US tortures

[Sarex]

The time will come when the US will have to pay the piper, you can only make so many enemies and still get away with it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Man, when did we get overrun by conspiracy nuts?

Sometimes after PoE was funded.

 

SJWs are actually a right-wing conspiracy to destroy the left by making them look revolting.

[Gfted1]

There isn't a nation powerful enough, or motivated enough, to take the US down and little pissant terrorist organizations already have the hurt in the butt. So who's going to teach us this lesson? 

[Gorgon]

The US is to immediately implement the metric system and the 230v - 50hz standard or I will use my giant laser to ignite the atmosphere. 

[Gfted1]

You monster! You know we cannot into metric!

[BruceVC]

There isn't a nation powerful enough, or motivated enough, to take the US down and little pissant terrorist organizations already have the hurt in the butt. So who's going to teach us this lesson? 

 

This is very true but the more important point is that that we don't want a world without the USA and its Western ideology

 

Imagine living like  the Chinese or following the doctrines of Russia or the Middle East....it would be depressing

[Malcador]

There isn't a nation powerful enough, or motivated enough, to take the US down and little pissant terrorist organizations already have the hurt in the butt. So who's going to teach us this lesson?

Well his point was basically that nothing lasts forever, so he's right. But even so, the US has done a good job of playing the game post WW2. Testament to power in that the reaction to this will be mainly words from other nations.

[Gfted1]

Well his point was basically that nothing lasts forever, so he's right. But even so, the US has done a good job of playing the game post WW2. Testament to power in that the reaction to this will be mainly words from other nations.

 

Exactly.

 

Bitter Mideast greets US torture report with shrug.

[Namutree]

 

I hate the CIA. I wish we would just get rid of it.

The intelligence agency that takes its place would be just as bad - well, unless you think a power like the US has no need of a foreign-targeted intelligence agency

 

I don't think we do. We were better off before the CIA. 

[Malcador]

US played a different role before it as well. But if you do, then you'll have multiple agencies (even more than now, currently), which is inefficient.

[Rostere]

I think you guys are gravely underestimating the implications and potential negative consequences of this behaviour.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Rostere

[Sarex]

 

There isn't a nation powerful enough, or motivated enough, to take the US down and little pissant terrorist organizations already have the hurt in the butt. So who's going to teach us this lesson?

Well his point was basically that nothing lasts forever, so he's right. But even so, the US has done a good job of playing the game post WW2. Testament to power in that the reaction to this will be mainly words from other nations.

 

Pretty much this, I wasn't talking about some "holy" crusade against the US or anything similar. My point was when the US system starts falling apart (by internal or external influences) it's going to end up bloody.

 

As for who is strong enough to take down the US, well China is a pretty good contender, Russia isn't that far fetched either (least we forget how history repeats it self(many times)). Agiel and some other forum goers have been drinking too much of the "US is unbeatable" propaganda coolaid that their country has been churning out.

[Darkpriest]

There isn't a nation powerful enough, or motivated enough, to take the US down and little pissant terrorist organizations already have the hurt in the butt. So who's going to teach us this lesson? 

 

"barbarians" ... was it a nation that destroyed the Rome or Rome's own decadency and mix of nations within the empire?

 

The only reason US became the powerhouse in the mid 1900s' is was the continental isolation.

[Hurlshort]

It would be extremely bad for both Russia and China is the US fell apart.  They've got way too much invested in it.

[Rostere]

China or India are pretty much the only contenders for the US' throne. Russia seems very far-fetched to me. They are too small to compete. The image of Russia as an important country is only based on their nuclear arsenal from the previous century, their size on the world maps, and their adjacency to Europe (which has both facilitated trade and recently sparked conflicts). If not because of that, we wouldn't be talking about them more than we talked about, say, Italy.

 

On the other hand, it looks pretty inevitable that the American ship is going down, albeit slowly and perhaps not with a dramatic shift. If we look at the facts, the US' share of the world economy has been shrinking since the 1950s. The peak of US power was likely somewhere around 1950. We are not discussing what might happen in the future as much as we are discussing what has been happening for a long time now.

