LDS & ex-LDS Political Ideologies

[_Coggins7]

Coggins7:

I'm not aware of a single instance of anything approaching what any reasonable person would consider "torture" ever occurring at any of our military interrogation centers. Water boarding?

What is waterboarding?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboard ... ing_100406

Waterboarding is a torture technique that simulates drowning in a controlled environment. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face[1] to force the inhalation of water into the lungs.[2] Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex,[3] and can make the subject believe death is imminent. Waterboarding's use as a method of torture or means to support interrogation is based on its ability to cause extreme mental distress while possibly creating no lasting physical damage to the subject. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last long after the procedure.[4] Although waterboarding in cases can leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the real risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries as a result of struggling against restraints (including broken bones), and even death.[5]

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation ... id=1322866

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

"The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

Of course no reasonable person could call any of that torture.

That's correct. Nobody who is not a moral or intellectual retardate would call using techniques that cause no lasting physical damage, but intense mental distress, to elicit information that would prevent another 9/11, a major terrorist attack in Baghdad, or the ambush and massacre of American troops or Iraqi police "torture". I know what real torture is, and so does John McCain. Human Rights Watch is a leftist group that, like so many others of its ilk, sees no substantive moral difference between America and other Western democracies and countries like Cuba or Iran. Hence, "torture" used to obtain information by a democracy in a war against a totalitarian despotism in a struggle for its long term survival is no more legitimate than torture by the despotism to obtain information about dissident groups within its own borders. This is the doctrine of "moral equivalence" that has animated the Left's attitudes towards the West's enemies throughout the Cold War and into the present.

Slink back to your lair Chap.

[_Coggins7]

Oh, and I couldn't help but notice the sources--ABC News and the Washington Post, two notorious left wing sounding boards for elite Northeastern socio-cultural opinion and sources with a historic animus to the use of American military power anywhere to protect its own interests.

Call waterboarding "torture" if you want to score ideological points, but the fact remains that in war, interrogation has got to be tough sometimes to get the information that is needed. That is the reality. And, given the kind of people undergoing this kind of interrogation, people who would saw off the head of my granddaughter without a second thought as the infidel she is, forgive me if my Crocodile tears are not forthcoming.

There has been no torture, in any substantive sense, at Guantanamo or anywhere else that we know of. You might want to ask Jeramiah Denton about the definition of "torture" and see if it comes close to what our poor Khalid Sheik Mohammed underwent at the hands of those brutish, sweaty CIA interrogators.

Oh, by the way, Chap, for some reason, failed to mention that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was the mastermind of the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2002 Bali bombings, the murder of Daniel Pearl, and the 9/11 attacks. Daniel Pearl was psychologically tortured, his throat slit, beheaded, and his body cut into ten pieces. Waterboarding indeed.

[_Chap]

That's correct. Nobody who is not a moral or intellectual retardate would call using techniques that cause no lasting physical damage, but intense mental distress, to elicit information that would prevent another 9/11, a major terrorist attack in Baghdad, or the ambush and massacre of American troops or Iraqi police "torture". I know what real torture is, and so does John McCain. Human Rights Watch is a leftist group that, like so many others of its ilk, sees no substantive moral difference between America and other Western democracies and countries like Cuba or Iran. Hence, "torture" used to obtain information by a democracy in a war against a totalitarian despotism in a struggle for its long term survival is no more legitimate than torture by the despotism to obtain information about dissident groups within its own borders. This is the doctrine of "moral equivalence" that has animated the Left's attitudes towards the West's enemies throughout the Cold War and into the present.

Slink back to your lair Chap.

Oh, and I couldn't help but notice the sources--ABC News and the Washington Post, two notorious left wing sounding boards for elite Northeastern socio-cultural opinion and sources with a historic animus to the use of American military power anywhere to protect its own interests.

Call waterboarding "torture" if you want to score ideological points, but the fact remains that in war, interrogation has got to be tough sometimes to get the information that is needed. That is the reality. And, given the kind of people undergoing this kind of interrogation, people who would saw off the head of my granddaughter without a second thought as the infidel she is, forgive me if my Crocodile tears are not forthcoming.

There has been no torture, in any substantive sense, at Guantanamo or anywhere else that we know of. You might want to ask Jeramiah Denton about the definition of "torture" and see if it comes close to what our poor Khalid Sheik Mohammed underwent at the hands of those brutish, sweaty CIA interrogators.

Oh, by the way, Chap, for some reason, failed to mention that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was the mastermind of the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2002 Bali bombings, the murder of Daniel Pearl, and the 9/11 attacks. Daniel Pearl was psychologically tortured, his throat slit, beheaded, and his body cut into ten pieces. Waterboarding indeed.

