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American Brutality
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American Brutality I am so weary of hearing about how terrible and nasty our soldier, and military are regarding brutality and torture. Let me see, so far water boarding in GITMO has been howled and screamed at from the rafters. Of course we have the horrendous scandal of Abu Ghreib, in Iraq. Remember those poor guys with ladies panties on their heads and a plethora of other nasties. Well, it makes me sit and scratch my own head more than once. We the great American People scream the rafters down on any brutality shown to anyone, it don't matter if what they classify as brutality to those being brutalized it couldn't hold a candle in their culture. Oh no, we the Americans are "held to that higher standard". Now do I support or agree with brutality, of course not!! But lets peek into some other countries and their cultures and see if their idea of brutality equals ours. I just heard on TV tonight, how Mexico, that great country to the south of us. The one that keeps the Border Patrol so very busy is having the problems of their life. What you may ask seems to be the major malfunction. DRUGS. The DRUG cartels are taking over Mexico. Natives of Mexico are afraid to even walk outside in the daylight. The DRUG cartels threatened to murder one Mexican police officer a day until the Mayor resigned. 4 murders later he DID resign. Then they showed, these really nice photos of a whole row of Mexican Police that had their hands tied behind their backs, and their ankles as well, and ALL of them had been BEHEADED. By****** DRUG cartels. One beheaded gentleman hung from a balcony with his head down below in the town square. They kidnapped a 5 year old boy. Yes I said FIVE. Now I realize go thru the terrible twos, or so they say, but it makes me wonder how big a threat a 5 year old can be to a DRUG cartel. When they realized that they were getting close to being caught, they simply eliminated the problem by injecting him with ACID. What a gentle way for a 5 year old to die. Another guy was kidnapped off the street while he was out on a date with a girl. He was held for a very long time. Photos of him naked, blindfolded in a pen were sent to his family along with a ransom request. Little did the family know that at the time the photo had been taken the guy was alread DEAD. They had gone to a hardware store, bought an electric saw, and BEHEADED him. They had taken his body, propped it up in the pen, sitting his head back on his shoulders where it was suppose to have been. The head honcho from Mexican Government actually had the guts to sit and look into the cameras and say CLEARLY, the United States is not doing enough or their share to control this. WHAT???? Why would WE the Americans control the crime in Mexico. Easy says Mr. Honcho. If the money is american, the guns are coming in from america and it's the americans using the DRUGs, then its our problem to deal with it and help the Mexican Govenment, and we simply are not doing our share!!. Of course for my two cents worth had we not tried and found guilty and locked up those three Border Patrol Officers who were recently pardoned Ummm maybe it would have worked a little better. SHAME on us the American People, and the American Border Patrol for treating those people so shabby and disgusting, when they are such upstanding citizens of Mexico. It is an all out war in Mexico with the DRUG Cartels taking over. Remember folks WE share borders with Mexico, this is our neighbor. Then of course we have the detainees at GITMO, that place remember that Obama, swiftly signed the order to close. Well, all the countries that those detainees have come from have flat out said DO NOT SEND THEM BACK HERE!!. Those that have been returned rapidly met with their own deaths at the hands of the homeland. This presents the problem of WHERE do we send the detainees. Their own country don't want them, we don't want them, maybe You want them living in your backyard or next door neighbor.!! Wouldn't you like one of them maybe babysitting for you. Next time someone in this country howls brutality, or anything else of that sort, perhaps they should look at the<b> punishments </font></b>doled out in other countries!! Maybe we should take a look at WHY the rest of the world figures it's the Americans place to get them out of trouble, and save them, so they can bitch and criticize about our treatment, and method later on down the line. Lady |
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As an American, don't you want to be held to a higher standard? I do. you put the left foot in, you take the left foot out...
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Yeah you are correct, two wrongs do make a right, fuck it, torture the bastards.
