US Bashing

[ravingdave]

There is a good alternative: battle field interrogations and then shoot any one not in uniform as spies using battle field drum head courts. That eliminates the years of misery problem - put the miscreants out of their misery.

Must you be so final in your solutions?

There is always the relatively mild American methods of interrogation. They leave no physical marks. The purpose of all interrogations is to change psychology. It would be rather surprising if that left no psychological marks. And the worst of those marks is that you have betrayed your cause and your comrades. You lose your faith. You are a broken man. The price of going to war. If your faith requires war you are screwed. Time for a new religion.

alex,

I think your difficulty is that you envision some kind of perfect world. That option is currently not open. There is better and there is worse. I chose better knowing that it is much less than perfect.

War is a test of wills. Some people's wills are going to get broken in the process. They are called losers.

I have read of researchers using MRI machines to monitor brain activity to determine if someone is lying. I have read of other research that purports to be moving in the direction of mind reading.

How will we like it when technology gives the government the power to read our loyalty or lack thereof ?

I think in the over all scheme of things, waterboarding will turn out to be a tempest in a tea cup.


David

[Mike Holmes]

Again, you can say that if it does no permanent physical damage, it's not torture if you like. But that's called a semantic argument. Which won't prevent people from criticizing you for it.

As for the numbers it was used upon, sources seem to disagree on that point. It'll suffice to say that it's suspected that it's been used on more than three. And, again, we're talking perceptions here; the reasons why people "bash" the USA.

Mike

[ravingdave]

Its a tad amusing if we are at war to call the other side terrorists.

I can imagine the headlines back in WWII days..

"German terrorists fly over London and drop bombs"

It just doesn't quite have the right ring about it..

(I should point out that having a large section of relatives killed by German bombs, I'm quite at liberty to joke about it..)
..

The Germans were a Nation. Terrorists are presumably not acting under the direction of a sovereign government.

But aside from that:

> It is my opinion that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of the poor,
> since poor is entirely relative to middle class and rich

I'd agree with that, its the degree of what being poor means at the bottom. Its perhaps different in the US, but in the UK we have many homeless and many poor who are paying high rents or mortgages to landlords and banks/(money lenders..) who get rich off the fat of the working class for very little work themselves.
..

I have for the last several years been pondering the concept that so many people earn money without doing any real work. For example, a friend of mine told me that he didn't mind the high oil prices. Before the prices went up, his mother was making $20,000.00 / month off of oil revenues.

I thought to myself "she should be as proud of that as if she had put the oil in the ground herself. "

It is just an example of how someone who didn't do anything to deserve their wealth, has it none the less. Bothersome.

Property prices are not based on the cost of the building, but the shortage of building land. (Which when you consider we have only built on I hear 10% of UK land, leaves an awful lot left over doing nothing..) An artitifcal shortage to push the price up perhaps... is what it looks like to me.

If the poor had low cost housing and didn't live hand to mouth, which is entirely doable, it would only require the richest to be a little less rich.. Then I believe much of the misery and often reasons behind why the poor take up arms and go to war, or become terrorist if you must say rather than freedom fighter, could be avoided by the simple act of being fair, rather than money grabbing greed..

> Communism can fix this by making everyone the same degree of
> poor, except the people who cheat, and they become the new
> wealthy. (party leadership)

Nicely put, and reminds me of my concerns for any new system of government/etc. that cheaters are a very common thing. (And most interesting to study in MMORPG's for example where its perhaps easier to spot them..) Its just that our wonderful capitalist system has its fair share of cheaters too, so its just as bad..

I do wonder if its possible to make a system you cannot cheat..
..

Have you ever heard of a game called "Liars Poker" ?

Yeah, free market capitalism can be a cut throat game, and in that regard it behooves us to have a Government that won't permit Unfair trade practices.



David

[alexjrgreen]

We DON'T torture people.

for uncontested evidence see

A Note on Sources for American Torture during the Vietnam War

p581 in

Torture and Democracy
Darius M. Rejali
Princeton University Press, 2007
ISBN 0691114226, 9780691114224

[ravingdave]

I am not positioning the religious party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (read up on that man, he will get you scared!) on the right. That is what the news media says and I think they themselves position themselves there as well.
Personally I find the separation into left and right somewhat troublesome anyway (it has more to do with the placement of a party on the chairs in the parliament than it has to do with its actually ideals).
Anyway for all who doubt what I said about an islamisation of Europe, check the internet on the things Erdogan himself said.
E.g. he said in Cologne, when they were doing the foundation for a much disputed new mosque ( with jodeling muhezin) there (in turkish in front 20,000 male adult turks) "in 20 years this place will belong to us".
Great prospects indeed!
I am sure these people that will inhabit Germany then, will "love" the US sooo much for making this possible (remember the choice of your allies).
Well I will make sure I am loong gone before that happens. I am actually going to move to the US. If his vision comes true, so will millions of other Germans (cant be bad, can it?).
Looking foreward to meeting you for a beer soon ))))

Would love to. I like warm Guinness.

