The artists have endorsed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, which were filed Thursday morning, asking the U.S. government to declassify documents that would reveal which artists' work was used on detainees at U.S. prison facilities and military detention centers, including the one at Guantanamo Bay.

The National Security Archive, a Washington-based independent research institute that advocates "for the right to know," filed the requests on behalf of the Close Gitmo Now campaign, which launched this week, the archive's senior analyst Kate Doyle said.

The multimillion-dollar national grassroots Close Gitmo Now campaign is aimed at pressuring members of Congress to support President Obama's endeavor to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. It is supported by a coalition of retired generals and liberal activists.

The requests are based on the testimony of former Guantanamo prisoners and guards, as well as declassified documents, that identified music from 35 artists -- ranging from AC/DC tunes to the theme from Sesame Street -- used in the interrogations of detainees, Doyle said. See a list of bands and songs involved (PDF)

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/22/musicians.guantanamo/index.html?iref=werecommend

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A Freedom of Information Act request filed on Thursday names 35 musicians or songs that it said were used against detainees at U.S. military detention centers, including the one at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The National Security Archive -- the Washington-based independent research institute that filed the request -- said the documents it is seeking "contain explicit references to the following bands or songs":

-- AC/DC
-- Aerosmith
-- Barney theme song (By Bob Singleton)
-- The Bee Gees
-- Britney Spears
-- Bruce Springsteen
-- Christina Aguilera
-- David Gray
-- Deicide
-- Don McClean
-- Dope
-- Dr. Dre
-- Drowning Pool
-- Eminem
-- Hed P.E.
-- James Taylor
-- Limp Bizkit
-- Marilyn Manson
-- Matchbox Twenty
-- Meatloaf
-- Meow mix jingle
-- Metallica
-- Neil Diamond
-- Nine Inch Nails
-- Pink
-- Prince
-- Queen
-- Rage against the Machine
-- Red Hot Chili Peppers
-- Redman
-- Saliva
-- Sesame street theme music (By Christopher Cerf)
-- Stanley Brothers
-- The Star Spangled Banner
-- Tupac Shakur

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I'd say that having to listen to most of the acts on that list would be considered torture.  : D

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Mewo Mix jingle?  Seriously? 

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what are they planning on doing about it, I wonder? 

What CAN they do about it? 

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I couldn't say what the laws are, imo , I think once that cd is purchased , the artists involved have no say in when or how it's played , as long as it's not infringing in a legal where can collect royalties .. but since they made no profit whatsoever from the playing of the songs, they can all shut up ...

that's my brooklyn side ... my nice guy side thinks maybe an artist can request by contract , their material never be used by the armed forces for interagation purposes... and furthermore i think if an artist asked the military to stop using their stuff , the military should willingly comply. I think those artists would lose reputation and  sales by patriot types .. and their are plenty of artists who would be more than proud to help i'm sure.

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Yeah, like Toby Keith and other such patriots.

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I don't even think "patriotic" artists would agree with the use of their compositions for torture purposes. 

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Patriots tend to think that all the Gitmo detainees are guilty, despite the fact that most have them have been found to be innocent and eventually let go.

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to me are missiles and a football team.

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For me, having to listen to R.E.M. would be worse than waterboarding.

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How do you know?  That's just your opinion. 

Patriots are not a group of people who share one mind.  What patriots have in common is a love of/pride in their homeland.  

I don't buy the patriots = bigots argument.  I find that cheap. 

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had a good run in the 80's.  They've gone downhill since. 

But, then, you like KISS, so ...

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I have similar feelings about REM.  Their music didn't progress well through the years. 

Peal Jam was interesting in like 1993 or 1994 but again that's another act that hasn't aged well at all, if you've had the misfortune of hearing their newer stuff. 

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However Queen is on that list and I can't say anything bad about them.   Most of the rest...eh....yeah, no. 

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the Barney song driving someone bonkers.. 

Was that Kiss thingy aimed at Christian, Uno?

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I can..  Dump the singer...  Just ain't the same...

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AC/DC is also on the list.  There is nothing bad about AC/DC, ever ... especially during the Bon Scot years. 

Or RATM, either. 

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about Freddie Mercury! 

After he died, there IS no Queen.  New singer or not. 

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sassy now.. 

OK, on a serious tip.  I am curious why they selected what they did.  It is quite obvious with the girlies tunes because they were, well...  performed by the inferior sex...

I wonder if it was because of the lyrics (which I am quite sure few understood), or if it was the music itself.

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"Just ain't the same"...

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I refer to previous to Freddie Mercury's death.  Queen stopped existing the moment he died. 

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A Clockwork Orange? 

Just curious. 

Okay ... I need to go.  Too much time in front of Care2 makes for a flat ass.  I don't want a flat ass. 

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I hear ya....  I agree....

Clockwork Orange...  Yes, I have....

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R.E.M.? Again?! NOOOO!!

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That's interesting. I can see why they would want to know, but I have no idea what they could actually do other than some sort of PR stunt. But honestly, what positive side is there to making a big issue over the fact that your music was used to torture.

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RATM would have backfired on them...

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8:57am post is irresponsible and not true. It is not funny that the terrorists want to kill innocent people.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/pentagon-releas.html

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3882

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/01/13/some-freed-terrorism-detainees-return-to-the-fight.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/26/gitmo.recidivism/index.html

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/03/the_talibans_surge_c.php

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4230850/Released-Guantnamo-Bay-detainees-return-to-terrorism.html

http://www.raising-kane.com/2009/01/numbers-indicate-former-gitmo-detainees.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/1-in-7-guantanamo-detaine_n_206020.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21gitmo.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE50C5JX20090113

President Obama is making a grave mistake to release anymore war criminals. Even the former President Bush made mistakes with the ones he released.

They should stay at Guantánamo Bay until the Middle East is not at war with the United States and the allies.

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Over 3/4 of Gitmo detainees were found to be innocent and they were let go. If they were found innocent, they are not war criminals.

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President Obama is making a grave mistake to release anymore war criminals. Even the former President Bush made mistakes with the ones he released.

They should stay at Guantánamo Bay until the Middle East is not at war with the United States and the allies.

If you want to beleive the countless lies told by right-wing media sources, go ahead. No one can force you to think for yourself.

But if you really beleive the detainees are "war criminals", wouldn't it be easier and more logical to kill them now? The fact that you don't call for that yourself indicates that you really don't beleive your own rhetoric.

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when i say the term " patriot " , i do not mean that to define what patriot means ... we all have different definitions of that .. what i meant was , some american artists , like toby keith , ted nugent and others would be more than proud to help their country any way they could including letting them use their music for military purposes...  others would not want to help in this manner. depending on definitions , they are both patriots.

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Christian , by your logic , then everyone who was found guilty in trials is also definitely guilty ... and we know that's not true.

We know there we people released who went back to fight against us again .. so knowing the justice system fails sometimes , you can't assume all the " terrorists " who were found innocent actually are ....

Pesronally .. i think the whole idea of trials and miranda rights is ridiculous , unprecedented compassion during wartime in human history against probably the most fanatical foe  ....  if we have to err on one side or another , i'd rather err on the side of caution and saving lives than these individuals "rights " ... oh and bat , if it were up to me , yeah , i'd rather kill 'em on the battlefield , less problems ....

still it's been on for 6 years now , can't hold possible innocent people forever  ... or can we ? .. tricky questions and whatever policy we follow there are going to be some mistakes made ...

