Korean Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - Abu Ghraib - just the work of a few bad apples?

Speak Korean Now!

Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!

Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"

FAQ

Memberlist

Usergroups

Profile

Abu Ghraib - just the work of a few bad apples?
Goto page Previous 1, 2

Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum

View previous topic :: View next topic

Author

Message

ddeubel

Joined: 20 Jul 2005

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:02 am Post subject:

Quote:

I don't see what "gnosis" has to do with it?

Is this another swipe at (Gnostic) Christianity?

cbc

Oh, so now I am attacking ancient Christian traditions????

Look it up....Greek dictionary and it somewhat resembles the word I alluded to....knoooooowwwwwww

Please stop it with the country bumpkin postings....they come off quite nicely but after awhile it is fatiguing (and just to add one more attack, to your delight -- why is it that those that wear fatigues are suppossed to not be fatigued? Shouldn't that alone be fatiguing?)

DD

cbclark4

Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:09 am Post subject:

gnosis. Main Entry: gno�sis Pronunciation: 'nO-s&s Function: noun Etymology: Greek gnOsis, literally, knowledge, from gignOskein : esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation cbc

TheUrbanMyth

Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:59 pm Post subject:

EFLtrainer wrote:

Gopher wrote:

Many in the United States have accepted in theory and fantasized about torture -- under certain conditions.

See Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger and especially Without Remorse for but two popular literary examples.

On the other hand, this is a pervasive and ubiquitous Homo sapiens-wide issue, present throughout human history, everywhere, and it is a mistake to single out the United States as if it were the problem, root and branch, so to speak.

That is one reason why this line of attack will not succeed, Big_Bird: its obvious and usually bitterly-articulated selectivity fails to actually address the full dimensions of the problem; and it is openly partisan -- dare I say antiAmerican.

Bull. "It's OK 'cause others do it too" is about as far down the ethical reasoning scale as one can get. It is Concrete thought, i.e. the sort of reasoning those between 5 and 12 years old use. Look it up if you are in doubt.

That's not what he was saying though. Mr. Gopher was merely pointing out that other countries do this too, and that if the OP is so concerned about what is happening she should not solely focus on America.

That is quite different from saying "It's OK 'cause others do it too". But maybe you can point us to the quote by Mr. Gopher where he says that torture by America is ok because other countries do it as well?

Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:12 pm Post subject:

Pinochet is gone, but his methods are still with us

A new report collating first-hand accounts gives us the clearest view yet of the torture going on in the US's secret prisons

Adnan Siddiqui and Victoria Brittain
Wednesday December 13, 2006
The Guardian

Quote:

Cageprisoners reveals, the men held in Guant�namo Bay are only the tip of the iceberg: thousands more are hidden elsewhere, outside the law. The "war on terror" is taking a terrible toll on Muslim families and societies through a vast programme of secret detention and torture.

Since January 2002, when the first Muslim men were flown from Afghanistan to Guant�namo, an estimated 14,000 men have been held. They have been hidden in prisons, army barracks, holes in the ground, private houses, hotels and schools. Those responsible for them have been in overlapping chains of command, including the US department of defence, the CIA and the national intelligence services of many countries, such as Britain.

The Cageprisoners report is a meticulous record of information cross-correlated from the testimony of numerous released prisoners in many countries and of lawyers such as Clive Stafford Smith and his team at Reprieve, who represent some of the men in Guant�namo and have been able to talk to them. But Stafford Smith's own statement that as many as three-quarters of the men in Guant�namo have never seen a lawyer, and that the Guant�namo men represent only 4% of all those imprisoned in the war on terror, is a chilling reminder of just how little outsiders have been able to penetrate this dark, illegal world.

None the less, we now have a mass of detail, much of it new, that has never been collated before. The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, should publicly dissociate Britain from the wholesale violations of human-rights law and the Geneva conventions that have taken place in the last five years.

