B.C.
 

From today's comics-
Teacher: Who can tell me what the Geneva Convention was about? Johnny?

Johnny: They worked out a civilized way of hurting and maiming people.

/wipes coffee from display/

Thanks, that was funny!

B.C. is one of the worst comics. Unfortunately, it is drawn well, so my eye often lands on it. It's not until I read half way through the thing that I realize what I'm doing and force myself to stop. What a waste of comic page space.

Today's was amusing though.

This on the heels of numerous reports on what qualifies as "torture".

I can understand the difficulty in the intellectual exercise of trying to find the bright line of what is and isn't torture. Is putting a hood on a prisoner torture? No... What if the hood is left on for three days? How about standing with arms outstretched? No... for hours. Loud noise, bright lights, sleep deprivation... What about all these combined? Wait. Stop.

You know, I can remember having conversations way (waaay) back with my pals, and one of the unanswerable questions was "Is this love?" Girls on the brain at the time.... The best answer we came up with is that if you have to ask, then the answer is probably "no". Now my understanding of love has matured and deepened considerably since then, but the deja vu here is powerful.

If I have to ask "Is this torture?", then I probably have crossed some threshold in my psyche, my conscience has alerted me to something important, and in this case wrong. If I have to ask, then the answer is probably "yes". Any more than a little noodling around with that question and a dangerous transformation has taken place. The question morphs from "is it.." to "how can I justify my actions...", a much sadder and easier question to answer.

You want a bright line? Fine. Try this on. Imagine the roles were reversed--picture an image of one of our team hooded, stressed, deprived, held without charge and beyond the law, in the hands of the enemy. Same conditions, but the positions are reversed. Now ask the question--is my guy being tortured, or merely being subjected to "extreme interrogation techniques". (I swear to G-d I heard that on the radio today.) Is it torture? I thought so. Any double-standard double-talk is just rationalization, justification, *NOT* a change in the truth about whether it's torture or not.

And this goes for the (stupid disgusting self serving fear mongering) hypothetical situation of the "ticking timebomb or ticking terrorist". What level of physical (or mental--still possible to torture and leave physically intact) is acceptable in the case of a prisoner who is suspected of having information about an impending attack on (fill in a sufficient number of people to scare yourself here) nnn people. Maybe it's possible to justify it. But that doesn't make torture something else.

And the saddest part is, if we torture, how are we different? In what way are we better? What, besides words, distinguishes us from "them"?

Under Gonzales' definition of torture, John McCain wasn't tortured in Vietnam.

If an enemy has information that you need to keep your own people alive or help them win the war, at what point do you stop trying to extract that information? Can we only question the willing? If we catch someone planting a roadside IED and want to know where he got it, who from, and how many more there are, what are our options? Ask once (nicely, don't verbally assault the poor man), then shrug our shoulders and leave when he tells us to go fuck ourselves?

I think it may depend on who you're torturing. Sounds barbaric, but in every otherwise civilized nation, there are people who work as blunt instruments, who use unsavory methods to get information that that country needs. That, to me anyway, strikes a different moral tone than a militia group who breaks the fingers of anyone who doesn't like them.

pity it's so ineffective & sometimes counterproductive.
Good article I read a while back here

hy·poc·ri·sy:
Long as only the good guys are doing it. Only baddies torture people, goodies only put them in stress positions. Everyone knows that. Goodies would never torture people and if they did it would be for a good reason, which makes it ok. Craven apologist.

Someone always uses common sense conclusions to assume torture will get the answer. Guess what. Torture gets lies. Again, why did Powell go before the UN to declare Al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots? Because they tortured people and got the answers they wanted; reality be damned.

Torture not only gets lies. It makes even more enemies and results in more American deaths. Why did so many US troops survive WWII? The Germans knew Americans did not torture; were civil people. Germans fought to the death against the Russians - causing increased Russian deaths.