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Tony, I don't mind saying that that was an extremely horrible analogy. The amount of innocent people who are found guilty in the regular American judicial system are minute in comparison to Gitmo detainees who were presumed guilty but were found to be innocent.

Gitmo detainees aren't going anywhere, Tony. They can't do anything whatsoever. They are shackled, tortured and held in solitary with 24 hours-a-day guard by the Marines. They have no access to legal counsel and no access to visitors. They're located relatively far from civilization. What's the point of presuming they're guilty right off the bat, especially when most of them were not?

A few of them returned to their homeland and took up arms against the people who confined and tortured them for years without legal counsel or access to their families before setting them free?

Gee, you don't think that maybe it had something to do with revenge at being confined and tortured for years without legal counsel or access to families, do ya? 

Haven't you ever ONCE put yourselves in their shoes? Can you not imagine what it would be like to be captured by some foreign government under suspicion of something you didn't do or being involved in  something you weren't, flown to a secluded spot thousands of kilometres away from your home and family, shackled, tortured, subjected to extreme temperatures and noise for months on end, held in solitary confinement with only concrete for a bed, not allowed access to a lawyer, not allowed access to your kids or other family, not knowing whether they even knew where you were or what happened to you, not knowing your status or when you were going to ever see home again, your captors screaming at you constantly about stuff you know nothing about and were never involved in, and all this going on for years?

Why don't you try imagining that for a few minutes, if you can take the time out of your busy day to do so.

If at the end of all that, some of these people were found guilty of acts of terrorism, then fine. Punish them accordingly, but punish them AFTER they've been found guilty, not before. If they're not guilty (and most Gitmo detainees were found not to be), then you are punishing the innocent. But you advocate punishing everyone first, THEN finding out whether they are guilty. Considering most of them were found to be innocent, I find the notion that we should "err on the side of caution" by torturing and confining almost a thousand people on nothing more than suspicion without any proof to be beyond appalling.

There are principals and morals that the country of America were founded on, and confining and torturing a bunch of people for years without access to legal counsel or visitors on suspicion alone doesn't even come close to fitting in with those principals and morals.

You claim to be a patriotic citizen of the US and yet it sounds like you don't want to abide by the guidelines set down by the very founders of your own country.

It sounds like your morals are more in keeping with those of the very people you despise.

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ok Christian, i really don't want to get into this kind of philosophical stuff in these threads , i think this was supposed to be about the artists and their songs use. but as usual " bad america " always plays into it . seems like a waste of time and only brings ill feelings, we have different ways of thinking obviously. but if you'd like me to explain why i feel the way i do about the subject, yet again , ok.

Trials for war combatants ( have we ever had trials during a war before ? ) should not be  done the same way as the american criminal justice system . I think that's a fundemental thing we disagree on. I think bush's policy of any kind of trial by military tribunal or otherwise was wrong ... like all other wars, we hold them until the end , unless as the course of time goes on , let the people who are in autority to weed out who's hardened , and who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. i think that's what's been happening really. i personally think we should have told the so-called human rights organizations to kiss our butts frankly. as POW's they have no rights other than the geneva convention , and like any other agreement , you do what's within the rules.  that's just what i believe. you believe otherwise. our definitions are different, I can accept that.

the point is , i think it's worth it to save lives in the long run. First off I think your exagerating a bit when you say " tortured."  again we have different definitions of it me and you. I don't even consider the few that were water boarded " tortured ". no to me the people al-quada has beheaded , they were tortured. the women subjegated under taliban rule,they were tortured ... getting tough with with people who kill to stop other killings  isn't torture to me. To me the good of the many , stopping the killers , outweighs holding the innocents.  the point of presuming them guilty is it's a war , not street crime , and they should be presumed guilty. and i think you exagerate when you say " most of them were innocent " ...  " innocence " in war insn't always cut and dried , look at the iraqi's who were compliant with the taliban then turned on them  and helped us.

" you don't think that maybe it had something to do with revenge at being confined and tortured for years without legal counsel or access to families, do ya?  "

Christian while  sure a really small # do for those reasons,  again i think you exagerate. Ever been to jail ? the true innocents don't want that again trust me.those who risked their lives to kill us the first time around are certainly going to go back and do it again , which i believe is what has happened in most of the cases. And the only reason they were free to go attack us again was because of overly compassionate people.

""Haven't you ever ONCE put yourselves in their shoes?

Nope. because like i said , i don't believe in such compassion during wartime when you've got an enemy sworn to kill you and bring down your way of life.  that's bombs and kills innocents on our own soils ( they just broke up terrorists cells in nyc and toronto )  like i said , i believe it's worth the collatoral damage in the bigger picture. i feel bad for those imprisoned unneccasarily , of course , do everything possible to keep that to minimum, but i'm one who'd rather be safe than sorry. people of interest have to be held and interogated, until they can be found " uninteresting " beyond a shadow of a doubt in my eyes.

"""  There are principals and morals that the country of America were founded on, and confining and torturing a bunch of people for years without access to legal counsel or visitors on suspicion alone doesn't even come close to fitting in with those principals and morals. It sounds like your morals are more in keeping with those of the very people you despise. "

your right ... those are a great set of morals. unfortunately our enemies don't believe in them. the world has changed alot since then. fighting people that don't wear uniforms and hide in the civilian population. that believe if they blow themselves up and kill god will reward them. that torture whole peoples ... they don't share our morals and as such the fight itself has changed. the way we need to fight. the way we need to protect ourselves. again christian , i'll remind you this is war , it's hell , and you win it by making your opponents hell worse than yours.

now i don't know what american history you read ... but remember WWII , internship of the Japanese ? was horrible, but it worked didn't it , we won the war. the war in iraq , our tactics you condem so much, we won didn't we , so it worked . all's fair in love and war christian.

We have different definitions christian that's what it comes down to. I don't believe we "tortured" as per the morals of our founders. I don't believe any internment done during wartime, meant to protect , is wrong and againt the morals of our founders. If you find my morals , my lack of compassion during wartime neanderthal well so be it. i find your bleeding heart naive and dangerous.
But unlike you who has no tolerance for guys like me who think differently than you , i'm glad there are some bleeding in hearts in the world. guys like me will make sure your protected even if we believe your being foolish, and guys like you will keep guys much worse than me from being as low as the villians they seek to eradicate. it's a good balance for the world.

The people i despise attacked my country, commited crimes against humanity. we didn't plot to fly planes into their buildings. to not act during wartime to win a war is the unmoralistic thing to me. I know my country has the moral high ground because we don't behead people

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"now i don't know what american history you read ... but remember WWII , internship of the Japanese ? was horrible, but it worked didn't it , we won the war."

I suggest you revisit that statement.  We didn't win that war for interning innocent Japanese-AMERICANS. 

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That's right ... key word there, Japanese-Americans.  Hello? 

My dad and his family were interned, and lost everything my gramma and granpa came here and built and earned on their own ... without any help from anyone.  And my Dad still joined the Army and fought for his country. 

That's really ignorant thinking, there, Tony. 

I've nothing against protecting my country, but open your eyes (and maybe your mind) a little. 

It's sad to see that we aren't learning from history. 

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You guys just don't want to acknowledge my point .... the internment of japanese americans WORKED ....

Yes it was awful  ... maybe it wasn't totally nessacary , no one will ever know ... but i would contend , if just one life was saved then it was it was better to do that ( albeit it should have been done in a manner more fair, more humane, as history shows us )

like i said , morals and hindsight tell us sometimes during a war , we can get a little carried away , go a little too far,  do things we may not be proud of ....but keep in mind , it is a war , when people are trying to bring your way of life down , you do what you have to do to win. you can take a chance on being soft and losing , or else you fight to win ! And as far as this war goes , we ( the U.S. ) maintain the higher moral ground as we usually have

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What, exactly, was the point of gathering up a bunch of Americans and herding into camps and treating them like cattle? 

