Daily Liberal FAIL Thread

[Blue]

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

When your done mourning the loss of your fellow Democrat



http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/ame...dead-77-a.html

Its already began.........

[Blue]

is that because these are incompetant terrorists or because we are choosing to much self control and not enough 'brutality'?

or is it because of eight years of half-assery and stupid policies such as drug eradication that got half the populace in arms against us?

There is no one-cause here and I think you both have a slice of the same pie here.

[astralis]

7th,

unfortunately for COIN ops there's two ways: "hearts and minds" or go mongol.

we're not going to go mongol. anything less and brutality is counter-productive.

so the point is just that we're having problems not because we're not brutal enough or don't have the will, just that to date we haven't thrown the resources we needed to (thinking, strategy, manpower, money) at the problem. and given the last eight years, i don't think this is a solely Democratic problem.

[Parihaka]

bfng,



this is all relative. we're not as bloody-minded as the taliban are-- ie we will not booby-trap babies and pregnant women to kill a few taliban.

I don't believe Blues was suggesting that.

we certainly didn't. we purposefully left kyoto and other culturally important cities free from firebombing or nuking-- do you think the taliban would bother?

So the difference is that we were happy to kill a large number of civilians but not so happy to destroy culturally significant property.

you're trying to argue the impossible. i will be the first to acknowledge that when it comes to killing and destruction, the US is far more skilled than the taliban ever were and will be. but the point remains that in every war, we have willingly put shackles on ourselves because there are just some things that shouldn't be done.

that's what i mean by the US not pulling out all the stops.

Being totally ruthless with the Taliban does not equate with becoming them. No one is suggesting harnessing children to bombs and blowing up marketplaces, nor sawing off peoples heads in the street because they'd behaved 'indecently' as an example to others. The moral equivalence of affording the Taliban with the same 'rights' as our own people however is an unnecessary restraint.
We need to have faith in ourselves and our own people that, just as our ancestors did, we can be ruthless with those who deserve it and not become monsters ourselves in the process.

[astralis]

pari,

I don't believe Blues was suggesting that.

i don't think he's for booby-trapping babies, either. but that's the logical conclusion to this:

We should be every single bit as brutal as our enemies until they're defeated, then we should be every bit as enlightened as we were before we were forced to defend ourselves from sub-human scum that asked for everything we are able to give 'em, and brought upon themselves the horror that we could unleash.

We've done it before, and there is no reason to expect that somehow to defend ourselves against fascism makes us fascist, even as we used to burn out entire cities full of women and children and innocents and great cultural sites and artifacts. We sought victory ruthlessly, and nobody even had a notion that we'd seek to stop before a total, complete destruction of the evil we were fighting was accomplished. No compromise was sought, and it wouldn't ever have been acceptable.

neither then, nor now, have we ever "become as brutal as our enemies". nor did we even seek a "total, complete destruction of the evil"-- i notice the emperor of japan and quite a few of his guilty cronies got away with destruction.

So the difference is that we were happy to kill a large number of civilians but not so happy to destroy culturally significant property.

that was just an example. as zraver said, we didn't systematically torture POWs-- we didn't open death camps--we didn't use punishment battalions or human shields. yes, we were willing to kill a large number of civilians, but that hardly represents us being as bad as them.

The moral equivalence of affording the Taliban with the same 'rights' as our own people however is an unnecessary restraint.
We need to have faith in ourselves and our own people that, just as our ancestors did, we can be ruthless with those who deserve it and not become monsters ourselves in the process.

i agree, to an extent. however, saying "ends justify the means" puts people on the slippery slope to being monsters. we saw the spectacle of "enemy combatants" descend from interrogation to loud noise treatment/being kept awake to waterboarding to beating deaths.

and because it it so easy to go down that route and ruin our credibility with the rest of the world-- including the very people we're trying to "win hearts and minds" of--there needs to be strict lines which we cannot cross. that means a rejection of "ends justify the means" philosophy. that is a philosophy suited to a society under mortal threat of destruction. terrorism is bad-- but mortal threat it is not.

[Blue]

I don't believe Blues was suggesting that.
So the difference is that we were happy to kill a large number of civilians but not so happy to destroy culturally significant property.
Being totally ruthless with the Taliban does not equate with becoming them. No one is suggesting harnessing children to bombs and blowing up marketplaces, nor sawing off peoples heads in the street because they'd behaved 'indecently' as an example to others. The moral equivalence of affording the Taliban with the same 'rights' as our own people however is an unnecessary restraint.
We need to have faith in ourselves and our own people that, just as our ancestors did, we can be ruthless with those who deserve it and not become monsters ourselves in the process.

Well said Sir!!!! Exactly the point. I have been trying to say this several times in different threads, it just didn't come out that precise.

Thank you!

