4,000 dead Americans

[EricMM 0]

Some witches need to burn...

 

Especially a president and cabinet who openly endorses American torture.

 

From our founding DAYS we were against it. When we were fighting to EXIST against the British, we still did not torture any captives we had.

[snuffbox 0]

9-11 changed everything, though. For some reason that day means that now we have to adopt the enemy's strategies and fail miserably for it.

[Atticus Chaos 0]

Some witches need to burn...

 

Especially a president and cabinet who openly endorses American torture.

 

From our founding DAYS we were against it. When we were fighting to EXIST against the British, we still did not torture any captives we had.

 

 

What exactly do you do to them, though? You can't send a former President and Vice president to jail. And as much as some might relish the thought, sending Bush and co to their deaths isn't really an option.

 

Thinking about it: Hillary is more likely to pursuit legal action than Obama. She strikes me as the vengeful type.

 

[Guest Teal-y Dan]

That's not really uniting the country and being "post-partisan" at all!

[At Home 0]

Some witches need to burn...

 

Especially a president and cabinet who openly endorses American torture.

 

From our founding DAYS we were against it. When we were fighting to EXIST against the British, we still did not torture any captives we had.

 

We did tar & feather tax collectors though. That's pretty close. Because, you know, they died.

[NoCalMike 0]

Rapid Withdrawal Is Only Solution

By William E. Odom, lieutenant general, USA (retired)

Information Clearinghouse

 

Wednesday 02 April 2008

Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq.

Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you again. The last occasion was in January 2007, when the topic was the troop surge. Today you are asking if it has worked. Last year I rejected the claim that it was a new strategy. Rather, I said, it is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability. And I foresaw no serious prospects for success.

 

I see no reason to change my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims.

 

Last year, General Petraeus wisely declined to promise a military solution to this political problem, saying that he could lower the level of violence, allowing a limited time for the Iraqi leaders to strike a political deal. Violence has been temporarily reduced but today there is credible evidence that the political situation is far more fragmented. And currently we see violence surge in Baghdad and Basra. In fact, it has also remained sporadic and significant inseveral other parts of Iraq over the past year, notwithstanding the notable drop in Baghdad and Anbar Province.

 

More disturbing, Prime Minister Maliki has initiated military action and then dragged in US forces to help his own troops destroy his Shiite competitors. This is a political setback, not a political solution. Such is the result of the surge tactic.

 

No less disturbing has been the steady violence in the Mosul area, and the tensions in Kirkuk between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomen. A showdown over control of the oil fields there surely awaits us. And the idea that some kind of a federal solution can cut this Gordian knot strikes me as a wild fantasy, wholly out of touch with Kurdish realities.

 

Also disturbing is Turkey's military incursion to destroy Kurdish PKK groups in the border region. That confronted the US government with a choice: either to support its NATO ally, or to make good on its commitment to Kurdish leaders to insure their security. It chose the former, and that makes it clear to the Kurds that the United States will sacrifice their security to its larger interests in Turkey.

 

Turning to the apparent success in Anbar province and a few other Sunni areas, this is not the positive situation it is purported to be. Certainly violence has declined as local Sunni shieks have begun to cooperate with US forces. But the surge tactic cannot be given full credit. The decline started earlier on Sunni initiative. What are their motives? First, anger at al Qaeda operatives and second, their financial plight.

 

Their break with al Qaeda should give us little comfort. The Sunnis welcomed anyone who would help them kill Americans, including al Qaeda. The concern we hear the president and his aides express about a residual base left for al Qaeda if we withdraw is utter nonsense. The Sunnis will soon destroy al Qaeda if we leave Iraq. The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest al Qaeda. To understand why, one need only take note of the al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime. As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of the Senate are aligned with al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.

 

Let me emphasize that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased. You might want to find out the total costs for these deals forecasted for the next several years, because they are not small and they do not promise to end. Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time, this deal protects them to some degree from the government's troops and police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.

 

Now let us consider the implications of the proliferating deals with the Sunni strongmen. They are far from unified among themselves. Some remain with al Qaeda. Many who break and join our forces are beholden to no one. Thus the decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves. Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.