For the most part, they were a bunch of innocent bystanders who got fukked by their own government. 

What, exactly, "worked?" 

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The point was they were affraid the Japanese-Americans would choose allegiance to their homeland and not their adopted United States. So out of fear of sabotage and acts i suppose we'd call terrorist today , they interned them.

Now truly they were fukked. Their properties, businesses and anything else that might have been taken from them, should have just been held and then given back, they should have had better conditions to live while they were interned.

But the results is what i'm saying you can't argue with. We won the war. there were no great acts of terrorism, no "japanese uprising " as they called it,  no Japanese nationals were ever found guilty of acts of sabotage. ( although there are reports of japanese nationals on Hawii , who were spying and helping the japanese cause other ways than sabotage. They constituted 1/3 of the island and weren't interned at the same rate as the mainland Japanese ) I also think it probably helped keep some innocent japanese-americans safe from dumbazzes who might have attacked them in anger.

now you can argue that it would have been that way anyway , but we'll never really know. so the fact is , it worked.
We have, as a nation apologized and made repairations. Hey it was a horrible thing to do , but i'll contend, it worked in the sense it was intended , to keep spying and sabotage down during war. If one innocent life was saved it was worth it to me, i'm sorry , but it's wartime.  People want to talk about how horrible it was , how terrible america's morals are .. but hey , we didn't put them in ovens either. That's all I'm saying.
btw .. i took you up on the invitation to read up about it ono , glad i did .. fascinating stuff , i think i'll read a book from each perspective about it... tnx ...

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Most of the people in those camps ... they were natural-born Americans. 

America was their "homeland." 

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Would you consider putting me and my siblings in an internment camp?  How about my mom? 

What about Mr. Uno ... he's White.  Does he go, too? 

If not, why not? 

If so, why?  Do you think I might turn on the country of my birth and conspire with the Japs? 

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But I'm certain it had nothing to do with the internment of innocent American citizens. 

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I'm just trying to get you to see things from a different perspective. 

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In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership".^[10] About $1.6 billion in reparations were later disbursed by the U.S. government to every surviving internee.^[11]

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maybe we could have raped the Japanese women as well, impregnated them so they would produced a line of children whose blood line would become more separated from their original Asian one.   Rape the "Japanese" right out of them so they would no longer be a danger to the Americans.

I mean, as long as the war was won, we could justify it, right?

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are you talking about? 

My kids are hapa, by the way ... and my grandbabies quapa ...

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If you mean me, I am just applying Tony's logic that he always applies.  That war is messed up, but needed and as long as you win, who cares what tactics were applied, especially to a civilian populous...

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I get you now. 

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Guys , i'm real sorry i haven't been able to answer ya's in a timely manner , but my old laptop bluescreened on me this week , but tomorrow i'm notebook shopping ....

Flava , this is what i mean about the more sympathetic people in the group villianizing those of us who have different views ... the idea that i , or anyone , anyone would condone rape , or burning of villages and genocide and other war attrocities is ridiculous ... every condemns a willian calley ... but by the same token , i always wonder how a group of people can shout out about u.s. " tortures " a charge in and of itself laughable , yet i don't hear the same people shouting out about the raping, plundering and pillaging going on by the Taliban ... that's what makes me shake my head.

but just because i don't share your ( imo ) overly sympathetic view , doesn't make me a war mongering , to hell with civilian loss , ogre.

But there is not one of you that can argue the japanese-aqmerican internment didn't work .. history of the results says it did. there is not one of you that can argue the results of the interogations supplied information that saved lives , that would not have come forth without such methods.

Yes , one fights to win or don't bother fighting , but i resent people putting words in my mouth to make my side of the arguement look like i advocate true torture or anything outside our argreements of the geneva convention. i have said above I am not for war attrocities , i have stated the internship was handled wrong .. guess some people hear what they want to hear , and if you don't agree with them they want to make you look like some souless evil , whatever  .... but it was deemed a nessecity during the war and it was upheld by the u.s. supreme court ... and once again .. no one can argue that it worked , which is my whole point to begin with.

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But there is not one of you that can argue the japanese-aqmerican internment didn't work .. history of the results says it did.

Oh, because there was not one instance of Japanese-Americans doing anything to harm America? That's exactly why the internments were unnecessary and abusive. Some of them even joined the Army and served America with extraordinary bravery in Europe!

Then again, maybe that was part of the plan: Army recruiter to Jap-Amer captives: "If you wish to prove your loyalty to us, join the Army now!" (And then we can be rid of you Japs as some of you are killed in battle by Nazis, solving TWO of our problems at once!) 

 there is not one of you that can argue the results of the interogations supplied information that saved lives , that would not have come forth without such methods.

Total B S. We could have infiltrated Al-Quida with double agents and gotten more accurate and up to date information about their plans than by holding and tortuing captives over several years. How often did we torture Soviet captives during the Cold War, or German captives during World War II? Hardly ever! But we did send spies to gather intelligence directly from the enemy in both cases.

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That's exactly why the internments were unnecessary

Total B S. We could have infiltrated Al-Quida with double agents and gotten more accurate and up to date information about their plans than by holding and tortuing captives over several years. How often did we torture Soviet captives during the Cold War, or German captives during World War II? Hardly ever! But we did send spies to gather intelligence directly from the enemy in both cases.

oh yeah , I'm sure placing agents inside al qaida is real easy. I'm sure we do what we can espianage wise.

WWII there was no immediate terrorists threats. they fought in uniforms , no civilians strapping bombs on to kill other civilians ... the danger wasn't as imminent. But that aside, I'm sure we did our fair share of interogations that pushed the limits , we've been doing the music , sleep deprivation , psychological thing ( how the thread started ) since I can remember. The fast google i just did on torture and interogation during WWII came up with some things , and the cold war search came up with even more. And the soviets were torturing their own people , nevermind spies.

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You keep saying this, but still haven't come up with something to back up your claim. 

You can say that we "won" the war against the Japanese and the Germans, but you have not tied in how it had anything to do with the internment of Japanese Americans, most of them, like my dad and his siblings, for whom America was their first and only home. 

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Call me naive, but I'm just not sure that I see torture as justified in any way, shape, or form. 

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Good for these guys! But I heard James, lead guitar/vocals for Metallica, saying something like he thought it was kind of 'cool' that their music was used in this capacity...?

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Frankly, the FOI request is just a political and publicity stunt. The bands are named and known. And it's not torture to play rock music loud and long unless you are the parent of the teen doing the playing.

Maybe the bands should consider producing a couple of albums each specifically for use at Gitmo.  Maybe "We Are the Spanish Inquisition".

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or ignorant. 

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I can't even comment on this, it's so ridiculous. What Tony said was tantamount to saying that slavery, though possibly wrong,  was not only okay, but also necessary to the survival of plantation owners so that they could help build the "great" country of America.

I need more time than I have right now to formulate a proper response to that kind of drivel.

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if you lose the little bat head. 

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What do you want to do about slavery in this day and age?

