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Sergg posted:Holy poo poo those Youtube comments... Good question. I just got the vid linked via my spare Facebook account. Some of the strange comments on Syrian videos on Youtube can be explained by the good old 'Hasbara' crew but the others are just a combination of trolls and bad Freepers.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:58
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Sergg posted:Holy poo poo those Youtube comments... Exhibit A- YouTube comments in general. Exhibit B- probably x-posted to LiveLeak, and some of the batshit insane commenters carried over. Probably also buoyed by the RE:FWD:FWD: OBAMA HATES CHRISTIANS crowd.
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Mar 1, 2014 01:15
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suboptimal posted:The extraordinary rendition program was an abomination of justice and I wish I could see everyone involved in that program imprisoned for the rest of their lives, but I too am curious as to why you think the US government deserves more of the blame than Russia, Iran, etc. The US hasn't been aiding and abetting Assad using SCUDs and chemical weapons on his own people, and if anything, its policies on Syria have been so disorganized and incoherent to the point where it's almost laughable. His post did not seem to be about which of those countries was "more to blame" at all, but rather the hypocrisy of the US decrying the use of torture by Assad's forces despite the US having a well known recent history of using torture as well, and even closely cooperating with the Assad government in doing so. It had nothing to do with Iran or Russia. suboptimal posted:Also, the rendition of Maher Arar was 12 years ago. There have been three presidential elections since then, and the foreign policy prerogatives of the government have changed since then, as have the tactics used to fulfill them. It's hard to take this very seriously considering the guy is still on a no-fly list despite obviously not being the least bit dangerous or suspicious and the current administration refuses to even discuss cases like these, let alone soundly repudiate them. This argument would be more credible if the Obama administration's reactions to cases like these were more similar to the Canadian one described in the Guardian article, at the very least. Sacrilicious fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 02:40
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You'll have to remind me when the US opened concentration camps for 10,000 protestors, including women and children, where they starve, beat, electrocute, and set people's heads on fire until they die, because I don't recall dump trucks full of bodies when the US was waterboarding people for information. Hardly seems like the pot calling the kettle black. Assad's use of torture is far more analogous with North Korea and Nazi Germany than the US during Iraq. I don't see any reason why the US has no room to talk when it condemns Assad over that stuff.
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Mar 1, 2014 03:11
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Well, I think I've seen it all now. Apparently there are Latin gangbangers in Syria now fighting for the regime? http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=15f_1393628931 One of them mentions Pasadena so I'm guessing they are from some West Coast Latin Gang. How the hell did they end up in Syria??
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Mar 1, 2014 03:31
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Deso Dogg gonna bust a cap in their asses.
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Mar 1, 2014 03:34
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Oh wait, not latin gang members. ARMENIAN gang members. Still from LA though. Check out this guys facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nerses.kilajyan Edit: Gotta love some of the comments he posts "I thank each one of you to kare about me.i return safe we killd about 400 heads but the gently caress up part is we lost 4 soldados we didn't even got there bodys evry time o get them sniper shoots and more gently caress up part they got the bodies and one of them was still a live that heart me alot after that i went by my self took there flug out i put the syrian flag in the morning they saw that they got krazy they try do some but the airplane got them i dont know how money ppl dir from airplane but from what we did i know 400 of they die like a dog" Truly bizarro world. Charliegrs fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 03:35
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Charliegrs posted:Oh wait, not latin gang members. ARMENIAN gang members. Still from LA though. Check out this guys facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nerses.kilajyan/photos  Words have failed me.
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Mar 1, 2014 03:43
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Volkerball posted:You'll have to remind me when the US opened concentration camps for 10,000 protestors, including women and children, where they starve, beat, electrocute, and set people's heads on fire until they die, because I don't recall dump trucks full of bodies when the US was waterboarding people for information. Hardly seems like the pot calling the kettle black. Assad's use of torture is far more analogous with North Korea and Nazi Germany than the US during Iraq. I don't see any reason why the US has no room to talk when it condemns Assad over that stuff. You can't be serious. You don't recall trucks full of bodies when the US was waterboarding people? People in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where tens of thousands have died in brutal, decade long wars? Where the violence hasn't even stopped? Where are the loving bodies you ask? And, as was mentioned, the US sent people to Syria specifically to be tortured. So yeah, the US has some credibility issues here.
