Carter: America tortures

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Rkzen, how is it that you've simply never noticed that leaving "them with all of their natural resources in their hands" is one of our policy goals, from which we've simply never swerved? Look at where the "steal their oil" idea comes from: the lunatic fringe, not the policymakers. Are you sure you should buy the product of the fever-swamps?

Wanting friendlies, not unfriendlies in control of major petroleum reserves is not "stealing their oil."

I've understood this from the beginning in April '03. How do you explain not getting it?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

We have an honorless, bigoted enemy, do we not, dar? Where can you find dishonor in stymieing them, then? I cannot, and I have keen vision and no blinkers.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

We have an honorless, bigoted enemy, do we not, dar?

As with any large number of people, I'm sure that some Iraqis are honorless. We don't know that any of the prisoners are among those. As a matter of fact, we don't know for sure that any of the prisoners are enemies, since they've never had a trial.

Even should it be true, lack of honor in my enemy does not require me to give up mine.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Where can you find dishonor in stymieing them, then? I cannot, and I have keen vision and no blinkers.

You say 'stymie' when you mean 'torture'.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by dar512

You say 'stymie' when you mean 'torture'.

The preferred term under the new definition is "victory tickle".

They held elections as we wanted, we have no room to complain about whom they elected.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I certainly have no grounds for complaint there.

Then we can leave them to it.

[DanaC]

lol kitsune. That's very funny.

[deadbeater]

We lost our honor and dignity in conducting this goddamn war, UG and The Mercenary. Bush can't even applaud 'successes', such as the deaths of Saddam Hussein and his sons, especially since Saddam faced his death with relatively more dignity than Bush and the neocons did in conducting this war. That's how bad this war got for America, UG and Mercenary.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Deadbeater, the abyss set between you and us seems unlikely to be bridged: can't any of you get it through your heads how inherently, necessarily good and noble it is to destroy dictatorships and dictators, replacing them with democracies? Honestly. Anyone who can't see how much evil and oppression and poverty we can eliminate this way is missing quite a bit of his frontal lobes. When the last dictator is hanged on the entrails of the last national chief of secret police, how much misery will have fled the world? None here make answer, strangely enough.

The neocons are hardly evil: they want to propagate democracy (even if they're a bit more statist than I like, but in politics half a loaf, etc.) and as such must be regarded as friends of all mankind. Now there are a lot of ill-founded shitheads screaming at this, but that's because they're fascist sympathizers, deep down. I have no fascist sympathy whatsoever anywhere in my being, and for this nobility of mind I am dissed by troglodyte cryptofascists and quasibarbarians, who have the mad effrontry to imagine themselves virtuous. Damnation to the lot of them who are such, along with Hitler, Stalin, Mao the psychopath, and Pol Pot. They're keeping evil company and haven't the foggiest idea of the depth of their sins.

Dar, I will thank you to drop that silly idea: I said stymie and stymie is what I mean. Whatever you do, do not lie to me about what I say unless you particularly want me to skin you alive and sew your hide back on backwards with red baseball thread. Lying to me about what I said all because you have a foundationless opinion makes me very angry.

Our foes must be defeated. That is truly supporting the troops, rather than that feeble lipservice the Democratic Party gives the idea. That lot is visibly looking for a way to both lose the Iraq campaign and blame the Iraqis for it, and Christ it makes me tired.

We lost our honor and dignity. . .

The Left has lost its honored place, true enough.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Dar, I will thank you to drop that silly idea: I said stymie and stymie is what I mean.

Give me a specific case where the mistreatment of these prisoners has had the direct result of drawing the conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq to a positive conclusion. Then I might agree that the word is 'stymie'. However I will never agree that torture of a human being is worth 'stymieing'.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Whatever you do, do not lie to me about what I say unless you particularly want me to skin you alive and sew your hide back on backwards with red baseball thread. Lying to me about what I said all because you have a foundationless opinion makes me very angry.