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Bat , this is exactly what i'm talking about ... again you use " what tony is saying is tantamount to " .... NO .. WRONG .... please stop doing that .. slavery/WWII ... apples/oranges.

maybe your failing to understand my logic , because you guys are thinking with emotion and not logic.... and that's ok ... you guys are strongly opposed to anything you consider to be "torture "
We can always get into the definitions of that , but as i've said , we just have different opinions ....

but i'm thinking with logic here ... ono i can prove it worked .. They were affraid of sabatage and assasinations and spying ... so they interned the japanese , legal in wartime according to our constitution . Because there were no instances of what caused them to be affraid and do that , one must assume the internment served the purpose they sought, however regretable. therin is your proof ... because you cannot say the same thing. you can't say with certainty it was unecessary because we could never know the results of it for sure.
Was it necessary to win the war ? We can never know WHAT IF. You saying it wasn't necessary , well you can't prove that.
conversely  i can say WHAT IF a japanese-american, otherwise interned,  assasinated Roosevelt or Eisenhower ? does it change history ? WHAT IF a japanese-american, otherwise interned, spys and tells Japan we have decoders ? does that change history ? WHAT IF ????     but what i can say as fact , as WHAT ACTUALLY  HAPPENED, is we did win. so internment worked for the purpose they used it.

And again , I know how some of you feel , that i'm a heartless ignoramous .... but just because i don't have as much compassion during wartime as you guys have , doesn't mean i have no compassion at all and i'm gung ho to trample on innocent people .. Get real guys ...

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"Flava , this is what i mean about the more sympathetic people in the group villianizing those of us who have different views ... the idea that i , or anyone , anyone would condone rape , or burning of villages and genocide and other war attrocities is ridiculous ..."

First off, to be fair, I do not know what you are talking about when you mention about being villianized.  I respect your point of view, as I do everyone else's here that can provide one without going over the edge, and getting personal (name calling, etc) with others.  But if I find what I think is a flaw in it, I am gonna speak to it, as you also do.

Second, I do not feel I am part of the "group" you mention in the very first part of your statement, so I will write that off as not being part of the same thought.

You have been here for awhile and if memory serves me correctly, you provided the very same "yeah, war is a bitch, things suck, but we won, saved "American" lives, etc...." reasoning to the discussion on the atomic bomb as well.  So, although my post might have been extreme, I would not for one second think that you would not have applied the same logic to it, had it been indeed a factor in winning the war.  So to me, sympathy lacks when one can add a "but" statement to it, as you often do.

Of course, if I eventually go back through the threads, and my last statement was not true, I will apologize.  But I think I am right.... 

How can something "handled wrong" (your words), be right, be beneficial?  Not unless of course you are the beneficiary of said acts.

And, as asked, what solid evidence do you have that it was a deciding factor in the war?  Because we won the war, do we say that everything we did was a contributor to it?  If or when we eventually get out of this quagmire in the Middle East, can we justify any and or all of our actions?  Is it hard to see that some if not many actions continue to polarize people, and not necessarily for our own goals?

Me personally, I feel it might have contributed to a certain extent, and also might have harmed it as well. Those who were informants were denied access to the enemy, but those who were not, were treated unfairly and this is were resentment sets in.  But since I do not have numbers, I do not know, hence I cannot make a decision either way.

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What allows you to make that statement?

Two things: 

My rejection of racism or other forms of prejudice (assuming that an entire group may be judged based on the fear that any members of that group may do bad things).

My belief in the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" (that the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused).

So Tony is doubly wrong to defend the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Wrong because it was racist, and wrong because there was no record of any Japanese-American commiting any anti-American acts before the internment began.

What evidence to do you have that proves Tony's assumption to be wrong?

My second point answers that. I don't need any "evidence" to see that Tony is dead wrong. As in unethical. It's not about evidence, it about doing what's right, regardless of the risks. If any Japanese-Americans DID engage in anti-American acts, it would have been justified to arrest, try, convict, and imprison or execute them. But not until then, and even so, we should have NEVER punished the entire ethnic group for the actions of a few of them. Just as now in the War on Terrorism, we should not be imprisoning all Muslim-Americans. Or even indefinitly detaining terrorism suspects that have not been formally charged, let along convicted of any actual terrorist acts. But that's exactly what was done to hundreds of men at Gitmo, and it stinks worse than a dead skunk.

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you have none then, right Dale?  You are letting your ethics and whatever else steers you, be your guide, but you have not provided any evidence.

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argue a view point based on our beliefs, but to say something was or was not, did or did not, to state an absolute about a situation, without having any evidence is not correct in my opinion.

And basically, the arguments that it did work, and did not work basically cancel each other out in my opinion.  Speculation and that can be argued forever.

The only hard evidence we have here, is a family member that had to endure what happened, and later we find out that he actually rose above the situation, enabling him to go to war for the very same country that was imprisoning him or his kind.

I am not sure if I could have done that, so hats off.

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Dale is right ... whether his response is based on ethics or not.  It was an action taken against a group of people based on their race.  And I reiterate that most of those people were natural born Americans. 

Even the apology offered by the U.S. Government when they made "reparations" stated that it was war-time hysteria based on race prejudice. 

I mean, where were the German American camps?  Based on Tony's logic, weren't they just as much a "danger"? 

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rocked. He was a good American. 

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Interning Japanese-Americans did nothing to help win the war, and it might have hurt the war effort by taking productive citizens out of their most effective job.  In addition to that, it was unjust.

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The way I figure it, it was Tony who first brought up and insisted that the internement somehow "worked" to win the war.  Therefore, he's the only one who needs to provide some evidence of that, as far as I'm concerned. 

As far as it being wrong, there doesn't have to be any "proof" other than it was an admitted racist hysterical action on the part of our government. 

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You are doing the same thing.  How do you justify your statement?  We should not say something is or is not, based on how we feel people should be treated.  To say that it did not help, you should be able to provide cases in where it did not, right?

I will go so far as to say that apparently not everyone took it that bad as we see BOOno's father even went as far as to take up arms for the US.

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I am asking everyone who said that it either did or did not, to provide some sort of evidence to back up their statement, nothing more.  All am I getting is how we should treat people, nothing more.

The argument here (at least in my opinion) is did it help or harm?  Regardless of how it we perceive the acts back then, or even what goes on today.

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I wouldn't say people didn't "take it that bad."  How could you not "take it bad" when your own government gathers you and your family up like cattle and moves them to various desert locations without just cause? 

My father joined the Army because he's an American and he felt, like a lot of others who join the military, that he was doing the right thing for his country. 

The Japanese have this thing ... gaman ... gamen ... I'm not sure of the spelling.  It's something that gets passed down. 

Basically, it means "suck it up" and move on with your life. 

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is not whether it "worked" or "didn't work."  But whether we learned from history. 

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What I mean, if anyone had a right to tell someone to phuck off, it was him.  He could have told the US to screw off, and many would have understood him. 

In my opinion, he took the higher ground, went past his unfortunate experience, and saw a bigger picture, one bigger than himself, and that being his country.

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if it DID work, then what were the reparations and apologies all about? 

Why do that if the Government was justified for doing what it did? 

I mean ... I would say that most descendents of those Japanese Americans who were interred aren't bitter against the U.S. Government.  But fuk if anyone decended is going to forget, you know? 

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I believe that the military actively recruited young Japanese-American men ... probably tried to make them feel guilty or something. 

Of course, that just an assumption. 

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I do not nor can I understand the motives behind them as they were not mine.  But maybe since it was clear that not every Japanese American was a traitor, it was sort of a band-aid to those who were not?  I do not know..

Not to be taken personally by you or anyone for that matter, but I do not put much value in public apologies as I do not see them to be genuine, but rather an action due to some pressure from a special interest group.

