Best way to support the troops
Vince Thomas' letter to the editor in the QC Times:
When I last wrote in August, the number of U.S. military dead in Iraq was 1,862. As of Nov. 1, it was 2,035. The total loss of lives is much higher; including the coalition forces, the total is 2,244. Including other casualties, the total estimated dead, to date, is more than 32,000 in Iraq with more than 15,220 wounded U.S. military.
As of Oct. 29, there were 248 contractors killed, 105 of them Americans. A total of 53 journalists have been killed, including several Americans. Iraqi police deaths total 4,239 and 1,641 military personnel. Between 26,000 and 30,000 civilian men, women and children have died.
For those concerned about the number of immigrants in the country, Hispanics lead with more than 211 deaths compared to other groups. African-American deaths were more than 203.
Unfortunately, casualties will continue to rise, since there is no plan to end the war. If all celebratory activities such as the World Series, the Super Bowl, NASCAR and ice hockey in the country ceased until the troops came home, Congress and the president would act deliberately. Support our troops; bring them home whole and well. Learn more at www.icasualties.org.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 11/12/2005
14 comments
14 Comments:
Great Veterans Day tribute.
I think it was a great Verterans Day tribute, dave. Does not the value of some commodity increase when it becomes rarer? Why don't we increase the value of the sacrifice of our veterans by making armed conflict rarer? Why is it not honoring and supporting our troops to call for them to come home and return to their regular lives and jobs?
Yes Dave. I agree.
There's no better service to veterans than making sure that the people they serve are fully aware of the reality of lives shattered and families devastated.
Acting as if it's a John Wayne movie or some video game is dangerous and stupid and leads to more lives lost, blood spilled, and life-long mental problems for veterans.
The right wing armchair generals of the 101st Fighting Keyboard brigade do a great disservice to our men and women in the military by continuing to excuse the continued waste of lives and treasure and pretending that the invasion of Iraq is anything less than an unwinable mistake at best.
Thomas' letter honors our troops in the most fundamental way.
And where did you serve?
Policy of torture, huh? I missed that in this letter. Maybesomebody's off topic, and I'm guessing you did not serve either.
You can call all the names you want, but you're dead wrong. You're wrong about the CIA not wanting it, you're wrong about Bush wanting to legalize torture.
The McCain Amendment is driven by the so-called torture narrative: the proposition that CIA techniques for questioning high-level al Qaeda detainees somehow "migrated" to Iraq and caused the Abu Ghraib abuses. But the irony is that Congress is proposing this remedial overreaction at the very moment the evidence has become overwhelming that the torture narrative is false.
If Osama bin Laden is alive and looking for signs of flagging U.S. will to fight the war on terror, he need look no further than our national debate about interrogating his compatriots and others who would do us harm.
Post-9/11, after all, it is hardly far-fetched to imagine a scenario in which our ability to extract information from a terrorist is the only thing that might prevent a bioterror attack or even the nuclear annihilation of an American city. And we know for a fact that information wrung from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others has helped prevent further attacks on U.S. soil.
Yet according to many Bush Administration critics, the aggressive and stressful questioning techniques used successfully against the likes of KSM put the U.S. on a slippery slope to widespread "torture" and the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. John McCain (R., Arizona) has pushed an amendment through the Senate that would effectively bar all stressful interrogation techniques. The danger for American security is that this would telegraph to every terrorist in the world that he has absolutely nothing to fear from silence should he fall into U.S. hands.
And since you've decided to make it legal in this thread to call engage in personal attacks with those whose opinion differs from yours, YOU SIR< ARE A DUMBASS!
Maybesomeday
Great comeback, dumbass! Now go lie down.
BTW,if proven to work, and we'll assume it does for arguments sake.
If your child was kidnapped and they caught someone they believed knew where your child was, would you want them to use aggressive and stressful questioning techniques?
dave,
Yeah, I saw that television show also. They knew for certain that the fellow they captured knew where the kidnapped child was.
In real life those situations do not seem to arise. In real life they do not know what their detainees know. And torture is not a good way to figure that out. If you torture someone and ask them where the kidnapped child is they will tell you whatever they think you want to hear in order to stop the pain -- no use at all in determining what they know.
The one thing that you can be sure about torture is that it turns those doing the torture into monsters. And that is what this Administration is doing to us - the American people.
I'll take that as a no, which either means you're lying to support your argument, or you have no children. So does Cheney just want to "torture" these guys for sport?
Dave,
You're way out on the stupid limb here.
First, your premise that only those who have served in the military can express opinions on our countries war policies or mention immoral violence and death it causes is simply false. End of story. Give it up.
Secondly, you've evidently managed to muddy the torture issue in your own mind so thoroughly that you want to do so for others.
You honestly think that the country which, until the Republicans and Bush got a hold of it, was globally respected for having standards when it came to human rights, should now somehow abandon them all and crawl into the ditch with Hitler, Stalin, and all the other murderous dicatators whose torture policies were the impetus for the Geneva conventions and UN rules against torture ?
Why do you hate America so, Dave?
Why do you want to destroy what makes her great?
And your goofy "what-if" scenario is likewise simply a red herring.
