Torture American Style

BoneQuint · Post by **BoneQuint** » Mon May 31, 2004 10:24 pm

Sometimes, governments "apologizing" for things in the past makes sense to me. There are cases when the official record of some country is completely silent on a subject, as if they were ignoring it, or even denying it happened. I believe recently Japan "apologized" for atrocities in China before and during the second World War. Before then, there was absolutely no official mention of the atrocities. So it's not exactly an "apology" as much as an official recognition of a past transgression, looked upon with regret. The US government also fairly recently "apologized" for internment of US citizens of Japanese descent during World War II -- before then, there was no official recognition that the action was a mistake, so to officially admit that a mistake was made makes sense to me.

jbarter · Post by **jbarter** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 4:23 am

I think Mr Rooney's article shows what (I hope) most Americans would feel at a personal level about what has happened in Iraq. However, I think he has made a basic error when he says "It changed the world's perception of us."

For a significant part of the world this won't have changed their perception of the US, it will merely have confirmed it. America needs to learn to see things from other people's point of view. If that view is wrong, learn how to get the truth across to those people, not just to their governments. If, while looking from the other side, you find that something is wrong or could be better then have the will and the courage to change it.

Whether you agree with the rest of the world or not you can't ignore them. Britain left it too long and too late to learn this lesson, don't make the same mistake.

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 6:20 am

The thing to know re: perceptions, is that the torture of people in Iraq and Guantanamo is old news. It was reported even in the US, and was even briefly discussed here. It seems that the vast majority of Americans didn't believe it until they saw the pictures, but many people both here and in the rest of the world, have known for a long time (at least since a couple of months after the concentration camp in Guantanamo started functioning) that it was happening.

Caj · Post by **Caj** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 11:46 am

NorCalMusician wrote:
Caj wrote:From a less pragmatic standpoint, the country is responsible if its government is ultimately responsible for the atrocities. Sure you always have underlings do the dirty work, but if higher-ups provided the infrastructure or climate or various winks and nods to make it happen, then the higher-ups take the blame.
Those are still individuals, and yes, they should be responsible.

Well in that case, is it ever possible to hold a country responsible? In the end you can always point to individuals, or something other than the government, e.g. a religious movement resulting in witch trials.

Here's my stance: a "government" is the organization itself that is supposed to minimize abuse of power. It can and should be blamed if it fails at that task.

Analogy: your burglar alarm. If a burglar breaks into your house he is responsible for the crime. But if burglars can waltz right in, owing to defects in the alarm system, then the alarm company also shoulders some of the responsibility.

Like an alarm system, the gov't can fail in more than one way. The whole design could be faulty, which is the worst case. If the design is intelligent and properly paranoid, it could fail if the people managing the system fall asleep at the switch. Or it could fail if we the people get tired of dealing with it or paying for it, and leave it off.

I suspect that the prison torture will be exposing a defect of the second kind: people in the government suspending oversight in the name of getting things done, de-emphasizing Geneva conventions, doing it all on a shoestring budget.

AA is supposed to be a bridge type of action. Theoretically, it should not even be required based on our Constitution. It's premise is to fix the past, but with progress for the future.

I disagree. I think AA has nothing to do with fixing the past; it is simply a measure to correct present inequalities, regardless of who caused them or how long ago. There is no implied blame; likewise if we give out need-based federal loans to poor people, we are not implicitly blaming the rich for the plight of the poor.

Nor does it matter if it "isn't even required" based on our constitution. Lots of things aren't required based on our constitution, but we do them anyway.

...So, in essence, this man paid a HEAVY price for the actions of those in the past. THAT was a crime in my books.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. People assume that AA is some kind of reparation for the past---in reality, our government is loath to hand out any reparations for past misdeeds. Your man there paid a heavy price in the name of corrective hiring practices; he wasn't being punished or found guilty for the actions of past generations.

There are plenty of programs that we can view that way if we feel like it. We have to pay huge amounts of money to clean up toxic waste dumps---but my generation didn't put them there. By having to pay for cleanup, are we being punished or blamed for the misdeeds of those in the past? Is there any implication that future generations are being held responsible? No, it just needs to be done.

Caj

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 11:57 am

This wasn't making any sense, until i realized you were talking about affirmative action, and not the Alcoholics Anonimous!

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 12:34 pm

sturob wrote:... And this CRAP about how the soldiers say they weren't advised of the Geneva Convention rules, etc. . . I hope that in addition to shedding light on what's going on in Iraq, this also brings to our attention the problems we have at home in our own prisons, with our own citizens....Stuart

I never went through military training of any kind, but I did go through the fifth grade in school, and Social Studies was part of that, as I recal... I find it appalling that *fairness*, *decency* and *respect* for all people is such a foreign thing to so many of my fellow Americans. Luckilyu, there are many more who do use those highest of morals to rule their lives.

This bring to point one of my own pet peeves about this whole business, since Sept 11, 2001...

So many shirts, bumper stickers, hats, billboards, newspaper ads, slogans here and there, saying, no... shouting, "God Bless America! and God Bless the USA!"... I say, "God Bless the World! Please!"

Even if God blesses my enemy, it will be the right thing to do, or God would not do it (note here, that I would get into a deep arguement here with myself over the question, LOL!)... but to ask for God's favor for only ourselves when there is so much obvious need throughout the entire third rock from old Sol, is, IMHO, incredibly ungodly. (again, decades of discussioun could ensue from there

)

sigh

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 8:15 pm

You can say reparations are not in order, but in the case of the Tulsa attrocities, there are actual living survivors seeking the reparations. No doubt this is true in some of the other 20th Century cases that were mentioned as if the remote past.

DCrom · Post by **DCrom** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 8:31 pm

Walden wrote:You can say reparations are not in order, but in the case of the Tulsa attrocities, there are actual living survivors seeking the reparations. No doubt this is true in some of the other 20th Century cases that were mentioned as if the remote past.

I think most of us would agree, that in any case where there are identifiable people, with identifiable damages, reparations are well-merited.

I also think that this (specific reparations to identifiable victims) is a very different thing than Affirmative Action. And that a lot of the heat generated by these debates is between folks who do and don't differentiate between the two.

ApolloIncarnate · Post by **ApolloIncarnate** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 1:13 pm

America needs to change it's perception of itself. It is the young rich boy on campus. It's ideals speak of freedom for others ect., but if you ask many regular Joes what they would do if they had the prisioners within reach torture would be the first thing to come out of their lips. This is not all of America, but I think it needs to reevaluate what it says and does, and America will see why others hold negative viewpoints of America. I agree that Iraq needs a new form of government, but democracy is only one solution to a HUGE problem. America should stop trying to make duplicates of itself and help countries form governments suitable for their needs.