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Quite possibly so....  We "recruited" the Native Americans as well...

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how many Japanese-Americans were traitors?  Was this ever revealed? 

Just curious. 

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our government has a history of fukking with a lot of "subhumans." 

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One of my points...  And, I will go a step further and say that even if the majority of them were NOT, that maybe a few high value were indeed trapped in there, and keeping them in there might have been a deciding factor with the war.

I do not know, it is not for me to decide....

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So Tony is doubly wrong to defend the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Wrong because it was racist, and wrong because there was no record of any Japanese-American commiting any anti-American acts before the internment began.

Dale , I'm not defending it. please try to get through your emotions of disgust about the whole thing. We all feel that ... I'm merely stating the fact that it worked.

And your dead wrong about no anti-american acts before the bombing of pearl harbor. I just googled it ... there are all sorts of documents out there , books written about the subject ....  they credit the japanese with having a better espionage network than us , including washington and hawaii

My second point answers that. I don't need any "evidence" to see that Tony is dead wrong. As in unethical.

one of my points is , that during wartime , those ethics need to be bent sometimes to insure lives. i believe the treatment the prisoners of war are receiving from us is not only ethical ( for the most part, there are exceptions ) but also merciful in ways that are unprecedented for modern warfare. miranda rights for pow's ???!!! ya gotta be kidding me. POW's have the right to remain silent ??!!! to a lawyer ???!!! i can't agree with that. not where lives are at stake. this is war ... those people are trying to kill us, this isn't grand theft auto ...

It's not about evidence, it about doing what's right, regardless of the risks.

again i disagree , it's war .. it's about winning and saving as many lives as possible along the way. I would not risk lives for the sake of "doing what's right " ... to me doing what's right is putting our and innocent lives ahead of the killers " rights "

we should have NEVER punished the entire ethnic group for the actions of a few of them.

Just as now in the War on Terrorism, we should not be imprisoning all Muslim-Americans. Or even indefinitly detaining terrorism suspects that have not been formally charged, let along convicted of any actual terrorist acts. But that's exactly what was done to hundreds of men at Gitmo, and it stinks worse than a dead skunk.

And I think it stinks worse to release a prisoner who wasn't innocent , so he can kill hundreds of soilders or innocents in a bombing , a heckuvalot worse than holding a few hundred men of concern for a few years.

@flava ... sorry if i seem overly defensive flav .. and i thank you for trying to explain to me how your not villianizing ..  but i gotta say , sometimes it's rough being the only one around here who holds some different opinions than most of y'all ... i understand care2 is " the biggest progressive site " on the web, and as such my opinions are in the minority here ... i suppose i could go join a group where everyone agrees , but honestly what purpose does it serve ... i'm confident in my own morals, my own genius          And I'm about answers to problems ... how might people with differing opinions on these things reach a comman ground to solve problems... so i'd rather hang and argue with you guys , however at times it does feel like i'm being ganged up on .. somehow or another it always comes down to " your ignorant " when someone disagrees.

and btw ... i'll stand behind my defense of the use of the a-bomb ... again , it saved lives ...

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Traitors?  How many were there revealed?  If any?  Were they tortured - I heard people's dads were taken away, separated from the family, and broken.  Do you think maybe that's when they admitted to being "traitors?" 

And what about the German "traitors?" 

How about this - were there enough traitors in the bunch to justify the whole thing? 

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So I was right then...   

So, be honest.  If one of the women in the camps, was raped and due to this act (which we all admit is horrific) she revealed information that could have prevented an attack, in your opinion, was it worth it?

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is that it was a WRONG thing.  Period. 

I didn't say you were a racist, Tony.  I said that the government, in its apology, stated that the internments were motived by racial prejudice. 

That's what they said. 

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Not sure you are addressing me, but like I stated, I do not know (numbers) and if it was worth it, is subjective I suppose.

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was an act of terrorism by the American government. 

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I have argued that point many of times with my "homies" and they say I have been here in Europe too long... 

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you are saying that it would be okay if the American government decided that it wanted to round up basically all Muslims, take away everthing they've earned and built for themselves, and stick them all on Gitmo? 

I mean ... there are likely a few spies and traitors here and there ... or terrorist wannabe's like that stupid kid in Boston. 

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if you are addressing me...

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i dunno guys ... as i said the proof it worked is that there were no major incidents on the mainland during thre war. There were records of japanese hijinx before and during the war... like i said nothing major but to them back in the day, that was an IF that they wanted to quell .....if you don't accept that logic , then again , i think your wrong, and that's ok.

I thionk we apologized because we realized we treated them like %#&!*%, whether it worked or not. And I don't see our apologies as insincere .. every american i know regrets it.

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I don't agree with your opinion in the slightest, but you're a nice person who seems able to argue his side without getting all offensive and stuff. 

I, for one, appreciate that. 

And if everyone in this group shared a brain, it would really suck for debateful discussion.   

No worries. 

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ono, it's 4 am and i'm going to sleep now , but i'm going to research the numbers on japanese espionage and sabatage during wwII and get back to you , but there definitely was some. please note , I'm not defending the move .. but i do understand why it was done, what the thinking was behind it , and i recognize it worked because of the results on the whole.

as for the rest of your questions .. well now your asking for my opinions .... more tomorrow on those too ...

and i think you guys are dead wrong on the bomb .. it saved more japanese lives than it destroyed ...  and you ask any serviceman who was on a ship waiting to invade the japanese mainland and they'll tell you it saved their life....and there were political implications to wanting the war ended faster also .. with the europeon theater done ,  the ussr was now getting involved in attacking japan... had the war gone further , today we might have a north and south japan ala korea. terrorism ? hardly ... it was about what any war is about .. saving american lives.

let me ask you a question now ...  why didn't japan surrender when we established military supremacy and were kickin their butts island by island until we were looking at their mainland ? Why didn't they surrender after the first bomb ? are you saying dropping the bomb didn't end the war faster and save lives ?

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CREDIT: Wikpedia. This is their page on the Internment. I have pasted a few paragraphs that seem to be relevant, along with my thoughts on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_internment_in_the_United_States

"Upon the bombing of Pearl Harbor and pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act, Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526 and 2527 were issued designating Japanese, German and Italian nationals as enemy aliens.[21] Information from the CDI was used to locate and incarcerate foreign nationals from Japan, Germany and Italy (although Germany or Italy did not declare war on the U.S. until December 11)."

The Citizens only had to be 1/8 th Blood related to an "Enemy" to become subject to Internment. Some of them were Children with as little as 1/16 th of "Enemy" Blood. I'm pretty sure that they were recruited for Internment based on their area of Business. In California they were concerned about the Japanese Citizens because they were competing with their Agricultural Bussiness. That is probably one of the main reasons for some of them being locked up in the first place, but a lot of Our Japanese Americans were allowed to remain free. It appears to be a "Professional Jealousy" that started the Prejudice, and simply had nothing to do with the War. The War appears to have been an excuse.

"State politicians joined the bandwagon embraced by Leland Ford of Los Angeles, who demanded that "all Japanese, whether citizens or not, be placed in [inland] concentration camps."^[17] Internment of Japanese Americans, who provided critical agricultural labor on the West Coast, created a labor shortage, which was exacerbated by the induction of many American laborers into the Armed Forces. This vacuum precipitated a mass immigration of Mexican workers into the United States to fill these jobs,^[25] largely under the banner of what became known as the Bracero Program. Many Japanese internees were even temporarily released from their camps, for instance, to harvest Western beet crops, to address this wartime labor shortage."

