I just happened to see this today on TCM. WOW! Talk about a relavent topic. A lot of what they described (I only saw courtroom scene) sounded so familiar. Sounded a lot like the torture we - USA - used in Iraq. Amazing isn't it?
shareYour statement is so stupid I can't even believe I'm replying to it.
The big difference is that torture that was used in Iraq was conducted by criminals in the Army who were tried, convicted, and sent to prison. The torture that our POW's faced in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam were conducted with the consent of those foreign Armies and Governments. I'd like for someone to show me where the Chinese or Vietnamese tried and convicted any of their Soldiers for the torture of American POW's.
I don't think the OP is necessarily referring to the Abu Ghraib prison offenses... merely to what we have done and continue to do to the 'detainees' in our prisons and the prisons of other, less squeamish, countries we've sent them to.
Certainly the U.S. tortures. Techniques like waterboarding WERE offences that WWII Japanese prisoners were convicted and executed for doing to U.S. soldiers.
To me, it seemed like a recognition of what happens when people are sent off to war without a knowledge of what their enenmy is like.
The Tough as nails col, realised he had been afraid to love his son.
If you lost a beloved family member, be it a spouse, child parent etc., in something like the 9/11 attacks and you were told there were enemies in custody that may have had knowledge of the attack but were only questioned and released as they refused to 'talk' would you be happy that it (the questioning) was left at that ? Don't give the 'pc' answer.Sit back, close your eyes and imagine your loved one possibly having had to choose between burning jet fuel or having to leap from the 82nd floor...well, call me a frickin' barbarian but being 'dunked'
doesn't seem remotely comparable to bamboo shoots under the finger nails or car batteries attached to the scrotum etc. Besides, we had no intention of KILLING them - something that our enemies had no fear of doing. Torture, torture some more 'oh, look, hes dead, oh well'. Our 'Boot Camp(s)' put our soldiers through more grueling physical/psychological trials then 'water boarding'.Besides,if one has knowledge of an impending act(s) of mass murder(s) and refuses to report such, I say its on them, not on our military personnel. All they had to do was tell what they knew and it never would have got to the 'water boarding' stage.It could have/would have been talked out over a cup of coffee.Refusing to give up info. s what got them to that stage.It was progressive interrogation - they were not just brought in to a room and water boarded. At any time in the interrogation process they could have brought it all to a halt. Don't you think the onus was on them to report what they knew ? Wouldn't you ? And, if not, what does that make you ? A civilized person worthy of being treated with respect or a psychopath who gets a thrill out of watching people get slaughtered ? if you side with the later than of course I'm wasting my breath.
I've been the equivalent of water boarded. While certainly unpleasant to say the least, to me it doesn't rise to the level of 'torture' as traditionally practiced.How do you equate the murder of innocent woman and children with getting water boarded ? Especially when the later was done to prevent the prisoners plans to do the former ? Live like a civilized human being and the odds are the closest you'll ever get to being 'tortured' is not being able to find a good parking spot at your local mall. Hang out with 'terrorists', plot horrific murder(s) and you get what you deserve.Personally, I don't advocate this practice if it doesn't result in getting actionable intelligence. Using it may have been ill advised but I certainly am not going to condemn those that were trying to prevent another 9/11. If the clock was ticking I don't know at what point I'd stop in my attempt to get them to 'talk'. But I'm not in the military - lucky for 'them' as I might not have as much restraint. A difficult situation when you know your family/friends/neighbors are counting on you to prevent such an occurrence.I'm not going to second guess them. If they were doing it purely for sport/sh*ts & giggles well, thats another story.To my knowledge, this wasn't the case.
You make some excellent points. The western powers in general are always held to these almost impossible standered. Your quite correct, that the process was drawn out, and could have been ended sooner. As a person, who has undergone a rehab process, specifically created to "bring out emotional pressure points" im a wheelchair user, Everyone has a breaking point.
But the same aconcept holds from vietnam. The northern atrositiees were hidden, Mal Lai and the actions of General Loan were broadcast all over the world, and critised with some degree of correctness.
God help all of us put in that siutation. As Patrica Hearst said, just don't lock me in that closet
tilleygj ,must be suffering from some sort of delusion that American is in some way superior to the rest of the world; allow me to shatter his illusions.
First off, those 'criminals' (read: low ranking US troops) were all given either suspended sentences or had their long prison sentences reduced with 'good behaviour' (the initial sentences were done for the benefit of fooling the world's media that your lousy justice system actually works). NO high ranking military officials who ORDERED the torture was ever put on trial - amusingly, your military has found a convenient way to subvert the Geneva conventions by assigning a lot of the military duties to 'civilian contractors' - basically a bunch of mercenary thugs whose main specialty seems to be gunning down unarmed civilians - a lot of whom seem to be getting suspended sentences or are getting acquitted for 'lack of evidence' in trials pertaining to the atrocities they committed.
It's also amusing that you equate the rag-tag group of guerilla rebels in Vietnam to an organized army of the US - They are not governed by the Geneva Conventions, you are so stop whining - plus the Vietnamese were defending their land from a bunch of Imperialist Invaders who dumped tonnes of toxins that cause birth defects in women to this day - If you're talking about rules of war and moral equivalancy then why grumbling about them not convicting their soldiers of torturing your war criminals - oops, I meant, US soldiers - when I don't see any convictions of high ranking officers for dropping Agent Orange on them during the 70s?
Those are some very thick glasses you see the world through, Salimy. Spinning your BS doesn't make it any more valid. Bad things happen in wars, from both sides. Is the USA superior? Good question. In the 1940s every Jew in Europe would have been exterminated (among others) if we hadn't stepped in. If we hadn't held the line in Korea, the Koreans in the south would be starved and mistreated just like those in the north are.
So let your heart bleed all you want. Your nonsense doesn't make a mark in the real world.
Did you notice that no one has brought up the prosecutions report on how mentally weak the average young American soldier was ? One observation was our (Americans) school systems and how we didn't seem to have the same 'love of country'or willingness to endure whatever torture they gave. I gotta say, I cringed at that daddy/son crying scene in the car after
a day in trial. The 50s Hollywood thought they were on to something with that 'all you need is love' meem even before the Beatles ever sang about it :-) Wonder if Lennon was so inspired ? He would have been a perfect example - no mom/dad to speak of, abandonment issues etc). I actually see a connection between this movie (and other 50s sob fests such as 'The Hoodlum Priest' and 'Crime in the Streets'). If dad only hugged them more often ... I mean a 20 somethin' Korean war vet. who had been through hell on earth in a N.Korean prison camp weeping like a 5 year old on his daddies shoulder, NOT for the inhumanity and suffering he witnessed/experienced in Korea but because he never knew whether his daddy loved him or not !!!
Don't get me wrong, I've always thought it was very important that I told my kids that I loved them, even to this day ... its just the 50s Hollywood social worker answer to all of society's ills was that kids needed to be reassured and then everything would be right with the world .. infantile logic.