Having a person in custody which we knew had knowledge which could prevent an attack and we only had hours before such an attack is frankly, nearly impossible. It's on the outlier of any statistical probabilities, and the fact that you must revert to such way-out scenarios to try to justify the unjustifiable is proof that your arguments are all wet.
IF such an unlikely thing were to occur, I'm sure that the people involved would do whatever they felt necessary at the moment and face the consequences later.
But what we're talking about is a policy which in essense says that Bush is able to ANYTHING he wants during war time, no matter the law, no matter the treaty, no matter WHAT.
This of course destroys our entire system of checks and balances. It thumbs it's nose at all conventional rules of war, and it argues that Bush is simply above all laws completely and should not be accountable to anyone, or anything.
This is NOT the way it is done here Dave.
The reason McCain and others are so adamant about stopping this reckless policy in it's tracks is that he, and everyone else with a brain, realizes that by torture, you,
A. Don't get good intelligence, and you may actually get WORSE than no information, namely, false information. Torture victims will "confess" to anything the torturer wants them to say, or short of that, will just make shit up in order to stop the torture.
In other words TORTURE DOES NOT WORK. Period.
B. If we adopt such policies we are throwing away what moral high ground we have. We're no better than the worst tyrants in history.
C. And more importantly, by adopting the policy you're in favor of, we're endangering all American service men and women in the future. Why would any enemy feel compelled in the slightest to adhere to the Geneva convention when we think we don't have to? It will lead to our captured armed service members being subjected to unimaginable and barbaric horrors.
And you, the big "support our troops" guy, who probably has at least a half dozen little magnetic ribbons on your vehicle, you're in favor of exposing our troops to a greater liklihood of torture Dave? Why?
In short, you're just not thinking, and you're trying too hard and willing to go too far into la-la land to continue to stick up for a gang who even you, I suspect, realize is way over the line and out of control. They need to be stopped. Might as well be a good American and pitch in.
Support the troops, Dave.
and furthermore, your whhole argument is based on the false premise that coersive interrogation is not effective. You're wrong, it is. Otherwise, what is the logical reason for so many of these agancies to be even interested in it?
What you and the Senators are doing is moral preening, which suggests that there is a another answer you are trying to give if you're being honest rather than preening. That answer is: "I want to go on record taking the high-minded position against torture, but in the event that it actually becomes necessary, I expect you--policeman, FBI agent, whoever--to disregard the law and do what you have to do." Which is essentially what you said. Hypocrits, all of you.
As for suggesting that only those who hwve served can comment on war policy is something I never suggested. Take a poll of veteran's, active duty and national guard who are involved or have been involved in Iraq and Afgahnistan and my bet is they want to finish the job. Their opinion does matter more than yours.
Youe arguments are based on so many false premises it's like arguing with someone about what color of fruit a green bean is. You continual questioning of why I hate america is laughable. You're a said little man.
Where to begin?
First of all, I'm not "preening". I didn't try to hide the fact that, in the rarer than rare situation where it's certain that a suspect has information which can save lives, that torture might be used, but only if all other methods fail.
In that situation, like all others, the suspect can always just say whatever he thinks you want to hear. THAT is a fact, not a false premise as you try to suggest. Ask Sen. McCain.
Also, this isn't about saying that detainees can't be coerced in many different ways short of abject cruelty and brutality. It's just saying that there needs to be clear and definite lines which can't be crossed without consequences.
Are you arguing in favor of say, pulling out someones fingernails one by one, or some other sadistic and immoral tactic?
The fact that we're even debating whether torture is ever justified speaks volumes about how truly immoral we've become. The fact that you and other righties are arguing in FAVOR of it is what is truly cause for alarm.
What are you going to try to defend next? Murder? Robbery?
Secondly, your saying that the opinions of those who have served in the military or are currently serving means more than mine or any other citizen of the United States is a bunch of shit, pardon my French.
No one's opinion on the way our government conducts itself in our name is any more important than anyone elses, and to suggest so is downright un-American.
Why do you hate this country Dave? Why do you want to pervert it with your radical anti-democratic, immoral ideas?
Your ideas have popped up from time to time across history, and thankfully, they've always been rejected and thrown back onto the trash heap. It's only a matter of time before this periodic blot on our country is again dismissed and all the radical right will withdraw to their cabins and basements and Freeper chat rooms where they can't damage our democracy.
It can't happen too soon.
It's good of you to finally admit that "in the rarer than rare situation where it's certain that a suspect has information which can save lives, that torture might be used". Look, you're either for it or against it. We've just established you are for it. I doubt fingernail pullin is an effective means of getting information, so I would have to say I'm against it.Although, if provin effective at saving lives of our men and women, I would have to reconsider.
As far as militery service goes, I'm in no way advocating say two votes for those who currently or in the past have worn the uniform. My point, which was not very clearly stated, is that they have more professional knowledge than say someone like you who gets most of their information regarding what is happening in Iraq from left wing blogs. I wouldn't ask the mailman if he thought we should put the enflamed building out or run, I'd ask the fireman.
I'm pretty sure these ideas are alive and well far from the trash heap. There's nothing radical or undemocratic about Bush doing what he said he was going to do and getting reelected ont it.
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