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Bush's top general quashed torture dissent »

Posted By Wil 4 months, 3 weeks ago in News

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The former Air Force general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, helped quash dissent from across the U.S. military as the Bush administration first set up a brutal interrogation regime for terrorism suspects, according to newly public documents and testimony from an ongoing Senate probe.

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sir_samurai4 months, 3 weeks ago

Sounds like this was just about the way Hitler pulled it off; A "chairman", top ranking SS or Gestapo officer, or more, helping to "quash dissent from across the [Nazi] military" (to say "in this case" its OK to round-up and torture) and on down through the brown-shirts of his brain-washed Reich-wing supporters to the rest of the German population, and of course, fueled by FEAR mongering!
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  MajJohn4 months, 3 weeks ago
  
  If you are intellectually honest you'd have to admit in all the similarities there are vast differences. These prisoners were not starved and forced to labor, have their fillings removed and their skin made into lampshades.
  What I'm saying is that there are different degrees in being wrong and your generalization is off the mark.
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    sir_samurai4 months, 3 weeks ago
    
    But of course, the generalizations are obviously exaggerated, but the realism of the analogy this renders is undeniable.
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      Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
      
      What I find most appalling is the nonchalant attitude taken by the president and a large segment of American. I wonder if they stop and think of what it felt like to see a man's Head being sawed off. Our treatment of these people led to that. As a so-call civilize nation what did we do? We stoop to the level of a 3rd world country and acted like thugs.
      A couple of notes from a wise man:
      "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." Mahatma Gandhi
      And this rings so true today:
      "When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always."
      This is the one I love the most:
      I think it would be a good idea. Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization
      
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        We forced them to saw off Daniel Pearl's head? I don't think so.
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        You would see it that way,If i thought for a second that you would get it I would answer your question! Drop did you notice this The? "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." Mahatma Gandhi
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Gandhi sat around in a diaper and never had to actually make public policy decisions. He had the luxury of behaving self-righteously. There's no excuse for that kind of behavior. The point is that we have to stop anyone who can film someone being crudely and slowly beheaded.
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Yet again you show your ignorance...have you ever travel outside the US. For future reference Gandhi, is the creator of non violence the same used by MLK to turn back Jim Crow. In your circle it might be a little know fact that This man you so mock got the British out of his country unlike us, without lifting up a single gun.
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        saintetienne4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        "This man you so mock got the British out of his country"
        ...and this was a good thing?
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Was it a bad thing? If it was such a good thing why did we (US) and every other country that could, wage war against them and kick them out of our country? Regardless of the standards these people live or lived under, no one has a right to subjugate them to subhuman standards, which England did. So yeah. I think it was a good thing.
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        saintetienne4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        "no one has a right to subjugate them to subhuman standards, which England did."
        Hmmmm..... check your history. I don't believe it was English practice to place widows on barges, light them on fire and shove 'em down the Ganges. I also don't believe that the English initiated the caste system which basically stripped scores of "untouchables" of basic human rights and dignity.
        The English did, however, bring industry, prosperity and civilized culture to India. India can thank the English for the advances and standard of living they now enjoy. Without the English influence, India would be just another Bangladesh - only dirtier, more crowded and more destitute. Imagine how nice India would be if the English had stayed beyond 1948.
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        alakazam4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Anyone got relative knife crime stats?
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        You are an idiot, people never fight against a good thing. If the English were so good to the Indians they would still be there. lets start with them taking the best the country had to offer or the practice of taking the Indian mans wife in order for him to keep his job or get a job. Or the rampant practice of raping the young people (buggery), of the country and creating a homosexual culture to support their gay appetite! You speak on revisionist history...If Hitler had won we would call him the great world leader because he would have written the books on the war not others. The British were bastards to the people and their country. Civilize there is that stupid word again, who get to decide what is civilize?
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        MajJohn4 months, 1 week ago
        
