

But, it's the other way round. They made it an exceptional situation, so they could do whatever they wanted with those guys.

The end justifies the means for Islamic Extremists too.

Something really ****ty has to happen, then be brought to light before there will be any change, sadly. Look, I really do wish it didn't have to happen the way it has, but the world sucks. If it comes down to me or one of them, I choose me everytime.

You're acting as if there's no other way. Either you don't want to recognize what's going on, or you just don't care.

No, I'm just being realistic. If there were other ways that were effective, I'd be all for it, but that just doesn't seem to be the case.

So basically you think there's just no way in which the US can give its prisoners of war a fair treatment?

If they played by the same rules, I'd have no issue.

Actually, I'm not complaining about taxes. Taxes are necessary, taxes keep our government running, I ****ing love taxes. I don't want high taxes though.

And I understand the more people pay in taxes the bigger cuts they will receive. But, in Bush's first tax cut the rich received over 95% of the tax returns. Ninety, five, ****ing percent. I'm sorry, but they don't pay 95% of our taxes. The rich pay about 2/3 of our tax bill, and the general populace takes care of the rest. There's plenty to be said about people not realizing that the more you pay in taxes the more you're going to receive in return--there's nothing to be said about the rich receiving woefully unjust amounts of money over the average man.

Bush left a sour taste in my mouth ever since "free speech zones." Since then, he has proven himself an enemy to freedom constantly.

I'm not saying Bush needs to do this, but something really needs to be done about inflation. It's been pretty ridiculous lately.

The raise I got this year barely kept up with the current rate of inflation. inflation=5.44%, my raise=6%

Don't you think it's highly ironic that they say they're going there to bring freedom and democracy, but they're seriously violating human rights in the process?

They're liberating people from a dictator using the same methods to treat their enemies as the man they removed from office.

It is hurting the American cause, and they're making themselves very unbelievable. No wonder a lot of people are having doubts about what's America is doing in the Middle East.

What 'play by the same rules'? America ought to give the good example.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]I wouldn't doubt that the EU has enough to fabricate something like this. I'm not saying it IS a scandal, just that you need to keep an open mind.[/quote]

Yeah, but it's not very likely in this case.

First of all, because there are several independent investigations going on, and they're more focusing on who's to blame inside the European national governments for cooperating with the transports than anything else. So it's not like it's all a big plot to blame the Americans.

Second, despite the lack of press coverage in the US on these things, the first article on the secret CIA 'torture flights' appeared in the Washington Post more than 2 years ago. It mentioned a Gulfstream V plane, registered to several owners born in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. The odd thing was that their respective social security numbers had all been issued in 1998. The plane has been spotted on airports all over the world, and visited countries such as Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Marocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, as well as the US navy base in Guantánamo Bay.

I've collected a whole series of newspaper articles on the subject from the very beginning, but unfortunately it's all in Dutch. =\

American soldiers are being tried as we speak for crimes. It's not as if they are getting away with it. And, it's not as if every soldier over there is comitting heinous crimes. Nothing that US has done has even come close to what Saddam's regime did. The worst cases coming out of Iraq are being comitted by Iraqis, so please don'tblame the US for everything, as so many people like to do.

It's real easy to sit back from the safety of your safe country and say "play by the rules" but war is a dirty enough game as it is. When the people you're fighting use dirty tactics, sometimes you don't have the luxory of playing nice all the time.

Those of you criticizing our Emperor Bush will find themselves...suddenly displaced

Glory to the Empire!

I'm not talking about any of that. I didn't even mention Abu Ghraib or anything. Please don't make it sound like I do.

I'm talking about the treatment of enemy combatants in Guantánamo Bay, and how they are trying to make that look legal. That's all.

Like I said before, the legal protections for anyone always lag behind, and I never said the way some of the prisoners were being treated was appropriate, but given the circumstances, I don't blame anyone for taking the interogation methods right up to the line.

You can make anyone confess anything if you subject them to torture. That's why it shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

What's next, child molesters? 'Given the seriousness of the crime...'

The end justifies the means, right?

I don't agree with it, but when you're talking about the lives of millions, if not billions of people (nuclear), then you've got some very tough decisions to make. Human rights versus Human life.

Why should the terrorists in Gitmo be subject to Geneva conventions when they themselves do not abide by such conventions? I say let them have a taste of some of their own medicine. I don't mean start blowing up Syrian children but being a little rough with the detainees. I am soooo pissed off at the Supreme Court for ruling they way they did.

Yes, the ends can justify the means. It's a slippery slope, but if roughing up a terrorist save innocent lives, so be it.

Because America loses its credibility this way? And because they ought to give the good example as the bringers of freedom and democracy?

