Politics: J'accuse!

[Not Flinty]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
And after all the trouble they have gone through to keep journalists in the dark. What a pity.

General Myers apparently persuaded CBS to sit on the story for two weeks, but then they ran it because Hersh was about to break it. During that whole time, neither he nor Rumsfeld bothered to read the 60-page report. WTF? Keeping journalists in the dark I understand, but didn't they read it if they knew it was about to break?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Not Flinty
For fun, try to pick out the real quotations from the article:

• "She's kind of stubborn. But that doesn't mean she can't follow orders."
  
  "When the other kids at her high school would go out torturing Arabs, she would stay home to do her homework."
  
  "She is straight in your face, tells you how it is. That's why it shocked me. It's so not her. It's not in her nature to do something like that. There's not a malicious bone in her body."
  
  "We always figured she might be a gay, but we never expected this."

It is definitely not the last one because those prisoners were male.

[Hank Chinaski]

Sadr Aide: Female Soldiers Can Be Kept as Slaves

Friday, May 07, 2004

BASRA, Iraq — A senior aide of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (search) told worshippers during a Friday sermon in southern Iraq that anyone capturing a female British soldier can keep her as a slave.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
blah blah blah blah blah

Oh, how the principled have fallen! :exclaim:

Let us all mourn his passing. :sniffle:

Yet another casualty of the War on Terror. Curse you, bin Laden!
:pod:

S_A_M

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Oh, how the principled have fallen! :exclaim:

Let us all mourn his passing. :sniffle:

Yet another casualty of the War on Terror. Curse you, bin Laden!
:pod:

S_A_M

Maybe he's just having a bad day. If not, and this is what lies underneath/what he was become, then I'm sad. Feeling morally superior, but sad nonetheless.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
While the officers and NCOs deserve to be demoted for failure to supervise etc., I think one decent long-term suggestion is that nobody, and I mean nobody, should be allowed to be an MP at 21 yoa. If its not good enough for civilian law enforcement, its probably not good enough for military law enforcement.

Just a thought about that young woman who seems to be in lotso the really bad pictures.

Hello

Good idea probably.

Heck, some people should probably never be allowed to be in law enforcement. For example, while I've expressed thoughts about that from time to time (not always while I'm driving), my wife is of the opinion that I would face a constant internal struggle to avoid abusing my power.

A friend told me that while I would make an excellent Batman, I should probably never be a cop. Hmmm. So, as I am not a centi-millionaire, I'm out of luck.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Not my point. Any humiliation/toture of innocents makes puke. Torture/humiliation of "resistence" fighters, while not acceptable without an overiding need to save coalition lives, does not rise to this level. Torture/humiliation of Al Qaeda is preferrable.

So, you are just praying to some sweet little angel that those abused were actually all "resistance fighters". Good luck with that.

S_A_M

[Hank Chinaski]

Al Franken's great new radio network is having birth pains. Anyone get this? Club have you heard it yet?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...238EDT0132.DTL

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Oh, how the principled have fallen! :exclaim:

Let us all mourn his passing. :sniffle:

Yet another casualty of the War on Terror. Curse you, bin Laden!
:pod:

S_A_M

Not fallen at all. See my post to Ty or whatever his name is these days. The blah blahs were just a childish way to attempt to knock you off that high horse you've been riding of late.

The moral question is whether it wrong to humiliate/torture those that would do the same to you if given the chance. As I stated in my post, humiliation/torture of the innocent is nauseating. But I'm not sure it is wrong for the guilty.

The old Soviets use to use a similar tact in the 80s. Whenever a Soviet was kidnapped, they would in return kidnap a member of the Soviets family and send body parts of that familiy member to the kidnappers. From what I understand, this was a huge deterrent to the kidnappers. It's along the same lines as Hello has been posting here for a while now.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Al Franken's great new radio network is having birth pains. Anyone get this? Club have you heard it yet?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...238EDT0132.DTL

First time caller, long time listener.

Seriously, is anybody surprised at this? I can't believe any investor actually put a dime into this venture. Libs just don't listen to talk radio in masses, probably because there are so many other outlets for them. Talk radio has been successful on the right primarily because, for a while, it was really the ONLY broadcast outlet for the right.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
See my post to Ty or whatever his name is these days.

What are you talking about?

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Not Flinty


There's an article about her in today's NYT; it also ran in today's SF Chronicle, but they got it from the NYT. This will surely surprise everyone who hasn't read the article, but her family didn't think she was the sort of person to get mixed up in all that.

(from article) Private England is clenching a cigarette between her teeth while giving a thumbs-up in front of naked Iraqi prisoners. In another … she is holding a leash attached to a naked prisoner's neck. …family and friends … are convinced… she would never have thought up anything so cruel on her own and that she must have been following orders.

Look, if you’re a parent and want to say, "(daughter/son caught doing mean stuff) is really a nice person deep down”, then fine. But can any sane person (even a parent) seriously envision a Gunnery (sp) Sergeant-type person shouting at the lass that she’d better light a cig, stand with a naked Iraqi, put a cig in her teeth, smile and give the thumbs-up, or else drop and give him twenty? Can they not see her daughter having a fucking blast in those photos?

Her parents called her a tomboy

That’s one thing to call it. (NTTAWWT)

But she sometimes found it difficult to kill animals when they went hunting.

This is curious support for the suggestion that England is a gentle soul and the abusive acts are against her “nature”. For sport, she treppses through the woods bludgeoning small, wimpering animals and “sometimes” finds this difficult.

She called me in January and said, `Mom, something bad has happened, but don't worry about it,'

Yeah, don’t worry about it, Mom, because it aint ME with that leash around the neck – it’s some Iraqi dude. And also don’t worry about it b/c tucked away here in Appalachia, we probably won’t be hit with retribution from anti-American wingnuts pissed off at the photos.

The Englands learned of the photographs in a particularly jarring way. The couple had just returned from a turkey-hunting trip last week.

Can’t these people find kinder/gentler vacations?

Mrs. England worries that war, Iraq and Abu Ghraib have changed her daughter forever.

She should instead worry that her daughter changed war, Iraq and Abu Ghraib forever.


Have a great weekend everyone. Gonads and Strife to you all.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What are you talking about?

Sorry, meant not flinty.

But good to see the T-Rex is back!

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The old Soviets use to use a similar tact in the 80s. Whenever a Soviet was kidnapped, they would in return kidnap a member of the Soviets family and send body parts of that familiy member to the kidnappers. From what I understand, this was a huge deterrent to the kidnappers. It's along the same lines as Hello has been posting here for a while now.

Any other life lessons we should be taking from the ol' CCCP?

I just need clarity about which aspects of life under an oppressive regime are universally contemptible, and which of them befuddle you with these moral ambiguities.

Right now I'm at:

• Economic policy = bad and wrong;
  De-thumbing = Justified on a case-by-case basis.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Any other life lessons we should be taking from the ol' CCCP?

I just need clarity about which aspects of life under an oppressive regime are universally contemptible, and which of them befuddle you with these moral ambiguities.

I'm thinking that the Soviets would send back pieces of a family member of the kidnapper. Although cutting up your own family members to prove that the kidnappers have no leverage over you might be effective, too. In this country, kidnappers have figured out that it's better not to let people know your name or mailing address, thereby frustrating these tactics. This sort of ingenuity is how we won the Cold War.