Gonzales: unfit for duty

[dumspirospero]

This argument is so fallacious…the Pope was speaking in terms of torture world wide…He did not single us out and tell us to stop immediately…Again, I submit to you that we do not endorse torture, we don’t support it, and we do not tolerate it…so I am sorry…that statement is not directed at our government…it may be aimed at a few…but not the whole.
St. James:

Please don’t belittle the intelligence of the Pope, dumspirospero.

The Pope’s statements regarding tortue coincide specifically with the US “war on terror” and were made one week previous to his meeting with G.W. Bush.

If you believe that the pope is “slandering our nation” you can take it up with him.

 

[St.James]

dumspirospero:

This argument is so fallacious…

Papal statements are always made in general terms where politics are involved even when they address at a specific evil.

If you are attempting to assert that the Pope’s statement wasn’t meant to address the well documented and publicized torture and humiliation perpetrated by US forces at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and to coincide with Bush’s visit one week after that statement was made, I’m afraid that it’s you who are being dishonest.

 

[Brad]

Nichevo:

Okay first it was the Soviets (recall Russia was a part of USSR not all of it.) who instituted the Gulag system as a means of mass punishment (integral to supporting the Soviet collective system) the use of Siberia under the Russian Czars was child’s play in comparison.

Second, what does that have to do with anything? We’re talking about enemy combatants in Afghanistan, people who were waging Jihad against us. Our military tribunals have as much to do with whatever tangent you just went off on as Ted Kennedy has to do with MADD.

If you want to debate the points I made, please do so with logical, defensible, and for the love of all that is good, CLEAR arguments. Trying to engage me with cute little barbs and turns of phrase will do nothing more than bore me. Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

:clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

 

[Brad]

Norwich:

If your going to claim that your bill of rights ONLY applies to American citizens and not to anyone else anywhere in the world, what right have you to complain about others. They also ahve their laws that pertain to themselves. Some of us in Europe actually believe a countries laws apply to EVERYONE not just a select few.

Do yourself a favor and look up sovereign.

Would you, as a member of GB, want to be required to obeys laws in Iraq implemented by Sadaam Hussein?

I think you need some rest.

 

[Brad]

St. James:

Please don’t belittle the intelligence of the Pope, dumspirospero.

The Pope’s statements regarding tortue coincide specifically with the US “war on terror” and were made one week previous to his meeting with G.W. Bush.

If you believe that the pope is “slandering our nation” you can take it up with him.

As I recall, there were a few beheadings going on at that time, no? Or do you have inside track to the mind of the Pope?

 

[Brad]

St. James:

Papal statements are always made in general terms where politics are involved even when they address at a specific evil.

If you are attempting to assert that the Pope’s statement wasn’t meant to address the well documented and publicized torture and humiliation perpetrated by US forces at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and to coincide with Bush’s visit one week after that statement was made, I’m afraid that it’s you who are being dishonest.

No. Dums isn’t dishonest. However, I’d suggest that you, unlike the Pope, might read too much newspaper headlines and watch too much nightly news.

 

[dumspirospero]

St. James…is it to hard for you to comprehend? Do I need to spell it out for you? Those were isolated incidents and they were dealt with properly…the soldiers are being punished appropriately…actually their punishments are more severe than I would like to see…Still, that does not reflect the military’s policy on treatment of POW’s…you can’t damn the military or the US for the actions of a few…because if you do that, then you also damn the Catholic Church for the actions of a few priests…get a clue.
St. James:

Papal statements are always made in general terms where politics are involved even when they address at a specific evil.

If you are attempting to assert that the Pope’s statement wasn’t meant to address the well documented and publicized torture and humiliation perpetrated by US forces at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and to coincide with Bush’s visit one week after that statement was made, I’m afraid that it’s you who are being dishonest.

 

[Brendan]

Norwich:

If your going to claim that your bill of rights ONLY applies to American citizens and not to anyone else anywhere in the world, what right have you to complain about others. They also ahve their laws that pertain to themselves. Some of us in Europe actually believe a countries laws apply to EVERYONE not just a select few.

So, if the US Constitution applies worldwide, then so does our 2nd Ammendment (the right to keep and bear arms)

So you would hold that my right to own a handgun extents worldwide, and any country that says otherwise is therefore violtating my rights.

 

[quijote]

Seems to me this article was meant to fuel the fire that half our country has burning deep inside…

Cheers.

 

[gilliam]

St. James:

He is unfit because, while the attorney general is charged with upholding the law, the documents show that as White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales, in the matter of torture, helped his client to concoct strategies to circumvent it.

Lawyers help clients work within the law to get what they want done. It is not, technically, illegal. And there is no evidence Gonzales did anything illegal. Clinton’s Whitehouse lawyers did the same thing.

Hey, I’m not a lawyer, and would never be one, but that is what they do. I suppose you could put a preacher in as Attorney General, but they would probably do a terrible job.

 

[St.James]

dumspirospero:

Still, that does not reflect the military’s policy on treatment of POW’s…

Policy and practice are two different things.

The humans who are being tortured find no comfort in policy if that policy is not being enforced.

 

[St.James]

dumspirospero:

Still, that does not reflect the military’s policy on treatment of POW’s

The humans who are being tortured find no comfort in policy that is not adhered to.

 

[dumspirospero]

And I find no pleasure in debating people who live in an idealistic Utopia who doesn’t realize there are people in every country that will break the law no matter what it may be…and that when they do so, it is not a reflection of that country as a whole…but of those individuals.

By your hypothesis, I guess we should just do away with the Catholic Church as well, since some pedophile priest molested young boys? If you believe that, then why do you even bother being a Catholic anymore?
St. James:

The humans who are being tortured find no comfort in policy that is not adhered to.

