If we treat captured terrorists harshly, by what logic does it follow that we are as bad as terrorists?

Question

The arguement goes that when we interrogate a captured terrorist to get information that might save lives and we do not treat the prisoners with kindness, then we are just as bad as them.
At what point do Americans really become as bad as a terrorist who bombs civilians wholesale, chops off heads with dull knives, flies planes full of people into buildings full of people, and gases their own population?

Answer 1

The irony is that some of us republicans wish we would have hit the terrorists with a quick air assault.

And, for those uninformed among you, who continually say that Bush is making enemies of the muslims, wrong. It is the profligated IMMORAL life-style of Americans that keeps moderate Islamic people from fighting the terrorists...

Answer 2

By no logic whatsoever - unless you're a member of the Weak Sisters; in which case, America will always be wrong and the bad guys will always be people with grievances that we're supposed to take seriously and never, ever, get in their faces about.

Unfortunately, reality rules and we ARE getting in their faces - big time! We will continue to hunt the little bastar!s down and kill 'em and anyone who believes otherwise is living in a dream world.

By the way, for the very seriously confused, this means that when a Democrat makes it back into the White House we will still be hunting 'em down and taking them out of this world they hate so much.

Why? Because the citizens of this country DEMAND it, that's why! They really didn't care too much for the kind of thuggery that resulted in 9-11 - and every politician that wants to remain in office understands this; even if they don't always act like it so that they don't have to be the bearers of bad tidings to the Weak Sisters living in their dream world.

Answer 3

are we going to use sharp knives?

i don't know if there is a point that i could agree, "yes, now we are as bad as the terrorists...". what worries me, is the way you say "bomb civilians wholesale". we have done that, yet it is not something i see the media worrying about much. as we fight this war, and change the rules as it seems necessary, are we losing the objectivity that made us recognize the value of not torturing people? the value of protecting the innocent?

if these things are valuable, they are ALWAYS valuable. the geneva conventions were born out of the horror of war, they were a recognition of the way war changes the soul of the nation who wages it. in a way, they are the legacy of the holocaust victims, who in death showed us the capacity for evil that war unleashes. it was a response that said, there is no enemy that warrants such brutality. it is unbefitting of humanity.

i cannot help you understand that if it is not already obvious. this person can:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201304.html?referrer=emailarticle

Answer 4

95% of the people captured were not terrorists.

That's why Bush wanted that torture bill to pass...so they could extract "confessions" out of the innocent civilians they rounded up and have no evidence against.

There's also the whole DU thing. The radioactivity equivalent of 250,000 Nagasaki bombs have been released in minute particle form across the middle east for the next 4.5 BILLION years! It is highly likely that there will be no living thing in the middle east within 9-10 generations.

We invade and occupy sovereign nations that posed no threat to us. We kill more than 10 times as many civilians as insurgents...and insurgents are not terrorists...they are poor people fighting for their freedom from this occupying force destroying and not rebuilding their country! Do you not realize that most of the country still does not have running water, electricity, safe drinking water, or food? We have harmed more people in Iraq than all of the people harmed by terrorists in history combined....and that is not counting the harm done by DU!

Sjean...we have done far more than that. We have killed 120,000 innocent civilians in Iraq (just by our military according to Pentagon reports), 64,000 in Afghanistan, dropped the radioactive equivalent of 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs (Depleted Uranium) which will cause them to get cancer like never before and have more and more deformed babies for the next 9-10 generations until they mostly all die off. Everyone in the middle east. 2600 TONS of Depleted Uranium, particulated.

We are much worse than terrorists! We are genocidal... omnicidal even...maniacs! At least the usurping "president" is.

