There will be no winners, no matter what, only losers.

It is the Iraqi people
who need to 'win',
not the U.S.

The soldiers are
over there sacrificing
and dying while those
of us at home have
very little personal
stake in it, except
for the families of the
soldiers over there
getting killed.


Check out this link
to find out how many
funerals of soldiers
who served over in
Iraq Bush has attended.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/7/6/04142/59037

Torture is a revolting thing, but if you want to win a war you cannot be pampering your enemy. Western nations abhor such tactics, but it doesn't bother its enemies.

Agreed! All's fair in love and war. You can't win or dominate even if only temporarily, if you go around prissing over the prisoners who would kill you and your whole family with torure if they had the slightest chance??? WTF people.....****! And that's all I have to say about that! Quote Forrest Gump

Yes, it's much better to cause enough pain that a man will admit to hiding the body of Jimmy Hoffa if that will stop it. It's much better to create a whole new generation that will want to kill you through whatever means at their disposal. Beats the hell out of proving their propaganda wrong and treating people with respect.
It's not like there were any drugs which could ease getting information without the use of torture.





Man, you are truly a one of a kind beast. Torture for sheer enjoyment of causing pain to one of your own kind. Truly man is so much more advanced than other creatures.

Ideally it is a very horrible thing, but this is not an ideal world. That is how wars are conducted there isn't a single war in which torture hasn't been used. You cannot win a war if you are unwilling to do it. You cannot win a war unless you are willing to use any option available to you.

"Get with the home team or move"...

Hmmmm? Sounds a bit like "If you don't agree, you're a traitor, anti American, or just plain nuts"...

Some debate, Duckbill...LMAO

WELL? Thats about it bib. Every day were there we win. The day we leave= loosin day. This may not be the liberal / commie way but its the way the rest of the world looks at this. Its reality. For just about every single other country except For this one. ITS in thier perception. They dont think anything like we do. They see a country that comes in for a few years, tears up the place and then just leaves the mess. ( when you leave, you obviously lost) We dont even take thier virgins! It just aint logical to them as conquerers take the spoils of war, make you fly thier flag, you go tio thier courts, ect. They can never respect or even understand us. They think in terms of centuries instead of our 4 year system. Basically were percieved as a bunch of spoiled brats to the rest of the world. Keep in mind we are about 5 percent of that populatiojn. Mabe for once we should do the right thing and finish this mess were in instead of leaving the place like always.
The rest of the world, not just the iraquis are happy as clams listening to all the libs / commies do thier job for them by the way.
Were the most powerful, feared country in the world and we cant figgure out a way to solve this? we should fold? i just dont believe that. Let the people we hired do thier jobs for once instead of trying to micro manage something you know a lot less than you think you know about.

So Duckbill,
did you vote
for Bush?

Twice!

nope. havent voted since Perot.

You mean 'finish the mess' that GWB started with his lies to the American people,..

Gorge W. (Wethead) Bush is a tratorous dog!!

nice hat.
doesent matter who started it, or why or when or how. The blame game accomplishes nothing. My concern is the worlds perception of us, which is at an all time low from my expierence.
Should we have invaded? mabe, mabe not im on the fence there.There were a lot of what seemed like good reasons at the time, though i was a voice in the wilderness against this one from way before the start.
Should we pack bags and leave? in my opinion it would be the worst thing we could do as it would show the world we dont have the fortitude to finish a tough job.
Will we do it right? nope not a chance.

What job?..Oh the illegal invasion; or the murder of countless GIs and Iraqis..

OOPS! I forgot, the Iraqis are only "collateral damage" (isn't that what Blackwater calls them?...)

Thanks, I kinda like my hat, too

I like the hat too,
but I might be a bit
biased, being from
Minnesota and all (Vikings).

At first I supported
Bush going into Afghanistan
after 9/11 (let's go get
those bastards that did this!)

Then, when Bush went into
Iraq, I wondered why.
(Aren't we going to
get Bin Laden?)

Now, all these years
later, I realize how
badly Rumsfeld screwed
up this war.

I could go on about
the bad intelligence
and the way the neo-cons
ginned up reasons to
go into Iraq, but
I won't.

The fact is, our soldiers
are there and now we
have to make the
best of a terrible
situation getting
worse every day.

But that doesn't mean
staying there 10 years.

There has to be timetables
set, or we'll never going
to get out of there.

This isn't all about
the President, Vice President
and their buddies at Halliburton
and Blackwater getting rich.

It's about getting the
hell out of there as
soon as we can.

It is not just in this forum that this debate goes on!