As I'm hoping you will see that these Internments worked against us in many ways. Not only did it imperil Industry, but there were plenty of these "American Citizens" that would have fought for their Country, the U.S.. I remember reading somewhere that Soldiers would come home to find their families in these Camps. How does it help the War efforts to do this?

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RE the A-bomb ... of course it was the reason we "won" the war.  I didn't say it wasn't.  However, it was overkill - literally.  The cost - in innocent civilian lives - was greater than the "rewards," in my opinion. 

God help us all if someone decides that nuking innocent folks is an appropriate measure to take. 

Terrorism - I'll stand by that definition. 

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I will always stand by my statement that Japanese Internment camps were one of the wrongest things ever to be done by our US government.   We didn't go as far as the Germans did with their discriminations to some of their own citizens who were unfortunate enough to be part of those "unwanted" backgrounds...we did however in a lot of cases take all their stuff, their property, etc. and never return them.  In short we essentially put innocent civilians in a jail of sorts, stole their stuff, based on their race. 

Yep, one of the wrongest US acts up there with black slavery and American Indian policies (aka straight-up genocide). 

As to the atom bombs...I think the firebombs that pretty much took out a couple of islands did more damage than the A-bombs did...but I won't downplay the effect of the A-bomb either, just that the US had a kind of trend of targeting civilians over there.  It happened in Europe too for that matter with our carpet bombing, and we did some targeting of civilian targets in Germany to my remembrance in history class...it was done far more extensively in Japan, though. 

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I agree C.A.K.,
Wrong is wrong. Comparing one wrong to the other does nothing, and it's ridiculous. It would be like saying that the Man who lost a foot was not in as much pain as the man who lost a leg.

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My final thoughts ....

there seem to me , that there are some people who might not recognize or feel the same way about the seriousness and urgency of war , that i do. We didn't attack japan first, we didn't fly planes into buildings in afganistan first .. so don't talk to me about moral high ground ....   War is war , and war is hell ... we fight a war to win , because our enemies seek to destroy us our way of life .... the alternatives are losing freedom , losing more lives .... so I understand one must do what one must do to win ... even if it means things we're not proud of ...but to me defeat is not an option.

reminds me of a story about Sherman's march in the civil war ... the South was the first ones to use land mines ( torpedo's they called them ) and when Sherman saw a casualty of a mine dieing firsthand , he ordered rebel pow's to move in front of them and find and dig up the mines .... the rebel prisoner's horrified complained it was inhumane ... Sherman's response was " your side started this " and he went ahead with it ... in the meantime he sent a letter to general Lee telling him what he was doing .... they stopped using landmines ....

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Afghanistan flew planes into buildings? That's the first I've heard of that.

Debating with the ignorant and uninformed is a complete waste of time. Anyone else want to take this?

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so don't talk to me about moral high ground ....   War is war , and war is hell ... we fight a war to win , because our enemies seek to destroy us our way of life ....

Nice to know where you stand, Tony. Do you apply that attitude to all other aspects of your life?

so don't talk to me about moral high ground ....   crime is crime, and crime is hell ... we fight crime to win , because criminals seek to destroy our way of life ....

so don't talk to me about moral high ground ....   politics is politics, and politics is hell ... we fight to win , because our opponents seek to destroy our way of life ....

so don't talk to me about moral high ground ....   business is business , and business is hell ... we fight to win , because our competitors seek to destroy our way of life ....

Nope, without a moral high ground, we might as well throw out the Constitution, the Bible, and anything positive. The ends justify the means and then we are just like the Nazis.

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christian , you know damn well what i meant by that ... we hit the people who hit us in afganistan .. are you always this annoyingly nit-picky to the point of insulting when someone disagrees with your warped opinions ?
and the other genius , mr. dale ... yes Dale whenever I'm in a fight i do apply that attitude ( sports too ) .. although it has no place in politics and business and crime , so once again your thinking is so far off , so far out there and having nothing to do with the point at hand ... apples and oranges ...

no , considering these two sources , who i know to be overly soft and out of touch with reality , i'll stand by my statement you two really have no clue about the urgency of war and what's at stake.

but at least , i'm not " ignorant " enough to shut off the side that doesn't agree with me ...  i'll stand by what i said about the world needing both sides ... because i feel if left to unrealistic people like you'se , that seem to have no concept , we'd be speaking german or kneeling to mecca ..... while if left to people like me who understand it's a war and we MUST win ,maybe we'd go too far. but in the end I'd rather be sorry for bending morals in the name of saving lives during a war , than be soft and be sorry for it when our people die.

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because i feel if left to unrealistic people like you'se , that seem to have no concept , we'd be speaking german or kneeling to mecca ..... while if left to people like me who understand it's a war and we MUST win ,maybe we'd go too far. but in the end I'd rather be sorry for bending morals in the name of saving lives during a war , than be soft and be sorry for it when our people die.

If we fight wars without a higher moral code, what's to stop us from resorting to genocide? It would be simpler and easier to kill every last Arab/Muslim/Iraqi/Afghani/anti-American/Liberal/Democrat/non-Republican/non-Conservative/Russian/Chinese/Japanese/non-white......

You can always find more and more excuses to wage continuous war. Do you really beleive that nonsense about us speaking german or kneeling to mecca if we did not wage war endlessly? The Germans in World War II were not trying to force us to speak German (though there were other reasons to defeat them), and the idea of waging war to avoid "kneeling to mecca" is an insult to anyone anywhere who happens to profess Islam freely. Most Muslims will quote their own Quran to note that forced conversion to  forbidden by their own laws.

You disgust me more than ever!

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Not possible to post without getting personal, is it?

If someone doesn't know something, then shedding a light on something might be better than to display disgust.

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it appears that you pretty much proved my point, so I am not sure why the victim role.

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You can always find more and more excuses to wage continuous war.

Do you really beleive that nonsense about us speaking german or kneeling to mecca if we did not wage war endlessly?

 and the idea of waging war to avoid "kneeling to mecca" is an insult to anyone anywhere who happens to profess Islam freely. Most Muslims will quote their own Quran to note that forced conversion to  forbidden by their own laws.

what planet do you live on dale that your so oblivious .... while i agree most peace loving moderate muslims want nothing to do with the fanatics , the fanatics have threatened that if we don't go along with their religion , they will wipe us off the the face of the earth. remember that's how this started , afganistan , sharia law , people blowing themselves up in the name of allah ... it's not an insult dale , it's real to them , convert or die and that's what you don't get ... me i'd rather die fighting for freedom than capitulate. that's morals ! That you think we are the aggressors, when we are just reacting and defending against them,  just makes me shake my head in disbelief ....

You disgust me more than ever

and you gotta know i feel the same about you .... never met a more out of touch dude in my life

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Can't we all just get along? 

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I look funny saying some of the stuff I do with the goofy happy smile on my face, don't I? 

Maybe I should go back to bitch face. 

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flava , i'm sorry ... but me and dale , me and christian ... we have developed a general dislike for each other based on our ideology and opinions .... that it carries over into this group you have my sincerest apology for ... but i would note christian and dale took to insulting me first , and i will not sit back and just turn the other cheek .. see , like i said , i get punched i punch back , lmao ...

but that's exactly what i'm talking about  .. they got nuthin' , so it comes down to " your ignorant " to them .. and that's why i'm defensive most times ....

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Tommy ... you hold Dale, I'll hold Christian ... Tony can get in two kicks and two punches each ...

And then it's over and we start fresh. 

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My last post to you, about the victim role...  Was not about what just transpired, but about the post a few days back where I first mentioned the rape, and how I felt you would respond to the scenario.