[zraver]

I don't believe Blues was suggesting that.
So the difference is that we were happy to kill a large number of civilians but not so happy to destroy culturally significant property.
Being totally ruthless with the Taliban does not equate with becoming them. No one is suggesting harnessing children to bombs and blowing up marketplaces, nor sawing off peoples heads in the street because they'd behaved 'indecently' as an example to others. The moral equivalence of affording the Taliban with the same 'rights' as our own people however is an unnecessary restraint.
We need to have faith in ourselves and our own people that, just as our ancestors did, we can be ruthless with those who deserve it and not become monsters ourselves in the process.

Why use faith, its such an intangible thing, lets use reason. If we refuse to torture, we cannot become torturers. If we do not step out side the law, we cannot become law breakers. If we use the Justice Department, and refuse to use techniques like water-boarding we are not giving up anything of value. The Federal prison system already has terrorists in it, dangerous ones with American blood on their hands, they have not corrupted our prison system or used our prisons as a base. Likewise not every Taliban captured is a terrorist, some are simply Pashtun militia. Giving them a speedy trial to determine status does not hurt us, if they are tribal militia put them in a POW camp and let them enjoy POW status. If they are a terrorist, hand them over to Justice for prosecution. Sending them to Gitmo and to foreign lands via rendition to be tortured means when they do go before the Justice system they go free because we abused them and denied them legal protections the Supreme Court has already said applies to everyone in American custody.

Gitmo is a stain on our national honor, is totally useless in the long term, is a violation of a several treaties and only makes the recruitment of new terrorists easier. Gitmo is a recruiting tool for AQ.

[Dreadnought]

Being totally ruthless with the Taliban does not equate with becoming them. No one is suggesting harnessing children to bombs and blowing up marketplaces, nor sawing off peoples heads in the street because they'd behaved 'indecently' as an example to others. The moral equivalence of affording the Taliban with the same 'rights' as our own people however is an unnecessary restraint.
We need to have faith in ourselves and our own people that, just as our ancestors did, we can be ruthless with those who deserve it and not become monsters ourselves in the process.


*Very well stated Pari. Now if only more would understand it. Its also an insult to afford those monsters any rights that civilized people follow by normal common descency

[astralis]

i think what we can all agree on is that the taliban certainly deserve less rights than our citizens. that's a given. the question is how much less rights. i believe POW-type rights, perhaps somewhat less.

but not NO rights whatsoever-- that's on the route to coercive interrogation leading to torture.

[Mobbme]

In actual war, I think the order should be shoot first. Do I think our boys need to be more aggressive? No, but I think they should be given the right to shoot before they're shot at. If some silly guy won't stop at a checkpoint, I say gun him down ASAP.

Whats with all the prisoners? The ones that were caught in actual terrorist activities should've been killed on the spot and the ones that are "suspects" should be treated according to International Law or US constitution. I'm for equal ways, not all on one way.

If what I just wrote is how it goes, then I say let the Right deal with the war and let the Liberals deal with the prisoners.

P.S These are my thoughts, and I felt I should share them on this board. I don't mean to undermine any authority here, so let me be...

[bfng3569]

I don't believe Blues was suggesting that.
So the difference is that we were happy to kill a large number of civilians but not so happy to destroy culturally significant property.

Being totally ruthless with the Taliban does not equate with becoming them. No one is suggesting harnessing children to bombs and blowing up marketplaces, nor sawing off peoples heads in the street because they'd behaved 'indecently' as an example to others. The moral equivalence of affording the Taliban with the same 'rights' as our own people however is an unnecessary restraint.

We need to have faith in ourselves and our own people that, just as our ancestors did, we can be ruthless with those who deserve it and not become monsters ourselves in the process.

excellent summation!

[Dreadnought]

i think what we can all agree on is that the taliban certainly deserve less rights than our citizens. that's a given. the question is how much less rights. i believe POW-type rights, perhaps somewhat less.

but not NO rights whatsoever-- that's on the route to coercive interrogation leading to torture.

*IMO, It definately should not give them access to US courts which more then likely are given peoples "council" and who pays for that? We do.

[zraver]

*IMO, It definately should not give them access to US courts which more then likely are given peoples "council" and who pays for that? We do.

They already have civilian lawyers, even if they had military appointed lawyers from the military those lawyers are still bound to do their best to get their defendants acquitted. Do you think we should deny them council? In a way we already do by restricting their access to their lawyers. A very simple fact is that until they are tried and convicted by a competent established court they are innocent. 99% of the prisoners we catch are low level operatives, basically militia. Treating them like animals only increases the chance that when they get out they will turn into true terrorists.

From Captive To Suicide Bomber
Accused of Being Little More Than a Low-Level Taliban Fighter, Abdallah al-Ajmi Was Held by the U.S. for Nearly Four Years. After His Release, He Blew Up an Iraqi Army Outpost. Did Guantanamo Propel Him to Do It?

y Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 22, 2009; Page A01

A little more than two years after his release from the Guantanamo Bay military prison, Abdallah Saleh al-Ajmi knelt in front of a white wall, clutched the upturned barrel of an AK-47 rifle and delivered a message before a video camera The scraggly beard that his young son once loved to play with had been shaved off, leaving only an exiguous moustache. His curly, shoulder-length locks had been clipped down to a crew cut. Gone, too, were the crisp, white headdress he often wore and any semblance of the good humor once familiar to his family. He was sullen and angry -- still bitter about being locked up for almost four years at the high-security U.S. detention center on the southeastern coast of Cuba.