Walter...you hate democracy that much...why don't you go live in a dictatorship for a while! You have just said that anyone that doesn't think exactly the same way you do deserves to die. That, by definition, makes you psychopathic, not to mention a loser! Get a grip on reality, sir! If you don't like democracy, move. This country was built on it.


proud_2b...get a clue! You come on here spouting complete nonsense constantly. Every singe thing that comes off your keyboard is known to be false. What facts you do manage to find are always taken out of context and made to represent a concept exactly the opposite ot the fact's actual point.

you just want to get your rocks off thinking about killing and torturing people that you don't have the balls to do yourself, even though you wish you did...because you obviously want to do these things...you want to be killing people. You want to be torturing people. You want to sodomize little boys in front of their mother, you want to destroy an entire people, just because you think that these penniless nomads in the middle of the desert 10,000 miles away might hurt you *cry cry*. Coward. Perverted, stinking coward.

Answer 5

"At what point do Americans really become as bad as a terrorist who bombs civilians wholesale, chops off heads with dull knives, flies planes full of people into buildings full of people, and gases their own population?"

I guess the answer to that would be when Americans start bombing civilians wholesale (whatever that means), chopping off heads with dull knives, flying planes full of people into buildings full of people and gas their own population. Before long the Bush haters (that is what this is all about) here will have to start making those claims against the US and Americans because eventually the accusations and the false claims they make now be proven about as effective as someone trying to shoot pool with a wet noodle.

Now, according to the answers you have gotten so far...

"These are the IRAQI detainees. You're talking about the hijackers, Saddam, and islamofascists. They are just rebel groups unrelated to any incident in the past.
These are just insurgents that are fighting the U.S. presence fiercely." Not true. The insurgents may be "fighting the US presence" but they are killing Iraqi men, women and children because the men, women and children in Iraq are trying to live peacefully and are not opposed to the US presence. Also, nine times out of ten it is Sunni on Shiite, Shiite on Sunni, Iranian on Iraqi.

"If you're an average arab young man, trying to work and provide for your family, and US soldiers burst into your home in the middle of the night, imrison you for months, beat you and torture you - for no reason - why wouldn't you say the US is just as bad?"

And you have personal knowledge of this how? Did you witness this yourself or did the average arab young man tell you this? Or... are you trying to pass this speculation off as fact?

"That's why Bush wanted that torture bill to pass...so they could extract "confessions" out of the innocent civilians they rounded up and have no evidence against."

Again, another baseless accusation. So, where did you get *this* story from?? Or need I ask.

"It is highly likely that there will be no living thing in the middle east within 9-10 generations."

Here we go again Corny... Did you bother to read the two links I gave you before on this absurd bit of info you are trying to pass off as fact. The truth about Depleted Uranium folks...

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq_17apr.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

You will stoop to any level to try and mislead people. Explain away what the experts have to say about depleted uranium Corny. You can't. Just as the site you pilfered your information from has no intention of spreading the truth about depleted uranium either.

Logic means nothing when you attempt to get through to these people Curt. Neither do the facts and the truth. They are so hell bent on undermining the present Administration that making facts up along the way is completely acceptable.

They totally bypassed your calling into question the actions of the insurgents and terrorists that will stop at nothing to bring harm to all human beings not like them. Including our men and women in uniform.

For your information folks... the insurgency has very little to do with the US occupying Iraq. Many of them don't give a hoot about Iraq. It has everything to do with stopping the growth and eventual spread of democracy from Iraq to surrounding countries.

Curt... don't let them sway you. The questions you asked make sense, which is why not one of these people who criticize you
will answer the questions directly.

Answer 6

no logic ..only a desire to deny mankind's dual nature
Barbaric cruelty is one of mankinds many traits.
ALL Humans can and do kill to protect/defend ;Humans can choose to constrain/confine that which would harm us.


- Mankind has ALWAYS struggled with humans who Choose to kill ,maim ,control,use abuse others to achieve a personal desire/goal.
-Humanity has survived this long simply because MOST societies have become "civilized. "Civilized" humans want to remove the abberrant murders/or the abberrant humans who revel/use their barbaric nature to achieve personal gratification.
Civil "solutions" have created Laws / punnishment which informs humans what is /is not acceptable and the consequences.
THE PROBLEM WITH AMERICANS and their conflicted views on terrorists is that Terrorists are fellow humans. No one bats an eye when a killer lion is routinely killed, caged or relocated where it cannot harm humans. BUT... A Terrorist's intent is to produce death and destruction. These HUMANS have CHOSEN to reject a "civilized solution" and WILL kill/destroy in order to force compliance or to eradicate their "enemies". Yes, this is a "bad" Choice which requires response.

