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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (132267)	5/9/2004 2:09:15 AM
From: boris_a	Respond to of 281500

As it's impossible to act without making mistakes. But we do have a system for analyzing and correcting mistakes. I don't believe in "mistakes" or "some bad apples". 1)The first complaints by the IRC came in in May 2003. Since then, they call the torture techniques systematic and widespread. 2) The persistent, methodic sexual connotation of the abuses is highly remarkable. I an interview (unfortunately in German), an expert said that the torturers must have been consulted by Moslems, who know exactly how degrading the methods are for people of an islamic culture. 3) The fact, that there were taken pictures for "fun" is also a clear sign that there was no feeling of "doing evil". My conclusion: the torturers had outright orders or at least a lot of encouragement. Which is why it's a good thing that the photos have come out. Agree. I wish that the neo-colonisation of the Iraq is going to be a complete failure. Not because I wouldn't like to see a liberal, democratic society there. But because I don't want to see more wars, more lies, more violence and killing all decided by an Administration, who likes to play the teacher of the world and pretends to have moral standards higher than those of anyone else. Switzerland was entirely too cozy with Hitler and Nazi gold during WWII. 1) During the war, it was a very, very difficult situation. Switzerland was completely surrounded by a huge army. Switzerland had to act in order to survive as a country. I a situation like this, we shouldn't set high moral standards judging with hindsight. 2) The real problem was the time after the war. There was the opportunity of correction of the doubtful aspects of this policy. Unfortunately, the government of my country decided in favor of stonewalling and ignoring the truth. Only some of the left had been very active and requested complete investigations. But our Admin decided rather to serve the interests of Big Money than justice. I'm sure you know such patterns.

To: Ilaine who wrote (132267)	5/9/2004 10:14:50 AM
From: Alastair McIntosh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

We, the people, trusted them to do the right thing, and they didn't, so now we'll have to change things, take away some of the autonomy and freedom we gave the military and the intelligence community The problem may not be the autonomy and freedom of the military. In the Washington Post article, washingtonpost.com it appears that the military were uncomfortable with and pushed into more aggressive techniques by the civilians at the Pentagon. "We wanted to outline under what circumstances we could make them feel uncomfortable, a little distressed," another lawyer involved said. During the discussions, "the political people [at the Pentagon] were inclined toward aggressive techniques," the official said. Military lawyers, in contrast, were more conservative in their approach, mindful of how they would want U.S. military personnel held as prisoners to be treated by foreign powers, the official said. There seems to be a mindset at the civilian level that the Geneva Conventions are to be circumvented as much as possible. For example, direct torture of prisoners is sub-contracted to other nations so that the U.S. can appear to have clean hands.