[Politics/Religion] Paging Hannity...

[gleek]

To me the question is not one of whether terrorists deserve to be tortured, or have otherwise asked for it, but whether America, with all of our claimed moral high ground can afford to have our reputation sullied in such a manner. We are a country who (supposedly) respects the law, and we signed the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention forbids torture. I don't think we, again as a law-respecting country, can simply say "yeah, but they aren't good people, so it's okay." I don't believe the way to fight barbarism is to act like barbarians. If we are truly to be the beacon on the hill that we seem to believe we are, that carries with it some responsibility to act that way.

Yeah, in general I think the example we set for the world is important.  When it comes to terrorism I think it's a different game.  I love to read Irish history and it is beyond doubt that Collins/Barry/Lynch/etc. and their guerilla warfare tactics were critical in a small, illegal army in an occupied land taking down the most powerful country in the world.  Obviously it helped that the UK were distracted by a little thing called WWI but you can't take it away from the Irish nationalists.  Even just the 20th century gives us many other examples of a guerilla army beating or stalemating a world power. 

But the terrorists we're dealing with don't even have a base reluctance to kill civilians.  In fact, that's an explicit goal of theirs.  They want to wipe out our will to fight by any means necessary.  They hate us and want to destroy us - all of us - and they put out videos telling us just that.  These sort take a different approach.  I'm not sure using torture will allow us to win (I think the war on terror is not winnable, it is only manageable at best) but it'll allow us to save civilian lives, perhaps large numbers of civilian lives.  Good enough for me.

The problem is that we're treating this as a war on terror when it's actually war on religious fanaticism.

[gleek]

I was identifying gob*feces*es.  Maher can fancy himself whatever he wants but one thing is for sure - he's an *bunghole*.  As I was pointing out the extremists on all sides do not have my respect.  Maher, by any measure, is an extremist as are all people who hate everyone equally.

The guy is a comedian--not a politician. His job is to ridicule everyone, and his easiest targets are bat*feces*, nutjobs who've been flocking to the GOP since the Bush/Quayle "Family Values" Administration.  As for his own political positions, what's so extremist about them that make him an *bunghole*? That he wants drugs legalized? That he wants the government out of our personal lives? That he believes that our healthcare problem is mostly a personal responsibility problem?

[Uisce Beatha]

I was identifying gob*feces*es.  Maher can fancy himself whatever he wants but one thing is for sure - he's an *bunghole*.  As I was pointing out the extremists on all sides do not have my respect.  Maher, by any measure, is an extremist as are all people who hate everyone equally.

The guy is a comedian--not a politician. His job is to ridicule everyone, and his easiest targets are bat*feces*, nutjobs who've been flocking to the GOP since the Bush/Quayle "Family Values" Administration.  As for his own political positions, what's so extremist about them that make him an *bunghole*? That he wants drugs legalized? That he wants the government out of our personal lives? That he believes that our healthcare problem is mostly a personal responsibility problem?

See, you can't resist.  Any far right myopics in the GOP were there long before the Bush/Quayle administration.  So are the bat*feces* nutjobs the Reagan Democrat types?  Are they the otherwise centrist Christians who see the over-secularization of America as a problem and believe the GOP is on their side?   Are they those who who have believed in family values since before Family Values?  I've never voted for a Democrat for POTUS but I'm pretty sure I have for every other office on the ballot - especially at the local-to-state levels.  Am I a bat*feces* nutjob?

I could be wrong you've never given me reason to believe that you believe ANY conservatives rise above swamp creature intelligence.  Even people like me with positions borrowed from both sides.  Maybe you ARE tolerant/respectful of us but if so it's hard to tell.

re:  Maher.  Nor is Hannity a politician.  They are both policital commentators.  Maher is vaguely funny at times so I'll concede he's a comedian of sorts but he's mainly a pundit pure and simple.  The biggest difference in style between he and Hannity is that he says *fudge* more often.  Some of his positions I share but I still believe he's an *bunghole*.  LOL, I share far more of his positions than I do Hannity's.  Maher is mean.  He demeans anyone with whom he doesn't agree.  He goes after them in personal ways.  He doesn't come off as making a joke.  He comes off as a bully.  That's why he's an *bunghole*.  It's not the extremity of his positions that makes him an *bunghole*. 

[Uisce Beatha]

The problem is that we're treating this as a war on terror when it's actually war on religious fanaticism.

Religious fanaticism is a belief system.  Terror is a means to and end.  They are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, they are very often very closely tied.

But if there are approaches targeting the belief system I'm all for giving them a try. 

[spacey]

But the terrorists we're dealing with don't even have a base reluctance to kill civilians.  In fact, that's an explicit goal of theirs.  They want to wipe out our will to fight by any means necessary.  They hate us and want to destroy us - all of us - and they put out videos telling us just that.  These sort take a different approach.  I'm not sure using torture will allow us to win (I think the war on terror is not winnable, it is only manageable at best) but it'll allow us to save civilian lives, perhaps large numbers of civilian lives.  Good enough for me.

I tend to think that the "they hate us and they want to destroy us" talking point is a bit over inflated. I honestly don't believe they'd really give two *feces*s about us if we were to stay out of the political workings of their side of the globe. If they control the lion's share of the world's oil reserves, well sometimes the cookie crumbles in the other guy's favor and you are forced to bargain from an unfavorable position, that's life. And let's be fair, the Palestinians did get sort of screwed with the whole Israel thing, regardless of which side believes they staked their historic claim on the land first.

Do we have a right to protect our own interests? Sure. Do they have a right to protect theirs? Damn right. Good guys and bad guys tend to be created by which ideology you better recognize. When we were kids and we played cowboys and indians, didn't most of us want to be the cowboys? I know I did. Indians were bad guys. As adults, can we honestly say that the indians didn't have a right to fight for what was theirs, regardless of who wore a white hat? (Yes, I am fully aware that this is really nothing more than libtard self-loathing.)

As for torture, if we are to ignore its legality and focus solely on its effectiveness, my understanding is that the only solid information we were able to extract from torture simply served to corroborate what we already knew from other intelligence gathering sources. Is that worth sacrificing our moral high ground? To me it's not.

It is also my understanding that during the 183 (or whatever the number was) water-boardings of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we were actually able to get him to admit a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Now, does that prove that there was an actual link between the two, or does it show that sometimes when a guy is being tortured, he'll tell you what he believes you want to hear, whether it's factual or not?

[MFAWG]

I like pie. And skateboards. And cake. Oh, and race cars.