• Lucytorial said on Sep 23, 2008....

  Mwa ha ha ha they deny there is torture then set about to stop their own photographs of torture being published... get me a bucket I'm going to throw up.

   

  You see this is in part why the american economy is going down the toilet, the wisdom of its people to elect such a twat!

• bloc said on Sep 23, 2008....

  yeah, I think our system makes it very difficult to elect a real leader. We won't vote for anyone that tells the truth. For example, taxes are going to go up no matter what. Two unending wars and massive bailouts ensure it.

• Lucytorial said on Sep 23, 2008....

  Yes I think many people are blind to that little tax fact, someones gotta pay for the fallout and it isn't going to come out of the military budget.  I'm glad I live where I do.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 23, 2008....

  I got a side with the righties on this one.  The GenevaConvention applies only to genuine military units.  There is a whole list of criteria (like uniforms) that are needed for this.  So yeah the GC would apply to US military but not to *most* terrorists.  No country, no uniform, no fair.

  Nuh uh!  If we elect McCain he'll save the world cus his name doesn't have any terrorist associations!

• Fallyn said on Sep 23, 2008....

  arrrrrrrggggg. *sigh*

• ALIENated said on Sep 24, 2008....

  
  Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident along with a few other incidents (like
  waterboarding by the CIA) and is not the norm. Trying to pass it off as 
  anything else, like our government backing torture or our troops routinely
  taking part in torture, is dishonest, to use your words.
  
  As Sean says (probably jokingly), if these were real soldiers in a real army, 
  instead of scum terrorists, I would be helping you turn this molehill into a
  mountain.
  
  I posted my full answer on my blog since I know you would just delete it 
  here. The truth hurts.
  
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 24, 2008....

  I would ALIEN.  If I had reason to believe we were fighting say Germany and had no reason to believe they were violating the Geneva Convention and we were I'd be pissed.  I don't give a shit that we broke rules when they are firing from Red Cross/Crescent vehicles and mosques. 
   
  Abu Ghraib doesn't seem to be nearly as isolated as it originally seemed.

• bloc said on Sep 24, 2008....

  it isn't isolated, it was official policy. 
  
  
  "I don't give a shit that we broke rules when they ..."
  
  
  There is a logical flaw here. Who are "they"? We've already seen that many, if not most, of the people we have in gitmo are not terrorists. We've released a ton of them already. So we are torturing people based on an assumption that any arab picked up anywhere in the world is the same as the "they" you refer to? 
  
  
  And you don't give a shit? This is surprising coming from a black person who has a close history to the assumption of guilt in american society.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 24, 2008....

  Fortunately Court Orders Release of Detainee Abuse Photographs.
  
  Alien: "Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident"
  
  Reality must intrude here...
  
  
  Amnesty: Abu Ghraib Cases Not Isolated
  
  by Sanjay Suri
  
  London, (IPS) - The abuses committed by U.S. agents in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad are not isolated cases, Amnesty International says in its annual report
  
  Amnesty had handed in a report documenting abuses by the U.S. government long before the photographs of abuse surfaced, prompting Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Khan to remark that accountability in the United States is "better generated by Kodak."
  
  Amnesty has been investigating human rights violations including allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees by coalition forces for more than a year.
  
  "Testimonies from former detainees indicates a similar pattern of abuse," the Amnesty report says. "Detainees were forced to lie face down on the ground, handcuffed, hooded or blindfolded during arrest. During interrogation they were reportedly repeatedly beaten, restrained for prolonged periods in painful positions, while some were also subjected to sleep deprivation, prolonged forced standing, and exposed to loud music and bright lights."

• sheltercrow said on Sep 24, 2008....

  bloc: "it isn't isolated, it was official policy."
  
  Quite right...
  
  
  Published on Sunday, December 12, 2004 by The Sunday Herald (Scotland)
  
  Victim of Latin American Torture Claims Abu Ghraib Abuse was Official US Policy
  
  by Andrew McLeod
  
  FOR many Latin American victims of torture, the infamous pictures of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison brought back not only chilling recollections of their own experiences, but also confirmed what they have long maintained: that their torturers were following interrogation guidelines set by the US Army School of the Americas (SOA).
  