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Mar 1, 2014 03:46
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Big Wino, the Turkish slaughterer. He actually has some AAR in his Facebook comments.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:17
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Count Roland posted:You can't be serious. You don't recall trucks full of bodies when the US was waterboarding people? People in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where tens of thousands have died in brutal, decade long wars? Where the violence hasn't even stopped? Where are the loving bodies you ask? I like how you feign outrage over US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan while completely glossing over atrocities committed by those they were fighting. The only crimes worth discussing are the ones that can be used to validate the hate amerikkka beat. I hear Halabja was a nice place to live before the US invasion. And the Taliban and jihadists were brave boys standing up for the safety of the locals from the foreign conquistadors. I'm not even arguing this to put the US in a favorable light. I'm arguing against people trying to make some kind of moral equivalence between the sadistic, genocidal Assad regime and the US, because that legitimizes Assad. The US has shown nowhere near the level of brazen torture and murder that the regime has since the 1800's. This very much reads like someone getting told the story of Hamza al-Khatib and then pointing towards the US no-fly list and saying they're no better.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:19
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Yeah, criticizing the US for invading and occupying two countries legitimizes Assad. Uh huh.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:38
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We were talking about torture. 
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Mar 1, 2014 04:51
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Volkerball posted:The US has shown nowhere near the level of brazen torture and murder that the regime has since the 1800's. What about when the US sent our own prisoners to Syria for interrogation with the explicit intention that the interrogation would be done using "the level of brazen torture that the regime has since the 1800's"? Because he's not trying to gin up outrage or draw up a moral equivalency, he's suggesting that maybe it doesn't ring true when the US cries foul about the brutal tortures committed by the regime we commissioned to torture people for us.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:54
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Count Roland posted:Yeah, criticizing the US for invading and occupying two countries legitimizes Assad. Uh huh.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:55
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JT Jag posted:There's a word for being in the middle of a debate about the torture ethics of different countries and turning it around to discuss the ethics of the United States' invasion doctrine because that's a more convenient talking point. It's called a strawman. Count Roland posted:You can't be serious. You don't recall trucks full of bodies when the US was waterboarding people? People in Iraq and Afghanistan? Where tens of thousands have died in brutal, decade long wars? Where the violence hasn't even stopped? Where are the loving bodies you ask?
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Mar 1, 2014 04:57
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Yep that's what a strawman looks like. Maybe we could talk about something more relevant than a decades-old war?
Kaal fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 05:13
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Main Paineframe posted:What about when the US sent our own prisoners to Syria for interrogation with the explicit intention that the interrogation would be done using "the level of brazen torture that the regime has since the 1800's"? Because he's not trying to gin up outrage or draw up a moral equivalency, he's suggesting that maybe it doesn't ring true when the US cries foul about the brutal tortures committed by the regime we commissioned to torture people for us. This is a failure to account for what the Syrian torture machine has become. When we're referring to US torture, even outsourced, it's largely based on gathering information from combatants. Small in size, with little purpose other than military gain. It's reprehensible nonetheless, but it was what it was. Syria is certainly guilty of this, and in that aspect, the US has no room to talk. But Syria has utilized a different sort of torture since the uprising began. A kind of torture where you round up shitloads of people into prisons on flimsy pretense with the intent of making them die the most horrific, agonizing deaths possible, in an effort to spread fear and ruin popular support for the opposition. This type of torture is more easily referred to as genocide. So when the US condemns this latter form of torture, the proper response is to nod your head and say yes, that is hosed. When you try to argue that the US is somehow not qualified to do that, the crux of your statement isn't expressing your disapproval with the US engaging in the first type of torture, so much as undermining the seriousness of Assad promoting the second. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 05:34
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Main Paineframe posted:What about when the US sent our own prisoners to Syria for interrogation with the explicit intention that the interrogation would be done using "the level of brazen torture that the regime has since the 1800's"? Because he's not trying to gin up outrage or draw up a moral equivalency, he's suggesting that maybe it doesn't ring true when the US cries foul about the brutal tortures committed by the regime we commissioned to torture people for us. I think you're falling into the corollary vs causal trap here. The US rendered prisoners to places like Syria and Egypt precisely because the White House and CIA knew the prisoners would be tortured for information. We certainly didn't send them there because of these countries' commitment to due process and the rule of law; we sent them there because each government was masters of the craft of extracting dubiously credible information via torture, or more saliently, ensuring the survival of the regime by way of example in pointing out "this is what happens when you gently caress with Mubarak/Assad."
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Mar 1, 2014 06:54
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suboptimal posted:I think you're falling into the corollary vs causal trap here. The US rendered prisoners to places like Syria and Egypt precisely because the White House and CIA knew the prisoners would be tortured for information. We certainly didn't send them there because of these countries' commitment to due process and the rule of law; we sent them there because each government was masters of the craft of extracting dubiously credible information via torture, or more saliently, ensuring the survival of the regime by way of example in pointing out "this is what happens when you gently caress with Mubarak/Assad." No one is arguing that the US government is bad or hypocritical because it upholds these countries as bastions of the rule of law one minute and then condemns them for torture and human rights abuses the next. The argument is that the US government is hypocritical because it condemns tactics such as torture by regimes like Assad's on the one hand and then has a recent history of actively cooperating with those regimes (as you say, having known full well the people they turn over to those governments will be tortured) to have people tortured on the other (and at times hasn't even bothered with the outsourcing part), and thus its hard to take its pious condemnations of such things very seriously. I'm not arguing whether that condemnation is right or wrong in and of itself, only that the US has a very bad credibility issue when making such condemnations due to recent history. Sacrilicious fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 14:01
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Sacrilicious posted:No one is arguing that the US government is bad or hypocritical because it upholds these countries as bastions of the rule of law one minute and then condemns them for torture and human rights abuses the next. The argument is that the US government is hypocritical because it condemns tactics such as torture by regimes like Assad's on the one hand and then has a recent history of actively cooperating with those regimes (as you say, having known full well the people they turn over to those governments will be tortured) to have people tortured on the other (and at times hasn't even bothered with the outsourcing part), and thus its hard to take its pious condemnations of such things very seriously. I'm not arguing whether that condemnation is right or wrong in and of itself, only that the US has a very bad credibility issue when making such condemnations due to recent history. I don't understand why the US's credibility is at all relevant to the thread.
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Mar 1, 2014 14:20
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Blue Footed Booby posted:I don't understand why the US's credibility is at all relevant to the thread. I think its relevant in the sense that many people in the thread support some type of international response to the situation in Syria, often implied to be lead by the US or to heavily involve the US, so credibility would be important there I would think. If King of Hamas wants to expand on his argument there I'll let him, I only posted in the first place because people kept attacking straw men of what he posted and throwing out red herrings about Russia and Iran instead of actually addressing his post and I find that annoying.
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Mar 1, 2014 14:26
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Would you rather the US applaud the actions in Syria, so long as it made them internally consistent?
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Mar 1, 2014 14:36
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computer parts posted:Would you rather the US applaud the actions in Syria, so long as it made them internally consistent? I'd rather the US government make some serious, significant, good faith gestures to deal with the obvious credibility problem I described, but I realize that's not very probable or realistic. And thus the credibility problem is likely to continue for some time.
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Mar 1, 2014 14:44
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Sacrilicious posted:I'd rather the US government make some serious, significant, good faith gestures to deal with the obvious credibility problem I described, but I realize that's not very probable or realistic. And thus the credibility problem is likely to continue for some time. Like what?
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Mar 1, 2014 14:48
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computer parts posted:Like what? That's a pretty complicated question because I don't think the US's credibility problem with regards to foreign policy is limited solely to its use of torture, but for now, for the purposes of this discussion, I'll again point back to the Guardian article linked by King of Hamas and the contrast between how the Canadian government reacted to their role in the Maher Arar case versus the US reaction. I'm not sure the Canadian government's formal apology and payment of damages to Maher is sufficient for my own personal sense of justice, but it is at the very least a payment of restitution and an acknowledgement of wrongdoing. If the US cannot even take these paltry steps to right its own clear wrongs then its likely that people around the world are going to continue to not take it very seriously when it condemns things like torture.
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Mar 1, 2014 14:56
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You just said you wouldn't take it seriously even if it did pay restitution. What would they have to do to make you take it seriously?
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Mar 1, 2014 15:04
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computer parts posted:You just said you wouldn't take it seriously even if it did pay restitution. What would they have to do to make you take it seriously? I didn't say that, I said I wasn't sure. It would depend on the context and other actions taken. I'm not interested in discussing my own personal opinion of US foreign policy so much as I am pointing out that the US has a credibility problem when it comes to condemning things like torture. I think this is a pretty obvious fact that is hard to deny for reasons I have described, which is probably why people like you are more interested in interrogating my beliefs and my motives or talking about other countries and how bad those countries are than actually arguing that point. Sacrilicious fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 15:05
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Sacrilicious posted:I didn't say that, I said I wasn't sure. It would depend on the context and other actions taken. If you think the US has a credibility problem, then by definition your opinion is in play.
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Mar 1, 2014 15:07
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computer parts posted:If you think the US has a credibility problem, then by definition your opinion is in play. My opinion is that the US has a credibility problem in the eyes of many people (especially those outside the US) when it condemns things like torture due to its actions in recent history. Do you think this is inaccurate?
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Mar 1, 2014 15:11
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Sacrilicious posted:My opinion is that the US has a credibility problem in the eyes of many people (especially those outside the US) when it condemns things like torture due to its actions in recent history. Do you think this is inaccurate? Fine, we'll take that as a given. Now tell me what would change your opinion so that it does not have a credibility problem.