        Oh come on, lighting barges and burning widows, the British subjugated the Irish for 700 years and tried to starve them to death and in fact did do that to 1/3 the population in the mid 19th century. They brought civilization on their terms and created a cast system which made the colonists second class citizens.
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        alakazam4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        What right did the British Empire have to India?
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        alakazams- that's a very good question! for which I am sure there will be no good answer! Far too often I find that people think because they are well off that they know what's best for those who are not. Far too often I find the educated and the so-call advanced or civilized to be the biggest fools and those that have gone so far that they are left behind. Most so-call 3rd world people suffer now because of the arrogance of their captures. they suck the life out of the things that they people had become one with, like nature. Maybe they were advance and not us...look around we are scrambling to repair nature because in our arrogance we choose to try and subjugate nature like we did those people to our way of thinking. Now like those people nature is fighting backâ;¦India on her own has become one of the worlds powers!
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        flyonthewallzz4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Sideline:
        Damb good to see you again Alakazam!
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        alakazam4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        And you as well Good Sir!
        How fare thee?
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Thanks for the display of your ignorance. FYI, the Brits were on their way out of India after WWII in any case, as were all the colonial powers. Ghandi didn't force the Dutch out of SE Asia too did he? How about the French? Clearly, there was an historical trend that had nothing to do with him.
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        How do you come up with these silly things? So you are saying they stayed around and beat the crap out of the Indians just for fun?
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        miklkit4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Yup.
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        alakazam4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Yeah...He kinda is isn't he?
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Nope!
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Actually, they didn't leave until victory in WWII was secured. By that time, all the colonial powers were financially and militarily exhausted and couldn't afford to maintain empires. Read some history instead of making up history with a revisionist spin.
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        MajJohn4 months, 1 week ago
        
        Wouldn't put it past them.
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        Sabretooth4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        "The point is that we have to stop anyone who can film someone being crudely and slowly beheaded."
        Indeed, these barbarians need to use more civilized methods such as depleted uranium, smart bombs, electrocution and lethal injection. Western culture has much we can teach them about being proper barbarians.
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Right...what a distortion of facts. I can hear your heart bleeding from here. Save it for the next ACLU meeting.
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        Sabretooth4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        For those of us who do not share your obviously keen intellect, perhaps you could explain further my "distortion of facts".
        Let me thankyou in advance as i eagerly await your insights.
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        How many do you estimate we killed over the years. How many of those men young sons and daughters did we kill? Do you ever ask yourself those questions? Daniel Pear came after we killed their children. and their women, and grandmothers, and fathers, and grandfathers. Do this for a second, close your eyes and think of what you would do if say China invaded the US and did that to you and yours. I know I would do things I can't even fathom at this moment. We as American vilify the Iraqis because if we don't we would have to visualize these very same things happening to us. They had nothing to do with 9/11. However you kill their wives and children and you expect them to be happy about that.
        I feel for Mr. Pearl and his family but i would say put us in their place and we would produce quite a few of the same reactions.
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        So you admit that you'd chop off someone's head on video. Can't agree with you there.
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        Dionys4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        "So you admit that you'd chop off someone's head on video. Can't agree with you there. "
        No, but oddly enough you fully support the US's murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Including babies. It's curious how you can support thousands of babies being blown up but find one death particularly abhorrent.
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        cloud154 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Dionys you're clearly using babies to get a shock factor result for when people read your comment. Its pathetic really. You talk as though we purposely seek out innocent civilians and kill them. Its a war my friend. Civilians will die. Wars are going to happen. They've happened for thousands of year before, and will happen for thousands of years to come. And in all of these wars civilians die. Now you disagree with this war, so you claim its murder. And that simply isn't true, nor is it right.
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        That would have been acceptable if this war were not about lies and made up stories. But since we are armed with that knowledge in this conversation, mentioning babies are fare game!
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        gamahuche4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        It is not a war, its an illegal occupation, based on false/falsified evidence.
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        alakazam4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Flat Fact
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        Mutainia4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Hey, O "I'm not a Muslim". You CLAIM the US does all that evil, yet, you try to totally ignore all the great evil done in the name of "Allah is Great". How come?
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        That would be the murder of people by terrorists. Many more have died from suicide bombings and militia killings than at our hands. How about blaming Iran for stoking the flames of war?
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        I said no such thing...look up the word fathom...then let's talk. my words are here for all to see and yet you try to spin them. Are you just spun so far that you cant return to reality?
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        foksipayne4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Well stated, Black.
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        sir_samurai4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Those are some very profound quotes and food for thought there Blackacereturn!
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Yes they are sir_samurai, I should not be commended. I am just glad they are there and that I can use them.
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        Teech4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Blackace - Excellent posts. But when dealing with Cons, you may as well go out to the park and talk to a dog turd. The response would be the same. It just lays there and stinks and attracts flies.
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    david_nwpa4 months, 3 weeks ago
    
