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They are not tortured, they are trained, and anyone who has been through SERE will tell you that the end result of that training is that they learned torture is what evil people do.
Sorry, but some in the US have advocated such practices as part of keeping us safe ...
Sorry, but some in the US have advocated such practices as part of keeping us safe ...
I said:
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They are not tortured, they are trained, and anyone who has been through SERE will tell you that the end result of that training is that they learned torture is what evil people do.
What does a picture of clueless prison guards who had no interrogation training, who had never been to SERE, and who were prosecuted for war crimes have to do with my statement? The fact that they were exposed by soldiers and prosecuted for war crimes by soldiers proves my point.
Last edited by Ralph_Kirk; 03-06-2016 at 08:58 PM..
I'd like to remind everyone that, to use simplistic language, historically Americans were "the good guys" precisely because they didn't torture or mistreat people, and the enemy were "the bad guys" precisely because they did torture and mistreat people. Americans prided themselves on that distinction. Torturing and mistreating people by definition makes you one of the bad guys in the fight.
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Originally Posted by BucFan
He doesn't have the expertise to talk about interrogation techniques. No special training in psych-ops. There's a reason behind the techniques. But to Trump it's all about retribution/punishment. This talk makes will make life for our future POWs and military members in harm's way even worse. Again, recruitment tool for teh bad guys. Would prefer he just shut the hell up.
So you're just fine with war crimes if the culpable never tell anyone and cover them up? Perhaps as an American and a putative member of the civilized world you should try to be better than that - that goes for everyone else too, especially those numb to Bush and Obama doing the same thing they're criticizing Trump for advocating.
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Originally Posted by phma
When did they make waterboarding illegal ? Last I heard rape was illegal but not all that uncommon and some think it epidemic in the military. Things are not always as they seem on the surface.
Japanese soldiers being prosecuted as war criminals by the United States for waterboarding people in WWII might be a good place to start. Point taken about skirting the law, though.
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Originally Posted by Oldhag1
Do you want your son charged with war crimes? There is no statute of limitations on them and "I was following orders" is not an excuse. It wasn't an excuse for German WWII soliders even though it was repeatedly shown that they would have been executed if they didn't follow the orders. The war crimes that they were charged with were sanctioned by their government, still didn't matter.
Indeed. A soldier both by his oath and by being a soldier is answerable to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and the laws of war, all of which make clear that torture is an extremely serious crime without exception. International law also makes clear that torture is an extremely serious crime without exception; a cornerstone of this are the Nuremberg Principles, which state that any war crime, including one commissioned by a head of state, is punishable under international law, and that you are responsible for what you do no matter what orders you received.
Included among war crimes are murder of civilians or prisoners, ill-treatment of civilians or prisoners, and the killing of hostages. This would make a President Trump that gave the mentioned orders as well as the soldiers who carried out such orders guilty of war crimes and possibly liable for the death penalty. The current President and George W. Bush, along with legions of underlings, are currently included in that same group, along with legions of unsavory dictators and underlings in many other countries. Now think about this - if the people in the U.S. government that commissioned these crimes or were complicit in them had been prosecuted, given a fair trial, and punished to the limit of the law, would we be seeing any candidate even contemplate, let alone openly advocate, issuing orders of the type we're discussing? I firmly believe we would not.
*The War Crimes Act of 1996 goes so far as to make torture that results in the death of a prisoner a crime punishable by death under internal U.S. law if committed by any U.S. national or armed forces member against any person of any legal status, and that includes both the ordered and those who sent out the orders - the fact that such a law was passed by overwhelming majorities merely 20 years ago should tell you something about what's happened to America.
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Originally Posted by dechatelet
The military apparently had no problems in the past with questionable activities -- such as Abu Ghraib.
Now, suddenly, they have become human rights activists because of Trump?
Don't make me laugh.
Does their conception of human rights include drone strikes that kill civilians?
This is just a matter of Trump not being in the right club, so to speak; literally none of these people that have come of the woodwork of DC and Wall Street to criticize Trump on this issue ever had a problem with flagrant war crimes and unlawful orders when their people were the ones ordering them.
This issue alone makes Trump unfit to command anything in government, but if the soldiers will obey unlawful orders from a soft-spoken insider but will disobey the same orders from a loudmouthed outsider then perhaps the loudmouthed outsider is the safer choice in this area - what that says about the state of America I'll leave an exercise to the reader .