Seriously, I think Europe is in more serious trouble than we are, and I think we are SERIOUS trouble. The problem with both continents is too much tolerance and too much indulgence.


Over here the term "right" is used as a pejorative by most media people, and they often try to link the "right" with Religious fanatics, Racists, and Greedy Evil rich people.


David

[ravingdave]

My children, 5 and 8, argue with each other using the rhetoric, "Well she did it, too!" And with what very basic wisdom do we respond to the child?

Two wrongs don't make a right. It's acceptable because other countries do it? Or the ends justify the means?

In any case, this is irrelevant. The subject of the thread is why other countries bash us. Let's see, if we take the attitude that we can torture people, can you possibly be surprised that other countries - countries that don't use torture - find it abhorrent? It's not exactly a public relations bonanza.

It may or may not suprise more "enlightened" people that I find other countries lack of a death penalty offensive. It implies a holier than thou attitude and we are more "civilized" than you are, when in fact I disagree completely with that notion.

How civilized do you have to be to let the barbarians over run a country?

Both Canada and Mexico refuse to extradite anyone to the United States if they might face the death penalty, thereby imposing "their" notions of morality on us. I recall several incidents in which people committed truly horrible unspeakable crimes and fled to these two countries only to be spared from justice for what they have done.

My point is abhorence can go the other way too.

Again, question if you will the neccessity to accomodate other nations, and what the goodwill is worth. But in the battle for hearts and minds, at least, these policies aren't the best.

Better methods? Human intelligence on the ground? Technological intelligence like spy sattelites. Uh, economic incentives? Don't always work, and people get killed like in 9/11? Well, as somebody said above, it's not a perfect world.

Iran is on the verge of potentially becoming a concilliatory nation. All they need is to stop actively hating us for about ten minutes. Believe it or not, Hollywood, is doing more to make our case for us than anyone. The fact that the failing Amedinijad had to ban Hollywood films is proof that they're having an effect: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Iran_bans_Hollywood_movies

We're winning the culture war, slowly but surely. Don't listen to the whack-jobs in Iran, listen to the pulse of the typical moderate Iranian (especially the urbanites in Tehran), who really just wants things to relax. The people there will speak on this, eventually. These guys were the Persian Empire, for heaven's sake... the current slide into fundamentalism is a historical aberration.

Now if it was a totalitarian regime like in North Korea... then you'd have something to worry about, possibly. But it looks like we're getting to them as well.

Mike

Prosperity is the root of Liberalism. Iran will become more liberal if it can become more prosperous. I'm sure the people of Iran are a decent sort, let's just hope they can slowly provide enough pressure to hold down the Nut Jobs before a few million people get hurt.


David

[Skipjack]

Prosperity is the root of Liberalism. Iran will become more liberal if it can become more prosperous.

Hmm, I do not quite think so. There are many very rich countries that are not very liberal. Dubai is among the richest countries in the world. They dont know where to put the money. But they are still moslems and they still have laws there that make some westerners shudder.

On the death penalty:
I am all for keeping peoples "bad" genes out of the gene pool where appropriate. However, as long as there are still humans involved with judgement and the justice system there exists a tolerance of error. That means that it could be (even though rarely) be possible, that an innocent person gets executed.
Since the one of the reasons to have a justice system at all, is to protect the innocent, it is therefore counter productive to have a death penalty.
Trust me, if there was a 100% certain way to make sure that a person is guilty, things would be different.
You can give someone who was in prison but innocent some money for his pain and he will at least have some life for the remainder of his time. You can not bring someone back who is dead. What do you want to do? Bless his grave and hold a nice speech? That wont bring this person back.
That to me is the only reason to be against the death penalty.

[BSPhysics]

I have always been an ardent supporter of the death penalty but I think I'm changing my mind. Two reasons...One, it's too expensive. The legal red tape is too big of a burden on tax payers. Two, there are punishments worse than death. If I had a cell mate named "Bubba Love" I'd be begging for the electric chair, firing squad, and a lethal injection all at the same time.


BS

[BSPhysics]

Back on topic...

The world bashes the US for the same reason many here in America bash other Americans. This sounds like a cop out but the media, who are selling advertising, will transmit that which is popular to those who listen. Here's a simple proof....When Britney Spears was going through her crazy phase a while back, her antics made ESPN's Sportscenter! I'm not kidding. Why? Because people watch it.

Do you think the BBC is interested in a conservative American's point of view on the war on terror without a subsequent bash fest follow up? Al Jazeera?

Sell those newspapers!!!!

Thank God for the internet and forums like this. Remember, the modern internet and it's global reach is only about a decade old. Many decades of bottlenecked media outlets propagandizing all over the world is not undone overnight.


BS

[alexjrgreen]

Back on topic...

The world bashes the US for the same reason many here in America bash other Americans. This sounds like a cop out but the media, who are selling advertising, will transmit that which is popular to those who listen. Here's a simple proof....When Britney Spears was going through her crazy phase a while back, her antics made ESPN's Sportscenter! I'm not kidding. Why? Because people watch it.