You felt I dug into you, that I was wrong in my thinking, but in a round about way, submitted your approval for sake of winning the war.

You do realize that, right?

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How about I hold you and we just let the boys go at it.. 

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flava , i would never condone rape under any circumstances, there's no place for it in a war , no honor in rape , and anyone who does should be prosecuted for it.

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Oh-TAY! 

I don't want any part of this anyway --->

Might mess up my hair. 

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Rape =

Torture =

This adds up. 

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Tony, I am gonna find it.  Somewhere in here, maybe not exactly in this thread, you led me to believe that it is all OK in view of the bigger picture, and that being able to win the war...

I am gonna find it dude...    Fabricate it if I have to.. 

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actually it's kinda funny ono .. i know christian from another group , and when not talking world affairs , when just hanging out ... i think christian is one of the cooler dudes i know on care2 .. Unfortunately i think he has no tolerance ... otherwise if he could just argue like a normal person with a sense of humor to laugh at me and himself , as i try to do ... he'd be the type of guy i think you can go to a pub with , laugh with and be a good wingman to pick up chicks with , lol ..... but because of my views , he'd rather believe i'm an " ignoramous " and hold me incontempt .... so as my daughter would say ... whatevah .....

as for dale .. well i think he was eating the lead based paint chips off the radiator when he was a child .. and i'll leave it at that ....
but no , i don't want to hit them .. i'm a lover not a fighter

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He knows how to yank your chain. 

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Christian lives in Canada...  We are somewhat more sympathetic to him because of that..  But don't let him know that I told you that...

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Why wouldn't YOU be the "wingman?" 

Just curious. 

I've known Christian (and Dale) for a long time.  I know how they both operate when it comes to political ... *ahem* *koff* ... discussions ...

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well ono , i just feel we have different definitions of " torture"
now i have to agree that some of the stuff that went on at gitmo was .. the naked pictures , things like that do go too far. but to me, playing music, ripping up korans , it's part of psychological interagation.....  waterboarding a few real bad-azzes , under controlled conditions , that produced results ,  to me it isn't torture ... to you it is ... ok ... that's where we differ.

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It's Uno ... Ono was that avante garde artsy fartsy woman who was married to one of the Beatles ...

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to a human being in order to break them .. break their spirit, the ultimate goal ... is torture.  I find it curious that you think rape and torture aren't synonymous ... nevertheless ...

You may think it's justified in times of war.  I don't know ... I've not been in a "war" situation ...

From my viewpoint right now, I just can't fathom that it is right to torture a human being.  Better to just kill them. 

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weren't you just boo ono last week ?????? anyways , ms uno it is !

as a single guy , i find me and my friends take turns as wingman .. depends who starts talking to a girl first

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now you're saying that waterboarding, music, etc. is NOT torture?  Then what's the purpose?  Entertainment? 

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It is better to maim than to kill...

Torture instills fear into your enemy whereas killing them is a quick way out...

They all serve their purpose...

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rape IS always torture ... but torture doesn't have to be rape ...
when i think of torture i think of electrodes , scalpals and other crude pain inflicting devices ... i don't find a fake simulated drowning , when we know they're not really gonna die , to be torture. it's interogation ... and it's important to interigate to save lives. i find just killing them to be the more immoral of the two.

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But that was for Halloween ... BoooOono ... get it? 

So you'd take turns being wingmen? 

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believe me ... I understand completely the difference between torture and killing - killing someone being the more merciful of the two. 

Tony ... I know what you mean ... I understand what you're trying to say, but I gotta wonder ... have you ever been waterboarded or bombarded with cacophonous sound until you think you're going to go crazy? 

At a certain point, a person's got to think to him/herself that they would rather be dead than endure anymore ... "fake drowning" or loud music. 

It's torture ... you know it is.  And it's not necessarily the better option over death. 

But you know what?  That's okay ... you are, as we all are, entitled to your opinion. 

I won't change your mind nor will you change mine.  So ... ...

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Heck ... cops sometimes fight dirty when they need to - and they're not technically at war. 

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The list of music has been made public under the FOA.

What does a fan do when they find out that one of their groups was involved, and that the band actually supported it?

And the fan is against all forms of torture..

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i had to listen to my ex-wife's incessant babbling for 10 years until i couldn't take it anymore , lol .. was that torture ? because i'd say you have an arguement with waterboarding , but loud music ???!!! you really consider that torture ? i mean , if you classify that as torture , you can also classify the rest of it , the sleep deprivation , solitary confinement , etc as torture .. which again to me it's far from it.

so i'm curious  ... would you just stop all these interagation methods ? and if so , what methods would you use to get information ?

as for the artists ... well that's gonna be up to the individual and how strongly they feel about it .. we've already seen some of it with the reactions to the dixie chicks ... myself i couldn't care less, if i enjoy the music i'm not gonna boycott it.

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Uno's statements

Doing bodily and/or psychological harm ...
to a human being in order to break them .. break their spirit, the ultimate goal ... is torture.  I find it curious that you think rape and torture aren't synonymous ... nevertheless ...

You may think it's justified in times of war.  I don't know ... I've not been in a "war" situation ...

From my viewpoint right now, I just can't fathom that it is right to torture a human being.  Better to just kill them. 

Not sure where you are coming from Uno with your statements about torture and your other viewpoints. Trying to understand.

What the US did to get info from the terrorist's who are in custody was not really torture. It may have been uncomfortable but not torture. Child birth to some women is torture and prefer csections to avoid the pain. But it really isn't torture.

When being faced with waterboarding the Guantanamo Bay terrorists probably went out of their ways to tell the investigators what they wanted to know so that they wouldn't be waterboarded. Thus they were not subjected to the waterboarding as a result. I am sure that it was used at times, but probably and most definatley avoided at all costs by telling US interrogators what they wanted to know.

Rape is indeed synonymous with torture no doubt. So is the threat of rape, tortuous. In fact, many threats of physical discomfort can be synonymous with torture even if not one finger is lifted to do the harm. Just to verbalize certain things can be considered tortuous.

So much being said here against the actions of US interrigators to find out information to bring safety to people who would otherwise be maimed and killed by the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. I am sure, had anyone forseen than President Obama would start to release terrorists back into action again, that the US soliders who captured them would have rather killed them instead of putting them in detention until after the war. I agree with you Uno that they should be killed, but not for the same reasons. I understand your statement to be of a mercy killing to save the poor murders and terrorits from the tortures of water in the face. I think they should be killed for the mass murderers that they are and the terrorisms that they dedicate their lives to.

To use another example of what I consider to be torture on a level much higher than the waterboarding; has anyone here ever heard of a Canadian businessman by the name of William Sampson?

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Cops fight dirty? Against who?

Not technically at war? Says who?

AK-47: An Assault Rifle for Everyman

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/tag/ak47/

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Tony I am agreeing with you on this issue. The use of torture is a selective tool it seems.

It just depends on who is doing the torture, who is recieving the torture and what the torture is.

For me to listen to finger nails on a blackboard is pure torture.

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K... We are at War, and have invaded two Countries, but...

" American Airlines Flight 11

Hijackers: Mohamed Atta al Sayed (Egyptian), Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian), Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian)."

Hijackers: Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian), Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian), Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian), Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian), Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian)."

": United Airlines Flight 93 Hijackers: Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese), Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi Arabian), Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian)"

What's wrong with this picture...? 