 

This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications. At the same time, Prime Minister Maliki's military actions in Basra and Baghdad, indicate even wider political and military fragmentation. We are witnessing is more accurately described as the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation. We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to political centralization. He describes the process as building the state from the bottom up.

 

I challenge you to press the administration's witnesses this week to explain this absurdity. Ask them to name a single historical case where power has been aggregated successfully from local strong men to a central government except through bloody violence leading to a single winner, most often a dictator. That is the history of feudal Europe's transformation to the age of absolute monarchy. It is the story of the American colonization of the west and our Civil War. It took England 800 years to subdue clan rule on what is now the English-Scottish border. And it is the source of violence in Bosnia and Kosovo.

 

How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense.

 

To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the administration's witnesses appear before you, you should make them clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.

 

The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region. The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq. And progress toward that goal requires revising our policy toward Iran. If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support to Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a US attack on Iran. Iran's policy toward Iraq would also have to change radically as we withdraw. It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.

 

No quick reconciliation between the US and Iran is likely, but US steps to make Iran feel more secure make it far more conceivable than a policy calculated to increase its insecurity. The president's policy has reinforced Iran's determination to acquire nuclear weapons, the very thing he purports to be trying to prevent.

 

Withdrawal from Iraq does not mean withdrawal from the region. It must include a realignment and reassertion of US forces and diplomacy that give us a better chance to achieve our aim.

 

A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely. I have refuted them repeatedly before but they have more lives than a cat. Let try again me explain why they don't make sense.

 

First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe and effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs and junior officers I have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on military skills.

 

Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the "domino theory" in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it. The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.

 

Third, nay sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran's regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies' interest.

 

I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the commitment of US forces to war in Iraq.

 

Thanks for this opportunity to testify today.

 

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Odom makes some fantastic points. Too bad the Democrats are too stupid to listen.

[EricMM 0]

We did tar & feather tax collectors though. That's pretty close. Because, you know, they died.

Yeah, but that wasn't exactly "official" ...

[Vyce 0]

Some witches need to burn...

 

Especially a president and cabinet who openly endorses American torture.

 

From our founding DAYS we were against it. When we were fighting to EXIST against the British, we still did not torture any captives we had.

 

You're shamelessly exaggerating (which is me being nice and not saying "outright lying"). No one has openly endorsed torture.

 

The problem is, what people define as torture these days is very much subjective. Or I suppose I could say, what YOUR people define as torture these days can be fucking clownshoes.

 

The worst your side can point to is waterboarding, and that just doesn't cut it, Eric.

 

We're not just taking random Arabs and putting bamboo slivers under their fingernails. But regardless, I know you like to get cute and treat this all as a POLICE action, but it isn't. The same protections do not and should not apply.

[snuffbox 0]

I'm not familiar with waterboarding. May I see a demonstration done to you, vyce?

[EricMM 0]

Except waterboarding is torture, so...

[Jingus 0]

I'd volunteer for it, just to shut people up. Waterboarding is an unpleasant interrogation technique, and the public hasn't been shown much proof that it's actually helped the war effort in concrete ways, but it's not torture. Torture involves violent physical damage, causes excruciating pain, and typically leaves permenent scars or deformities. I'd rather be waterboarded a hundred times than undergo the kind of torture which the Geneva Convention actually set out to ban in the first place.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward (the Trendelenburg position), and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.[1] Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.[2] In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.[3] Although waterboarding does not always cause lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death.[4] The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.[5]

 

Waterboarding was used for interrogation at least as early as the Spanish Inquisition to obtain information,[6] coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. It is considered to be torture by a wide range of authorities, including legal experts,[4][7] politicians, war veterans,[8][9] intelligence officials,[10] military judges,[11] and human rights organizations.[12][13]

 

Wikipedia

 

Painting by person who was waterboarded in Pol Pot's Cambodia:

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Journalist Waterboarded by French Forces during Algerian War:

 

HENRI ALLEG: A tap, yes, tap water. So, very quickly, the water ran all over my face. I couldn’t, of course, breathe. And after a few minutes, fighting against the impression of getting drowned, you can’t resist. And you feel as if you were drowning yourself. And this is a terrible impression of coming very near death. And so, when the paratroopers, the torturers, see that you’re drowning, they would stop, let you breathe, and try again. So that impression of getting near to death, every time they helped you to come back to life by breathing, it’s a terrible, terrible impression of torture and of death, being near death. So, that was my impression.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot and being used on Buddhist monks as we speak.

