Soldier Beaten Down, Discharged

[evildave]

My point exactly.

It really irritates me when my countrymen claim 'the US is the best there is', as an excuse for when the US does blatantly stupid things.

I'm sure in the U.S., our torturers are the "best" a their jobs, and the way we hide prisoners from the Red Cross is probably the best technique, bar-none. We're #1!

Our prisons are the best, and they have absolutely the most people in them, so obviously they're very popular, too! We're #1!

We have the biggest national debt and annual deficits in the world! But we can live high on the hog and let our great-grandchildren live with the consequences of our government's insane spending. Our government has the biggest and fastest-growing credit card balance anywhere! We're #1!

We seem to have more civil liberties and freedoms we can 'afford to' piss away than anyone else. We'll prove it by continuing to piss them all away! We have the most nationalistic people who have been convinced they should be proud of these 'sacrifices', so obviously we have many of the stupidest, mose short-sighted people in the world, too! We're #1!

 

[Bjorn]

Say a halleluja for one of your appeasing pc'lib idiots -- Jimmy Carter -- for allowing Iran to return to the middle ages when the Shah nearly had the country civilized.

The Shah was civilized in some ways, I guess. However, Iranians didn't support him much, but of course we could have continued ....

Amnesty International summed up the situation in 1976 by noting that Iran had the "highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran."

 

[hammegk]

Just what kind of pills are you taking, hammegk? They seem to be fun.

It's called a healthy and continuing contact with reality -- as it is --rather than how pc'libs wish it were.

Too bitter a pill for many posters here.



Bjorn: I agree the Shah was another Saddam; however, he was dragging the Irani survivors towards the 20th century, and was keeping his designs on military takeover of the middle east under wraps.

The Coalitition (read USA) continues to demonstrate they no longer have the balls to subjugate a country and de-barbarianize the survivors.

 

[Bottle or the Gun]

The Coalitition (read USA) continues to demonstrate they no longer have the balls to subjugate a country and de-barbarianize the survivors.

We can't bring our own South, stuck in a 1930's timewarp, into 2004, how are we going to do it to Iraq?

And it's been awhile since we captured Saddam, where is all the fantastic, amazing intel we should have gathered from him? Applying his knowledge should have resulted in obvious, tangible and observable changes and successes in the region. Where are they? It seems every day is about the same. I expected some dramatic and positive events to occur by now.

 

[evildave]

And, oh, BTW, Noriega was another example of a well-supported "Good Friend of America", just like Sadam. It makes you wonder what a lot of nations are thinking about the value of U.S. "friendship" and their interests and treaties.

The Panama Canal treaty is a positive example of the U.S. behaving in a non-imperialistic manner, but you seem to think that's a "bad thing".

And really, get your history right. The ball rolling for years before Carter. Carter merely completed it, and Reagan who had claimed he would undo it, had eight years to do so, and never lifted a finger. Neither did Dubya's daddy, for that matter. You'd think that they would have grabbed the territory back after the Panamanian conflict. Nope.

I can see how you'd like the U.S. to grab up and colonialize every bit of territory that it can, displace the locals, and never let go of a speck of this ground.

 

[hammegk]

We can't bring our own South, stuck in a 1930's timewarp, into 2004, how are we going to do it to Iraq?

Sounds reasonable to me: The USA in the south is as bad a place as Iraq was under Saddam. Are you insane?

And, oh, BTW, Noriega was another example of a well-supported "Good Friend of America", just like Sadam. It makes you wonder what a lot of nations are thinking about the value of U.S. "friendship" and their interests and treaties.

Umm. And you think the War on Drugs and a banana exporter are in the same league as our support of a tyrant in the middle east who we could use as a counterweight against the Carter appeasement results in Iran. Somebody's smoking something, or or having flashbacks, or is just generally living in dreamland.

I can see how you'd like the U.S. to grab up and colonialize every bit of territory that it can, displace the locals, and never let go of a speck of this ground.

Just the good bits; let's turn 'em into states, build a fence around 'em, and declare a 20 mile buffer free-fire zone outside the fences.

 

[Chaos]

It's called a healthy and continuing contact with reality -- as it is --rather than how pc'libs wish it were.


And that´s coming from a person who knows reality only from hearsay.


