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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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 Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:56 pm Post subject: US MILITARY: HOMOS ARE BAD, TORTURE IS GOOD |
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This is f-ing brilliant.
Apparently being gay is immoral and should not be tolerated. But torture, that's perfectly acceptable.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_gays
With a mentality like this it's little wonder things are going so badly in Iraq and the war on terror. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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Freethought: I am not sure that suddenly changing policy on gays in the military will affect the balance of things in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Also, McCain and others have already clarified the torture issue. And, I understand, prosecutions and convictions are proceeding. So, no, no one condones torture. And no one has ever called it "perfectly acceptable" except you.
By the way, I read your link. Thanks for posting it. Where, however, does it mention torture and why are you conflating issues in a diatribic OP...? |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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A) He never says torture is OK.
B) Just becasue he thinks that homosexuality is immoral doesn't mean that the military as an institution bans homosexuality because the military as an institution considers it immoral. |
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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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Gopher, get real...
The issues of gays in the military has been in the news at least once a month. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff feels it necessary to make a public comment on it. They recently fired numerous translators of key strategic languages because they were gay; this done at a time when there is already a shortage of translators. So clearly being gay is a pretty big issue. You're right in that it may not have a direct impact on Iraq and Afghanistan, and I was mainly questioning the greater mentality of things.
As for no one condoning torture, bollocks. They ship people off, they continued to 'waterboard', they continue censory deprivation, Guantanamo and the conditions therein are dubious at best. As for McCain clarifying, good for him, but Bush's clarification (and his is the only one that matters) was less than stellar. They essentially re-wrote laws to continue what they've been doing.
And nothing is being 'conflated'. How obtuse are you? To do what they have done on the issue of gays in the military in a time of troop shortages and translator shortages etc, and still take this stand, is messed up. If their bigotry runs so deep then I guess little can be done.
As to linking torture and this blatant discrimination, that's perfectly acceptable. If they had said it would detrimentally impact the forces in a way that could not be overcome, that would be one thing. But he didn't say that, he said 'immoral'. And when policy of DISCRIMINATION is being justified by accusing those who are being discriminated against of being immoral, while all the while holding people without trial, legal counsel, using highly suspect interogation methods etc... At that point the parallel can be drawn. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:58 pm Post subject: It is not the US Military that thinks torture is good |
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| freethought wrote: |
As for no one condoning torture, bollocks. They ship people off, they continued to 'waterboard', they continue censory deprivation, Guantanamo and the conditions therein are dubious at best. |
Who are they? Best you get your identities straight.
Why U.S. Military Lawyers Opposed Torture
Bush Defies Military, Congress on Torture
Military Lawyers Fought Policy on Interrogations
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Judge advocate generals (JAGs) for the Army, Air Force and Marines said they expressed their concerns as the policy was being hashed out at the Pentagon in March and April 2003. Though their letters to the Defense Department's general counsel are classified, sources familiar with them said the lawyers worried that broadly defined, tough interrogation tactics would not only contravene long-standing military doctrine -- leaving too much room for interpretation by interrogators -- but also would cause public outrage if the tactics became known.
"We did express opposition," said Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig, the Army's top lawyer. "It was accepted in some cases, maybe not in all cases. It did modify the proposed list of policies and procedures." |
Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, the Army deputy chief of staff for intelligence:
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| "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the past five years, hard years, tells us that." He argued that "any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress through the use of abusive techniques would be of questionable credibility." And Kimmons conceded that bad P.R. about abuse could work against the United States in the war on terror. "It would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used," Kimmons said. "We can't afford to go there." |
As it stands now, following the Court Ruling on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the original statutes against torture, which some say are more strict that the Geneva Conventions, have been reasserted as U.S. Military policy. It is administration lawyers who advocate the right to torture, and the CIA that does the renditing, and torturing. |
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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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More than valid point, Kuros. I know the military has stepped up against the use of torture, including taking on the producer of "24". But this is a very recent thing, and I also happen to view the CIA and the military as intrinsically linked, but that may not be a view shared by all, and I accept that.
The problem goes beyond the military, since the executive branch could force the hand of the military to accepting gays and lesbians. The executive branch is also in command of the military. This executive branch is also in command of the CIA and Gitmo.
My singling out the military with the use of the collective 'they' was a mental process of mine that views the military as part of a greater body. But as I said before, your point is well taken. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| As it stands now, following the Court Ruling on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the original statutes against torture, which some say are more strict that the Geneva Conventions, have been reasserted as U.S. Military policy. |
Kuros,
Have you heard of the Military Commissions Act? In effect, this set up new guidelines which bypass any court rulings. I'm sure you know this, so why did you assert the above?