 

But who knows, the direction we are heading in now might shift in unexpected ways. What if the current wave of nationalism, separatism and general desire to punch yourself in the **** in the EU and Russia blows over, a US/EU free trade zone is created, and after that a US/EU/Russian one? It would be the only scenario in which the economic weight of the world does not shift to Asia.

[Sarex]

It would be extremely bad for both Russia and China is the US fell apart.  They've got way too much invested in it.

 

That is a myth. It would be bad if China fell apart though.

 

 

But who knows, the direction we are heading in now might shift in unexpected ways. What if the current wave of nationalism, separatism and general desire to punch yourself in the **** in the EU and Russia blows over, a US/EU free trade zone is created, and after that a US/EU/Russian one? It would be the only scenario in which the economic weight of the world does not shift to Asia.

 

One can dream.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Sarex

[Zoraptor]

I think you guys are gravely underestimating the implications and potential negative consequences of this behaviour.

 

Dunno about that.

 

Internally, many in the US really do big B Believe in Truth, Justice and The American Way. The report will run into cognitive dissonance via obfuscation ("they've got it wrong in various ways we're not going to be specific about so you can disregard the report in whole, trust us, we're here to protect you from evil doers!") and special pleading ("but we only did it to bad guys!") with most clutching any straw to avoid admitting there was wrongdoing. Plenty don't Believe, but they will likely already know about waterboarding and have seen Abu Ghraib pictures etc

 

In Europe it may appal some but it is likely that they already knew about it. It won't shift the politicians who pretty much definitively knew about it and in some cases actively encouraged and helped in it, that would require actual principles rather than smug rhetorical constructions about how much better we really are than other people. Anyone in power taking an actual stand against the US? Don't make me laugh. Peons with inconvenient beliefs can be safely ignored, as always.

 

In the Middle East there won't be much reaction, most of the governments are US clients and most of the populations already knew about it anyway- much like Collateral Murder it may shock some softie western types who live in a bubble of self satisfaction and propaganda, but the people there already know about it and have a generally low opinion already.

 

In the wider context there will be little reaction beyond some posturing. What are they going to do, apply sanctions? Send the US to the ICC? Yeah right... Worst they'll get is precisely what they've already got, some po faced Chinese diplomat who is rampantly trollfacing internally telling the US to live up to international norms and expectations and how very disappointed they are that the US are actually a bunch of despicable quasi Gestapo torturers who torture, oh the humanity.

 

There should be consequences of course, the US already established that the punishment for waterboarding was execution seventy years ago when Japanese were executed for torturing US servicemen via waterboarding. There should be consequences for the lies and obfuscation. But there won't be. Instead the same people who believe in torture and that freezing prisoners to death is legal will get more powers to 'protect' their citizens from the evil doers while wilfully disregarding laws that are supposed to protect their citizens from them. Then people will wonder why police think they can shoot people with impunity, why politicians think they can imprison journalists to extort inconvenient sources from them and force ever more restrictive 'anti terror' laws, internet censorship etc upon people.

[Valsuelm]

 

 

I don't understand. When something bad happens like WTC, Boston etc. People demand from government a harsh response. The words "let's nuke the whole middle east" fly around despite most of Americans couldn't point to the middle east on a map.

But now the same people acts as a "moral high ground" when government does exactly what they were asked to do?

 

 

I hate the CIA. I wish we would just get rid of it.

Yep....

 

It definitely needs to go. Easier said than done though.

 

J.F.K. was seriously talking about doing so, and look what happened to him.

 

He got shot by a random American commie.

 

There's quite a bit more to it than that.

 

 

Sorry, I've been indoctrinated by factual evidence.  Baaa.

 

 

So you've been indoctrinated by a proven plagiarist? Someone who has been shown to have lied about his work on numerous occasions? Someone who comes off in interviews as a slimy hack ignorant of many facets of what was going on in the nation/world at the time his works cover? Are you kidding me?