  "I had flashbacks when I saw the guy with the hood [at Abu Ghraib]," says Carlos Mauricio, a Salvadorean who was tortured in 1983. Founder of Stop Impunity, a group that seeks to prosecute human rights violators, dismisses as a "whitewash" the Bush administration's view that Abu Ghraib abuse was the work of a few US army misfits.
  
  "What happened at Abu Ghraib was torture by the book; they were implementing US policy," Mauricio, 51, told the Sunday Herald.
  
  "The US military deny they teach torture and say it happens in Latin America because soldiers have always been brutal. But what happened at Abu Ghraib belies this."
  
  Among the SOA's 60,000 graduates are former dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-ranking graduates were involved in the 1980 assassination of Salvadorean Archbishop Oscar Romero and the massacre of 900 civilians at El Mozote, El Salvador, in 1980.

• andora said on Sep 24, 2008....

  why do i detect any surprise, especially from those of you who seem to be paying attention
  
  if we want a global economy, we need global standards
  
  THE UNITED STATES IS NO LONGER A WORLD LEADER IN GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS
  

• andora said on Sep 24, 2008....

  shelter crow, i know that you present an amazing argument that is based in fact instead of rhetoric, but i never take the time to read the stuff you are citing because it isn't you talking
  
  i enjoy your pov in these discussions but miss out on your point some of the time due to the massive amount of information you cite
  
  the point i heard you make was that we have set the worldwide standard for covert spying and torturing. i've been waiting for decades to hear someone in the mainstream even point this out. thankyou, mahalo, mahalo
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 24, 2008....

  These things I place have been available here and elsewhere for quite some time and need no personal input. To me they are simply old news.
  
  What makes things easy is that alien is always wrong and a very simple search will disprove anything he asserts. I find it distasteful to answer him directly.
  

• ALIENated said on Sep 24, 2008....

  
  Why should anyone give a care what Amnesty International thinks about
  anything? Is that the same bunch that wanted us to forgive all the draft
  dodgers that fled to Canada during the Vietnam war?
  
  Assessment by a former AI-USA board member
  
  Prof. Francis A. Boyle (Professor of International Law, Univ. of Illinois, Champaign)
  from an interview with Dennis Bernstein:
  
  "Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity.
  Second comes money. Third comes getting more members. Fourth, internal turf 
  battles. And then finally, human rights, ... "
  
  

  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amnesty_International

  
  Criticism
  
  Amnesty International has disproportionately criticized free democratic nations 
  over authoritarian nations with grave human rights abuses, such as Cuba, Vietnam,
  and North Korea. This exposes a anti-american standpoint increasingly common in 
  liberal groups. Peter Phelps, a writer for Australia’s leading free market think tank; 
  The Institute for Public Affairs, wrote that Amnesty International has deviated from 
  its founding goals, ...
  
  

  http://www.conservapedia.com/Amnesty_International

  
  One can find just about anything on the internet, and cut and paste it in,
  Skittlecow. Have you ever had an original thought?
  
  

• ALIENated said on Sep 24, 2008....

  
  What makes things easy is that Skittlecow is always wrong and a very simple
  search will disprove anything he/she asserts. I find it distasteful to answer 
  him/her directly, which is why I blocked him/her long ago. I prefer people who
  think for themselves. Anyone can copy and paste scads of weird text that
  no one is going to read. 
  
  bloc, I am in total agreement that torture is wrong in most circumstances. The
  thing I disagree with is your hatred of America and your belief that we are the
  bad guys. I believe that torture has occurred at the hands of Americans (probably
  disturbed people such as Skittle), but I do not believe it to be the norm. As you
  are compelled for whatever reason to have no confidence in America, I am 
  compelled to believe in America to a fault. I think crap like 9/11 can bring out
  the worst in people, even a president. But people have been tried and convicted
  and the abuse has stopped. I do not concede that any abuses have taken place
  at Gitmo (as I understand it, it is more like a countryclub than a prision). I will
  agree that many were detained that probably should not have been, but I doubt
  that the numbers will ever really be known for sure. When you throw out a net, 
  you are bound to catch a few that should be thrown back. And lastly, no matter
  what kind of happy face we want the military to put on things, war is a horrible
  business that civilians probably should stay as far away from as possible. We 
  lost the war in Vietnam, probably because it became part of the evening news.
  It must have looked like we were shooting at a bunch of poor little people in
  black silk pajamas. Right. As they say, it is like watching sausage being made. 
  You would probably want to outlaw that too after seeing it being made.
  