Torture is still happening daily and also to Hamadan. I started a thread here about Lieutenant Commander Swift and how he has lost so much of his life/career just for speaking out for the truth. Read here
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/guantanamo200703
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He and Katyal had won their case in the Supreme Court, but had anything really changed?
"We are right back to where we started," Swift said. "When I met Salim Ahmed Hamdan, he was sitting and waiting. Now he is sitting and waiting again. And he is still freezing and does not have a pair of socks." The central question remained for Swift: Could a president hold someone forever without trying him? "What are we defending here?," he asked. "Kangaroo courts where the defendants never knew what they were being indicted for?" |
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| October 15, 2006. The day I meet Charlie Swift, he attempts to sum up the legal morass of Guant�namo. "Justice," he says, "is based on a simple idea: it can happen to you." |
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| The whole purpose of setting up Guant�namo Bay is for torture. Why do this? Because you want to escape the rule of law. There is only one thing that you want to escape the rule of law to do, and that is to question people coercively�what some people call torture. Guant�namo and the military commissions are implements for breaking the law. Why build a prison here when there are plenty of prisons in Nebraska? Why is it, when we see photos of Abu Ghraib, we think that it is "exporting Guant�namo"? That it is the "Guant�namo method"? �Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift |
America has NOT cleaned house on this topic and can be put at the bottom of any list of dreadful dictating ships....
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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| freethought wrote: |
| My singling out the military with the use of the collective 'they' was a mental process of mine that views the military as part of a greater body... |
You have been indoctrinated by leftist university professors, very, very hostile to the United States government -- especially the so-called military-industrial complex, an alleged military dictatorship which exists only in their minds.
This notwithstanding, they have aimed you to believe and restate these things -- you and a host of others here. And you bought into their line uncritically. Everything you dislike will always be directed against this "they."
When are you going to start thinking for yourselves...? |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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especially the so-called military-industrial complex, an alleged military dictatorship which exists only in their minds.
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There minds and few others:
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
But I guess Eisnehower was just an old left wing nut. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
| Quote: |
| As it stands now, following the Court Ruling on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the original statutes against torture, which some say are more strict that the Geneva Conventions, have been reasserted as U.S. Military policy. |
Kuros,
Have you heard of the Military Commissions Act? In effect, this set up new guidelines which bypass any court rulings. I'm sure you know this, so why did you assert the above?
Torture is still happening daily and also to Hamadan. I started a thread here about Lieutenant Commander Swift and how he has lost so much of his life/career just for speaking out for the truth. |
Perhaps I should have made this crystal clear. It is not the military's position, particularly those of top-ranking JAGs (as your link makes clear), that torture is in anyway helpful. When I was refering to military policy being reasserted I meant that the Uniform Military Code was re-inforced. I was aware of the Military Commissions Act, and must admit that I was not as aware of the ability of this Act to overule Uniform Military Code. At any rate, I did not mean at all to suggest that Hamdan's case was rectified and that he was receiving fair treatment. I just wanted to draw a distinction between the military, which is against torture, and Bush and the Republican members of Congress (quite a few who have since lost their jobs), whose legislation forces the military to act outside the Uniform Military Code in cases where detained individuals are determined as unlawful combatants. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Octavius Hite wrote: |
| But I guess Eisnehower was just an old left wing nut. |
No. Just taken out of context.
When did he ever say "a sinister monster" when describing the problems military funding in civilian research organization might cause...?
That was Ben Baack and Edward Ray, by the way, from Ohio State University. See Baack and Ray's "The Political Economy of the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States," Journal of Economic History 45 (1985), 370 and 375 -- that is, they say this two times in a six-page article.
And I agree with Canadian political scientist John M. Treddenick when he writes...
| Treddenick wrote: |
| ...the so-called "military-industrial complex," of which much has been written and to which has been attributed, particularly during the decade of the 1960s, much of the reason for the expansion of military expenditure. Unfortunately, a great deal of writing in thie area has been emotional and of the "merchants-of-death" genre and too little of it reflective and analytical. |
Treddenick, "The Arms Race and Military Keynesianism," Canadian Public Policy 11 (1985), 80.
It has, of course, got much worse since then. Who remembers the American professor who cheered 9/11 and expressed his deep disappointment that bin Laden did not succeed in destroying the Pentagon...? |
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freethought
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 10:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| freethought wrote: |
| My singling out the military with the use of the collective 'they' was a mental process of mine that views the military as part of a greater body... |
You have been indoctrinated by leftist university professors, very, very hostile to the United States government
When are you going to start thinking for yourselves...? |
Gopher, you're talking out of your ass. I don't think my communist fleeing, ukrainian jew prof was leftist. Nor was my Soviet defector prod who worked for the CIA and CSIS. Nor was my American, princeton educated, Condi loving prof. I could go on, but the list above shows you have no idea what you're talking about or about me.