    MajJohn, not sure about this, but it seems the distinction you are making is between political prisoners, Jews, Gypsies, etc. in Nazi Germany and POWs. I have no doubt that POWs suffered grave injustices in the camps during the war, but many survived the ordeal. As for the rest of your comments, I have to agree with you. The generalizations do not quite fit.
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      UnusualSuspect4 months, 3 weeks ago
      
      It will be interesting to see in the coming years how much more of this stuff comes out...
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        Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        It's is sad to think that my country is a part of this. Very sad!
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        foksipayne4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Yes the morbid truth does seem to seep thru, slowly.
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      DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
      
      Actually, the Germans did on various occasions purposely execute, in particular, Allied airmen.
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        tkyrchncs4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Little wonder. Have you seen pictures of Dresden, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, after the war? Our nuclear attacks on Japan were less thorough. Not justifying, mind, just explaining. German behavior toward POW's was motivated by the exact same factors as motivate American torturers. We are just supposed to be better than they were, and we are finally catching on to that fact again.
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Little wonder? Have you seen what the Germans did to Rotterdam, where they invented terror bombing? This revisionist history is sheer crap! The Germans purposely targeted civilians lining the roads of Europe. Have you seen Stalingrad photos, btw, or the Warsaw Ghetto (another beautiful Medieval city)? The Germans weren't justified in killing POWs and it pi$$es me off that you would distort history to say this.
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        tkyrchncs4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        I am not distorting history. The Germans took a brutal beating by allied air forces. The things one does to others does not lessen one's rage at what is done to him; in fact, it usually makes it worse. Being disillusioned about one's superiority and invincibility also makes it worse. These are exactly the things that happened to us on 9/11, just as they happened to the Germans. They were tried for war crimes, the ones that survived, and so should we be. Our President and most of his administration, and any military personnel who obeyed their illegal orders to hold people without trials and torture them should be in jail, at least.
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Apparently , tkyrchncs is in favor of shooting WWII servicemen like my grandfather. Good thing he already passed away, dying without realizing what a war criminal he really was. Yeah, he left 5 children at home and didn't accept the deferrment to which he was entitled, nearly died on several occasions, criminally forcing the Germans out of occupied Europe.
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        Teech4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Don't know all the details of Rotterdam, but we cooked a lot of kraut in Dresden and fried a lot or rice in the Tokyo incendiary raids. Roasted some more in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Saved millions of lives by avoiding a prolonged invasion of Japan and protracted war there.
        War is hell. Civilians on both sides die. Lots of them. Millions in fact.
        For those who believe that Iraq is as justified as WWII was, there is no argument.
        For those who believe that Iraq is a bogus war being fought for bogus reasons, the argument rages on.
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        The German terror bombing of Rotterdam directly led to Holland's capitulation in 1940. What you're saying is true.
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        tkyrchncs4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        DkaL, perhaps you need to re-read what I wrote and react to what I wrote, rather than whatever it is you think I wrote. My father was in the Army Air Corps in WWII and all my uncles served, two survived D-day. I served 12 yrs in the Army and Army Reserve, including Desert Storm. I have not defended anything the Germans did, merely stated an understanding of their feelings that would lead to killing airmen POWs, just as OUR feelings have allowed us to be lead into new atrocities recently, different only in scale from theirs, not in kind.
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        My point was that there was no justification for executing POWs...certainly the Germans had none given their treatment of civilian populations during the early campaigns of the Blitzkrieg.
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        tkyrchncs4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Understanding a reason and accepting it as justification are NOT the same thing. Just as I do not accept our fear and anger as justification for the treatment of OUR current prisoners, or for the abrogation of OUR OWN civil rights that our ancestors fought and died for. We should be upstanding and admit our wrong and cease it immediately and remove from office (political or military) all who participated or condoned, preferably to jail. We have the benefit of the example of the Germans and our judgement of them; we were supposed to remember what NOT to do!
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    miklkit4 months, 3 weeks ago
    