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E ... i understand your point ... my point is that regardless of their country , they were al quada , who were safe housed by the taliban .. so Afganistan was logical .. really not much world opinion against that one .. and I think their actions around the mid east and Africa have borne out we did did the right thing too.

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Hi Tony, I think they were in over their heads. I didn't think that until I started researching because of this thread.

{CREDIT Wikpedia}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_%E2%80%93_United_States_relations

There is a Saudi/American Oil Company.

"Foundation of ARAMCO
After the promises that had been made by American oil explorers that Saudi Arabia could have a very good chance of finding oil, Al saud accepted the American offer of exploration , because he was hoping that his land could have valuable materials that will support the countries economic situation. In May 1933 California Arabian Standard Oil Company, which later called Arab American Company (ARAMCO), had started the exploration in the country with large area to explore (Alnabrab, 2008). Although the imported oil was not very important for the US at the time, Washington seemed hungry toward the Saudi oil since their confidence of finding oil in Saudi Arabia had greatly grown and which resulted in making stronger relations with Saudi Arabia. (Irvine, 1981)"

"Although 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, publicly the Saudis were not cooperating with Americans wanting to look at background files of the hijackers or interview the hijackers' families."

It took them quite a while to actually cooperate with the U. S..

Osama Bin Laden was from Saudi as well, and the Saudi's worried about Invasion by Iraq...

"After the Cold War the US-Saudi relations had been steadily rising and the US had been paid a lot for preparing and administrating the rebuilding of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia had paid the US estimated $100 billion worth of administrated constructions, weapons, and 1970s and 1980s higher education scholarships to the US (Kaiser & Ottaway 2002). During that era the US had built and administrated numerous military academies, navy ports, and Air Force airfields that are contemporarily influenced by the US. Also the Saudis purchased a great deal of weapons that varied from F16 war planes to armored war tanks that will be useful during the Gulf War (Kaiser & Ottaway 2002)."

Ten years prior to the Gulf War... Why did they need so many weapons? Who were they training to use them? 

There were Rewards offered to 'Informants' to turn people in, in a starving Country this was stupid. Only approximately 5 % of the Detainees were found to be guilty, and these were the ones that were found  BY U.S. Intelligence.  People were turning in anyone they could, because they could.

So who are we really torturing?

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Electra are you using the oil arugument for the reason that the Trade Towers were attacked on 9/11? Just asking since you posted the little encyclopedic reference you made to Arabian oil companies which have nothing to do with the terrorists that are in US custody and subject to enhanced interrogation methods and why they chose terrorism as a way of life to kill, maime and torture people because of their very presence.

Do you have an encyclopedic reference to the 9/11 terrorists and their profiles?

The US interrogators used water boarding on the terrorists who are still in custody and it saved lives.

Do you know who Canadian businessman William Sampson is and what happened to him in Saudi Arabia in mid-December 2000? Do you know what the Saudi oil kings were up to and what did William Sampson have to do with their oil?

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It looks like "Oil" was the only word that you read out of my entire Post. Kind of convenient to blame it all on one thing when it appears that there were several factors involved. One being the 'Mutual Ownership' of the Oil there. The main one being that they needed help taking down Iraq. It was really convenient for them that we were led to attack the Iraqi's don't you think.

Where are the WMD's? They are in Saudi Arabia, because 'We' supplied them. 'We' had 'Mutual Interests' with the Saudi's. We would stand to lose a lot if we went to War against them, but we gain a lot if we help them take down Iraq.

It also appears to me that prior to the Gulf War the Saudi's were preparing for War. With whom? Why were they stockpiling Weapons, and who were they training?

They refused to cooperate and were pushed into cooperating. Until then, they were not targeted.

Please read my previous Posts. My thoughts are not italicized. I find it odd that you would ask this,

"Do you have an encyclopedic reference to the 9/11 terrorists and their profiles?"

You are kind of proving my point. William Sampson was tortured into confessing to a bombing. After spending 2-1/2 years in jail he and the other 5 people were released. Torturing someone into admitting to a Crime does nothing to stop the people who are committing these Crimes. If they had looked for the REAL Bombers, then 'they' might have been taken off of the streets by now, but of course if History repeats itself the Real Bombers were probably Saudi's.

Take a look at this link. How many Terrorists have been found Inside Saudi Arabia. Seems to be a high number. Is this coincidence then?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/saudiarabia/timeline.html

"Dec. 7, 2004
The Saudi wing of al-Qaeda claims responsibility for a recent attack on the U.S. Consulate that killed nine people including four militants and injured 13 others. Four of the five attackers were Saudi nationals.
» CBC News: Al-Qaeda group claims to have carried out Jeddah attack"

It looks to me like we are in the wrong Countries.

And, If 5 % of the Prisoners were found to be the only ones connected to Terrorism, then 95 % were needlessly tortured. How would this help to end the War, and capture the Real Terrorists?

{CREDIT: Myself and  Wikpedia}

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Are you sure you don't mean you don't agree where I'm coming from or do you really, truly mean you don't understand? 

If you don't agree, it's cool.  There's no rule that says we have to agree ... I don't agree with Tony, nor does he agree with me ... it is what it is ...

If you don't understand, I thought I've been pretty forthcoming with my opinion, but, if not, let me clarify:

I don't condone torture ... I don't condone treating other living creatures - including human beings - in an inhumane manner.  That being said, I do recognize that there are occasions when it is felt that extraneous measures must be used to extract information from those who would do harm ... I don't condone it, but I recognize the "necessity." 

I don't - under ANY conditions - believe that innocent persons should be tortured/sacrificed in the name of "winning" a war. 

All of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have not been proven to have perpetrated terrorist crimes. 

RE the cop statement ... the "war against crime" is not a military (technically war) action. 

Do you "understand" where I'm coming from now? 

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that cops have and continue to "fight dirty." 

I know this from more than one POV. 

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Your having to put up with your wife's incessant nagging for 10 years may have been annoying, but you could've left at any time, so ... no ... not technically torture. 

Regarding your other question ... what methods other than torture?  I don't know. 

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Oh... and Tony,

They played the Barney song!

Need I say more...????

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I was wondering if anyone else in this thread besides me , thought about this discussion after the tragedy at Ft. Hood ? I hate to say it , and again i'm not justifying the interment , but i believe during war , some profiling must be done in order to save lives.

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My opinion, hard to say without the numbers and values.  I mean, where do we draw a line (if any) between gathering high profile people, and possibly violating the rights of many more?  And maybe having those who felt violated, or where truly violated, turning to the "dark side" so to say.

Some can jusitfy violating many to gather a few.  Some cannot...

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Common sense could have stopped the tragedy at Ft. Hood, and the needless tortures of the innocent elsewhere.

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Common sense, like how?

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Had the Army and our Intelligence taken Hasan's threatening behavior seriously, then he would have been in Custody, or shipped out. They chose to ignore it.

Had there not been a Reward offered for turning people in as Terrorists, then Investigations would have been done first, not after the fact. Innocent people may have still gotten caught up in this, but I believe that there would have been a lot less of them.

5% Were actually found to have Terrorist ties, the other 95% basically were expendable, for money, by the person or persons who falsely accused them, and turned them in.

Common sense tells me that you do not keep an intruder in your home because "it's not nice" to kick them out even though they are threatening yourself, and your family.

Common sense also tells me that History has shown biases and greed will win out over honesty, especially when your Children are starving. Offering money to turn people in...?  Stupid!!! 

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Did they honestly choose to ignore this, or somewhat cautious or afraid even to approach and act because some would have deemed it profiling?

Today, one is damned if they do or don't, no?

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