I would.

And that would help because...

It would help because then the people could fend for themselves or perish. Not everyone deserves a big brother, or needs one.

Then why are you trying to be the big brother to the terrorists in gitmo?

True, but we did take away their infrastructure in the first place. I'll admit it wasn't a very good one, and we have been providing them with enough help to get it done if they would cooperate, but it's not totally easy to decide were to draw the line.

Help what?

There is no objective in Iraq. Our troops stand around securing the area... why, exactly? It's pointless.

I'm not trying to be the big brother to the GITMO prisoners. In the same way that I don't think we should be putting those people in captivity, hence being a big brother to the people they probably wouldn't be trying to kill had we not removed all sense of order from the country.

Why do you make the assumption that they are terrorists? If they were terrorists surely we would have no problem proving it in a court of law.

Except, you know, that whole thing about evidence against them could expose and endanger U.S. intel sources...

So should we start simply indefinitely detaining and torturing criminals here in America to protect the identity of undercover police?

I'm so tired of people believing whatever allows them to continue their lifestyle with the least responsibility. Innocent until proven guilty.

National security is slightly different than trying to get a mole in the ranks of a drug ring.

It's far more difficult to convince a mark that an American belongs with them than it is to act like a thug and get druggies to trust you.

I'm afraid that still doesn't mean that a possible innocent should have to sit and rot in a jail cell indefinitely. Exfiltrate the informant and take it to trial, or release the prisoner.

No, I agree, I don't like that there's the possibility an innocent is in there. I merely meant that a court of law would compromise fairly important intel sources. A military court, on the other hand....

And they are going before military courts. End of controversy.

Well that wasn't the case until they were made to due to the controversy. Plus these are secret courts in which I don't even think that the defendants are always represented there.

Sounds like a lot of justice to me...

Justice is subjective.

We would get a lot further in Iraq if more money was concentrated on the reconstruction.

Right now we have Marines, soldeiers, airmen, and yes, sailors, paying out of their own pocket to help people there.

If we commited only the forces that NEED to be there to the 'war' portion and sent, say, all the reservists to work on the reconstruction, I think we would be doing a lot better

That would also reduce the amount of people we have hating us. It would reduce the effectiveness and number of gangs like Al-quieda, the Jihad Brigade, Jihad Warriors, and the countless other insurgent and terrorist groups. Then that decreases the number of guys we have come to places like x-ray.

It sure would be nice to rebuild things... well, until they got blown up again, anyway.

So, you are saying we shouldn't try to rebuild some kind of infrastructure in Iraq because it is futile?

I find this whole torture debate to be a bit overdone. Sleep deprivation is not torture.

The whole struggle the world seems to have is over the value of life. Modern societies value life more than fringe groups of extremists that still try to live in the 15th century. You see examples of this constantly with suicide bombers. These people will walk up to civilians or soldiers with explosives strapped to their bodies, and we worry about whether or not they're getting enough sleep if we catch some of them before they detonate? This is absurd.

If I were to be captured by one of those "farmers," I wouldn't be worried about them keeping me awake. I know that I'd have my head chopped off in front of a camera with a rusty device of some sort; making my screams another addition to the PR campaign to demoralize support for the coalition forces.

I'm not advocating that we give soldiers any means necessary to combat these extremists, but I do not want to see their efforts being undermined because we don't want to offend anyone. We have to at least give those involved the tools to gain intelligence that allows the protection they can give us.

Intelligence is the best way for our troops to complete their mission. Hindering their ability to gain information will only cause our troops to suffer by blindly walking into adversity. Oh wait, that's what's happening now. You want us to get out? Let the coalition forces do their job the way it was designed to be done. You cannot take down a non-conventional force with conventional tactics.

If you honestly believe these extremists are harmless and the whole war against them is pointless, read The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. You'll gain quite a bit of perspective on the mindset and trends of these people, and why being politically correct can only give them opportunities that they'd never get otherwise.

