jdhill

Will unsolicited confessions / claims of responsibility for bombings, assassinations, and other violence do? To use the word innocent in any way to describe Zarqawi is ridiculous. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

I should have said fertilization... J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Just curoius what people think? J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Huh? An appointment only takes a simple majority... it takes 60 to break a filibuster. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

On this, we can agree. As for the filibuster, let the Democrates do it, it only goes to show them for what they are... As for the "Constitutional Option" of revising the Senate rules... I'm on the fence... clearly they can do it... but perhaps the better option is to change the rule in such a way as to require the filibuster to be on topic, rather that just up there moving air around by reading the phonebook... unlimited debate is OK, but reading from the phonebook is not debate. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Great! So now the left-wingers, and right-wingers can switch sides... and the arguing can continue, with the added benefit of being able to call each other flip-floppers... J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Who is trying to bury constitutional rights? I believe I have been very consistent in my support for all of the right guaranteed by the constitution... How is calling Newsweek irresponsible in any way usurping the 1st Amendment? No one censored Newsweek’s article, although it appears the pentagon could have... I'm sure we would be hearing about the great cover up now if they had. Newsweek was irresponsible in running a story based on a source that it could not corroborate. That's basic journalism 101... Bush relied on intelligence, from several sources and countries, which has since been found to be incorrect. And, WMD was not the only reason... I have not been silent in my belief that we should have stomped him in '91, or '94, or '97-98. I know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and that was not a justification for going. And I know SH was a monster of our own making, so what? That just mean we have responsibility for correcting that error. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Sure its a possibility, but there is no proof, just like the koran story. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Were these people? No, they were MPs, assigned to an MP unit, assigned to guard the prisoners... The MI analyst admits to joining in because he was pissed off that some of his buddies were killed in a mortar attack, not because he was assigned to question anyone. But there is no evidence that the AbuG crew were asking any questions, so its still not an iterrogation, just abuse. And the other cases that have been in the news may be cases of de facto field interrogations, but do not represent systemic abuse of detainees by interrogators. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Are you suggesting that any of the AbuG bunch were actually involved in iliciting information through their activities? None of them have struck me as smart enough to figure out what to ask, let alone ask it in such a way as to get ta useful answer... I know all sorts of people ask questions on the battlefield, but I also know there are only a few that are actually trained to do it right, and the ones doing it at gitmo are more likely to be the trained ones, given that it is really the only mission going on there, and it seems unlikely to me that they would engage the activities put forward in the now retracted Newsweek article. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

More or less, yes... you need to be a qualified 97E (or WO equivalent, Army), or the other services' equivalent to conduct a military interrogation... there is another group allowed to perform what is called "combat questioning" but that is very limited in its scope... What all of the folks on your list have in common is that they were not conducting interrogations, and in the case of AbuG, specifically, they were not doing it to gather information, they were doing it for kicks... I wouldn't even give them the benifit of having a noble purpose of gathering information. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Hopefully, that entire "movement" is off pounding sand up their collective ass... J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Read, man, read! You still have not listed one trained interrorgator... Of your list, one of the individuals has an intelligence related MOS, and it is not as an interrogator... Private Jeremy Sivits - MP Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick - MP Specialist Megan Ambuhl - MP Specialist Charles A. Graner - MP Private Lyndie England - MP Specialist Armin Cruz - MI (analyst not interrogator) I'll even give you an MI guy not on your list Roman Krol... but I'll bet you a dollar that he is not an interrogator either. I'm not saying we don't have some dumbasses in the ranks, who have done some terrible things... but it is generally not the trained interrogators that are doing it, because they know it is not effective. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

The first one is the only one I h ave heartburn with, it realy serves no purpose... to the others I say so what? I've seen worse at the local cop-shop. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Well I only searched for convictions, so you found one that was charged, and he was "contract" so I can't speek to his training or how much of a brain he possesses. From what I have read about him though, he was not a trained interrogator, but rather a former SF medic... The other, also no conviction and no charges, says nothing about murder or rape... it also says nothing about desecrating a koran... Your accusation that our interrogators are out there running amok, en masse, has about as much foundation as the Newsweek story. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Interrogators, prison guards, or other soldiers? I haven't seen any convictions, or criminal charges (the the things that you have mentioned) for that matter, against our interrogators. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

A trained interrogator with half a brain would know that it would not produce usable information. It goes to understanding your subject... with this target group, it would likely elicit an emotional response initially, and then strengthen the resolve of the subject... not a very effective technique... Emotional comments like "Allah will strike you down" or "OBL is a righteous man" do not a AQ operative make in the face desecrating what they see as God's words, though the act might turn him in to one when he gets out. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Don't know, and taking them away is a far cry from flushing them... J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

I notice that your examples all stem from one location, and not from interrogations, but from prison guards inappropriate and illegal behavior... I would find it pretty unlikely that a trained interrogator would vandalize a Koran, or any other religious text... it is counter productive, it only serves to strengthen the subject's resolve, not break it down. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

And what exactly is that?... Its more like what you think you know... J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

And therein lies the problem... if they are one of the most credible, we are all in trouble... Hell, I only took one semester of journalism and I can see that they screwed up... and it got people killed... irresponsible at best, criminal at worst. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

You are casting a pretty wide net there... I think most vets do see it as more than a piece of cloth, as would most Americans, but I think there are a fair number of vets who may not agree with the act, but have given blood sweat and tears, and will defend to the death the right to do it. It is called symbolic speech, while distasteful, unless the burning flag is used in some way to incite immediate violence, or cause damage (lighting a building on fire with it for example), and so long as the flag is not someone else's property, it is protected by the 1st. You might come back with, "it might be their right to burn it, but its my right to kick their ass"... that may be true, but assault on your sensitivities and physical assault have different consequences. The point is, that by reacting with violence to the destruction of a symbol, your behavior would be no better than those that rioted over the koran story. If feel you must act, then try to put the burning flag out, save the flag... or perhaps just tell the idiot "your welcome" That will likely leave them confused, since they won't understand why. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Yes, it looks like tape flutter or like the white balance keeps shifting... from what I understand the iris has a problem deciding where close when there is an inconsistant background... I only saw the problem when shooting on level or below a subject... it was not an issue shooting formations from over top. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

That's mall police for ya... I once helped out on demo ground crew at the Westheimer Street Festival (in Houston)... it was a year that the city would not let the festival take place on the street that's in its name (Westheimer), it was on Allen Parkway that year... the organizers were not very happy about the whole thing... Anyway, the demo starts and the guy jumping the huge 200+ s.f. American flag deploys it, and it is rigged upside-down... for several minutes as the upside-down flag flys above the festival, people are a little upset, to include the organizer of the event... he want't to know WTF... so I calmly told him that the flag was upside-down in protest of the festival being bumped from its traditional location... he loved it, told a few folks and thing simmered down... Everyone seemed to understand this form of protest... even when it was a huge error by the demo jumper J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

I don't think anyone is saying its cool... just as it is not cool to flush a holy book (if it even happened)... I think the point is that when some dumbass burns the flag, even the "believers" shake it off, something that it appears other "believers" aren't so able to do with other symbols. J All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke