<p>“News Flash: Most of these people hate us whether we’re fighting them or not.”</p>
<p>News Flash #2: if the Bush Administration were serious about fighting “them”, it would have provided the troop levels that its own generals requested a long time ago. But if they decide to diss their own fighting men and women, as they have, it is hardly likely that they are going to make up for it through a little waterboarding.</p>
<p>Stay the course.</p>
<p>Remember Daniel Pearl - Stay the Course.</p>
<p>Yup. I do remember Daniel Pearl. That’s why the Bush/Cheney decision to diss their own generals doesn’t make much sense.</p>
<p>Stay the course.</p>
<p>I agree, mini. We should be putting everything into this war. Sadly, people in Washington are too worried about what others will think of them. This UN mentality also makes us look weak.</p>
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<p>Happy Halloween from the guys who make it safe for Kiefer Sutherland to pretend to be them on TV.
<a href=“http://media.militaryphotos.net/photos/Special_Forces-Afghanistan/aai?full=1[/url]”>http://media.militaryphotos.net/photos/Special_Forces-Afghanistan/aai?full=1</a>
<a href=“http://media.militaryphotos.net/photos/Delta/Afghan3[/url]”>http://media.militaryphotos.net/photos/Delta/Afghan3</a>
Be sure to see the close-up of the Delta guy’s hat…photo #2.</p>
<p>Those are what you call ass-kickers, and they are the reason we can have these silly conversations on CC. Never forget it.</p>
<p>Right on, driver!</p>
<p>No, I never forget.</p>
<p>What was it…60 people killed in Afganistan yesterday?</p>
<p>Swell job.</p>
<p>It’s a war, dear. People get killed. Hopefully more of theirs than ours.</p>
<p>Probably most are neither - just “collateral damage”. That’s what happens in war – which is why it’s deeply offensive to be flippant about it.</p>
<p>“Dear.”</p>
<p>Stop…you look for ways to be offended. I was being nice.</p>
<p>P2N, I am not your “dear”. That’s a bit patronizing, actually.</p>
<p>I think you’re a dear, AM.</p>
<p>My apologies.</p>
<p>Accepted. I know you do, Driver. ;)</p>
<p>Waterboarding does not involve any permanent physical or psychological injury and, thus, is not torture. War isn’t pretty. Interrogation of people willing to kill any American simply because he or she is not of a certain faith is also not pretty, but it is necessary to obtain information that may protect American lives. Cheney is right and I am glad the adults are in charge.</p>
<p>I do remember Daniel Pearl, and all the people who died in 9/11, and all the American service men and women killed and injured in the Iraq war. And I remember their families. And I will continue to do so.</p>
<p>But in my opinion, the fact that terrorists murder and maim doesn’t justify torture, secret prisons, or indefinite incarceration without trial, just as it wouldn’t justify retaliatory killing and maiming.</p>
<p>I have seen nothing that shows that that any of these things have saved lives. Even it could be shown that they did, the ends simply don’t justify the means. For me, the thought of an innocent person being physically tortured, and having his wife and children threatened with bodily harm, by my government is simply not acceptable.</p>
<p>From the moment I read that John Walker Lindh had been kept naked in a coffin sized box for several days after his capture in Afghanistan, I asked myself what the h*** is going on. Little did I imagine.</p>
<p>We shouldn’t have to imagine or guess what our government is doing. If a policy cannot withstand the light of public scrutiny there is every likelihood that is is not a good policy. The fact that our government operated secret prisons and engaged in or farmed out torture wasn’t a secret from the terroists. It was just secret from the American public.</p>
<p>I am very, very thankful that I was lucky enough to have been born an American. I value my freedom and prosperity, the right to practice a religion or not to be religious. I appreciate that I live in a democracy and understand that my views will not be shared by all of my co-citizens, and many times by far less than a majority of them. I can only hope that we have access to the facts and informed opinions necessary to make make appropriate decisions.</p>
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Where/when did you hear this?</p>
<p>See, Allmusic? Torture appeals to that same adolescent fantasy that gun nuts are motivated by. It gets weaklings like Cheney all butch and macho and swaggering around, puffed up with how “tough minded” they are (ignoring the fact that the real adults have all long since concluded that torture fails to produce reliable or worthwhile information, and provides even more fodder for the fanatics on the other side) without having to actually do the dirty work themselves. The conservatives who line up behind the chickenhawks get the same vicarious feeling of manhood by figuratively beating their chests and expressing contempt for those not “tough” enough to support torture.</p>
<p>No, they won’t learn, because the appeal of torture isn’t based on logic or reason in the first place.</p>
<p>“I value my freedom and prosperity, the right to practice a religion or not to be religious.”</p>
<p>Sadly, if our enemies had their way, we’d have none of the above. It would be 1) convert, 2)pay the jizrya (sp?) and live as a second-class citizen in dhmmitude, or 3) die.</p>
<p>Tough-minded guys who appeased North Korea for six years, and won’t put soldiers on the ground when the generals ask for 'em.</p>
<p>Makes 'em feel big’n’strong while they pimp for Halliburton. </p>
<p>Stay the course.</p>