I like this. I put up two descriptions of water-boarding, whose factual accounts of what is involved I notice that Coggins7 does not dispute (if he thinks the descriptions of what is involved are inaccurate, let him suggest another more to his taste). Then I said, quite coolly:

Of course no reasonable person could call any of that torture.

Coggy answers as above ...

For Coggy, treatment stressful, painful and terrifying enough to cause a dedicated terrorist like Khalid Sheik Mohammed to break in two and a half minutes is not 'torture', because .... because it causes "no lasting physical damage". So that's all right then. We are all most grateful to Coggy for making that clear to us.

So if, for instance, someone did that to an American captive, we would be able to say "Well, at least the poor guy wasn't tortured. At least they were humane enough to spare him that." Anyone who would not feel comfortable saying that would be a moral or intellectual retardate.

The rest of Coggy's post seems to amount to saying that even if the good guys were to torture the bad guys, that would still be OK. If Coggy thinks that way, I am not sure why he is so very anxious to say that one very common treatment the good guys seem to be using on the bad guys nowadays is not torture. I suppose one has to keep all the exits covered if one lives inside a Coggy psyche, though.

But frankly I am reluctant to read Coggy's post too closely or too often. Have you ever had an argument with someone with acute halitosis, who is also at that stage of drunkenness when they can't talk without spraying you with malodorous spittle? Even though you don't want to give up and let them think you are persuaded, the experience of being close up with them is so, well, yucky and defiling that one just looks round the bar for an excuse to slip away. So it is with close encounters of the Coggy kind.

[_Coggins7]

For Coggy, treatment stressful, painful and terrifying enough to cause a dedicated terrorist like Khalid Sheik Mohammed to break in two and a half minutes is not 'torture', because .... because it causes "no lasting physical damage". So that's all right then. We are all most grateful to Coggy for making that clear to us.

I'm glad you've got that clear now.

So if, for instance, someone did that to an American captive, we would be able to say "Well, at least the poor guy wasn't tortured. At least they were humane enough to spare him that." Anyone who would not feel comfortable saying that would be a moral or intellectual retardate.

To my knowledge, our Islamist enemies do not, and would not ever waterboard someone. That's what humane societies do to people who have information we need to save other innocent lives and the lives of our soldiers fighting to protect other's lives, and that's what humane societies do at the extreme end.

What happens to Americans and, especially Jews, is they get their heads sawed off with dull kitchen knives. This may happen after slowly gouging out their eyes with dental tools, or other such niceties. Or paraplegic people get thrown,wheelchair and all, over the sides of cruise ships. I imagine most woman in Islamic societies would much rather be waterboarded then stoned for looking at a man other than their husband.

The rest of Coggy's post seems to amount to saying that even if the good guys were to torture the bad guys, that would still be OK. If Coggy thinks that way, I am not sure why he is so very anxious to say that one very common treatment the good guys seem to be using on the bad guys nowadays is not torture. I suppose one has to keep all the exits covered if one lives inside a Coggy psyche, though.

It is psychological torture, not "torture" in the sense that any actual harm is done to the body; there is no mutilation, nor is excruciating pain inflicted over long periods. It is short, intense, effective, and does not destroy the human body. And it is effective, apparently. Question: would you waterboard someone if in so doing you could alert Homland Security to a plot to set off a small nuclear device in your neighborhood?

Snip adolescent posturing...

[_Chap]

I think Coggy has finally managed to nerve himself to say clearly that it is all right for good guys to torture bad guys. I just wanted to get that straight. Don't know why it took him so long.

[_Zoidberg]

Coggins, your idiocy truly knows no limits.

The Gulag Archipelago was not written in 1973. That's when it was published. The narrative ends in 1956. I used to own the book when I lived in Russia. You have never even opened it, obviously.

The GULag was shut down soon after Stalin's death. by the way, you clearly don't know what GULag means.

Apparently, you don't know what "liquidation" means, either.

Also, apprently, no one has ever died in a US prison.

Political prisoners? Sure. by the way, does the name McCarthy sound familiar to you?

I'm not advocating imprisoning people for their political views, I'm just suggesting you take a look around and attempt to recover from your brain-damaged attitude.

People like you, Coggins, are the reason the rest of the world views the US so negatively.

[_Zoidberg]

I think Coggy has finally managed to nerve himself to say clearly that it is all right for good guys to torture bad guys. I just wanted to get that straight. Don't know why it took him so long.

Why, indeed. I wonder if he also thinks it's okay to beat your wife as long as it doesn't result in any physical damage.

Coggins, you're such a treasure.

[_Coggins7]

Coggins, your idiocy truly knows no limits.

The Gulag Archipelago was not written in 1973. That's when it was published. The narrative ends in 1956. I used to own the book when I lived in Russia. You have never even opened it, obviously.

The GULag was shut down soon after Stalin's death. by the way, you clearly don't know what GULag means.

Apparently, you don't know what "liquidation" means, either.

