Dude, okay, I get what you're saying... but... we weren't the ones on the table. we weren't hte ones standing on broken legs while being beaten.

The American people aren't the ones who need justice served for these crimes.

See EDIT.

1980s Geneva Convention on Torture (to which we are signatories). We can and should expect Americans taken abroad, whether in war- or peacetime, to be tortured now. And we have absolutely NO STANDING to say jack shit about it.

I was writing about these war crimes, and criminals, back in 2004/5, and was stifled all the way.

When ** 'unsigned' the US from the ICC, you knew trouble was coming.

They have a bit of experience with that issue.

Last edited Tue Dec 9, 2014, 10:28 PM - Edit history (1)

on that question.

Speaking of 'sanctimonious,' though, our never-ending pout about Iran's nuclear program gets a bit tiresomely obnoxious when seen in the context of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the obligations it imposes on extant nuclear powers to disarm. Iran learned from watching Iraq and North Korea that the only way to deter a U.S. attack is to have nuclear weapons. If I, a well-educated but amateur American, know the neo-cons have Iran in their gunsights, then surely the Iranian intelligence apparatus knows it as well. Can't say I would blame the Iranians one iota if they were pursuing a nuclear device!

this report will make that any worse. It will likely do more harm in diplomatic circles and with our image abroad. I imagine some extremists will be looking at our embassies and there will probably be some protests like there were for the video, but soldiers being captured will be subject to the same "enhanced interrogations" they always have.

largely knew).

What has changed is that now when one of our citizens or soldiers is tortured and we complain about it, the world will publicly commiserate and privately laugh up their sleeves at us in total, utter contempt. That's what 'losing your moral standing' means.

At least in conventional warfare. I don't know how true it is but I'd always heard that in WWII the Germans would surrender to us faster because they were under the impression they'd be treated humanely when captured by US troops.

or reading somewhere that during our revolutionary war with England, Washington ordered that any Hessian mercenaries taken captive were to be treated humanely, i.e., not tortured or publicly humiliated. Such was the good will Washington engendered by this, the story goes, that when the war ended in 1783, many of those Hessian captives chose to remain here rather than return to the stale confines of ancien regime Europe.

Perhaps one of the Americanists who frequent this site can comment on the accuracy of this; could be a myth, I suppose but, if so, it's a damned good one!

That does NOT mean we always treated the German prisoners well. I remember watching the History channel some years ago and they interviewed an American veteran who fought in Europe during WWII. He related an incident where they had captured some Germans. They gave a Thompson sub machine gun to a private and told him to take the prisoners to the rear. About 5 minutes later they here the Thompson firing and then the private came back without the prisoners. The private was Jewish and had left family in Germany. The squad did NOT bring this to the company commander, they just made sure that they never allowed the private to be in charge of prisoners ever again.

Another incident was some US troops who freed a concentration camp turned the guards over to the inmates and walked away. (The Guns At Last Light by Rick Atkinson)

There were cases where US troops would stop taking prisoners for a while in response to German soldiers committing an atrocity and while Japanese soldiers did not surrender very often, part of it was that US Marines rarely took prisoners.

All of the above would be considered war crimes, but no one was ever court martialed for any of the above. If you dig deep enough, you'll find that in every war all sides will commit acts that constitute war crimes, but are rarely tried for it.

NOT because it shows the illegal activities of the CIA. No, he's only upset because "What if some future administration releases a report saying what the Obama administration is doing now (say drone attacks) is illegal? That could be embarrassing!"



In my mind that is the MAIN reason to release the report and ANY report that shows wrong doing by our government - the public, USA and world, needs to know about these things. If an administration does not want to be embarrassed by a possible future report on questionable activities - DO NOT FUCKING DO those things. If you think whatever actions you want to do might be questioned, make your case, get the permission of Congress and the American public and be out in the open about your actions.

And when the actions ARE illegal, immoral and unconscionable, when they are discovered, STOP them, and prosecute those responsible.

and dope smokers to prosecute. You gonna take resources away from persecuting those desparate, dangerous criminals to go after "patriotic" (according to the POTUS, anyway) torturers. Where the fuck are your priorities, anyway?

You think they're going to prosecute some CIA operative who graduated Yale?

No way in hell.

The societal division is so blatant today that this country will bleed to death before its ever stands proud, just and humane in the eyes of the world.

any more. It has been so incompetent for 6 years that it has achieved complete irrelevance.

I don't have anymore words to fight with at this point.

This horrific legacy is ours to carry into the future now, and far too heavy on the shoulders

In America values and approaches to social problem-solving are learned within communities and then writ-larger as politicians progress from municipal, to state, to national office.

I suspect what we have in this refusal to prosecute is merely the very same sentiment that protects criminal members of the police from prosecution, just written on a national scale.

Maybe that should bother us a bit, as it suggests the possibility that justice is corrupted from top to bottom in the US.

Justice for these war crimes must come as it does for most war criminals...from the outside of the system that made them.

They Hope we don't see that the Change is that even Crimes Against Humanity are now okay if they are ordered by members of "The Big Club."

Laws are for plebes and prols, not Lying Politicians.

Failure to prosecute equals complicity.

We are fighting for the soul of our nation.