  

• ALIENated said on Sep 24, 2008....

  
  if we want a global economy, we need global standards
  
  Andy, who says we want to be a global economy? I know Borax does, but
  he is a Marxist. I wonder if Fidel Castro was one of his boyhood idles.
  
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 24, 2008....

  So says the the member of the party shipping jobs over seas and importing the cheapest goods possible.

• Lucytorial said on Sep 24, 2008....

  Just as I thought, its all tied up in dip shits with their heads up their asses farting in the wind!
   
  pooooooffft!
   
  Bye bye american economy, hellooooooo to ?? you tell me.

• bloc said on Sep 24, 2008....

  
  alien keeps saying that Obama is a socialist, bit it is his party demanding 700 billion on corporate wellfare. If Obama is a socialist then bush is the reincarnation of karl Marx and McCain is Engels

• Lucytorial said on Sep 24, 2008....

  MWA HA HA HA HA good one Bloc.
   
  I was listening to parliament time yesterday afternoon and it seems the Australian government (Rudd, Kevin what a name) is going to go for a cool Billion out of this bail out package because our NAB (National Australia Bank) is tied up in the finance fall out.
   
  It will be very interesting to see what happens with that, you guys (tax payers) will be paying the interest rates of our countries debts! ohh god bless america right?

• andora said on Sep 25, 2008....

  exactly Lucytorial
  
  and for you that think monetary law, labor law, trade law should not be standardized for the ALREADY EXISTING global market place obviously want slave labor to be the global standard. put labels upon it all you like, but it will happen. recently china called for a world currency. with a digitized world we no longer have boundaries. give up the rhetoric and que up for your food stamps!
  
  these multinational corporations have been using the bigotry of nationalism to rape, murder and steal from anyone and everyone. why should we let a bogus idea about patriotism manipulate us into poverty?
  
  corporations didn't like our unions so they allowed millions of scabs (illegal aliens willing to work for slave wages) to flood the work force...they could care less for the taxpayers. if anything this administration has only shown contempt for the US citizenry! patriots my ass!
  
  Alien you are the most un-american on this board, you think that an OLIGARCHY is America. Ken Lay didn't give a damn about Enrons pensioners or shareholders...is that the kind of american you look up to. right now if he is actually dead, i'll bet he's grateful not to be Ken anymore! is that the kind of patriotism you aspire to. his golden parachute got him a heart attack....falling to the ground a little too fast for his broken heart!
  
  I say let the banks fail, let everyone that invested in this shamm they call America lose their shirts as they scream to be saved by what they hate: socialism. Maybe then, real Americans can get rid of the slimeballs or at least, give them some food stamps!
  

• Lucytorial said on Sep 25, 2008....

  Idealisticly Andora speaking its a good idea to let them fail however the problem with that is that it will take a lot of other countries economies with it, in the end it won't hurt the congloms just the every day joe.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  I was watching the hearing listening to Paulson and pals talk about why the 'American people' need to bail 'us' out. How this is embarrassing to 'America' when actually it was embarrassing to 'Wall Street.' How giving Paulson literally more power than the three branches of government combined was what was needed save the 'American people.' It was like a scene out of 'Seven days in May.'
  
  I am yet to read of an economist outside the Paulson crew that believes this is anything less than a scam.

• Lucytorial said on Sep 25, 2008....

  So what then is the point Shelter.. seriously why create the scam in the first place, do you know Wag The Dog as an expression? if its a scam they already know and want a particular outcome.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 25, 2008....

  If this is a scam it's one of the most brilliant in history.  They have literally without the majority of the world (even the majority of the fairly wealthy) figuring it out aranged the peices in such a manner where we are given two choices.  Give them half our money now and hope we don't starve to death or give them nothing and pretty much garuntee we starve to death.  I doubt anybody is that brilliant but seriously if they are it means one thing.
   