Ah. So we should torture the enemy so that we can protect our American freedom? Would that be the freedom to threaten to torture me? Or would that be my freedom of speech that you would like to curtail by threatening me?

I think you would benefit from an anger management class.

[dar512]

Please take note that UG has no answer for this:

Originally Posted by dar512

Give me a specific case where the mistreatment of these prisoners has had the direct result of drawing the conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq to a positive conclusion. Then I might agree that the word is 'stymie'. However I will never agree that torture of a human being is worth 'stymieing'.

or this:

Originally Posted by dar512

Ah. So we should torture the enemy so that we can protect our American freedom? Would that be the freedom to threaten to torture me? Or would that be my freedom of speech that you would like to curtail by threatening me?

What does that tell you?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

It would seem obvious that you could spin things like that so long as the fighting in Afghanistan is still going on. I call that intellectual dishonesty, dar512. I urge you to cease it and forever desist, that you may come into the practice of honesty, rather than sympathizing with more fascistic mullahs. Sure, the fighting's not over, and none of us knows when it might be, and shooting at foreigners is still almost more of an Afghan tribal sport than playing bushkazi. I don't expect peace, quietude, or rose gardens there anytime soon, precisely because of the Afghan penchant for shooting at anybody of a different language, a penchant practiced mutually by everybody.

We are struggling primarily against a non-national enemy who is driven by his bigotry, is he not? The way we can beat these people is by getting information, since we cannot put pressure upon their nation -- and clearly we are indeed getting information enough to take down their leadership on a semiregular basis, which tells me we're doing something right -- I've been involved in secretive national doings myself, whose triumphs are unheralded every bit as much as their failures get trumpeted. I reckon we are having our successes, quietly. I don't think we should be interrupting them.

Your second boxful is frankly frothy rhetorical stuff, unworthy of reply. Think better.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I reckon we are having our successes, quietly.

Most of our successes are pretty quiet to those not having them, i suppose. The media isn't let to know about them a whole lot.
I'll bet they're not too quiet to those in the room with the uh, 'successes' though. They're probably more like

no...please...imtellingyouidontknow...whatareyoudoingwiththaaaaaaaaanostopnomakeitstopgurglegurglenoooimtellingyouiswearaaaaaagaspgaspgaspmakeitstopmakeitstoppleaseimbeggingyouuuuuu

...you dont want to know what the failures sound like.
mostly, they stop after that gurgle, gurgle part.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I reckon we are having our successes, quietly. I don't think we should be interrupting them.

UG precedes that quote by claiming he was privy to secret successes. Then he *speculates* that torture results in useful information. For all his privy access, he really does not know? In the next sentence, he converts total speculation into a fact - then uses that 'fact' to justify torture.

Barak used this exact same logic to 'play the white boys'.

Urbane Guerrilla cannot answer and completely sidesteps two simple questions:

Originally Posted by dar512

Give me a specific case where the mistreatment of these prisoners has had the direct result of drawing the conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq to a positive conclusion. Then I might agree that the word is 'stymie'. However I will never agree that torture of a human being is worth 'stymieing'.

and

Originally Posted by dar512

Ah. So we should torture the enemy so that we can protect our American freedom? Would that be the freedom to threaten to torture me? Or would that be my freedom of speech that you would like to curtail by threatening me?

Urbane Guerrilla is asked these questions repeatedly. UG avoids answering these questions repeatedly by attacking the questioner.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

It would seem obvious that you could spin things like that so long as the fighting in Afghanistan is still going on.

How ironic. UG's responses are typical of a conspiring terrorist trying to hide his complicity. Even Barak did not resort to deceit.

UG - dar512 asked you two simple questions. Why not answer him with honesty? Is honesty that difficult - especially when it might contradict a political agenda? Answer his questions without political accusations. His questions are simple. Why can Urbane Guerrilla not answer dar512’s questions? Why must UG attack the messenger?