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Mar 1, 2014 15:28
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Sacrilicious posted:My opinion is that the US has a credibility problem in the eyes of many people (especially those outside the US) when it condemns things like torture due to its actions in recent history. Do you think this is inaccurate? The problem with satisfying you is that the US has a purposely slow and divided system of government. The Obama administration has tried to make steps in the right direction, but a small part of one party blocked him on some of that, and he was focused in domestic matters. Some of that party is literally trying to bring on the end of the world. As a comparison, think about how long it took India to disavow the Tamil Tigers. If it was a dictatorship like Russia, Iran, or Qatar, it would be much easier to improve the situation. E: India, not Indira. She never disavowed the Tigers. The X-man cometh fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 16:06
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The X-man cometh posted:The problem with satisfying you is that the US has a purposely slow and divided system of government. The Obama administration has tried to make steps in the right direction, but a small part of one party blocked him on some of that, and he was focused in domestic matters. Some of that party is literally trying to bring on the end of the world. I'm aware of this and don't necessarily expect the US government's foreign policy and the entrenched institutions that direct it to turn on a dime. At the same time though, you can't have it both ways: If these institutions are going to largely continue how they are and prevent any sound repudiation of past abuses, for whatever reason, that is precisely the root of the credibility problem I'm speaking of. And I don't think the problem is so much one particular party in the US government as you seem to imply, nor is it really an issue of not having a more autocratic government. I'll again reference the Guardian article and the contrast between the Canadian and US treatment in that case. Now you may say the reason the Canadian government can act differently may be because Canada is different and the responsible parties in the government aren't so entrenched and powerful they can get away with such things so easily and blatantly, but, well, that's sort of the point.
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Mar 1, 2014 16:29
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I wasn't aware that the US was currently at war in Syria. Thanks for the info, thread! 
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Mar 1, 2014 17:14
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The X-man cometh posted:The problem with satisfying you is that the US has a purposely slow and divided system of government. The Obama administration has tried to make steps in the right direction, but a small part of one party blocked him on some of that, and he was focused in domestic matters. Some of that party is literally trying to bring on the end of the world. This is dumb. The President is Commander in Chief of the US military, and Congress cannot order him to torture. You can debate to what extent the President has the power to close those camps (Congress can play games with funds and can probably keep the bases technically open (although taken to its conclusion this would be a weird power in a war zone), but claiming that translates into the ability to control movements of troops, material and prisoners is probably over the line, but it's a political football he won't touch for a bunch of powerless foreign prisoners) but there's no question that Obama continues to use torture and transfer prisoners to captors for the purposes of torture, and this is directly under his power to stop. quote:Surprisingly, this fact was recently discussed at length in The New York Times, under an Op-Ed piece appropriately entitled Torture’s Loopholes. In it, an ex-interrogator explains some of the more glaring examples of how the U.S. currently tortures and argues for the practices to end. In reference to Obama’s vow to end the systematic, obscene torture under Bush, the article states: quote:The UN has released three damning reports detailing torture and abuse in Afghan facilities over the last 18 months. In October 2011, the UN released a report stating, “UNAMA’s [United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan] detention observation found compelling evidence that 125 detainees (46 percent) of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in NDS [National Directorate of Security] detention experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced systematically in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan.” computer parts posted:Fine, we'll take that as a given. Now tell me what would change your opinion so that it does not have a credibility problem. Really though, the biggest credibility-builder for me is the same as it was six months ago: a multilateral UN peacekeeping force that the US has nothing to do with. Given recent history it's just too contentious to have US forces invading yet another Axis Of Evil country, it's clearly another Iraq-style Winning Hearts And Minds tarpit in a region that everyone agrees is flooded with insurgents and political landmines. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 18:41
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Vice just released their full length documentary on the Afghan National Army. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlja_ZhNXdw
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Mar 2, 2014 01:29
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I would much rather my government condemn something and be hypocritical, than stay silent and give out a message that the US government now considers such tactics, on such a scope, to be unworthy of condemnation and apparently the new normal. That would be a hell of a lot scarier than hypocrisy.
Sucrose fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 03:18
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computer parts posted:Fine, we'll take that as a given. Now tell me what would change your opinion so that it does not have a credibility problem. Jesus Christ you're insufferable. The answer is that the US should stop torturing people. Because if you are torturing people and then telling other countries that they shouldn't, no one will take you seriously.
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Mar 2, 2014 12:26
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enraged_camel posted:Jesus Christ you're insufferable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pem8vZA5d_Y  https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/942446_624852064206229_1876317192_n.jpg http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/140120113706-hfr-amanpour-report-9-horizontal-gallery.jpg http://p.twimg.com/AwKuoi_CIAECwnr.jpg http://zamanalwsl.net/en/uploads/bcb82f8657f9f4f9966e1248.jpg Go grind your stupid ax somewhere else. Somebody fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Mar 2, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 14:34
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what the gently caress is wrong with you?
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Mar 2, 2014 14:52
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