John McCain

 

...in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian.

 

In the post-Vietnam period, the Navy SEALs and some Army Special Forces used a form of waterboarding with trainees to prepare them to resist interrogation if captured. The waterboarding proved so successful in breaking their will, says one former Navy captain familiar with the practice, "they stopped using it because it hurt morale."

 

Personally, I would prefer that my country not follow in the footsteps of Tojo's Japan, the Khmer Rouge, the Spanish Inquisition, & Augusto Pinochet.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Some witches need to burn...

 

Especially a president and cabinet who openly endorses American torture.

 

From our founding DAYS we were against it. When we were fighting to EXIST against the British, we still did not torture any captives we had.

 

You're shamelessly exaggerating (which is me being nice and not saying "outright lying"). No one has openly endorsed torture.

 

If you want to define torture up, fine. But whether the most senior officials in the Bush administration approved these (deliciously Orwellian-named) "enhanced interrogation techniques" is not in question:

 

As first reported by ABC News on Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high value suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.

 

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

 

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate...

 

...the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

ABC News

[snuffbox 0]

Fucking clownshoes.

[Firestarter 0]

I'm willing to bet that I'm the only one here who's ever actually undergone the procedure. If you haven't, it's fairly simple. The details have all been spelled out in innumerable articles.

 

It's not torture. It's coercion. There is a difference. And anyway, I don't care. Mohammedan terrorists? Go right ahead and torture them. Really, do I give a fuck if Mohammed Abdul Ahmed al-Jihad gets electrocuted a few dozen times to stop his pals from killing another 3000 Americans? Nope. Break out the fucking branding irons and the rack.

 

Second point: the Japs lost. They were traitors and sadists and murderers. So fuck 'em.

[At Home 0]

Second point: the Japs lost. They were traitors and sadists and murderers. So fuck 'em.

 

I'm not going to take the bait on the first part on what you said, but I never really knew that the Japanese were traitors. They were the most brutal soldiers in WWII. Not the strongest, but certainly up there in thirst for blood. Multiple accounts of Japanese soldiers getting wounded, and when an American soldier attempted to help them, he pulled the pin on his grenade. Not to mention they trained every woman and child with whittled bamboo staffs to kill one American soldier before they were blown away. But we firebombed their asses, set their entire city on fire, and even set the air on fire. Bruuuuuuutal.

[Firestarter 0]

Not to mention they trained every woman and child with whittled bamboo staffs to kill one American soldier before they were blown away. But we firebombed their asses, set their entire city on fire, and even set the air on fire. Bruuuuuuutal.

Yeah. Also they made their women and children run at American troops in order to provide cover. Really brave.

 

btw, somewhat related: how many people still know that we killed more people with the firebombings of Tokyo than the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

 

I'm not going to take the bait on the first part on what you said, but I never really knew that the Japanese were traitors.

Sorry, bad choice of words. I meant "treacherous" and I typed the wrong thing. Pearl Harbor was my intended reference.

 

They were the most brutal soldiers in WWII. Not the strongest, but certainly up there in thirst for blood. Multiple accounts of Japanese soldiers getting wounded, and when an American soldier attempted to help them, he pulled the pin on his grenade.

Definitely. For sheer inhumanity I doubt that even the Nazi extermination of the Jews held a candle to the viciousness of the Japs, although obviously, the death camps surpassed horrors like the Bataan death march in scale. I don't know how to compare a total lack of humanity with a delight in cruelty, but from all accounts the Japs were definitely one of the most fucking evil enemies we've ever had to fight.

[At Home 0]

btw, somewhat related: how many people still know that we killed more people with the firebombings of Tokyo than the incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

 

Me. Much more, in fact. The nuclear weapons did serve their purpose though.

 

Pearl Harbor was my intended reference.

Interestingly, Pearl Harbor was a limited tactical success. They didn't knock out communications or supplies at Pearl Harbor, only destroyed a few ships (the big boys were coincidentally out at sea), and chose not to send a second wave.