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Starloverdude. YOu asked don't I wish to be held to a higher standard. The answer to that one is as follows:. EVERYONE should be held to the SAME standard. One of respect, decency, honesty and integrity!! I do NOT believe that it is the duty, nor job of the United States of America to fun and rescue this entire planet. ESPECIALLY, when we wind up being slammed, and criticized for doing so after they get what they want from us. We rescue they bitch!! WHY is it OUR problem that THEY have drug cartels in THEIR country!!. Your same question could be applied to the war in Iraq. Everyone howls how we should NOT be there, bring them HOME. Ok, who the hell are we to decided who gets our help and who DOES NOT. Who lives, who DIES?? Good Lord, they are screaming how we need to go into Darfur!! save those good people, but we didn't need to save the people in Iraq. The Kurds who were slaughtered in the millions I guess were expendable on this planet earth. NO I do not want to be held to anything HIGHER, I want the rest of this world to catch up and be EQUAL!! and measured by the SAME yard stick as we are. Lady
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Loosetooth, I am not sure if that was sarcastic or not. I am going to say this only one more time. I DO NOT believe in nor agree with TORTURE of any sort for ANYONE. BUT, for God sakes do not look at me and tell me that what we as our military or this country of America does as punishment comes CLOSE to what other countries do as a matter of normal every day living. In CHina they cane your ass until you drop in their jails. We do no do that. Other countries behead, beat, stone, you name it but we do NOT do that, nor do I think we should either. But I am sick and tired of hearing other countries look squarely into TV sets, and say flat out that WE the United States of America, SHOULD be bailing them out, helping them with THEIR problem in THEIR country!!. And then when our Border Patrol Agents do their JOB, they land their ass in JAIL and have to have a Presidential Pardon to get OUT. Whats wrong with THAT picture. Lady
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Loosetooth, I am not sure if that was sarcastic or not. I am going to say this only one more time. I DO NOT believe in nor agree with TORTURE of any sort for ANYONE. BUT, for God sakes do not look at me and tell me that what we as our military or this country of America does as punishment comes CLOSE to what other countries do as a matter of normal every day living. In CHina they cane your ass until you drop in their jails. We do no do that. Other countries behead, beat, stone, you name it but we do NOT do that, nor do I think we should either. But I am sick and tired of hearing other countries look squarely into TV sets, and say flat out that WE the United States of America, SHOULD be bailing them out, helping them with THEIR problem in THEIR country!!. And then when our Border Patrol Agents do their JOB, they land their ass in JAIL and have to have a Presidential Pardon to get OUT. Whats wrong with THAT picture. Lady Why should the U.S. be bailing out other peoples problems in other countries.... This is something that the U.S. citizen is going to have to get used to.... when the world is viewed from space there are no borders. In essence a man-made line does not partition up the worlds problems.... okay what are we talking here? Mexican drug wars? Where are those drugs going? THE U.S.... Miami, L.A., New York... if there was not the demand for those drugs in the U.S. and if the U.S. Government changed the tactics of fighting this war (the current policy is to put pressure on South American governments, providing CIA, DEA and financial support for weapons to destroy crops and cartels - what it does not do is help farmers to grow sustainable crops which they can get a decent price for, thus ensuring that drugs is the only way to afford education for their children, medicine for their ill, food for their families...etc)... then there would not be such a serious problem. Mexican cartels are fighting a war right now which is more dangerous than Afghanistan... and that is happening on the borders... why? Because Mexico does not have the money to compete with the cartels, in terms of policing them? Why? Because the cartels are funded by the dollars of the people inside America who are buying drugs and that money is more formidable that the money available to teh Mexican government through legitimate means.... Iraq? There was not a problem there before the U.K. and the U.S. went there..... Afghanistan.... the U.S. in the 1980's arms relegious fundamentalists in order to fight the U.S.S.R. - when they win (and the U.S.S.R.) and the U.S. withdraw all funding, the fundamentalists are able to take over the state and invoke a type of Sharia Law that is very, very extreme and demands jihad against the West. September 11 a group of terrorists who have been trained in camps in Afghanistan fly planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. They fall. This is an indirect result of the U.S. to provide infrastructure (beyond weapons) in Afghanistan in the wake of the withdrawal of Communist forces..... Not everything in the world is the fault of Americans...(and those that claim that are ignorant) but because of the position of the U.S. as the worlds only Superpower (and that will not always be the case China, India and Russia will become more powerful) it cannot afford to disengage from events in other countries... I can understand why that would look like an option.... but it is a short term strategy that will always come back and bites you on the ass. Just because you do not look or become involved in a problem does not mean that it is not your problem... it just means that you are not taking responsibility for your part in it.