"Praise be unto God, who evacuated me from Guantanamo prison and joined me with the Islamic State of Iraq," he intoned. As the camera's light cast an outsize shadow behind his head, he wagged his finger and issued a vow: "We are going, with permission from God, to God -- glory be unto him. We will enter the nests of apostasy."

At 6:15 a.m. on March 23, 2008, not long after making the video, Ajmi drove a pickup truck filled with 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of explosives, hidden in what appeared to be white flour sacks, onto an Iraqi army base outside Mosul. He barreled though the entrance checkpoint and past a fusillade of gunfire from the sentries, shielded by bulletproof glass and makeshift armor welded to the cab.

The Easter Sunday blast killed 13 Iraqi soldiers, wounded 42 others and left a 30-foot-wide crater in the ground. It remains the single most heinous act of violence committed by a former Guantanamo detainee.

As President Obama takes the first tentative steps toward fulfilling his campaign promise to close Guantanamo, the case of Abdallah Ajmi has become a symbol of the vexing challenge his administration faces in adjudicating the fates of terrorism suspects held by the United States, a process that almost certainly will result in the release of additional detainees among the approximately 245 now in custody there.

What makes Ajmi's journey from inmate to bomber so disturbing to top government officials is the fact that he never was deemed to be among the worst of the worst. He was not one of the former top al-Qaeda operatives considered "high value" detainees; nor was he regarded as someone who posed a significant, long-term threat to the United States.

Compared with what other Guantanamo detainees were believed to have done, the principal accusation leveled against him -- that he fought for the Taliban -- was unremarkable. At his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he was not accused of perpetrating any specific violent acts other than "engaging in two or three fire fights with the Northern Alliance," according to a summary of evidence presented by the military.

As one former U.S. government official involved in detainee issues put it, Ajmi was "never on anyone's top 10 list of people we expected to return to the fight."

Since his death, U.S. intelligence agencies have sought to determine when Ajmi became a hard-core jihadist. Was it in the late 1990s, when he came under the sway of a radical preacher while serving in the Kuwaiti army? Was it in 2001, when he allegedly joined the Taliban? Was it upon his release in 2005, when extremists back home celebrated him as the "Lion of Guantanamo"?

Or is the answer potentially more alarming: Was his descent into unrepentant radicalism an unintended consequence of his incarceration?

This account of Ajmi's religious and political journey is based on interviews with his attorneys in Washington and Kuwait, his family, and U.S. government officials familiar with his case, as well as U.S. military documents, court filings in the United States and Kuwait, and other records provided by sources close to the case. Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner, who represented Ajmi while he was in U.S. custody and visited him more than half a dozen times during his detention, is convinced he knows the answer to his former client's fate.

What happened to him?" Wilner asked rhetorically. "It was Guantanamo."

Wilner points to the first letter he received from Ajmi:

To the learned attorney Tom

Dear Sir:

How are you and how is your nice team doing? I hope you are doing well. Tell me how you are doing, Mr. Tom, and what is going on in the outside world. . . .

Mr. Tom, I would like to tell you that I am fine, and so are all my brothers. . . .

I thank you, Mr. Tom, and send you my closing greetings.

The happy detainee Juhayman Al Ajmi.

And then there is the last letter he received:

To the vile, depraved Thomas, descendant of rotten apes and swine,

I greet you with a kick, a spit, and a slap on your lying, rotten, ugly, and sullen face. I hope that this letter finds you burning in hell and receiving a sound beating from men who are to be counted. . . .

From Captive To Suicide Bomber - washingtonpost.com

We kept a militiaman who never fired a single shot at the US or NATO in a beyond super-max for years, never charged him with any crime and when we finally let him go the mistreatment we visited on him cost 13 Iraqi lives and wrecked dozens more.

Did you know we water boarded the mastermind of 9-11 183 times? he can never go to trial or he will be released. Eventually his case will work its way through the courts and he will be freed. He killed nearly 3000 people but because we used torture eventually he will go free. The only other option is to drive a stake into the heart of our republic. The Supreme Court oversees all federal courts. This includes the military tribunals. Our barbarity might let a barbarian go. The sad thing is, to make sure Bluesman, Dreadnought, Zraver, Shek et al don't get held without bond or trial, or get tortured its the right thing to do.

[Dreadnought]

We should have drowned him the first time. Rat bastids! No quarter!:P

*You might as well ask yourself the likelihood of them capturing you and letting you go free without torturing and murdering you after they get you to make some bullshit statement for their cause.

[astralis]

dreadnought,

*You might as well ask yourself the likelihood of them capturing you and letting you go free without torturing and murdering you after they get you to make some bullshit statement for their cause.

doesn't matter what they do. most of the enemies we've faced have had no compunction in torturing or murdering our POWs...and yet we've extended geneva rights when we capture their guys.