The countries listed as being used by the US include Thailand, Germany, Greece, Dubai, Jordan, Egypt and Syria, while some men have been held on US navy vessels.

For the full article click here

Well if this report is anything to go by, it's the work of quite a lot of bad apples in various parts of the world. Confused

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:37 pm Post subject:

Big_Bird wrote:

...it's the work of quite a lot of bad apples in various parts of the world.

Indeed it is. I am going to start an offensive against the French for getting all of this going. If this debate continues, I might bring the Germans into the mix as well. And it that does not work, birdie, I might just get medieval on your ass and bring in the Catholic Church and the Latin American armed forces... Wink

Wikipedia wrote:

Roger Trinquier (March 20, 1908, La Baume, Hautes-Alpes - 2000, Forcalquier) was a French army officer with an immense impact on the development of counterinsurgency theory...

Trinquier is a major theorist in the style of warfare he called Modern Warfare, an "interlocking system of actions - political, economic, psychological, military - that aims at the overthrow of the established authority in a country and its replacement by another regime." (Modern Warfare, Ch. 2). He was critical of the traditional army's ability to adapt to this new warfare. The set of measures included the use of small and mobile commando teams, torture, the setting-up of self-defense forces recruited in the local population, and their forced relocation in camps, and psychological and educational operations.

Perhaps his most original contribution was his study and application of terrorism and torture as it related to this Modern Warfare...

[Enemy guerrillas]...must be tortured for the very specific purpose of betraying their organization. Trinquier's criteria for torture was that the terrorist was to be asked only questions that related to the organization of his movement, that the interrogators must know what to ask, and that once the information is obtained the torture must stop and the terrorist is then treated as any other prisoner of war. (See Chapter 4 of Modern Warfare)...

In the 1960s, Trinquier's book on modern warfare rapidly became a bible of anti-guerilla warfare and internal repression, first in South America. He became well known for his designation of political adversaries as 'internal enemies' in a Total War.

The US Army showed a strong interest in his experiences and theories when preparing the counterinsurgency warfare by the US [Special Forces] in South Vietnam in the early 1960s and again in today's Iraq.

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/trinquier/trinquier.asp

Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:33 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

Big_Bird wrote:

...it's the work of quite a lot of bad apples in various parts of the world.

But are the French doing it here in 2006? Certainly you might bring up the Germans, as they seem to have colluded somewhat with the Americans (and the British) in the current scandal.

And I'd prefer to keep the Catholic Church well away from my ass, thank you very much! Razz

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:12 am Post subject:

Big_Bird wrote:

But are the French doing it here in 2006...?

Do you think it relevant or perhaps even significant that Trinquier (as well as the British counterinsurgency operation in Malaysia, but let us set Britain aside for a moment) remains required reading at the United States's National War College and the Command and General Staff College, as well as Brazil's Escola Superior de Guerra and Peru's Centro de Altos Estudios Militares, to cite but two Third-World examples?

There Trinquier is, in each place, still talking about the primacy of torture in interrogation to majors and colonels, and commanders and captains, fast-tracked for a star and national command all...

At least give us that. And, to clarify, I in no way argue that we are not responsible for our own actions in Iraq and before that in Vietnam. Torture is deplorable and unacceptable. But this thing is not entirely of our doing either. Trinquier and the rest of the French, especially the French from Noth African and Southeast Asian counterinsurgency campaigns are partly right there with us (as they remain with many Latin American military officers as well). They might claim moral superiority for avoiding this present war. But can they undo all the history they have already and irrevocably committed...?

Hollywoodaction

Joined: 02 Jul 2004

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:56 am Post subject:

Are the few bad apples Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld?

Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:30 pm Post subject:

Hollywoodaction wrote:

Are the few bad apples Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld?

Hehehe

Display posts from previous:

	Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum	All times are GMT - 8 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2
Page 2 of 2

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

TEFL International Supports Dave's ESL Cafe