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Hey Jose!! nice to see ya. Always interested in your input, as I am with the input of others. One factor I have found of interest here SO FAR is the fact that I have not seen nor read, that ANY OTHER COUNTRY should also pick up, or SHARE, this burden of responsibility. That is if you wish me to believe that ALL the drug monies is coming from AMERICA ONLY. That would mean that there is no other country on the planet that uses drugs nor profits from the sale of them. Sorry thats one thing I cannot accept. Perhaps, it is that we should believe that America is the ONLY country that buys, sells, uses drugs in overwhelming numbers, other countries I guess must just dabble or get the leftovers from us. So, WHY when I hear these people on TV do I NEVER hear them say, well you know Canada isn't doing enough to help us out. Canada, Great Britian, Cuba, Venezuela, any of them should be held to that higher standard. JUST like us. THAT is my ultimate point. The peoples of the world firmly believe that the U.S. should solve all their problems regardless of where or how it came about. Then when action taken does not meet with their approval, everyone bitches and complains about the action that IS taken. As for being judged by our own brutality, I agree there should be NO torture. However, that is in OUR country. Do I think that we should dash to rectify that in other countries and "teach, train" them otherwise of course NOT. But by the same token don't look at me and scream how terrible we are how inhumane we are when something does happen. Is it WRONG. HELL YES. But a far cry from INHUMANE. The first time around when my son was deployed, he had the very unpleasant experience of finding 5 year old boys hanging from meat hooks in the basements of Saddams torture palaces. Quite handily they had openings that led to the rivers so when they got too many bodies, or they feared discovery, they could open the flood gates and wash all the bodies out. Why you ask were they doing this, simple answer "to control the people in the country" if you thought your 5 year old was going to wind up on one of those hooks or your brother or sister, I am sure you would do EXACTLY as you were told. Of course our prisons must serve gourmet food, or we get sued!! Nice comparison. And before you say that is overstated, YES it is true, prisoners have sued, and had the case go before the court because of the tennis shoes they had to wear was not the brand they wanted, and peanut butter was the wrong brand. Loosetooth, you are extraordinarily well informed. Yes, I am well aware of what happened in Afghanistan, and how that the bulk of the weapons that they are using against us right now, are the same ones that WE funded, and GAVE to them to battle the U.S.S.R. at a time when Russia was using Afghanistan as a game for target practice daily. Yep we helped, they won, and now here we are battling our own weapons systems. Point now is, SHOULD we have helped them downtrodden to beat Russia? Helped their people survive, or should we have just LEFT THEM to the tender hands of the Russians. It presents that human factor of who is deserving of help and who isn't and what is the long term results. As for Mexico having no means to survive other than the drugs. In, Iraq, where we are battling, those people had NO MEANS AT ALL, nada, zip, zero to survive. The only place in that country that had ANYTHING at all was Baghdad, and a few other of Saddams favorite cities. The populace had NOTHING, could DO nothing unless Saddam TOLD THEM THEY COULD. This is a mind frame that americans cannot wrap their brain around. Here is how it worked. Everything they had, did and said, was at the laresse of Saddam. If he told YOU that you could plant acres of a farm, he was giving you that much land. You planted tilled the land, planted the seed. Once it was planted, you decided to "water" the seeds. Saddam, would arrive and not so politely tell you " I did NOT tell you that you could WATER the seeds" Then promptly, murder him and his entire family. Now you ask, is this what we "believe" happened or fact. I can assure you having had a son over there for 2 years, and still have many military I know personally that it is PURE FACT. That is why they call it Saddam Time over there. So, using that as our measuring guide with poor Mexico, we should have simply done what? Let Saddam live and torture his people, and being as WE were not the ones doing the torture, it was acceptable? Or should we have gone in and helped the Iraqi people to do exactly what you suggest was the problem in Mexico. Tried to teach them how to farm and find alternative sources of survival. If you think that the poppy fields are only in Mexico you are misinformed. They are also in the Middle East, and a tremendous amount of drugs comes in from them. The people in Iraq were and are worse off than the populace in Mexico by a far cry. They have no banks, drug stores, grocery stores, electricity, running water, medical supplies of any sort. No phone service, they live in mud huts. While my son was there a woman was injured, she got hit by a riccochet bullet, her only treatment out in the country where she lived was the bandages and aspirin for pain MY SON gave her. Did she think she was entitled to anything more, NO. She never had anything more before, and was grateful for the aspirin. He discussed with some of the villagers that were living by the river, why they didn't use irrigation. THAT led to an hour worth of conversation that was as foreign to them and as confusing to my son how they couldn't understand this as anything. All the lovely cities, and oppulent palaces that you see on the nightly TV are ALL in Baghdad, and in a very FEW places elsewhere in the country. Get out of there, and go into the villages and SEE how these people have to live. 5 year olds taking their flock of sheep to the fields for the day, bringing ALL of them back home at night, as this is that families only source of food. We can't send our own 5 year olds to bed without an armed guard. So, I guess if we should have sent or spent all our money in Mexico, to help that downtrodden country survive, and help their peoples it would have been acceptable, but no place else. My entire howl about this topic is that I am so tired of hearing other countries EXPECTATIONS of America being the savior or the WORLD, while we have homeless, starving, sick people IN OUR OWN COUNTRY and WHO is helping with THAT? WHO is helping the UNITED STATES, oh wait I forgot we are the leaders of this world, the Superpower, the ones held to that "higher standard". In the meantime tell your neighbor who is losing his home, or watching a family member struggle to live without medical care to help them. Lady P.S. Jose, THANK YOU for your service to our country!! My everlasting gratitude.