Also, apprently, no one has ever died in a US prison.

Political prisoners? Sure. by the way, does the name McCarthy sound familiar to you?

I'm not advocating imprisoning people for their political views, I'm just suggesting you take a look around and attempt to recover from your brain-damaged attitude.

Sigh...why I'm responding to this I do not know. Its true that the Gulag Archipelago was not written in 1972, but published in that year. Now, having said that, I will only repost the material that Zoid apparently did not bother reading, and the links she did not bother following, which will quite clearly demonstrate that the book was still quite relevant in 1972 because the Gulag system was still in full operation, though at a more limited level than under Stalin.

The camp, one of several hundred logging camps in the Perm region, was constructed in 1946 at the height of the Soviet forced labor system that came to be known as the Gulag. In 1972, during a period of renewed political repression in the USSR, Perm-36 was converted into a political prison, and for the next 15 years, the camp, along with two others nearby, held many of the Soviet Union’s most prominent dissidents. Among them were human right activists such as Vladimir Bukovsky, Sergey Kovalev, Anatoly Marchenko, Yury Orlov, as well as many Ukrainian, Baltic, Tatar and Caucasian nationalist leaders and Jewish activists, including Nathan Sharansky.

Now go here:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/gula.html

Here's what we see:

The Soviet system of forced labor camps was first established in 1919 under the Cheka, but it was not until the early 1930s that the camp population reached significant numbers. By 1934 the Gulag, or Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps, then under the Cheka's successor organization the NKVD, had several million inmates. Prisoners included murderers, thieves, and other common criminals--along with political and religious dissenters. The Gulag, whose camps were located mainly in remote regions of Siberia and the Far North, made significant contributions to the Soviet economy in the period of Joseph Stalin. Gulag prisoners constructed the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Moscow-Volga Canal, the Baikal-Amur main railroad line, numerous hydroelectric stations, and strategic roads and industrial enterprises in remote regions. GULAG manpower was also used for much of the country's lumbering and for the mining of coal, copper, and gold.

Stalin constantly increased the number of projects assigned to the NKVD, which led to an increasing reliance on its labor. The Gulag also served as a source of workers for economic projects independent of the NKVD, which contracted its prisoners out to various economic enterprises.

Conditions in the camps were extremely harsh. Prisoners received inadequate food rations and insufficient clothing, which made it difficult to endure the severe weather and the long working hours; sometimes the inmates were physically abused by camp guards. As a result, the death rate from exhaustion and disease in the camps was high. After Stalin died in 1953, the Gulag population was reduced significantly, and conditions for inmates somewhat improved. Forced labor camps continued to exist, although on a small scale, into the Gorbachev period, and the government even opened some camps to scrutiny by journalists and human rights activists. With the advance of democratization, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience all but disappeared from the camps.

Now, back at the gulag memorial, we read again:

In 1972, during a period of renewed political repression in the USSR, Perm-36 was converted into a political prison, and for the next 15 years, the camp, along with two others nearby, held many of the Soviet Union’s most prominent dissidents. Among them were human right activists such as Vladimir Bukovsky, Sergey Kovalev, Anatoly Marchenko, Yury Orlov, as well as many Ukrainian, Baltic, Tatar and Caucasian nationalist leaders and Jewish activists, including Nathan Sharansky.



And of course, there were many others like this, which Solzhenitsyn symbolized as a chain of islands, an "archipelago".

Many of these people, Zoid, were political prisoners, not criminals by any normative western standards. They were there for thought crimes, and nothing more.

Then you could go here http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE4.HTM for some figures regarding total government induced deaths within the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1989. [i]You will see that it is far more than 20 million and that most of the deaths are attributable to the gulag system you say disappeared after the horrible, terrible Stalin was off the scene and those paragons of niceness, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko took the stage.

There were no political prisoners in the U.S. during the McCarthy era, of which you clearly only have a comic book understanding, nor are there any at the present time.

[_Coggins7]

I think Coggy has finally managed to nerve himself to say clearly that it is all right for good guys to torture bad guys. I just wanted to get that straight. Don't know why it took him so long.

Yes, I do think that in war time, especially when the stakes are as high as they are at present, that some forms of harsh interrogation are permissible.

Now, answer the ethical question I posed to you.

[_Zoidberg]

Coggins, I have looked at some of your links. You still clearly haven't bothered to look up the meaning of either GULag or "liquidation".

No political prisoners during the McCarthy era? What about the Hollywood Ten? Perhaps you've seen a different timeline than I have. Or, more likely, you are blowing smoke out of your butt again.

What about the McCarran Internal Security Act? Oh, I get it: it allowed detention of undesirable elements, not imprisonment. Detainees and prisoners are sooo different. Just like sleep deprivation is not torture of prisoners - it's enhanced interrogation of detainees.

There was a great Daily Show on that tortured logic.