Many Americans can not/willnot choose WHETHER the death of their own loved ones IS acceptable in order to PRETEND that cruelty does not exist. Worse yet is the niave belief that this example will prove moral superiority and convince others to reject barbaric acts and enter into discourse....
For me ..
-The high "moral ground" is no comfort to the survivors or to the dead.
-Those Humans that KILL based on hatred or a false belief that the others/enemy deserves death because of THEIR beliefs are murderers and no asset to mankind.
- Harsh treatment American style is nothing compared to the treatment received by Americans from the Japanese, the jews from the germans, the beheading or chopping off of body parts ,the electrocution or burning types of treatment received by terroristsdetainees and used by other Nations whose "leaders" routinely choose rape, torture murder as essential "tools" needed to force compliance or extract info.

No logic..IT IS the difference between Americans whose hardwired "need" to protect their next generation has been activated and those who deny /suppress their instinct with a hope that people wont be mean to each other.

Answer 7

What fantasy world do you live in? These are the IRAQI detainees. You're talking about the hijackers, Saddam, and islamofascists. They are just rebel groups unrelated to any incident in the past.
These are just insurgents that are fighting the U.S. presence fiercely. And they wouldn't be there if Bush hadn't invaded.

Answer 8

When we chop off their heads with swords and then go to their country and kill a couple of hundred innocent people - then we'll be as bad as a terrorists.

Answer 9

Since Thomas Jefferson wrote the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." the pursuit of that ideal has driven the citizens of this country to battle each other, and our own contentious nature, to achieve it, and to define and protect those basic human rights.

We succeeded imperfectly, but to a large degree, and became a beacon in the world for people fleeing persecution, and seeking freedom and opportunity. We have been instrumental in helping and encouraging other countries to safeguard human rights, in spotlighting abuses of those rights, and in protecting people who could not protect themselves.

Like it or not, our success has been due to the recognition and understanding that those rights do not just belong to people who agree with us, look just like us, or who have the same religious or moral persuasions.

Inseparable from the issue of human rights is the manner in which we, and other nations, uphold our laws. Our worser nature automatically comes to the fore when we deal with people who we think have hurt us, either on a personal level, or in our courts. Terrible miscarriages of justice occur when unproven assuptions as to guilt or innocence are made, or when we fail to make exhaustive, careful scrutiny to determine the facts of the matter.

To ensure ethical and just treatment of people who are accused of crimes, laws have been established in the USA, in other countries, and on the international stage to safeguard the rights of the accused. There are failures, and miscarriages of justice even so, but our national integrity and honor is utterly contingent on the fact that we continue to try to do better.

By participating in and condoning mistreatment and torture of prisoners, holding people indefinitely without charges, not allowing prisoners access to counsel, and refusing to give them access to evidence against them, we have broken our own constitutionally defined laws regarding human rights. Our nation's honor and integrity has been shown to be false. That our leaders are now changing those laws so they can retroactively claim they didn't do anything wrong is utterly repugnant, and will not redeem us in anyone's eyes.

So, we are torturers now, and killers, who imprison people without due cause or process, ignore laws and human rights, and claim we are doing it all for a righteous reason. How are we different from terrorists?

Answer 10

If you're an average arab young man, trying to work and provide for your family, and US soldiers burst into your home in the middle of the night, imrison you for months, beat you and torture you - for no reason - why wouldn't you say the US is just as bad?

It ain't just terrorists we've harmed, folks. It's why our popularity in postwar Iraq continues to plummet, as more nad more people see abuses against their regular joes.