Eliminate the knee jerk reaction that torture does good. Instead apply lessons of history and psychology. You want the truth. Don't torture. Spend that time using other sly methods - so that what they confess has merit. Torture is why we wasted so much money on fictional Orange Alert threats. Where were those terrorist attacks on the Golden Gate Bridge and Prudental Building? Torture also explains 800 prisoners, in Guantanamo where the actual number of guilty may be as small as 14. So what did all this torture accomplish besides many phoney Orange Alerts? It made more enemies. More reasons to attack Americans - even by others who were once Ameircan allies. More confessions that were fiction. Torture only gets from him what you want him to say. That's the reality so proven by history.

I'm not saying it's the answer. I'm asking for an effective way of getting information from an ENEMY (you can look that up if your dictionaries are still out). I'm not sure where the hypocrisy accusation comes from.

Yes. It's ok to be mean to bad guys. Their feelings don't count. People who take up arms against us will be shot, beat, or otherwise subdued until they stop doing it. If they want a holy war, they'll get it. I don't understand the disconnect here. The army is not there as a social engineering study. It's there to win a war. Putting them on a short leash because someone decided to let civilian lawyers dictate military procedure is a travesty.

Craven apologist? I didn't even like Nightmare on Elm Street.

tw, your security clearance must be stratospheric for you to not only know which terrorist threats were real and which were imagined, but to know from what source we got the information, and how many of our prisoners were being held without merit.

I buy the "torture only yields lies" theory though. Still, what's a viable alternative for day-to-day field intelligence in a war zone?

I like BC...I've been reading it since I was in the sixth grade, and that was a very long time ago...

I do note that it has trended in a decidedly more religious direction over the years, though. Mostly, it remains secular, and at least somewhat amusing.

read the article I linked to and you might understand.

i got as far as the word "french" and had to quit reading. I'll go back to it tonight when i'm in less of a snarky mood.

Wow. Did you realize that your question assumes that torture is the current method for day-to-day field intelligence in a war zone?

And as for B.C., here's an amusing site.

That site is awesome! Not just B.C., but for all the comics he reviews.

I said "torture" to appease those who would've played word games with me when I said "interrogation". The techniques I refer to range anywhere from having friendly conversations with people in the street to bitch-slapping the turban off of someone who hangs the charred corpses of our soldiers from bridges.

but your link did provide me with the most surreal experience of my day

/waves white flag/

Parley? Ok.

If an enemy has information that you need to keep your own people alive or help them win the war, at what point do you stop trying to extract that information?

This is a good question, THE question, really. You sidestepped my question and riposted with another of your own. Ok, I'll try to answer yours. I would apply the same amount of pressure I would want applied to my guys were the situation reversed. I realize I'm repeating myself. Your absurd sarcastic example of asking once, nicely, then quitting is unhelpful.

If we catch someone planting a roadside IED and want to know where he got it, who from, and how many more there are, what are our options?

Hey, let’s follow this for a minute…You caught the guy! Hoo-ah! Your further questions are good ones, just freeze frame that image for a second. Let’s say one of our troops is caught—certainly not planting an IED, but captured on patrol. The group of people holding him are for sure marked men. We don’t leave anyone behind. And these men want to know the movements of the patrols in the area since they’re certain people on their side are in grave peril from our military might. With me so far? Ok, They got our guy and they want information from him. Now I would like to pose your question to you: What are their options?

I think it may depend on who you're torturing. Sounds barbaric, but in every otherwise civilized nation, there are people who work as blunt instruments, who use unsavory methods to get information that that country needs. That, to me anyway, strikes a different moral tone than a militia group who breaks the fingers of anyone who doesn't like them.

This, this provoked the hypocrisy charge, and you know it. It depends?! Yeah, I guess in some chicken-shit lawyerly way it could depend. I mean, my pain threshold is different from, say, my kids. But I think even you don't mean that kind of scenario. You and me, we're talking soldiers and soldiers. Right? Right.