 

[dumspirospero]

Oh yeah…just an FYI…making people pose naked in photos is not torture…putting bamboo shoots under finger nails, cutting off apendeges, breaking bones, branding, etc…that is torture. Give me a break…that was nothing…I went through a heck of a lot more as a knob at The Citadel…Abu Ghraib would have been a welcomed pleasure cruise compared to some of the stuff I have experienced.
St. James:

The humans who are being tortured find no comfort in policy that is not adhered to.

 

[St.James]

dumspirospero:

Oh yeah…just an FYI…making people pose naked in photos is not torture…

I guess that forcing prisoners to simulate homosexual sex acts is just part of our superior culture which we are bringing to Iraq.

Prisoners were, in fact, tortured at Abu Ghraib.

Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated**,** and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. **Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority. **
newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

 

[Matt25]

In addressing the new Uk ambassador to the Holy See in September 2002, the Holy Father said this-
“As an essential part of its fight against all forms of terrorism, the international community is called to undertake new and creative political, diplomatic and economic initiatives aimed at relieving the scandalous situations of gross injustice, oppression and marginalization which continue to oppress countless members of the human family. History in fact shows that the recruitment of terrorists is more easily achieved in areas where human rights are trampled upon and where injustice is a part of daily life. This is not to say that the inequalities and abuses existing in the world excuse acts of terrorism: there can never of course be any justification for violence and disregard for human life. However, the international community can no longer overlook the underlying causes that lead young people especially to despair of humanity, of life itself and of the future, and to fall prey to the temptations of violence, hatred and a desire for revenge at any cost.”
Having any degree of ambiguity about torture at the heart of the US war on terror helps terrorists rather more than it helps the USA

 

[gilliam]

Matt25:

Having any degree of ambiguity about torture at the heart of the US war on terror helps terrorists rather more than it helps the USA

The terrorists are not worried about us torturing them. They consider us, and maybe rightly so, pampered, spoiled, effeminate and weak.

Don’t worry, when they catch any of us, they show us what real torture is.

 

[St.James]

Pope John Paul II:

History in fact shows that the recruitment of terrorists is more easily achieved in areas where human rights are trampled upon and where injustice is a part of daily life.

There is a world of wisdom in this statement.

 

[Nichevo]

St. James:

The humans who are being tortured find no comfort in policy that is not adhered to.

Who Finds No Comfort?
The widows and widowers of those killed on 9/11 find no comfort in a bed that is cold on one side…

The children of those killed on 9/11 found no comfort on Christmas morning staring at an empty chair in front of the tree…

The wives of Iraqi National Guardsmen who fear for their husbands daily try to find comfort in the fact that their husbands are willing to risk their lives to live free…

Comfort is found
By the women of Afghanistan who wave goodbye to their sons and daughters as they go to school able to enjoy an equality only dreamed of three years ago

By the men of Special Forces A Team 5-323 who see those children going into the school that they built with the help of some Navy SeaBees and Army Civil Affairs units. These scenes are being repeated all over Afghanistan.

By the men of a unit whose training I helped oversee prior to their deployment to Guantanamo Bay Cuba where they guard the various enemy combatants. Where those combatants attempt to abuse their guards by throwing food, feces, urine, saliva, vomit, and other bodily fluids at them. The soldiers there gain comfort from the knowledge that they have lived up to the code of an American soldier contrary to the half truths and sensationalism spread by the media and certain politicians who are less concerned with fact finding and more concerned with quote creating.

By me as I stare at my four month old daughter who is sleeping in the swing across from me as I type this. Secure in the knowledge that since 9/11, I and those others who do wear and have worn the uniform have done our best to create a safer world for her and even for you.

The papers do their damndest to do their job (which is not to report the news, it is to sell papers.) When this is all over, we ask for nothing in return. No apologies for the slander and lies written about us. No thank you for our doing our job. No rallies like those you gave to deserters and quislings. No book deals, no made for TV movies on Lifetime, just leave us alone, like you’ve done since the war began.

As for the humans who are allegedly being tortured (and ask them what torture is in their country of origin compared to how they are interrogated here. The response may surprise you) may they learn to adhere to something far more important than any policy. May they learn to adhere to the rules of civilization and respect for human life that govern the rest of us.

 

[Matt25]

gilliam:

The terrorists are not worried about us torturing them. They consider us, and maybe rightly so, pampered, spoiled, effeminate and weak.

Don’t worry, when they catch any of us, they show us what real torture is.

In his address to new ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Thursday 27 May 2004 the Holy Father said this-
“2.Disturbing news concerning the status of human rights is constantly arriving from all the continents. It makes clear that in contempt of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (cf. art. 5), people - men, women and children - are tortured and their dignity is offended. Thus, the whole of humanity is injured and derided. Since every human being is our brother or sister in humanity, we cannot keep silent before such intolerable abuses. It is the duty of all people of good will, whether they have responsibilities or are ordinary citizens, to do their utmost to enforce respect for every human being.
3. I appeal today to the consciences of our contemporaries. Indeed, the human conscience must be educated so that the unacceptable forms of violence which weigh heavily on our brethren in humanity may cease once and for all, and all people may join forces to promote respect for the most fundamental rights of every man and woman. We cannot live in peace and our hearts will always be uneasy so long as human beings are not treated with dignity. It is our duty to show solidarity to every one of them. Peace cannot be established unless we all join forces, especially you who are diplomats, to ensure that every person on this earth is respected. Peace alone entitles us to hope in the future. Your mission, therefore, is to be at the service of fraternal relations between persons and peoples”

Is it not the task of both Christians and Democracies to apply much much much higher standards of conduct to their actons than their enemies do to theirs?