 

Is there anything that has happened in the history of the U.S. that occurred that popular history and official government stories say that you question? Anything? Is there anything in the popular narrative you don't agree with? That you find evidence proves wrong?

 

JFK aside, can you name any head of state in the western world in the past ~150 years that's been assassinated by anyone other than the 'lone gunman'?

Edited December 10, 2014 by Valsuelm

[Gfted1]

As for who is strong enough to take down the US, well China is a pretty good contender, Russia isn't that far fetched either (least we forget how history repeats it self(many times)). Agiel and some other forum goers have been drinking too much of the "US is unbeatable" propaganda coolaid that their country has been churning out.

Oh, you are referring to a nuclear exchange? In that case it is almost impossible to determine an outcome. If you mean a conventional war where the US is invaded, the only thing China and Russian will contribute is the beginning of an outstanding artificial reef, with their navies at the bottom of the ocean.

 

The best bet would be to get a zillion Mexicans to invade but they have a third world armed forces and any gains would be quickly lost.

[Rostere]

 

I think you guys are gravely underestimating the implications and potential negative consequences of this behaviour.

 

Dunno about that.

 

Internally, many in the US really do big B Believe in Truth, Justice and The American Way. The report will run into cognitive dissonance via obfuscation ("they've got it wrong in various ways we're not going to be specific about so you can disregard the report in whole, trust us, we're here to protect you from evil doers!") and special pleading ("but we only did it to bad guys!") with most clutching any straw to avoid admitting there was wrongdoing. Plenty don't Believe, but they will likely already know about waterboarding and have seen Abu Ghraib pictures etc

 

In Europe it may appal some but it is likely that they already knew about it. It won't shift the politicians who pretty much definitively knew about it and in some cases actively encouraged and helped in it, that would require actual principles rather than smug rhetorical constructions about how much better we really are than other people. Anyone in power taking an actual stand against the US? Don't make me laugh. Peons with inconvenient beliefs can be safely ignored, as always.

 

In the Middle East there won't be much reaction, most of the governments are US clients and most of the populations already knew about it anyway- much like Collateral Murder it may shock some softie western types who live in a bubble of self satisfaction and propaganda, but the people there already know about it and have a generally low opinion already.

 

In the wider context there will be little reaction beyond some posturing. What are they going to do, apply sanctions? Send the US to the ICC? Yeah right... Worst they'll get is precisely what they've already got, some po faced Chinese diplomat who is rampantly trollfacing internally telling the US to live up to international norms and expectations and how very disappointed they are that the US are actually a bunch of despicable quasi Gestapo torturers who torture, oh the humanity.

 

There should be consequences of course, the US already established that the punishment for waterboarding was execution seventy years ago when Japanese were executed for torturing US servicemen via waterboarding. There should be consequences for the lies and obfuscation. But there won't be. Instead the same people who believe in torture and that freezing prisoners to death is legal will get more powers to 'protect' their citizens from the evil doers while wilfully disregarding laws that are supposed to protect their citizens from them. Then people will wonder why police think they can shoot people with impunity, why politicians think they can imprison journalists to extort inconvenient sources from them and force ever more restrictive 'anti terror' laws, internet censorship etc upon people.

 

I'm not talking about so specific and immediate consequences. I'm talking about the legacy of 20th-century American democracy, which inevitably will be connected to the legacy of democracy as a whole. 50 years from now on, when Indian, Indonesian and Chinese schoolchildren will be studying this time period - the end of US economic dominance - they will inevitably pass a verdict on the morality of the system. The legacy of democracy will not be decided by how democracy has worked out in obscure countries such as Switzerland, New Zealand or Sweden.

