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Poor guy; I take his statement at face value. But, he's misled: In simplest terms, "War is hell.", and this is not news. Germany bombed London and killed mos

by graycat 13y ago

Poor guy; I take his statement at face value. But, he's misled: In simplest terms, "War is hell.", and this is not news. Germany bombed London and killed mostly civilians. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and civilians were a large fraction of the deaths. The US fire bombed Japan and killed maybe 80,000 civilians in one night and did that on many nights. The two atom bombs killed many more civilians. The US and England bombed German cities and created horrific conditions for mostly civilians (although often war production workers) maybe best addressed just by hoping that the deaths came quickly, which no doubt often they didn't. Germany attacked to the East all the way to Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad and likely killed many more civilians than soldiers. Did I mention that "Was is hell"? It is. In Iraq, a civil war was going on, and the US, to its credit, eventually stopped it, but while it was going on no doubt many Iraqis did all they could to kill other Iraqis, and civilians got caught in the crossfire. Gitmo? Of course there is "due process", as defined and executed by the US DoD but, right, not as in the US criminal justice system. We treated them as prisoners of war out of uniform or some such. That's the form of "due process" they get from the US DoD fighting a war. Did we follow some statements of the UN? Maybe not, but the UN wasn't fighting the war, either. As prisoners of war, in many ways they are very well treated. If the US were to let them go, then a significant fraction of them would attack the US again. Last I read, it's costing the US $1 million per prisoner per year -- we are being very generous. The poor guy just is not looking at reality.

simoncion 13y ago
Gitmo? We tortured those poor SoBs. We never torture PoWs. You know why? So that we have a reputation of never torturing PoWs, so that when our soldiers are captured, they stand a good chance of also not being tortured. That reputation has been obliterated, and for what, exactly? What accurate, actionable intelligence ever came from Gitmo? We have put our soldiers in very real danger for absolutely no gain whatsoever. I hope to hell whatever real power we end up tangled with next can overlook our crimes and summon the basic human decency to treat its captured American soldiers with decency and respect.
- graycat 13y ago
  Yes, you have a point. But, the standards have long been that easily a PoWs life can be so bad that maybe usually there will be little difference. Consider what the USSR did to German prisoners -- marched off to Siberia or some such and never heard from again. North Korea did to US prisoners in the Korean War? What North Viet Nam did to Senator McCain? And our torture was water boarding, cold rooms, loud music? Your "decency and respect" are asking a bit much. Did I mention, "War is hell"? Supposedly at times prisoner interrogation can yield quite useful results, but you may be correct that from Gitmo we didn't get much (at least that we didn't already have). But there is such a thing as a dumb ass clusterfuck, or the older FUBAR or SNAFU, and there's been a lot of that since 9/11. More narrowly we elected W, and with 9/11 he and Cheney seemed to get all super-hyper concerned about their oaths of office to "protect and defend the US", paid a bit too much attention to threat scenarios of Saddam putting a nuke in a cargo ship, sending it to a major US port city, and setting it off, etc. Yes, it was a difficult threat to evaluate -- small risk of a big loss. As we know now, Saddam was talking about WMDs mostly to scare his own people and neighbors, and our intelligence was so poor we didn't know better. So, W/Cheney convinced themselves that Saddam, definitely a bloody thug, following Stalin, was a threat to the US and that the US should invade and occupy Iraq and set up a democratic government and could do so quickly for maybe $60 billion. The guy who said $120 billion or some such got fired. The guy who said we'd need 500,000 troops to occupy the country got fired. Did I mention clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU? Saddam had told us that it would be tough to hold the country together. We didn't listen and, instead, ignited essentially a several sided civil war. By the time we put down the civil war, likely more Iraqis had died a violent death, from us and/or other Iraqis, per month and in total than at any time under Saddam. We killed, what, 5000+ US soldiers? Seriously injured, what, 50,000+, 100,000+? Blew, what, net present value $3 trillion? SNAFU? FUBAR? There was a lot of really sick violence. E.g., when an angry Shiite captured a Sunni or an angry Kurd captured a Shiite, or an angry Sunni captured a Kurd, etc. new chapters in torture could be drafted. And several US workers where strung up from a bridge. So Manning didn't t like it. Easy enough to understand -- I didn't like it, either. But, W/Cheney were elected, about as fairly as the US can manage. Of really high importance, the US Congress authorized Gulf War II and appropriated the money for it. And the result was a bloody mess: The people really badly injured were the lucky ones because they died quickly and, thus, didn't suffer as much before they died. But, that was reality. It's not too difficult to see just why it happened. It's clearly what is likely to happen in many situations of military action and US national security. It's not really a big surprise. I'm sorry reality is like that, but in this universe, in this solar system, on this planet, now, that's the case. Heck, there were bloody battles in the US Civil War, Medieval wars, Roman wars, etc. There's been plenty of torture, as I recall, by some Spanish Roman Catholics. Again, the lucky ones were the ones who died quickly. Death? There's been a lot of that. Ugly? Once I was reading the Bible and got to where the pregnant women were cut open, threw the book across the room, and have not opened it again since then. For W/Cheney, as far as I can tell, they were superficial, simplistic, simple-minded, silly, sloppy, stupid, etc. and put in less thought and planning than needed for a good Sunday BBQ. The thing for a person to do is to try to stay out of the way of such a huge disaster. That's what Manning should have done. More generally all US mainstream media and all US voters should clearly understand that when a politician starts talking passionately about "protecting the US" (translation: covering his ass so that if something happens don't blame him) and US military action in foreign lands, firing experts with skeptical estimates, "to spread democracy, freedom, and prosperity", see a big chance of throwing away a lot of US blood and treasure, ugly, violent deaths of a lot of people "over there", and a really big clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU. Track record: Korean war, mixed. Viet Nam war, total SNAFU, accomplished essentially nothing good. Gulf War I, pushed Saddam out of Kuwait quickly and relatively cleanly. Gulf War II, total clusterfuck and will likely result in just a Saddam II in Baghdad. Afghanistan, smaller scale clusterfuck, essentially nothing good. Syria, seed of a total clusterfuck -- just add military aid. Egypt, the US supplies the Egyptian military, and they keep down the radical Islamists, don't attack Israel very much, and keep the Suez canal open. It's mixed.