Do you think the BBC is interested in a conservative American's point of view on the war on terror without a subsequent bash fest follow up? Al Jazeera?

Sell those newspapers!!!!

Great insight...

Nice definition of what counts as news here:
http://www.america.gov/st/freepress-eng ... 70203.html

[Nanos]

> The Germans were a Nation. Terrorists are presumably not
> acting under the direction of a sovereign government.

Hmm.... so... how come we are invading so many countries then in the name of being at war with these terrorists ?


I think one of the things which erk those whose countries we have invaded is that we rarely seem to use the term being at war with a particular country, we talk about, going and sorting out terrorists instead.

I'm sure one of the reasons why terrorists keep making a fuss is because they aren't given respect towards the fact that someone has come and dumped on them in their own country!

And then to belittle them with terms to indicate that they aren't really fighting for their country, or a friends/allies country, and to keep going on about how your there to make the peace, well, I can see that would be quite annoying at the very least.

At least in the days of WWI and WWII we'd slug it out, sign peace treaties and it would all be over with, rather than constantly throwing insults at the other side like we are playing Battlefield 2 and just have to look big in front of our friends.


Respect is one of the issues I hear they are big on in the east, and it appears one aspect we are least good at in the world.

Its a pity more people from these other countries aren't online and chatting with us to help us better understand them, as I reckon we might make more headway in that direction than dropping another lot of bombs at times..

I suppose its also the denial aspect, saying you aren't doing this or that when you are, it would be much better to just say, 'yes', rather than trying to hide things all the time.

[drmike]

Its a pity more people from these other countries aren't online and chatting with us to help us better understand them, as I reckon we might make more headway in that direction than dropping another lot of bombs at times..

I suppose its also the denial aspect, saying you aren't doing this or that when you are, it would be much better to just say, 'yes', rather than trying to hide things all the time.

Actually they are, but we still have a language problem. The beauty of computers is that we can put any symbol up we want graphically and project it at the speed of light. The problem is that all the symbols we use represent the sounds of different languages, and the symbols are all different. I can't read Urdu, Farsi, Chinese or Russian even though all those languages have forums just like this one.

I totally agree with you - we need to find a way to make what is happening with the net and international coms allow true global communication in spite of our inability to translate very well. Translation is difficult for those who understand different languages, making it happen with a computer is definitely impossible at this point. But it's worth while trying!

Dropping bombs is certainly not a good way to make friends.

[olivier]

My two cents...

The purpose of all interrogations is to change psychology. It would be rather surprising if that left no psychological marks.

They also leave marks on the interrogator and you never know where you are going to stop when you take this slippery slope. Death Is My Trade, an excellent book by R. Merle, describes what can turn, slowly but surely, a nondescript young man into the ultimate b...d. What is more, some disgusting images from Abu Ghraib had clearly nothing to do with an interrogation. It was gratuitous humiliation and violence, what you get by putting weapons in the hand of youngsters with poor ethics and no management. It happened before in other countries and armies. When you face that, the choice is between trying to hide, building up an unbelievable justification or cleaning the mess right away.

How civilized do you have to be to let the barbarians over run a country?

In the early years, many Europeans were supportive of the French Revolution Army because it was fighting for the republican ideal against the allied monarchies. Nevertheless Robespierre understood from the beginning that "no people likes booted missionaries" (sorry for the poor translation). He died before history proved him right. There is nothing to be done against that, history is repeating itself. That is why I am doubtful about the "Pax Americana" concept on the long term. Unless you could keep it secret...

Why does it seem to be so popular to say that the U.S. is behind the rest of the developed world, specifically Europe.

Turning back to the starting point of the thread: when you are questioning yourself, it is comforting to see that everything is not green in your neighbor's yard. That works in both ways. My main subjects of US criticism are:
(1) Inequities in the health care system. Equality in front of illness and death should be the objective. That is very different from economic equality.
(2) Gun culture. Even though I know a bit about US history, it is still beyond my understanding. More violence, bigger guns for self-protection... or revenge. It is like buying a bigger car because it is more secure in case of accident. It is true on the first order, but there is no limit to this logic. Should everyone drive a M1 Abrams (weapon + transportation) to protect from fellow creatures.

[Mike Holmes]

Not to pick nits, Oliver, but I think the pictures to which you refer are probably those from Abu Ghraib. Though if you have information that such is occuring in Guantanamo, I stand to be corrected. Nobody stands behind what happened at Abu Ghraib (I hope), and several people from that incident were indicted, and sentenced.

There is some question as to how high the responsibility for those acts should go, but that's separate to some extent from the debate about the official sanctioning of the use of waterboarding, for example.

I'd defer to John McCain's judgment on the subject of torture. After all, he has had first-hand experience of it's effectiveness, or lack thereof. From the recieving end.

Mike

[alexjrgreen]

A little US Bashing from European history...

"Für Verrückte, Betrunkene und die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika hat Gott eine besondere Vorsehung."

"God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America."

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) 1st Chancellor of the Second German Empire

Quoted by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a speech to the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 7, 2008