You're right on another count: it does sound barbaric, for a good reason, it is barbaric. What’s unsavory? Um, breaking fingers of anyone who dislikes them? What the hell does that mean? It is clear that when to sides are in opposition, each would reasonably cast itself as the good side and the other, the ENEMY. I bet you can understand that the other side does the same and sees us in the role of the ENEMY. Now what behavior is ok for us to do to the enemy but not ok for the enemy to do to us?

Name ONE, I defy you.

Uh huh. Thought so.

Don’t try that childish he hit me first crap either—it works no better now than when you were eight. Know why you can’t? Because we have, for want of a better phrase, higher standards. Those higher standards almost certainly represent an additional burden for our side, self-imposed tactical and strategic limitations we impose and accept for the very reason we got into this cluster flop in the first place. We imagine, for good reason, that our way is better. But the ends do not justify the means. If that were the case, why not just nuke’em all and let God sort them out? No? What’s your objection? Materialistic—destroys too much of what we want to conserve? Inhumane—kill all for the trouble of the few? Economic--*snorts*! If you object, and perhaps you may not, why do you object?

Although they are not used on the battlefield, the concepts I learned in church have traction here. Mercy, compassion. To love one’s neighbor, to love one’s enemy, to turn the other cheek are so sublimely and universally true that they utterly transcend the bounds of the western culture in which I learned them. Between nations, these truths wear the clothes of diplomacy. Even if it is in our nation’s interest to destroy our enemies, torture is NOT the answer.

Thousands upon thousands dead, year after year, in the name of destroying an enemy. Abraham Lincoln knew something of enemies, war, compassion and humanity: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” Destroyed indeed, utterly destroyed.

Those higher standards, while sounding all moral and lofty, are making our job much more difficult.

Barbarians understand one language: violence. You kill one of us, we kill 5 of you.

No, it's not the right answer, but it is what's happening all over the world.

Higher standards be damned. They wanted a war, they got one. Don't come crying foul when we tortured people JUST LIKE YOU DID.

You're just trolling to get me, right? Fine, you got me.
 

/shakes head in frustration/

Agreed.


Agreed--because that's what barbarians do--kill 5 to 1.


First off, I disagree that it's happening all over the world, and even because it happens some places is no reason to do it ourselves. You know it's wrong and yet you advocate doing it... What kind of mindless sheep would you have us behave like??! Duh, everybody's doin' it.. :smack:

NO. LOWER standards be damned.

What?! Turn down the FoxNews on the tv, I can't hear you. It sounded just like you said They wanted a war so they got one. Whew, that was weird.

Ok, hey, you got me on that one. Sorry for crying foul about people being tortured, when .. uh, sorry, um yeah, I DID IT FIRST. (??) Yeah, a bunch of americans were tortured so we unloaded 9 trillion zillion f*cking dollars of whoop-ass on those bitches. Yeah, busted. Caught red handed. Your (our?) torture is entirely justified.

hehehehehe... you almost had me goin on that one.

Idiot. (with my apologies to idiots the world over, sorry, it just sooo fits)

at the root of this is a disagreement over whether or not we are the good guys. As long as you think there is no conflict between good and evil in the world, then there will be no right side in a war. no cause worth fighting for, only two sides who can't see eye to eye. that's an environment in which dictatorships thrive and despots get a free ride, because they know they're not going to get any resistance.

or maybe you think we're more evil than they are, and that their car bombs and beheadings are no more questionable than our making prisoners wear panties on their head and calling them bad names.

and bigv, stop being a fucktard. it doesn't become you.

Please clarify: Does thinking we are the good guys mean we should or shouldn't have higher standards than our enemy when it comes to torture?

So that'd be a big NO to the parley and I should wind my white flag back into my turban.. I see.

There was and is a helluva lot more than that. Minimizing it doesn't make it go away. Sticking your head in the sand leaves your ass hangin in the breeze.

Ok, let's compare. Carbomb destroys poorly armored Humvee, 5 soldiers die. Tank shell destroys unarmored house, 5 enemy militia die. Are we square? Where's the the "we're good and therefore justified" versus the "they're evil and therefore deserving of our mortal wrath" dynamic here? Are you deliberately changing the topic to rules of engagement from torture? I know you can follow along. Try and keep up here.