Carelessness and inaction lead us to the point at which we are today, and if we simply just flee from the problem, it will come back exponentially greater than the first time around. Iran and Syria are watching and waiting patiently.

No, it's not.

I think this debate is an indicator of a much larger problem in our society. If a source says that there is torture in Guatanomo Bay, it's a left-wing radical source that is plotting against this administration. If a source says there is no torture, it's a right-wing war mongering group, probably in the pocket of the administration. At some point, truth became a commodity. Truth is no longer a value in this society and it can be used by anyone to further their agenda. So, when an important issue comes up, people either flock to the sources that justify their preconceived(and ill-conceived) notions and idea or just sit there and shrug their shoulders, not being able to trust either side.

Personally, I think the only organization I still trust is the Red Cross. This is for two reasons. First, they can't enter the political arena lightly. They rely on political neutrality in order to gain access to prisoners all over the world. Secondly, except in some cases, they keep their mouth shut. The go in, do their studies, then report back to those in charge of the facility and provide recommendations.

Now, I said "except in some cases". When a facility continually ignores them, then they become vocal. Red Cross has become vocal about Guatanomo. They have spoken out against the legal ramifications of going to Guatanomo(no due process). They have not criticized the physical conditions there. This leads me to believe that Guatanomo Bay is just a dumping ground for those the government believes to be involved in terrorist activities, but just don't have enough evidence(or evidence that would be admissable in court*) to prove it to a jury or judge beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't believe torture to be a sponsored activity in the prison since it is both pointless for that prison to be doing so, but Red Cross would be jumping all over that more than the legal injustice, as well.

* What I mean is that they could have hard, concrete proof that these individuals are terrorists or sponsors of terrorists. However, the evidence may have been obtained illegally, thus meaning it could not be brought up in trial. So, instead of risking sending these people back into the world, probably to continue their behavior, they decide it will hurt less to take the huge negative PR and keep them there with no legal recourse.

My main problem with these arguments is the people who presume that members of the US government are somehow default to good. Theres going to be good and bad people dispersed through society (most are a complex mix of both). Many of them will be in positions of government authority. Allowing these people to hold others indefinitely whether they are tortured or not (they are) is simply leaving the door completely open for corruption.

That's the thing, up until we made the masterful move of executing saddam, Ramadi was really the only hotspot left, the rest of the country was peppered by IEDs and being reconstructed, to some extent.

My friends coming back tell different stories than you will ever see on the news.

What do suicide bombers have to do with how we treat our own prisoners? They are different subjects.



It's more than offending people, there are little things like the Geneva convention (that we are legally obliged to follow mind you) and you know...morals.



Wow you can't actually believe that crap can you?

Some people surely do amaze me

The Geneva Convention was for standing militaries and soldiers in uniform.

You've totally misconstrued what he was saying. He was merely pointing out that whatever gets reported, it's going to be claimed to be part of some big left-right bias. If an otherwise neutral source pointed out that torture was really going on then there are many on the right who would ignore this, telling themselves that it's part of a left wing attack. If the same source said previous reports were exaggerations, there'd be those on the left saying the report was biased in support of Bush. What's not being addressed is the factual accuracy of the report.
This can also be seen quite a lot when science plays a role in politics and various groups want to stick their fingers in their ears and ignore the facts or reject results that go against their political ideas. A similar thing happened with the O-rings on the Challenger rocket that blew up. The management didn't want to listen to the engineers, but there's no fooling mother nature (I may have just quasi-quoted Feynman).

Exactly.

Ahh, so if they had matching uniforms we wouldn't torture them.

No silly.

They need to not have skin different than ours.

If they wore a uniform they couldn't hide in groups of civilians and take pot-shots at our soldiers, they wouldn't put civilians at risk for return fire, and they'd have a represented structure and region for us to eliminate.

Sounds a lot like the perspective of the British during the revolutionary war.

Doesn't it? And we used it to our full advantage. None of the conventions had happened at that time either.