(no subject)

[beretta.livejournal.com]

Comments

[kensson.livejournal.com]

I've not read the Amnesty report in great detail, but my understanding is that they were more concerned about the torture, incommunicado detention and imprisonment without charge or trial rather than the quality of the snack food.

But whatever, it's all the same. Give a prisoner fresh food and it's a holiday camp, right?

[beretta.livejournal.com]

No thats not what the cartoon is saying, but morally and factually a few hundred inmates who are in a legal grey area is not the same as millions of people rounded up and murdered in WWII. But there are those who presume they are the same and are trying to make the US the "bad guys" because they might get slapped in the face or have their religious beliefs offended.

[kensson.livejournal.com]

Um... so a cartoon of a man with an Amnesty suitcase saying the quality of the snack food reminds him of the holocaust isn't saying that human rights groups equate bad snack food with the holocaust? Saying that a prison where people are sent without a proper trial and subjected to ill-treatment is like a gulag isn't the same thing as saying the US is as bad as Stalinist USSR or Nazi Germany.

As far as I can make out, the reasoning of people criticising Guantanamo is that, if the US wants to be a global arbiter of good and evil, it should have immaculate human rights standards itself.

[johnraptor.livejournal.com]

Um... so a cartoon of a man with an Amnesty suitcase saying the quality of the snack food reminds him of the holocaust isn't saying that human rights groups equate bad snack food with the holocaust?

Not really. It's just an exaggeration to make a point, and not meant to be taken literally.

[zarq.livejournal.com]

So what if "other people have been worse"? Evil is evil. "At least we're not murdering millions of Jews" isn't a good excuse for torture.

Well said.

[-hiddenwolf-.livejournal.com]

*claps*

"just" a few hundred inmates...

[jlassen.livejournal.com]

A “few hundred inmates” who are deprived of their legal rights, and tortured by the US government is a blot on the reputation of our country, and the Great Shame that we will spend years trying to live down.

These "few hundred people in a grey area" have removed the US from any Moral high ground that had in the post 9/11 global community. We went from having world's sympathy, and a true global coalition willing to fight terrorism to being universal reviled by our former allies. And the torture of people in Gitmo and elsewhere has been a prime contributor to this alienation.

Once you start bending the rules, and applying them selectively, you loose all moral authority. And that is what the current administration has done... destroyed this countries standing in the international community, and destroyed every non-hypocritical American’s ability to stand up and be proud of the actions of his or her country. One DOES NOT spread freedom and democracy by torturing and illegally detaining people – Even relatively small numbers of people.

Violations of the Constitution, International law and the Geneva Convention can not stand, even on a small scale. If they do, the terrorists truly have one.

I have one name for you… and if you have any respect for what our country has once stood for, If you have any respect for our Constitution, you will understand. If all you are is a Republican Party cheer leader, you won’t “get it”.

Jose Padilla. (http://www.chargepadilla.org/) US citizen. Held without charges indefinitely for over 3 years. The Bush regime contiues to make legal arguments that the president has the right to detain anybody he wants, indefinately. THIS is the face of “the war on terrah". And it is nothing to be proud of. This is the fate of all of us, if we do not raise or voices and say "no more".

[insidersav.livejournal.com]

because they might get slapped in the face or have their religious beliefs offended.

Im fairly confident that getting slapped in the face and/or having one's religious beliefs be offended is the LEAST of what is being done to those prisoners. Especially the ones who died - its not often that a number of prisoners at ANY american detention facility just suddenly and inexplicably die.

Its also not fair to the ACLU, Red Cross, or Amnesty Int'l to be critized over matters such as this, because without them, who would be out helping the millions of impovershed and displaced and starving and ill and devastated and endangered peoples of the world? Sending money helps, yes, but it doesn't do anything unless these organizations are there to use it in constructive, organized, tangible ways.

[itsjustkelly.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with Santorum - the filibuster is far more Hitler-like.

[jlassen.livejournal.com]

A widely used, formalized legislative procedure that has been used for hundreds of years (by all political parties), in hundreds of different democracies and republics around the world... one that ensures minority rights... is "more Hitler-like?"