 

Definitely. For sheer inhumanity I doubt that even the Nazi extermination of the Jews held a candle to the viciousness of the Japs, although obviously, the death camps surpassed horrors like the Bataan death march in scale. I don't know how to compare a total lack of humanity with a delight in cruelty, but from all accounts the Japs were definitely one of the most fucking evil enemies we've ever had to fight.

 

Not to mention the Rape of Nanking. That is easily the most atrocious event in human history. Period. Japanese generals would have contests to see how many Chinese they could behead by sword in one day. Not to mention human experimentation and several other gruesome atrocities.

 

Do you know why our strategy was island hopping? After Pearl Harbor, we had to concentrate our efforts against Germany for a good amount of time, and build up an army, and switch to a wartime economy. In all that time, the Japanese rolled all throughout the Pacific and set up forts on small islands around the pacific. A fort is set up so that it is totally defendable, and in order to pass it, you must take it. To take a fort requires massive bloodshed. The Japanese actually thought that the Americans were pussies and wouldn't accept the life loss in order to take the forts and advance through the Pacific. Well, they were wrong.

 

Fun fact: after the battle of Coral Sea, both armies had set up camp around New Guinea. As the Americans progressed forward through NG and up to Japan, Australian citizens living up there became spies and routinely reported back to American commanders in the area. Also, in several islands, Americans teamed up with none other than Pacific cannibals to defeat the Japanese on some critical islands.

[Firestarter 0]

Once a few women began achieving in positions once reserved for men, more and more men began to see them as equals and were accepted. The Civil Rights movement was jumpstarted because the public was made aware that patriotic African-Americans who had sacrificed for this country returned from Europe and were still treated as second-class citizens, and it was further galvanized when peaceful protestors were brutalized on television for all the nation to see. Ignorance and bigotry allow and perpetuate evil. It stands to reason that knowledge is its cure, and an educated society will strive to be a just society. Even if humans are not all good, the desire to think you are good may be enough to compel you to do the right thing.

I accept this in part and reject it in part. Here's contra:

 

1. In the vast majority of states, free blacks had all the rights of free whites even before the American Revolution, including the right to vote and hold office, long before the Emancipation Proclamation.

 

2. Women had better professional prospects in 1900 than in 2000, and earned higher wages than equally-qualified men.

 

3. Judeo-Christian values were a large part of the reason why women's suffrage and the civil rights movement eventually succeeded.

 

Here's pro (with some qualifiers):

 

1. Ignorance and bigotry do indeed allow and perpetuate evil. Burke, good men to do nothing, &c.

 

2. An educated society should, in theory, lead to a just society - but only so long as the education is objective and not ideologically tilted. I think even you can agree with me that there is a definite leftward tilt today, even though we might have differences concerning to what degree it exists

 

3. Self-corrections in the light of established mores are documented psychological and sociological phenomena. However, such corrections have always been less transient and more heartfelt, resulting in greater quantifiable benefits, when they are a product of faith and goodwill rather than a process imposed by bureaucratic fiat.

[Firestarter 0]

(everything)

 

Can't find a single comma to criticize.

[Ginger Snaps 0]

nothing.

[EricMM 0]

And yet now, ~50 years later, they're our very best friends.

 

Weird.

[At Home 0]

And yet now, ~50 years later, they're our very best friends.

 

Weird.

 

Not surprising. Douglas MacArthur ran the country for 6 years, instituted several democratic reforms, and was actually well-received by the Japanese.

[Firestarter 0]

...and now they're selling schoolgirls' used panties from sidewalk vending machines.

 

Either we dropped too many atom bombs on them or not enough.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Nah, too many... every country we be fucking up with DA BOMBS gets into some aweso... horrible kind of sick, twisted fetishes

[At Home 0]

Nah, too many... every country we be fucking up with DA BOMBS gets into some aweso... horrible kind of sick, twisted fetishes

 

I'd say just the right amount. It was really either that or a full-on invasion of Japan. I mean, we would've kicked their asses, but the casualty count would have been in the six digit range.

 

The reason why they are so crazy weird is because of the whole rapid modernization after Commodore Perry.

[Firestarter 0]

Yeah, agreed. And the backlash-kinda thing when we forced them to start treating women like human beings.