...and the people who are innocent...?

Oh that's right. Everybody with brown skin is a terrist.

And roughing up an innocent creates more terrorists. Another job well done. Can't fight a war on terrorism if you stop making terrorists.

How can you be sure the one you're roughing up is a terrorist without having that determined by fair trial? He might as well be ...., yes: innocent.

But you're forgetting ORJ_Jos! They're guilty because they have brown skin! And it's important to have secret military trials for them that are outside of the public scrutiny because then the media might catch the brown skin disease and pass it on to the American public! Certainly this isn't just a flimsy attempt to cover up joke trials that are nothing more than witchhunts, designed to keep the average Americans from realizing that 90% of the people they've been torturing and holding prisoner in subhuman conditions for several years are actually innocent. No, this is serious business.

<3

These are people captured while fighting against US troops, not random people picked up off the street.

Oh, really?

EDIT: LOL their names are al-Rawi and al-Banna. That means they're ayyyy-rabs and also terrorists! LOL!

What are you getting at? 34% of the US population is non-white to begin with.

Wow, after that brilliant show of maturity, I don't feel the need to respond. Congratualtions on being childish.

Nice cop-out. I'm pretty sure you'd have chosen just about any excuse to avoid having to refute the source I provided, as opposed to your source explaining how everybody in Guantanamo Bay is guilty (which you didn't provide and doesn't exist, kudos on the excellent debate strategy. Ostriches employ a similar tactic.). My argument remains: Being "brown" is the only proof you or the US government has going against a lot of the people who are in Guantanamo Bay. But I guess we'll never know for sure, since Bush is pretty damn determined to cover up his war crimes by redefining what the meaning of the term "enemy combatant" is.

If the government of United Kingdom broke into your house in the middle of the night, stole you away, sent you to Afghanistan to be tortured, and then kept you locked up in an open-air cage, fed a low-protein diet and sleep-deprived for 4 years, would you still think it's worth it? If your ideals are no better than those of the terrorists, what makes you better?
Why are the Americans the "good guys" here? Your government and your soldiers sure as hell aren't acting like the "good guys", and your attitude shows just how much the average American cares. People like you are why Bush is able to use the Constitution as a roll of toilet paper.

You lowered yourself to a childish and stupid tactic. I don't associate myself to people who have to use such tactics in debates. So, if you want to stop acting like a child, I'll respond, but until then I have nothing more to say to you.

Oh, I forgot we had any credibility. The rest of the natural world has been criticizing us for so many decades, I think the last thing we're worried about is our reputation.


Yeah, some of them are innocents, but the vast, vast majority of them are the people captured in combat. Yeah, I'd say it's worth it if I were to be captured as a means to an end. That's easy to say, I know, and it'd be worse than anything I could imagine, I know, but they're not dead, they're not officially tortured (other than the "low protein diet and sleep deprivation". Sorry, but I call that being poor and having insomnia, not being tortured.), and while we are breaking a few rules, the rest of the world seems in so much of a temper tantrum, well, DO SOMETHING. Jesus.

Also, sarcastic remarks made from your elitism are not a valid argumentative tactic, especially when the people you're talking to aren't on the IQ level of Knightrider. You're not the end-all be-all of military knowledge, and you don't know the whole situation, despite your raucous claims. I'm not saying I do either, but this is a debate, not a bashing. Get off Avenger's case--he made some extremely valid claims and you just brushed them aside.

People like him are the reason that anything gets done in the country--open-minded, idealistic and educated individuals with the power to vote. His views may not agree with yours, but your country didn't lose a few thousand lives in a terrorist attack, and have not had to find a good way to reciprocate. Not like Canada would do anything but sit on its thumbs while the UN took 4 years in beauracratic bull**** to get anything done, though.

Al-Quida prisoners aren't really POWs. POWS are people held for the interim of the war to be returned to their own country. People caught in the acts of terrorism aren't POWS, but should be treated humanely. They still of course aren't American citizens and don't have the same rights as us either. I'd really like to hear an example of [i[officially sanctioned[/i] torture before I form an opinion on this issue.

See this is where the argument goes down hill fast. You pulled the race card. The American government is a bunch of racists. Mexicans (and Latinos), Blacks, Arabs, Natives, they're allll terrorists. Only the white man can do no harm! Please. Give me a break. I think this is what made Avenger become irate.

Just stop trying. You obviously can't keep up with the argument well enough to make a decent stand for your side. There have been innocents taken prisoner in Gitmo, not just "terrists".

Damn 'em terrists

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0623041doj6.html

Those are the approved techniques. I don't think I would call it torture by any means. Intense, you bet. Anything that goes beyond, then people should be punished.