 

In the future, people might look back on Western democracy and say, "it only leads to barbarism in the end anyway". Black stains on democracy such as the US' behaviour after 9/11 (and their Middle East policies which led to the attack) will be of utmost importance when people choose between the US and China in the future. Some people will say that ideals of democracy is a good thing. Others will then counter with this kind of behaviour and say that maybe the difference between democracy and dictatorship is not as big anyway. The US seems to be hard at work to erase any moral high ground they might have had, and replace it with cynicism in people's minds. When reports come in about how political dissidents are tortured in China, citizens of Brazil and India will not bat an eyelid because that is what they have come to expect, it will not be worse than what other potential allies do. Politics is in the long term about creating/being an example that other will want to follow.

[Malcador]

I think you guys are gravely underestimating the implications and potential negative consequences of this behaviour.

So what do you expect then, as you apparently have the read of this ?

 

Ah, never mind, late refresh. Am not too sure that the US doing shady stuff as every nation has done is a damning indictment of the high level government ideology it follows, though.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Malcador

[Valsuelm]

 

I hate the CIA. I wish we would just get rid of it.

The intelligence agency that takes its place would be just as bad - well, unless you think a power like the US has no need of a foreign-targeted intelligence agency

 

 

It would not be necessarily as bad. Key would be how it was formed, why, who was running it, to what end, and how the CIA was dismantled.

 

And no.. the U.S. really doesn't need something like the CIA at all in the first place. It's entire existence would become largely pointless if the U.S. stopped working for global imperialists.

 

That said, I don't expect the CIA to be dismantled or an end to that imperialism anytime remotely soon.

[Zoraptor]

I'm not talking about so specific and immediate consequences. I'm talking about the legacy of 20th-century American democracy, which inevitably will be connected to the legacy of democracy as a whole. 50 years from now on, when Indian, Indonesian and Chinese schoolchildren will be studying this time period - the end of US economic dominance - they will inevitably pass a verdict on the morality of the system. The legacy of democracy will not be decided by how democracy has worked out in obscure countries such as Switzerland, New Zealand or Sweden.

 

 

China views the US as a rival and for ideological/ political reasons wouldn't give the US good PR even if she lived up to the rhetoric. And India is already a democracy, how that is viewed by Indians will be whole orders of magnitude more influenced by how the Indian democracy works rather than how the (markedly different) US republican model works; as well as by things like the US response to Bhopal. If they wanted to cast aspersions on/ slur the US then there's plenty of evidence to do so without this report, it's just a handy reference guide for stuff people already know and the local stuff will trump all.

 

And really, if the US does torture, murder etc then it would be good that other countries don't try to mimic them, and good that they would lose influence. Because any ideal country wouldn't do such things. But, any honest appraisal will separate the good things about the governmental system from the bad things done by the governments it generates, and if the US links loss of influence or goodwill to its behaviour it may improve that behaviour, though far more likely they'll just try and make sure no one knows about it. That there's any chance at all of benefit is down to part of the system actually working for once though what should be the other parts, enforcement of rules and punishment of those that broke them almost certainly won't happen.

 

Brazil is an interesting mention though, since a roughly equivalent report on the excesses of the (US supported, natch) military dictatorship there was released the same day as the US torture report. And that will be the report that mostly influences Brazil's vision and thoughts on democracy as a system, not anything the US does directly.

Edited December 10, 2014 by Zoraptor

[Rostere]

 

I think you guys are gravely underestimating the implications and potential negative consequences of this behaviour.

So what do you expect then, as you apparently have the read of this ?

 

Ah, never mind, late refresh. Am not too sure that the US doing shady stuff as every nation has done is a damning indictment of the high level government ideology it follows, though.

 

I am not saying that it would be a damning indictment. I am saying that people will think it is one, which will make them cynical towards the differences between democracy and dictatorship. You can be 100% sure that the adherents of the former will not waste one second trying to exploit the US' use of torture for their own ends. In fact, it has already started. The "cynics" who believe that the US and North Korea are equally bad will get a lot of water on their mills right now.