  Lex Luthor is real, but Superman ain't here to save us. 

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  The American people are quite easily fooled. Alien is a good example. They listen to this crap all their lives and believing it. Its played on the fake TV news around the clock. The listening public hasn't yet figured out that the news is just corporate programming for profit. Do you think they would believe this is not a scam unless it came from that propaganda tube?
   
  On the tube its always 'the bailout is good' contrary to what is actually expressed by real economists.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  The mainstream media in this country does not do investigative reporting any more. A good example was their reporting on the WMD's that never existed. Another is the Saddam al Qaeda connect that never existed. The list goes on and on.

• Lucytorial said on Sep 25, 2008....

  There's a joker in the house Sean!

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  The wall street journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Bill Kristol works for the New York Times. Carl Rove works for Fox. Need more?

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 25, 2008....

  It would take more than just the American people being fooled though, there is a reason why GLOBAL stock markets are fluctuating wildly.
   
  A good example isn't the WMD's there was lots and lots of evidence they existed and only a few people saying they didn't.  Hell the fact that they didn't exist should be more troubling than it is seeing how we sold them to him so where did he sneak them off to? 
   
  I'll grant you the Saddam/Al Qaeda connect though.  But I didn't get to hear much of that.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  SR: 'A good example isn't the WMD's there was lots and lots of evidence they existed and only a few people saying they didn't'
  
  There was plenty of bogus evidence. Any reported worth his pay could have found the evidence was false.
  

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 25, 2008....

  Plenty of inteligence agencies bought it too SC.  The people paid to do this, hardly anybody around the globe was saying Saddam didn't have WMD's they were saying wait and let the inspectors do their job.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  SR you are a prime example of an ill informed citizen. Where do you get your news from? Be honest.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  The foreign press didn't buy the WMD story. The American press relied exclusively on unnamed administration sources. I take it you forgot Scooter Libby already.
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  News from Friday, March 14, 2003 that did appear and was ignored:
  
  
  The documents, given to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, indicated that Iraq might have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the agency said they were "obvious" fakes.
  
  President Bush even highlighted the documents in his State of the Union address on January 28.
  
  "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," Bush said.
  
  U.S. officials said that the assertion by the president and British government was also based on additional evidence of Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from another African country. But officials would not say which nation and a knowledgeable U.S. official said that there was not much to that evidence either.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

• Lucytorial said on Sep 25, 2008....

  Seems we're getting off point here just a little.  However I will add on the WMD's that outside of the US, more specifically here the view was that there was not sufficient evidence to undertake the actions that the American officials did.  Yet kowtow we did when little Johnny Howard was forced by Bush the great to concede sufficient evidence because of our wheat, wool and sugar indsutry.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

• bloc said on Sep 25, 2008....

  "Hell the fact that they didn't exist should be more troubling than it is seeing how we sold them to him so where did he sneak them off to?"
  
  
  He destroyed most of them after the first war, and they degrade over time. Remember the crusty stuff we found in the ground that wasn't potent enough to kill anyone?

• sheltercrow said on Sep 25, 2008....

  Hum... From my Right Honorable Friend...
  
  Peter Phelps at the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA)
  
  'The IPA advocates neoliberal economic policies such as privatization and deregulation of state-owned enterprises, trade liberalization and deregulated workplaces, climate change skepticism (through its environmental subsidiary the Australian Environment Foundation), and the accountability of non-government organizations (NGOs).'
  
  The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is a think tank based in Melbourne, Australia that has been described as conservative and libertarian. John Roskam, its current Executive Director, denies that it is right-wing but the IPA is funded by, among others, Murray Irrigation Limited, Visyboard, Telstra, Western Mining, BHP Billiton, Gunns Limited, Monsanto and the tobacco industry.
  
  How interesting that it opposes Amnesty International. lol.
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 26, 2008....

  The neo crowd has always been perplexed on why Saddam would not commit national suicide. Hence the need to support fabricated evidence.
  