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Originally Posted by schvuggie
I love it when people question Mr Trumps military record....What Branch was HILdebeast in? What about Cruz? Rubio? What about Mr HILdebeast, I believe he was POTUS, what branch did he serve in?
I recall a few hysterical types in 2008 saying Obama was unfit for command "because he never served in Vietnam"; this is the same kind of thing. What's puzzling is that there were/are vastly better arguments against both Obama's and Trump's fitness for the Presidency than that.
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Originally Posted by MTAtech
Sorry, but Michael Hayden disagrees -- and he should know, since he was CIA director and served as a four-star Air Force general and the director of the National Security Agency.
Perhaps he should have told that to his old boss Dubya during the eight years he worked for him and had his ear.
Last edited by Patricius Maximus; 03-06-2016 at 08:51 PM..
Since Trump never served (four deferments from Vietnam, one medical) he doesn't have a clue how we do things in the military. I don't care who the POTUS is, if the military order is illegal, it won't be done. You can put me in Ft Leavenworth or put me in front a firing squad, because "you say do it" doesn't mean it'll get done. And most likely, we'll be coming for you to put you away where you belong.
Most Presidents never served.
Most politicians never served.
We don't care what you will and won't do. You're replaceable and, oh, you also aren't a lawyer and so your perception of what is legal and not, insofar as executive orders are concerned, is likely dubious. Excuse us while we don't take your opinion seriously.
You also aren't the "we" of the military. You're likely a laborer with a rank and lucky to be there. Do what you told, or don't and face the consequences. It won't make headlines.
If people have a problem with Trump on this issue then they have a problem with the Neocons. Let's sit back and see if they will let you put them in the line of fire while you complain over Trump. Don't hold your breath.
Lincoln issued alot of illegal military orders from 1861-1865 and he is now featured on the five dollar bill.
His first of many illegal orders (that violated the Constitution) was to raise an army to invade sovereign states that left their prior arrangement with other states in a lawful manner.
Then Bush issued illegal military orders due to the invasion of Iraq being based on a lie, or some kind of guess that Saddam had WMDs.
The concern for our own troops is not just a matter of fear of retaliation.
First, we know from experience that torture simply does not produce reliable intelligence. Tortured prisoners lie their butts off. They tell you things they don't even know. Then that gets mixed with reliable intelligence, and taints everything you think you know.
We keep hearing that torture doesn't produce reliable information, but if that is true, why were French resistance members captured by the Gestapo only expected to hold out for 24 hours while their fellow resistance fighters abandoned their safe houses and mail drops?
There's a good book on this subject: "The White Rabbit" by Bruce Marshall.
You're acting like the Geneva Convention is an honor code or something.
The Geneva convention is law, international law. If you break it, you face penalties. We used international law in Nuremberg to try the Nazis and put them to death after WWII. Get it now? Isis doesn't get to break international law without penalty. If they torture U.S. soldiers and we catch them, it's not good for them. Probably a death sentence under international law. Those are the laws that Donald Trump is advocating we break.
So it seems we keep coming back to this.
The Geneva Convention applies only to uniformed soldiers fighting in the military of a recognized nation.
Maybe, but the position that you are describing is one that we use to break international law, at Guantanamo, by calling them unlawful combatants. It's not a position taken by the other side, as far as I know. But the bottom line is that legal matters are decided in court. If it's international law, it would have to be an international tribunal. The president saying, "I get to do what I want because they're unlawful combatants," would be similar to a prosecutor or defense attorney trying to influence public opinion ahead of a trial. It's not a fact determined by the court. You have to argue your position in court and win.
America does not submit to any international court -- nor should it.
The US Army--which has more experience interrogating prisoners than anyone else--says torture does not produce reliable intelligence, and the Army Field Manual for interrogation excludes it.
Nobody in the US who has any breadth of experience actually interrogating prisoners asserts that torture produces reliable intelligence.
The man in charge of supervising the interrogations of Khalid Shiekh Mohammed would beg to differ.
He maintains that waterboarding (which we only used on three captives, including KSM) gave us the information that eventually led to identifying Bin Laden's courier and the location of Bin Laden himself.
Incidentally, did we capture Bin Laden alive and put him on trial?
No, we just killed him.
He probably didn't even have a chance to defend himself.
Will the libs here deny that that was a "war crime" -- by their standards?
Last edited by dechatelet; 03-06-2016 at 11:37 PM..
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