 

 

I'm not talking about so specific and immediate consequences. I'm talking about the legacy of 20th-century American democracy, which inevitably will be connected to the legacy of democracy as a whole. 50 years from now on, when Indian, Indonesian and Chinese schoolchildren will be studying this time period - the end of US economic dominance - they will inevitably pass a verdict on the morality of the system. The legacy of democracy will not be decided by how democracy has worked out in obscure countries such as Switzerland, New Zealand or Sweden.

 

 

China views the US as a rival and for ideological/ political reasons wouldn't give the US good PR even if she lived up to the rhetoric. And India is already a democracy, how that is viewed by Indians will be whole orders of magnitude more influenced by how the Indian democracy works rather than how the (markedly different) US republican model works; as well as by things like the US response to Bhopal. If they wanted to cast aspersions on/ slur the US then there's plenty of evidence to do so without this report, it's just a handy reference guide for stuff people already know and the local stuff will trump all.

 

And really, if the US does torture, murder etc then it would be good that other countries don't try to mimic them, and good that they would lose influence. Because any ideal country wouldn't do such things. But, any honest appraisal will separate the good things about the governmental system from the bad things done by the governments it generates, and if the US links loss of influence or goodwill to its behaviour it may improve that behaviour, though far more likely they'll just try and make sure no one knows about it. That there's any chance at all of benefit is down to part of the system actually working for once though what should be the other parts, enforcement of rules and punishment of those that broke them almost certainly won't happen.

 

Brazil is an interesting mention though, since a roughly equivalent report on the excesses of the (US supported, natch) military dictatorship there was released the same day as the US torture report. And that will be the report that mostly influences Brazil's vision and thoughts on democracy as a system, not anything the US does directly.

 

You make the fallacy that you think people will actually make an honest and intelligent appraisal. (Also, I'm not talking about the influence of the US as much as the verdict on democracy). A lot of people will just think that okay, US is a democracy, China is a one-party state. US does torture, China does torture. US does surveillance of citizens, China does surveillance of citizens. So accordingly, there is no big difference between the two (democracy and one-party state) in terms of human rights.

 

HOWEVER, we of course know that there are democracies where torture would be unthinkable and the people behind it would get punished. That was for example the case in the US during the Vietnam war, when a US soldier was court-martialed for the use of waterboarding (the memory of the Japanese trials must have been more close at hand). At that time, the US was keen to be seen as a moral actor, as opposed to the Soviet Union.

 

Right now, there is no such antagonist and thus no pressure, which apparently leads to the US ignorantly digging a hole with themselves in it in order to reach moral lower ground. We've all seen the stupid arguments - "this is a new type of enemy, a brutal enemy which requires brutal methods to confront", "they would have done the same or worse to us", et.c.. Psychologically, it seems that the US has misinterpreted the so-called "war on terror" as a feces-eating contest where the most repulsive person wins (have you seen Pink Flamingos?), where the one who can reach their grubby little hands deepest into the forbidden cookie jar of war crimes and human rights violations is the winner. Meanwhile, the rest of the world (and future historians) look on in disgust.

 

Regarding Brazil: Just look at what the reports about American spying on Brazil has done to American arms sales.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Rostere

[BruceVC]

 

 

I hate the CIA. I wish we would just get rid of it.

The intelligence agency that takes its place would be just as bad - well, unless you think a power like the US has no need of a foreign-targeted intelligence agency

 

I don't think we do. We were better off before the CIA. 

 

 

The CIA is an extremely important and relevant organ of what keeps the USA safe

 

Yes they have made some questionable decisions in the past but that doesn't negate all the good work they have done and will continue to be expected to do, for example it was all there hard work that lead eventually to the capture and killing of Bin Laden

 

We live in a world where warfare is not always conducted in the conventional sense, the USA has many enemies that operate in a more surreptitious way and the CIA plays its part in countering this

 

As for the report, I see this as more of an embarrassment to the USA allies that allowed the  CIA to operate these black sites within there countries. But we already knew there was advanced interrogation that had happened. I feel it was justified but not always effective.

 

I really wouldn't lose any sleep about it, its in the past and current US government has distanced itself from these types of practices so I don' t think people should be too worried about it