Do you REALLY believe that? Are you THAT wrapped up in your partisan froth? Or are you a simple troll. Please tell me it’s the latter.

[itsjustkelly.livejournal.com]

*points, laughs*

[ccnuggie.livejournal.com]

I love this cartoon. Unfortunately it reflects some people's frame of mind, and it's scary to think that this nation just might be turning into this.

[rickenharp.livejournal.com]

And then there's those of us in the reality based community (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/politics/13gitmo.html?ex=1276315200&en=9dd1b075e5c81c00&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss):

WASHINGTON, June 12 - Lawyers representing detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, say that there still may be as many as six prisoners who were captured before their 18th birthday and that the military has sought to conceal the precise number of juveniles at the prison camp.

One lawyer said that his client, a Saudi of Chadian descent, was not yet 15 when he was captured and has told him that he was beaten regularly in his early days at Guantánamo, hanged by his wrists for hours at a time and that an interrogator pressed a burning cigarette into his arm.
...
The details of M.C.'s accusations are contained in a 17-page account prepared by Mr. Stafford Smith, in which the prisoner said that he was suspended from hooks in the ceiling for hours at a time with his feet barely missing the floor, and that he was beaten during those sessions. M.C. said a special unit known as the Immediate Reaction Force had knocked out one of his teeth and later an interrogator burned him with a cigarette. Mr. Stafford Smith said he saw the missing tooth and the burn scar.

Some of M.C.'s descriptions match accounts given not only by other detainees, but also by former guards and interrogators who have been interviewed by The New York Times.

He describes being shackled close to the floor in an interrogation room for hours with music blaring and lights in his face. He also said he was shown a room with pictures of naked women and adult videos and told he could have access if he cooperated. His description fits the account of former guards who described such a room and said it was nicknamed "the love shack.

[ccnuggie.livejournal.com]

I love that last paragraph...not having access to porn unless he cooperates with us is now torture...

Exactly what information extraction methods do liberals approve of? Keep in mind these are terrorists, and getting information from them will save countless lives, both of our troops and of us here in our homes, complaining about 'torture' of terrorists within our comfy US homes.

[ccnuggie.livejournal.com]

whoops used homes too much there...oh well fuck it I'm tired

[rickenharp.livejournal.com]

Ah, the factually challenged. Let's break down your mistakes one by one:

"Keep in mind these are terrorists, and getting information from them will save countless lives, both of our troops and of us here in our homes, complaining about 'torture' of terrorists within our comfy US homes."

Wrong. We've already released numerous people from Guatanamo Bay who we've determined weren't terrorists, many who also claim to have been tortured despite their innocence. They were held without appeal, without access to lawyers, without anything, despite their innocence and then tortured for no good reason.

but the part I really love from you is this:
"I love that last paragraph...not having access to porn unless he cooperates with us is now torture..."

I love the way you just gloss over this part:
"he was beaten regularly in his early days at Guantánamo, hanged by his wrists for hours at a time and that an interrogator pressed a burning cigarette into his arm."

You people really only see what you want to see.

[kensson.livejournal.com]

Exactly what kind of information are we hoping to get from people who have been kept out of the loop for the last three years? And if we're going to overthrow dictators like Saddam Hussein because they're bad people who use torture, then surely it's hypocritical to turn around and torture people? Moreover, how can the US expect any of its soldiers taken prisoner to be treated humanely?

[stitchedsutures.livejournal.com]

yeah.. how cruel. keeping a man away from his wanking material. Do they not realize what a *HUMAN RIGHT* it is to have porn whenever you want it? geez.

[beretta.livejournal.com]

No 24 hour access to free porn?

Such degradation and inhumanity! I can't stand it!

[wavering-.livejournal.com]

Is 18 the universal dividing point between adult and juvie? Most of these detainees would gladley marry off their daughters under the age of 18, and their sons to war with the infidels before the age of 18.

[rickenharp.livejournal.com]

Um, read the article again. He was 14 when they took him and started torturing him.

[tiarafetish.livejournal.com]

ha! really funny one :)

[nallyo.livejournal.com]

Never saw the other political cartoons get this much flak. A cartoon is a cartoon, it doesn't always need debate. Some may think it funny, others not. Some may agree, others not. Just take it in stride.