Gyroscopic Investing

madbean wrote: Mr. O'Reilly disagreed of course. Being the good Christian he is (Catholic, I believe), he's cool with torturing our enemies if there is any possibility of a beneficial result to keep Americans safe. He also stated the majority of Americans agreed with him and sadly I think that might be true. So much for being a Christian nation.

versed1967 wrote: The answer is so obvious:

"This is what we call smart power, using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view."

Hillary R. Clinton
circa 2014

madbean wrote: I was watching Bill O'Reilly last night and he had John McCain on to discuss the torture issue. I don't generally agree much with what McCain has to say about any thing but I did this time. Although he didn't actually use the Biblical language what he was really advocating was that we should be following the Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". As a former POW that suffered torture in Vietnam I thought that was an interesting bit of advice. He also pointed out how some were convicted of war crimes after WWII for water-boarding and that it is against the Geneva convention of which we are a signatory.

Mr. O'Reilly disagreed of course. Being the good Christian he is (Catholic, I believe), he's cool with torturing our enemies if there is any possibility of a beneficial result to keep Americans safe. He also stated the majority of Americans agreed with him and sadly I think that might be true. So much for being a Christian nation.

Mountaineer wrote: ...I am also shocked by our illustrious leader in that he continues to tell (or allow others to tell) everyone the US is a mess and unexceptional - he seems to revel in airing dirty laundry, that is, all dirty laundry that is not his or that he thinks he can use for potential political advantage.
... Mountaineer

Reub wrote:

versed1967 wrote: The answer is so obvious:

"This is what we call smart power, using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view."

Hillary R. Clinton
circa 2014

When Hillary said this was she referring to Elizabeth Warren?

TennPaGa wrote: Not satire:

Torture in a Dick Cheney Minute

Todd mentioned a number of cases of outright mistaken identity—“They were released, no apologies, nothing”?—and wondered what those people were owed. “Twenty-five per cent turned out to be innocent. … Is that too high? You’re O.K. with that margin of error?”? Todd asked. Yes, Cheney was O.K. with that. “I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective,”? he said. A couple of minutes later, as if the exchange about mistaken detentions had not taken place, Cheney said of the prisoners, sweepingly and unequivocally, “They are unlawful combatants. They are terrorists.”? He spoke approvingly of the decision not to read them any Miranda rights.
    .....
When Todd asked what he’d consider torture, Cheney would only cite the September 11th attacks themselves. (“I’ve told you what meets the definition of torture. It’s what nineteen guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters did to three thousand Americans on 9/11.”?) Calling anything else torture suggested a “moral equivalence”? that he found offensive—as if he would have had to personally pilot a plane into a tower before he owned up to being a torturer. Todd again pressed him for a definition, but got opposite: anything “specifically authorized and O.K.’d”? and “blessed by the Justice Department”? was not torture. If the executive says you can do it, you aren’t a torturer. (The key legal memos have since been withdrawn.) Todd, perhaps seeing an opening, asked about something that, as Cheney himself acknowledged, was not on the list of approved techniques—the shoving of a “lunch plate”? of pureed “hummus, pasta, sauce, nuts, and raisins”? into the rectum of a man named Majid Khan. Cheney: “I believe it was done for medical reasons.”?

The report found that there were no “medical reasons.”? But Cheney, having just argued that anything officially sanctioned could not be torture, then seems to say that anything unsanctioned couldn’t be torture, either:

CHUCK TODD: But you acknowledge this was over and above…

DICK CHENEY: That was not something that was done as part of the interrogation program.

CHUCK TODD: But you won’t call it torture?

DICK CHENEY: It wasn’t torture in terms of it wasn’t part of the program.

clacy wrote: This has to be related to the fact that we made a terrorist from Afghanistan stand for a really long time in a jail cell 10 years ago.

moda0306 wrote:

clacy wrote: This has to be related to the fact that we made a terrorist from Afghanistan stand for a really long time in a jail cell 10 years ago.

Or perhaps it's because we raped a non-terrorist by shoving food up his ass. 

Or maybe they're not related, and you're just straw-manning and using an evil act by terrorists to justify advocating for evil treatment of unconvicted detainees.

But hummus and rectal delivery devices don't cost much in the federal budget, so thank God we've stuck to principles of small government.


Sorry for the snarkasm... I'll let the thread return to being about this tragedy in Australia.

clacy wrote:

moda0306 wrote:

clacy wrote: This has to be related to the fact that we made a terrorist from Afghanistan stand for a really long time in a jail cell 10 years ago.

Or perhaps it's because we raped a non-terrorist by shoving food up his ass. 

Or maybe they're not related, and you're just straw-manning and using an evil act by terrorists to justify advocating for evil treatment of unconvicted detainees.

But hummus and rectal delivery devices don't cost much in the federal budget, so thank God we've stuck to principles of small government.


Sorry for the snarkasm... I'll let the thread return to being about this tragedy in Australia.

Sorry, but Radical Islamists like to kill innocents.  I really do not care if our intel community mistreats a few bad guys.  It sucks if there are a small number of good people that get caught up as collateral, but you and I both know we try to minimize that as much as possible.

If you want to talk about rape, here is one of about a million stores of the Taliban or Isis mass raping young women in Muslim villages....

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/23/world/mea ... e-refugee/

I don't have a problem treating these guys badly.

moda0306 wrote:

clacy wrote:

moda0306 wrote: Or perhaps it's because we raped a non-terrorist by shoving food up his ass. 

Or maybe they're not related, and you're just straw-manning and using an evil act by terrorists to justify advocating for evil treatment of unconvicted detainees.

But hummus and rectal delivery devices don't cost much in the federal budget, so thank God we've stuck to principles of small government.


Sorry for the snarkasm... I'll let the thread return to being about this tragedy in Australia.

Sorry, but Radical Islamists like to kill innocents.  I really do not care if our intel community mistreats a few bad guys.  It sucks if there are a small number of good people that get caught up as collateral, but you and I both know we try to minimize that as much as possible.

If you want to talk about rape, here is one of about a million stores of the Taliban or Isis mass raping young women in Muslim villages....

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/23/world/mea ... e-refugee/

I don't have a problem treating these guys badly.

So are you asserting that 100% of the people tortured are "these guys," because if you are, you'd be wrong.

And if you're wrong, than you are one of "these guys" that is ok with watching innocent men be raped.

Nice try.

stuper1 wrote: It doesn't sound so bad until you yourself are one of the 1% who are wrongly assumed to be terrorists.  Then, all the "due process" stuff really starts to make sense. 

versed1967 wrote: "This is what we call smart power, using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view."

moda0306 wrote: I don't usually take joy in pontificating the premature death of politicians, but I think when that old, evil SOB goes, I'm going to cry the same tear of joy I did when Osama was killed.

clacy wrote: No, I'm saying probably 99% of the people that are held and possibly quasi-tortured by our intel, are either terrorists, or they have intimate knowledge of known terrorists.  There are likely a small, 1% minority that would fall into the "collateral damage" category.  You have that in any justice system, as mistakes are made occasionally.