When Your Fellow Soldiers Are At Risk: How do you extract information?

[Shalako]

This is a great discussion. First and foremost, I am appalled at the treatment of the prisoners, and the perpetrators should be tried, and if convicted, punished. But (big but here) if this is the WORST treatment that we do to prisoners in a time of war, then we must be the kindest, gentlest, most peaceble nation to ever grace the face of this earth. The inhabitants of the Middle East have become familiar with some of the goriest forms of torture to ever be devised, but they claim to be offended by nude dogpiles and leashes? Give me a break. I am not saying it is right to stack dudes like cordwood, but come on, it's not the plastic shredders, lashings and swims through sewage, mass graves, and amputations they are freaking accustomed to.

Not to pick on anyone (again I appreciate the great discussion) but...

Instead, treating prisoners well encourages the enemy to surrender and garners support rather than hatred in the civilian population.

Not gonna happen. Do you know the face of who we are fighting? These folks will spend their last breath trying to bring us destruction. The civilian population has its hopes, but the islamo-fascist insurgents only have one option.

If our country can not be tougher than them, we will not stay on the top of the heap. We can be kinder, and more humane, but we will be dethroned.

 

[Antlurz]

DTLoken...

Now I for one think it's horrible that our soldiers are dying in such large numbers (This wouldn't be a problem if we weren't there), but face the facts, the people killing them aren't by definition terrorists.

I'm guessing you never lived through a REAL war have you? In a REAL war, typically more people will die before sunup than have died in this entire conflict. In fact, the "head count" is actually so low as to be unbelieveable.

In fact, the "body bag" manufacturers are going bankrupt.

And the fact is, the people killing them are nothing BUT terrorists.

Reality sucks sometimes...

Ron

 

[ID_shooting]

"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."

OK, this may bet me banned, or at least this post get deleted, but...

This is why war should be executed with extreeme prejudice. I know many of you would like to see us aplogize for the incedent in the prison, but this group of people do not understnad this, nothing short of total anialation will stop things like this from happening.

We are at war folks, these are not peace talks, these are not surrender negotiations, WAR.

I know most you think my comments as ugly and grotesqe, how do you think we defeated the Germans and the Japanese, eliminated thier abilty to wage war, then crushed them in a war of attrition. We need to do the same here.

War is never pretty, but by the time I was done with them, there wouldn't be enough left of them to hold up a 7-11 much less commit attacks.

Before you flame the heck out of me, delete my post, or ban me from the board, I want you to sit back and think about what I said and then respond as you see fit.

 

[Waitone]

I was channel surfing last night and stopped on the 700 Club. They were interviewing the only Christian member of the Iraqi Governing Council. His beef with the US wasn't that we were brutal, but that we were not brutal enough. He specifically cited all the killers of Iraqi people that the US treats with "dignity and respect."

He explained away our actions by saying we had to abide by the Geneva Convention. Interestingly, he said Iraqi's aren't bound by the convention.

He later said after the turnover of sovereignty in July Iraq will make use of capital punishment. Interesting because here is one voice on the IGC saying they will change the interim constitution which bans the death penalty.

Interesting interview. It again makes me wonder if we aren't judging Iraqi's through the eyes of Americans and coming to a complete set of wrongheaded conclusions.

 

[DTLoken]

And the fact is, the people killing them are nothing BUT terrorists.

Yup yup, and all the people defending their country from invasion are terrorists, including our fabled militiamen from the American Revolution, sure thing.

 

[Frohickey]

Four words...

Janet Reno strip video

Oh, sorry, I didn't know we are not allowed to use weapons of mass destruction.

 

[artherd]

If they're being interriogated, let 'em rot.


But AFAIK the recent abuses were not being done in interogation.

Rather, just for 'fun'.

Which actually negates the aspect of torture for effect "Oh, well, they're going to beat me anyway, so I'll just shut up."

 

[Gary H]

DTLoken:

Anyone that thinks that an American's head was severed because of the actions in the prison is quite misguided. These guys that we are up against use brutality on a regular basis to make their point. They don't need an excuse, but will use all the P.R. that they can get. This is brutal P.R. from the other side.

I'm beginning to think that we don't have what it takes to win the war against these terrorist. They view us as weak and we keep demonstrating that we are weak. The more that we fail to put these people down, the deeper the hole we dig for ourselves. We come down hard on our own people without even finding out what the facts are. I understand needing to take folks that are killing our troops and subjecting them to culturally shamful things. They may not fear death, but they do have their fears. If we are not allowed to exploit those fears, then we haven't any way to extract information. The photos of the last weeks never are shown with any context. We all assume that our people are performing unsightly acts for the fun of it. If this is true, those MP's are a disgrace, but if they are using what advantage they have to save American lives, then some of the disgrace belongs in this country with our politicians..

 

[Steel]

When Your Fellow Soldiers Are At Risk: How do you extract information?

Sleep deprivation, mental anguish (threaten to make them live with filthy swine (hog variety), loud rock & roll, whatever), and....

oh yeah, humiliation by marching them around naked, wearing women's unmentionables, etc.

If it saves one American life, then by all means proceed!

 

[WIG19]

technically unless a country is signatory to the Geneva Conventions we're not obligated to obey it ourselves.

Not a technically true statement.

 

[seeker_two]

quote:
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And the fact is, the people killing them are nothing BUT terrorists.
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Yup yup, and all the people defending their country from invasion are terrorists, including our fabled militiamen from the American Revolution, sure thing.

No one has convinced me yet that the "prisoners" in the photographs are Iraqi citizens. And most of the resistance that our soldiers are fighting is not from Iraqis, but from terrorist groups from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, & other pro-terrorist nations. Most Iraqis interviewed & polled there seem to support our efforts. And I'll bet money that the hooded thugs in the Berg video AREN'T Iraqi....

These scumbags aren't freedom fighters. They're fighting to keep Iraq enslaved to a philosophy of oppression & aggression justified by the perversion of a religion (& not the true religion itself).

Kill them all. God will know His own....

 

[Gary H]

Topic closed per "Float" My post is non-firearms.