by graycat 13y ago

simoncion 13y ago

Gitmo? We tortured those poor SoBs. We never torture PoWs. You know why? So that we have a reputation of never torturing PoWs, so that when our soldiers are captured, they stand a good chance of also not being tortured. That reputation has been obliterated, and for what, exactly? What accurate, actionable intelligence ever came from Gitmo? We have put our soldiers in very real danger for absolutely no gain whatsoever. I hope to hell whatever real power we end up tangled with next can overlook our crimes and summon the basic human decency to treat its captured American soldiers with decency and respect.

graycat 13y ago
Yes, you have a point. But, the standards have long been that easily a PoWs life can be so bad that maybe usually there will be little difference. Consider what the USSR did to German prisoners -- marched off to Siberia or some such and never heard from again. North Korea did to US prisoners in the Korean War? What North Viet Nam did to Senator McCain? And our torture was water boarding, cold rooms, loud music? Your "decency and respect" are asking a bit much. Did I mention, "War is hell"? Supposedly at times prisoner interrogation can yield quite useful results, but you may be correct that from Gitmo we didn't get much (at least that we didn't already have). But there is such a thing as a dumb ass clusterfuck, or the older FUBAR or SNAFU, and there's been a lot of that since 9/11. More narrowly we elected W, and with 9/11 he and Cheney seemed to get all super-hyper concerned about their oaths of office to "protect and defend the US", paid a bit too much attention to threat scenarios of Saddam putting a nuke in a cargo ship, sending it to a major US port city, and setting it off, etc. Yes, it was a difficult threat to evaluate -- small risk of a big loss. As we know now, Saddam was talking about WMDs mostly to scare his own people and neighbors, and our intelligence was so poor we didn't know better. So, W/Cheney convinced themselves that Saddam, definitely a bloody thug, following Stalin, was a threat to the US and that the US should invade and occupy Iraq and set up a democratic government and could do so quickly for maybe $60 billion. The guy who said $120 billion or some such got fired. The guy who said we'd need 500,000 troops to occupy the country got fired. Did I mention clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU? Saddam had told us that it would be tough to hold the country together. We didn't listen and, instead, ignited essentially a several sided civil war. By the time we put down the civil war, likely more Iraqis had died a violent death, from us and/or other Iraqis, per month and in total than at any time under Saddam. We killed, what, 5000+ US soldiers? Seriously injured, what, 50,000+, 100,000+? Blew, what, net present value $3 trillion? SNAFU? FUBAR? There was a lot of really sick violence. E.g., when an angry Shiite captured a Sunni or an angry Kurd captured a Shiite, or an angry Sunni captured a Kurd, etc. new chapters in torture could be drafted. And several US workers where strung up from a bridge. So Manning didn't t like it. Easy enough to understand -- I didn't like it, either. But, W/Cheney were elected, about as fairly as the US can manage. Of really high importance, the US Congress authorized Gulf War II and appropriated the money for it. And the result was a bloody mess: The people really badly injured were the lucky ones because they died quickly and, thus, didn't suffer as much before they died. But, that was reality. It's not too difficult to see just why it happened. It's clearly what is likely to happen in many situations of military action and US national security. It's not really a big surprise. I'm sorry reality is like that, but in this universe, in this solar system, on this planet, now, that's the case. Heck, there were bloody battles in the US Civil War, Medieval wars, Roman wars, etc. There's been plenty of torture, as I recall, by some Spanish Roman Catholics. Again, the lucky ones were the ones who died quickly. Death? There's been a lot of that. Ugly? Once I was reading the Bible and got to where the pregnant women were cut open, threw the book across the room, and have not opened it again since then. For W/Cheney, as far as I can tell, they were superficial, simplistic, simple-minded, silly, sloppy, stupid, etc. and put in less thought and planning than needed for a good Sunday BBQ. The thing for a person to do is to try to stay out of the way of such a huge disaster. That's what Manning should have done. More generally all US mainstream media and all US voters should clearly understand that when a politician starts talking passionately about "protecting the US" (translation: covering his ass so that if something happens don't blame him) and US military action in foreign lands, firing experts with skeptical estimates, "to spread democracy, freedom, and prosperity", see a big chance of throwing away a lot of US blood and treasure, ugly, violent deaths of a lot of people "over there", and a really big clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU. Track record: Korean war, mixed. Viet Nam war, total SNAFU, accomplished essentially nothing good. Gulf War I, pushed Saddam out of Kuwait quickly and relatively cleanly. Gulf War II, total clusterfuck and will likely result in just a Saddam II in Baghdad. Afghanistan, smaller scale clusterfuck, essentially nothing good. Syria, seed of a total clusterfuck -- just add military aid. Egypt, the US supplies the Egyptian military, and they keep down the radical Islamists, don't attack Israel very much, and keep the Suez canal open. It's mixed.