I do think for myself, i do my own research, scholarship winning, top of the program, deans list research. I oppose illegal invasions, I didn't think Saddam had wmds, and i watched every single 1999 and 2000 republican nomination debate. What did I think, I thought bush was an idiot. No one told me, I figured it out on my own.
Things I also figured out on my own include: I don't support torture. I don't support those who torture. I don't support those who oppress others rights. And I don't support bigotry, which is what we have in this case. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Perhaps I should have made this crystal clear. It is not the military's position, particularly those of top-ranking JAGs (as your link makes clear), that torture is in anyway helpful. When I was refering to military policy being reasserted I meant that the Uniform Military Code was re-inforced. I was aware of the Military Commissions Act, and must admit that I was not as aware of the ability of this Act to overule Uniform Military Code. At any rate, I did not mean at all to suggest that Hamdan's case was rectified and that he was receiving fair treatment. I just wanted to draw a distinction between the military, which is against torture, and Bush and the Republican members of Congress (quite a few who have since lost their jobs), whose legislation forces the military to act outside the Uniform Military Code in cases where detained individuals are determined as unlawful combatants. |
Point accepted.
I'd suggest others to read this clear and precise article. Not painting "the military" black but exposing as you said, those who would like everything to skip to their beat, without respect to laws, human rights and the will of the people. Why everyone should be screaming for George's head (you know the one I mean, not the king) and not being so damn polite with this, "gosh, gee, well after all he is the president and well....".
Frank Rich had a hard hitting article in the Times yesterday (yeah, leftist rag, right Gopher? you haven't washed that L and R off your hands yet I see.). Says it right, why Bush should go yesterday and not tomorrow even....
Good summary of the Bush years also . Found it here, so you don't need a Time Select subscription
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031107B.shtml
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Why Libby's Pardon Is a Slam Dunk
By Frank Rich
The New York Times
Sunday 11 March 2007
Even by Washington's standards, few debates have been more fatuous or wasted more energy than the frenzied speculation over whether President Bush will or will not pardon Scooter Libby. Of course he will.
A president who tries to void laws he doesn't like by encumbering them with "signing statements" and who regards the Geneva Conventions as a nonbinding technicality isn't going to start playing by the rules now. His assertion last week that he is "pretty much going to stay out of" the Libby case is as credible as his pre-election vote of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld. The only real question about the pardon is whether Mr. Bush cares enough about his fellow Republicans' political fortunes to delay it until after Election Day 2008. |
DD |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:37 am Post subject: |
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As far as General Pace, he is entitled to his opinions regarding homosexuals. It is his opinion. He supports Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy". Of course, homosexuals and others who are not homosexuals think his comments are reprehensible, but not everyone agrees with homosexuality obviously, and he expressed his opinion. Even if he apologized, it wouldn't mean anything. He also said adultery is a sin as well.
As far as the military industrial complex, I do believe there are military interests, manufacturers that would support certain candidats and positions just like the NRA supports its positions and so does the ACLU.
Saying that this is not true is like saying the ACLU doesn't advocate secularism. It is hard to say the military manufacturers are engaging war. No one can really prove that. At least, I can't. Michael Moore tried to connect the Bush family's ties to arms' manufacturers and its politics and Richard Perle was supposedly connected to an Israeli arms' manufacturer at one point. Can you say someone is disconnected from their product? I am not sure what it all means, but saying it is just a bunch of left-wing junk negates that some conservatives believe there is a lot of corrupt power politicing going on. I do believe in a strong military, being prepared, investing in weapons, but also keeping tabs on how people are connected to each other. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:56 am Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| ...saying it is just a bunch of left-wing junk negates that some conservatives believe there is a lot of corrupt power politicing going on. |
But I did not mention "corrupt power-politics." I mentioned the far-left's shrill claim that the sinister monster that is the military-industrial complex has subverted the democratic United States, fabricates "enemies" like the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, Saddam, and bin Laden in order to deceive the population, and thus wages wars that accomplish nothing other than killing and murdering innocents and lining the depraved military-industrial complex's pockets.
I cited two articles, above. I can cite many more if need be, including Oliver Stone's JFK. These people are influencing/indoctrinating waves of students and the public with a simple thesis: America is a lie. They do not aim to criticize or reform but to smash and destroy. Little different from the antiglobalization protesters we saw in Seattle 1999. Wild-eyed radicals.
This is rather pervasive in many universities. For this reason, people like our friend Freethought and many others here are inclined to speak of "them!" so casually. And look at the allegation-nature of his title again. An allegation that exceeds the facts of the story he posted, I might add, which is par for the course in this discourse.
In any case, if you have anything to cite that shows or suggests someone besides the far-left is making these claims, I would love to see it... |
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