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"WHY is it OUR problem that THEY have drug cartels in THEIR country!!." It is your countries problem for the following reasons: - the drug cartels exist because they are servicing a market... that market is the U.S.... if you have a child, or a relative, or a family friend (and you will somewhere in your extended network) who has a cheeky line of cocaine every now and again... they have funded a cartel, bought bullets and taken part in the killing of innocent people (whether a bystander, a child?, a mule, a farmer, a mexican police man... whoever)... the drug cartels exist because people in your country want them to exist, pay them to exist.... - If the Mexican government fails in its war against the cartels (and they are doing so at this moment) then the cartels will have more money and violence to pour into U.S. cities... will you only really take notice when gun fights are happening in your town? When the DEA are having to break them inside the U.S. it is you problem right? - If you have a neighbour whose garden was regularly invaded by criminals who used it was a toilet.... would that be your problem? Would a solution to that problem be to build a bigger fence and ignore your neighbours pleas and then get all self-righteous about it down the pub? "Your same question could be applied to the war in Iraq. Everyone howls how we should NOT be there, bring them HOME. Ok, who the hell are we to decided who gets our help and who DOES NOT. Who lives, who DIES?? Good Lord, they are screaming how we need to go into Darfur!! save those good people, but we didn't need to save the people in Iraq. The Kurds who were slaughtered in the millions I guess were expendable on this planet earth." This is slightly contradictory and I am not sure what you are saying.... but there is something that we should all realise... the rest of the world is not waiting for us to come and educate them... indeed the world would be a better place if we were to listen occasionally. In general if you were bought up in the Northern Western Hemisphere then you are someone who has been bought up and given Anglo-saxon/Graeco-Roman relegious democratic principles... but that is not something that applies to the rest of the world. So the Neo-cons manufactured a case for the Iraq of Saddam Hussein being in cahoots with Al-Quaeda (a lie - they were sworn enemies) and the need to liberate the Iraqi people and to give them democracy, which would give them stability and make the world a better place. It is hard for the Greek conception of Democracy, married to the principles of the Rennaisance and the vigour of a mission (christian sense) to be transferred to tribal, islamic cultures... Saddam may of been a tyrant (there are many) and he may of killed innocent Kurd's... but he also provided local stability and was relatively toothless when it came to the ability to influence and threaten people on an international level. Iraq, its execution and administration has severely weakened the U.S. and the U.K. economically, politically, morally and materially (not least in manpower) but that does not mean that I agree with you... there are ways of dealing with problems... some require and iron fist and some require soft words (I would hope Obama attempts engagement with Iran... even if it does not lead anywhere... refusing to talk with them is childish and does not allow for the situation to improve at all)... unfortunately Bush was a thick as they came... he could not even fucking spell 'diplomacy' let alone enact it, on any level. "NO I do not want to be held to anything HIGHER, I want the rest of this world to catch up and be EQUAL!! and measured by the SAME yard stick as we are." Catch up with the U.S.? This is a problem that we face... you see there is an assumption that the U.S. represents the pinnacle of civility.....  March 16, 1968 - My Lai Massacre. the mass murder of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, entirely civilians and some of them women and children, conducted by U.S. Army forces on March 16, 1968. Some of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, or maimed, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. Operation Ranch Hand was a U.S. Military operation during part of the Vietnam War, lasting from 1962 until 1971. It involved spraying an estimated 12 million + US gallons of defoliants over rural areas of South Vietnam in an attempt to deprive the Viet Cong of vegetation cover and food. "Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files" - Briefly declassified (1994) and subsequently reclassified (2002?) documentary evidence compiled by a Pentagon task force detailing endemic war crimes. Substantiating 320 incidents by Army investigators, including seven massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died (not including My Lai). Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted. One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war. Present war crimes? Mistreatment of partisans as "unlawful enemy combatants" - War crimes (Deemed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) POWs who obeyed law of war as "unlawful enemy combatants" and denied treatment due under 3rd Geneva due to fighting for unrecognized state) Interrogation and detention atrocities against IEA (Taliban) POWs, al-Qaeda enemy combatants, and al-Qaeda terrorists - War crimes, Crimes against humanity, Crime of torture (Detention of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) POWs in inhumane conditions contrary to 3rd Geneva; detention of al-Qaeda enemy combatants and al-Qaeda terrorists, including several innocent non-combatants with mistaken identities, in outrageous and depraved conditions, contrary to 4th Geneva, Common Article 3; torture of persons captured in Afghan theater of war or elsewhere, including POWs, enemy combatants, and terrorists.) And I have not even gotten on to the thorny issue of 'extraordinary rendition' and the practices of torture........ I love the U.S. and I love U.S. citizens.... they have given us the most amazing gift, in the constitution and virtually everything that we have come to rely upon in the modern world.... what is more they/you are truly THE hope for civilisation at this incredible moment of history..... but that does not make you incapable of doing horrible and wrong things, you are not streets ahead of the world (and they need to catch up.... )... and you should get off of your high horse... because it is making you look silly..... No-one is perfect, least of all the U.S. and only by knowing that do we have an opportunity of improving.
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By the way 'Ranch Hand' makes the list because it was the modern equivalent of gas warfare... those poising killed and deformed humans, animals and plant.....
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"One factor I have found of interest here SO FAR is the fact that I have not seen nor read, that ANY OTHER COUNTRY should also pick up, or SHARE, this burden of responsibility. That is if you wish me to believe that ALL the drug monies is coming from AMERICA ONLY. That would mean that there is no other country on the planet that uses drugs nor profits from the sale of them. Sorry thats one thing I cannot accept." The drugs in Mexico are going from northern coutries of South America to the U.S.... other routes are taken to get drugs to, say, the U.K. (usually importation through Spain) etc.... so I am afraid that the drug cartels in Mexico are almost exclusively for the U.S. So, WHY when I hear these people on TV do I NEVER hear them say, well you know Canada isn't doing enough to help us out. Canada, Great Britian, Cuba, Venezuela, any of them should be held to that higher standard. JUST like us. THAT is my ultimate point. Because the people on your television are broadcasting in America, to Americans, on American TV.... trust me.... we in the UK are held to that standard too.... as are the Canadians and any other 1st world western Liberal Democracy..... and I am not bitching about it... I am proud! Hopefully we can hold to that in the face of whatever barbarism is thrown at us.... because that is the only way that things can improve...
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My entire howl about this topic is that I am so tired of hearing other countries EXPECTATIONS of America being the savior or the WORLD, while we have homeless, starving, sick people IN OUR OWN COUNTRY and WHO is helping with THAT? WHO is helping the UNITED STATES, oh wait I forgot we are the leaders of this world, the Superpower, the ones held to that "higher standard". In the meantime tell your neighbor who is losing his home, or watching a family member struggle to live without medical care to help them. This is something I entirely agree with... but ask yourself why it has to be one at the expense of others???? Why can the U.S. not have a decent social home policy and high expectations and values in their foreign policy.... no-one wants the U.S. to 'save the world' (yeah you are good, but not that good)... but just to lead (after all you are the leaders) and to do your bit.... and I agree... that should be applied at home and abroad SIMULTANEOUSLY.
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Like you, I don't think any country should be held to a higher standard, we should all be held to the same standard... and that standard should be a very high one. Certainly though I'm ashamed when I hear when British soldiers are failing to meet those high standards (and sometimes even medium or low standards), which I can certainly assure you does make news over here even if it doesn't make news in the USA.
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