Let's get down to it, shall we? I do believe we're the good guys. I said that earlier. One of the very reasons that makes us superior is our long standing respect for the rule of law, rules of engagement, respect for treaties. We Americans have a historical tradition of order from rules. Rules established by majorities and by consensus. Our ways are the envy of the world in many ways because of the success and opportunity made possible by the knowledge that presence and respect for rules. Not the whim of those in power.

Hell yeah, we're better! And "they" are worse. But why are they worse? Because of the despotic rule of those formerly in power, those vainly striving to retain that power. The absence of agreed upon rules. And when we flout rules, when we abandon the rules for which we are admired and are justifiably called "better", we likewise abandon our claim to be called better, or even good.

Torture is not good.

Man, I can not be plainer than that.

And if we cannot agree on that point, you and I will part company.

Where is Roger Ramjet when you need him? :p

Well, this will fit in nicely with that doctrine, and the great thing is, the playbook has already been written.

o_O

it's just insane how angry you are at this conversation. of course torture is bad. i don't think that this conversation is worth some kind of fucked up personal battle. I think we should perhaps let this particular thread go. I'll go hang out in a less hostile topic.


edit: too late, it's dead. he said nazi.

Sweet, I haven't heard that in years. But we left out pedophile.

Just to toss in my pocket-change worth.

A small amount of discomfort, a little yelling, maybe a little slapping around, I'm cool with that. When sanity and health are called into question is when to quit. Not after you have to worry about it, but before.

As to prosecuting the war itself there should be little ambuguity in the choice of targets, there should be a willingness to go to all of the lengths that you say you are going to go to. When you say you are going to bomb someone even further into the stone age, you do it. When you say that you are going to pursue a limited form of engagement you meet those limitations. You let the opponent set the tone of the war, but you don't hold back.

When you are at war with an opponent who hides among civilians, the civilians get bombed. After that happens the civilians will put the military out to spare itself or not.

All it means is that you have to be consistent, willing to stick to what you say and flexible.

The moral highground sets the stage for others to know whether they can trust you or not. America is in the position to keep the moral highground and try to pull others up to it.

I didn't retro morality was so in vogue, Onxycougar is going back to those good old testament level morality and mr noodle sounds like a british colonial officer.

You'd never know we'd moved forward listening to some people in here.

well... the sad thing is that I've thought enough about torture... I read too much fantasy/sci-fi I guess.. the thing I've always come to the conclusion about.. tell ya what! you rip my fingernails out I'll fucking tell you anything to make you stop.. and I will keep telling you that.. look at the spanish inquisition.. yes! I will convert to god just kill me quickly! or the salem witch trials? (insert christian bashing here.. although! yestersday I read a peice in the paper which said the only 'safe' discrmination right now was bashing christians.. I dunno maybe if you a.) would remember your history and b.) not been quite so much of a fascist power.. maybe people wouldn't be so resistive to your efforts and c.) WWJD? (he was a nice guy.. although I want to still read about his teenage years.. I mean man! you have all this power and you're 13? hormones flowing... testosterone.. uh... yeah... water to wine! lets get drunk and fuck!) anyway.. I need to take a nap

the thing over all is that I think alot of us are just watching the world that generations have worked at.. just go straight down the tubes... condy.. wolfowitz.. bush.. straight down the crapper.. and it just sucks for those of us who try to be decent people..

the thing is that different groups of people have been saying the same thing about different leaders from the dawn of time.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Why do the reviews frequently include" This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title."?

Why do I hear the soundtrack to "Farenheit 451"?

If they review a hardback version, which is discontinued in favor of a paperback, that disclaimer will show up on the paperback's page.

He's an idiot. BC rocks. :thumbsup:

If there is an objective morality, why should it have changed? Wasn't torture ALWAYS wrong?

That's a separate from issue from the Geneva conventions, which out of necessity assume that neither side is the bad or good guy and impose a set of rules both sides are supposed to follow.