I think we should listen, or read what these patriots have to say about Americas role in torture!!!



SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Marion Oltman spent the last eight months of World War II in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, and tears still fill his eyes when he recalls those desperate days.

After working all day to fill craters left from Allied bombing, each prisoner got a boiled potato and a slice of bread with sawdust used as filler. Oltman was given the task of slicing the bread to feed 12 men.

"You don't know what it's like to look in the eyes of guys that are that hungry," the 89-year-old Pekin, Ill., resident said, his voice breaking.

The experience gave Oltman a unique perspective about the treatment of prisoners during wartime. As a national debate continues about the role of torture to get information from suspects in the war on terror, Oltman and others attending an ex-POW conference said that the United States should set an example for the world in the humane treatment of detainees.

"I don't believe in torture," Oltman said this past week at the 60th annual conference of the American Ex-Prisoners of War. "I've seen what humans can do to humans. I've lived through some of it. And that's not right."

But what constitutes humane treatment is less clear - and even those who have been in the hands of the enemy themselves don't always agree. While they say they wouldn't kill or physically harm a detainee, many struggle with the question in a world where it appears terrorists have changed the rules.

Ex-POWs, having faced life-or-death struggles in strange lands, are conflicted men. They believe in American ideals of justice and mercy, but know the lonely desperation of facing a hostile and armed opponent.

Neither Oltman or the other former POWs interviewed criticized the Bush administration directly, saying they didn't know enough about U.S. tactics.

Elmer Morris lost his right arm and eye to German tank fire and his feet to frostbite. The 84-year-old Oklahoman said he has tried to lead a moral life since beseeching God for protection upon awakening in Nazi hands with a gangrenous arm and his feet turning black.

Morris flatly denounced torture, then stopped and said, "Take all that back." He would condone "a certain amount" of rough treatment, such as solitary confinement.

"Americans try to set an example to all the nations, and in setting that example, we need to treat the enemy right and be good in that respect, not mistreat them," Morris said.

Congress has prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terror suspects. Lawmakers have said that includes simulated drowning known as waterboarding.

The Bush administration has refused to say whether waterboarding is among the interrogation techniques prohibited in an executive order last summer.

A half a world away from the Nazi fight, Buck Turner served on the burial detail, helping carry as many as 40 bodies a day to mass graves at the infamous Japanese Cabanatuan POW camp in the Philippines.

Malnourished, forced to beat one another and assigned to 10-men "shooting squads" that meant death for nine men if one escaped, Turner has a different view.

He doesn't want detainees killed or bones broken, but "if we can put a little pain on one of them and get the information that we need that maybe might save lives, we need to do that."

"Most people don't feel like that," says Turner, 86, of Big Spring, Texas. "But most people haven't been there either and seen what those other people can do to you, and do to your friends."

Pete Wiese, an 83-year-old Washington, Ill., resident, was captured in Italy in 1944 and liberated just weeks before V-E Day. He and the 17 other Americans forced to work on a German farm were so confident of the way their country treated prisoners, they told their guard - headed back to combat - to surrender.

"Never in any other fighting have Americans treated any prisoners other than like they were their own people," said Wiese, who dismisses media reports about current U.S. policy as "propaganda."

Howard Ray, who was 19 and two weeks in Korea in 1950 when he was captured and held for a week by North Korean forces, was appalled by the mistreatment at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in November 2003.

But he dismisses questions about the current situation; it's "something we don't know anything about."

"Does the end justify the means? I don't know," said Ray, 75, of San Antonio. "Can I say that I wouldn't do it? I don't know. It would depend on the situation at the time."

Right Fanta.

The people in power should listen to these guys,
who know about it firsthand.

The thing is: Torture doesn't work.

Even Senator John McCain knows that. Duh.

If you want to elicit information from
someone, there are better ways like
sleep deprivation or loud music.

Maybe have them listen to Barry Manilow
for 24 hours or so.

'Mandy' in a continuous loop.

(Sorry Manilow lovers)

Because all torture does is get a confession
that might not be the one you're looking for.

But some people still don't get it.

How about tickle torture with a feather or a rubber chicken?


ooops! wrong thread

If I hear one more person say that our current military activities are being done to "protect our freedom" Im gonna puke. What we are doing is creating more and more terrorists and turning ever bigger populations agains us.

Right on Effincrzy

We could make them listen to Bush speeches for hours!!!

((Kid)))

I have stated frequently that I don't feel torture is in any way either productive or defensable... however, you're got me rethinking my position with your proposed "tickle torture"...

That might actually work!!!!

Thanks for making torture fun again.