Too bitter a pill for many posters here.

Medicine that doesn´t taste horrible won´t help. You should give it a try.

 

[rikzilla]

It makes me absolutely sick to be an American these days.

Wow! Something we can agree to.

I'm absolutely sick that you're an American too.

Your eager willingness to believe any unproven story that is critical of your own country is telling. I think perhaps you are a Frenchman in disguise.

-z

 

[hammegk]

Medicine that doesn´t taste horrible won´t help. You should give it a try.

Please fix the tags in your last post.

my words were

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by hammegk

It's called a healthy and continuing contact with reality -- as it is --rather than how pc'libs wish it were.

Too bitter a pill for many posters here.

not

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by hammegk


It's called a healthy and continuing contact with reality -- as it is --rather than how pc'libs wish it were.


And that´s coming from a person who knows reality only from hearsay.


Too bitter a pill for many posters here.

You seem more of a person who knows reality only from hearsay.

Sig Heil!

 

[evildave]

Umm. And you think the War on Drugs and a banana exporter are in the same league as our support of a tyrant in the middle east who we could use as a counterweight against the Carter appeasement results in Iran. Somebody's smoking something, or or having flashbacks, or is just generally living in dreamland.

You're the one who brought up Panama.

 

[Chaos]

Please fix the tags in your last post.

my words were



not

You seem more of a person who knows reality only from hearsay.

Sig Heil!

Too late to edit my post now. Not that I´d care to, anyway.

I see that you are considering me a Nazi now. Did you run out of other insult?

 

[evildave]

Re: Re: Soldier Beaten Down, Discharged

Wow! Something we can agree to.

I'm absolutely sick that you're an American too.

Your eager willingness to believe any unproven story that is critical of your own country is telling. I think perhaps you are a Frenchman in disguise.

-z

It takes more courage to adhere to one's principles in adversity, than to abandon them whenever it seems convenient.

"Oh, I have a great idea! Let's torture lots of people, but call them 'illegal combatants' if anybody questions it! I mean, sure this behavior defiles our National Honor, but bad guys deserve it!"

 

[hammegk]

You're the one who brought up Panama.

Yeah, I was considering the canal as one of the strategic bits we should turn into a state with the fence around it.

I suspect the (US military) strategic importance is less than it was; becoming more of a free trade/decent trade routes problem (and a neat passage for tourists).

 

[evildave]

Former US soldier speaks on near-deadly beating at Guantanamo
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jun2004/guan-j24.shtml

Evidently, the military police involved in the exercise were led to believe he was a real prisoner and proceeded to beat and choke him. During the interview, Baker vividly described the intensity of the violence he was subjected to. “I could not breathe. So after a few seconds, I presume, I began to panic because I could not breathe, and I was just trying to get up and they just, you know, escalated the force. They just torqued it up. And from that point, the individual that was behind me slammed my head against the steel floor a few times, several times. And split my head over the top and on top of my right eye.”

Baker explained that when he used the code word “red” to call for the termination of the exercise, his fellow soldiers did not respond. It was only when the beatings being administered caused the partial removal of the orange jumpsuit revealing his Army uniform underneath that the soldiers realized he was not an actual prisoner.

But Baker’s ordeal did not stop there. When he was removed from the cell, dogs of the prison canine unit, trained to attack anyone in an orange jumpsuit, began to attack Baker. “I moved out into the causeway and the canine unit was going wild...and someone screamed, yelled back and said, ‘Cut the suit off of him. Get that suit off him!’”

 

[a_unique_person]

Re: Re: Soldier Beaten Down, Discharged

Wow! Something we can agree to.

I'm absolutely sick that you're an American too.

Your eager willingness to believe any unproven story that is critical of your own country is telling. I think perhaps you are a Frenchman in disguise.

-z

You are the one living in fantasy land. All Dave is doing is looking reality in the face. If the rest of the US did what he was doing, the story that is the point of this topic would not occur, and he would not be sick to be an American, he would be proud.

The story is hardly unproven. It is well documented, and the victim exists.

FWIW, there are stories in Australia of our own troops driving some victims to suicide within the armed forces, apparently for racist reasons, or it is even possible they were murdered. I too find it atrocious that this can happen. I hope the families of victims of these attacks get justice too.