  President Asked to Explain Use of Forged Evidence
  
  
  Rep. Waxman asks the President to explain why he cited forged evidence about Iraq's efforts to obtain nuclear materials in his 2003 State of the Union address. Rep. Waxman also releases an ambiguous one-page letter from the State Department regarding the use of the forged evidence.
  
  
  CIA Forged Iraq Intelligence, New Book Says
  
  
  Ron Suskind, author of "The Price of Loyalty" and "The One Percent Doctrine," is out with a new book that includes CIA forgery of pre-war intelligence.
  
  A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.
  
  Suskind writes in "The Way of the World," to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery - adamantly denied by the White House - was designed to portray a false link between Hussein's regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.
  
  The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official "that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion."
  

• Lucytorial said on Sep 26, 2008....

  Namast.. really its all moot points at the end of the day.  Seriously! its all talk, just that and that alone.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 26, 2008....

  We must never forget
  
  

• andora said on Sep 26, 2008....

  sorry i wasn't around for this conversation
  
  sheltercrow, i so appreciated your voice here....i must adamatly say
  
  
  DITTO
  
  aloha
  

• andora said on Sep 26, 2008....

  DITTO

• andora said on Sep 26, 2008....

  DITTO

• andora said on Sep 26, 2008....

  and....
  
  
  DITTO AGAIN
  
  love the caferty file
  
  today is a good day indeed
  
  i must thank the Goddess for allowing the internet to exist in this time
  
  sure changes the rhetroric to simply offer the truth...
  which will happen tonight at the debate
  
  EVEN IF MCCAIN HAD TO BE DRUG THERE KICKING AND SCREAMING
  
  THIS IS THE BEST POLITICAL THEATER FROM GOTHAM REALITY THAT I HAVE EVER WITNESSED...we're having a debate problem right now
  
  love this
  
  a grateful woman indeed
  
  i want to shed the light of day on this
  
  and we know it is
  
  OUR BABY FOLKS
  
  as porky the pig would say...
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 26, 2008....

  From the Boston Globe
  
  America's loss of value
  September 26, 2008
  
  TO JUSTIFY his bailout of wayward financial companies, President Bush told the United Nations Tuesday that he was acting to avert an economic crisis that "would have a devastating effect on other economies around the world." It is true that the embrace of risky leveraged debt by improperly regulated investment banks may cause ripples of pain in foreign economies. But it is also true that whether or not the administration's rescue plan succeeds, foreign perceptions of America's financial folly are bound to diminish America's standing in the world.
  
  The Bush remedy for America's financial ills is seen by some other countries as a galling display of hypocrisy. When their economies encountered crises, poor countries in Africa and Latin America were instructed by US officials and advisors to avoid government intervention and allow market forces to work their cure. The affected populations had to suffer through debilitating recessions before they could hope to attract credit from abroad and foreign investment.
  
  Today, the same US administration that vehemently propounded the inviolability of free markets is intervening in the private sector - and on a scale those foreign onlookers could only dream about. This seeming double standard becomes all the more insufferable when Bush, the apostle of free-market infallibility, explains that his government will be buying up the bad debts of financial firms to shield other countries from an economic calamity made in the USA.

• hotaka said on Sep 27, 2008....

  Wasn't this the same government that okayed the public release of photos of Iraqi casualties and dead in the U.S. but not those of American casualties and dead? I can kind of understand the point but what kind of message does that send?

• andora said on Sep 27, 2008....

  exactly shelter
  
  these neo-cons were using the IMF and the World Bank to collapse any populist movement that came along
  
  this is a huge grab
  
  I think the taxpayers should use that 700 billion to create a public works project that kick-starts a green industry. we can throw money all day at bad debt,...but, when it gets right down to it we need some manufacturing under our greenbacks...leveraging bad debt around the world shows what a used car salesman the US has become..a charlatan
  
  sorry about the incoherent statement above..I meant to say we are having a debate PARTY. not a debate problem...i was already cracking open the golden ale and we had a blast
  
  

• andora said on Sep 28, 2008....

  sean had the best idea for a stimulus package
  
  from the 700 billion give every american 100 thousand dollars to shore up the base...this trickle up economics will put the power brokers in their place!
  

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