    You say that while our military has acted in a similar way to the nazis, it's ok because we aren't as bad as they were. Bad is bad. Torture is bad. you are trying to split hairs.
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      flyonthewallzz4 months, 3 weeks ago
      
      Army Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency (COIN) published: December 2006
      Page 36
      "-132. Illegitimate actions are those involving the use of power without authorityÃ;Â¢;;whether committed by government officials, security forces, or counterinsurgents. Such actions include unjustified or excessive use of force, unlawful detention, torture, and punishment without trial. Efforts to build a legitimate government though illegitimate actions are self-defeating, even against insurgents who conceal themselves amid noncombatants and flout the law. Moreover, participation in COIN operations by U.S. forces
      must follow United States law, including domestic laws, treaties to which the United States is party, and certain HN laws. (See appendix D.) Any human rights abuses or legal violations committed by U.S. forces quickly become known throughout the local populace and eventually around the world. Illegitimate actions undermine both long- and short-term COIN efforts."
      
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        flyonthewallzz4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Author: General David Howell Petraeus
        http://usacac.army.mil/cac/repository/materials...
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        Ratskii4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        well posted fly, thank you.
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      Blackacereturn4 months, 3 weeks ago
      
      well said miklkit - Welcome to the party politics. We do this thing we are correct, you do it you are wrong!
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tkyrchncs4 months, 3 weeks ago

I have had trouble believing that JAG officers supported these illegal and inhumane policies, and now we see they did not, but official blame will not go even as high as Myers. I am equally surprised that no soldiers have come to light who refused to carry out these tortures.
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  sir_samurai4 months, 3 weeks ago
  
  That is surprizing. But also surprizing are the high numbers of enlisted people that, while not talking in detail, are openly critical, protesting, deserting and committing suicide, by the thousands.
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    MajJohn4 months, 3 weeks ago
    
    "By the thousands", come on, you've taken a few incidents created a suicidal monster. A good propagandist will take a truth and attach it to lies and exaggeration to meet his political ends.
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      sir_samurai4 months, 3 weeks ago
      
      I don't recall the exact article(s) to point to at the moment, but for certain several "daily" sources I've read/heard (papers and NPR, combined for Afghanistan and Iraq, I believe) put the figures at a rate of around 300 per week and 1,000 per month committing suicide alone.
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        MajJohn4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        That would mean in the last 12 months alone we'd have lost 8% of our total force structure. Don't you think the relatives at home would have noticed??
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        sir_samurai4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Yes, if all that committed or at least attempted to, had actually died. But it would be good to find out the true ratio. I am willing to bet though, a far greater figure than 8% are suffering from acute PSD and TSD and related debilitating effects and behaviors from these disorders.
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        fsev414 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Many have come home to be discharged with mental problems and months later commit suicide. Unfortunately they are not counted as war causalities as they should be.
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    DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
    
    Actually, 108 committed suicide during 2007, which was the highest year yet. While it's a serious problem, it doesn't add up to thousands.
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      HannibalBarca4 months, 3 weeks ago
      
      just off the top of my head; 2007 = 4 years of war with around 4000 dead in that time. So 1000 dead a year with 108 in a year = 10%; yes it is serious, so don't argue about what number is right or wrong, address the problem.
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        The point was that he grossly exaggerated the numbers.
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        HannibalBarca4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        As Stalin said " One death is a tragedy, a million a stat."
        My point was not to argue the numbers, but what to do about the problem; is your VA hospitals up to the task ? If not, fix them and do so without labels
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Do I tell you how to run Canada? Stick to your own country!
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        DropkickaLib4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        ...and if you have to lie to make a political point, so be it. That is the attitude your comment implies.
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        Sabretooth4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Tell ya what Drop, how about you stick to American and quit screwing over half the world in search of profit for your war economy and then by all means as a Canadian i will shut my mouth and mind my own business.
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        cloud154 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        Canada suxzors....what are you going to say aboot that eh? Now move over so we have room to put our popsicles, its gonna be a hot summer. ;)
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        Sabretooth4 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        I had heard of the so called dumbing down of the American populace so that you would be easier to control...are you a product of this?
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        cloud154 months, 3 weeks ago
        
        no....the wink at the end would imply that the comment was a joke...I guess people missed it :(
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