CIA Blogger Fired for Criticizing Torture Policy 576
PetManimal writes "A contract software developer for the CIA who had a blog on the CIA intranet was fired after criticizing torture in an entry. The title of the post: something along the lines of 'Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong.' The Washington Post reports Christine Axsmith is not the only CIA blogger -- the spy agency uses blogs to let agents and other workers share information and ideas." From the article: "Hundreds of blog posts appear on Intelink. The CIA says blogs and other electronic tools are used by people working on the same issue to exchange information and ideas. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on Axsmith's case but said the policy on blogs is that 'postings should relate directly to the official business of the author and readers of the site, and that managers should be informed of online projects that use government resources. CIA expects contractors to do the work they are paid to do.'"
Two things: (Score:5, Informative)
2) For those wondering - waterboarding [wikipedia.org]
Charming thing for a civilized country to be practicing & defending.
Re:Two things: (Score:5, Insightful)
Who claimed the US was a civilized country??? That's pretty subjective, and the perception about the US from within her walls are a lot different than the perception outside her walls.
Re:Two things: (Score:2)
Re:Two things: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two things: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Two things: (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually the CIA has historically been populated by a large number of well educated independent thinkers. People currently and formerly at the CIA have been mounting some of the most vocal opposition to the lies and outrageous excesses of the DOD and the White House. Something very hard to do when you have a security clearance hanging over your head that is designed to prevent you from getting truth out. In spite of that people in the CIA have been active leakers as they try to do just that. I get the impression Tenent was about the only person at the CIA who believed, or was willing to lie, that Saddam had WMD's. CIA had/has rogue elements in its operations areas who were/are really scary people but the analysts are a great national resource being destroyed by the Republicans. They strive hard to give correct answers with the available information, while the Bush administration wants the answers they want to hear.
The problem at the CIA is the same problem you have everywhere else in the Bush executive branch,
Re:Two things: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Groupthink? I dont think so. (Score:3, Insightful)
Gosh, I am so happy I don't work in the same place as you. That might be partly because I wouldn't.
Re:Groupthink? I dont think so. (Score:4, Insightful)
The CIA is part of the US Government. The US Government is supposed to work for the people of the United States.
When the "bosses" in government fail in their duties (as is currently occurring in the United States Government) it is the responsibility of those in a position to do so to go over the heads of their direct "bosses" to their real bosses - the people.
Re:Two things: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Two things: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:your vote, your responcibility. (Score:5, Insightful)
But that kind of political climate disappeared a long time ago, so I've never liked this argument.
Voting for the 'lesser of two evils' is still voting for an evil - and you still have every right to complain about what they do. Once, we didn't have to vote for an evil - just a potentially less effective politician. And to be fair, of course there were corrupt politicians in the early days of the US. Just fewer of them, because the education was different, the values were different, and the laws were different.
Re:your vote, your responcibility. (Score:3, Informative)
Alexis de Tocqueville
http://www.tocqueville.org/chap1.htm [tocqueville.org]
Re:your vote, your responcibility. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it wont work. Single-winner first past post systems are inherently flawed in the manner so exceedingly well demonstrated by the US. You end up with two parties, and then the two parties get taken over and/or corrupted by special interest controlling groups. Should a third party ever get closer to real power, they'll get taken over too.
Proportional representation systems are far less susceptible; the ease of forming new parties and gaining actual representati
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty sad that the only thing apparently keeping the government from torturing us is that some people have a right not to be tortured.
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't speak for those "other countries", but the Canadian constitutional applies to everyone, citizen and non-citizen alike, just like the rest of the laws.
It's also why we're reluctant to extradite death-penalty cases unless we get assurances that the death penalty won't apply. Once they're here, they have the same right not to be put to death for a crime as anyone else.
It must work - our murder rate is 1/3 the US rate.
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right - correlation isn't causation.
Take the murders caused by hand guns out of the US stats, and our murder rates are similar.
Guns don't kill - stupid people with guns kill.
Per capita, Canada has more firearms, but WAY less hand guns, than the US. There's the causative difference - pretty much unregulated hand gun ownership.
Re:Gangster mentality. (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm....where in my OP did I ever mention a person's race? Granted, NOLA is where my most recent experience comes from, and the projects are predominately black...but, the proportion of blacks to whites pre-Katrina was very lopsided...like near 70/25 or so for black/white. However, I again didn't speak to race...IMHO, it is more of a poverty thing if extrapolated to the rest of the US with more balanced pop
Poor criminals get caught quicker. (Score:4, Interesting)
The end result is, only the stupid drug dealer, who sells drugs by walking up to people and asking "wanna buy some drugs?" gets caught. Stupid criminals get caught, smart criminals almost never get caught, and thats the only point to make.
I agree with you completely, I think we should elimate the drug laws, and regulate drugs on safety, as a form of quality control. The more money we spend going after marijuana dealers the more money we arent spending going after the murderers. In gangwars, most gangsters arent killers or murderers, they are just like you and me, but because of the environment they live in, the lack of oppurtunity, the lack of education and in some cases dyslexia and inability to read, their options are a life of McDonalds or a life of crime. Most people in these desperate situations have nothing to lose.
We also must remember, that the entire world is just a group of gangs, factions, groups, networks. Yes there are street gangs, but theres gangs of lawyers, doctors, and everything else. Basically everyone is in some sorta group or community, including the slashdotter open source community which could just as easily be labeled a gang by anti open source groups.
We have to start viewing street kids as people, and yes maybe they are just as scared of being shot as you, and maybe because they are living in such a violent neighborhood they join a gang out of fear. Once we can see that there can be someone just like us in any gang we can see that it's not gangs that are bad, it's violent individuals in gangs that commit the violent crimes. Perhaps we could have more success fighting violent crime if we just faught violent crime instead of fighting entire groups, gangs, etc and treating every member as a violent criminal. The average drug dealer, does not support the murderer in their community anymore than you would. The average thief does not support the murderer. The non-violent criminals are not in some sorta suicidal alliance with the violent criminals, it's more that the non-violent criminals fear both the violent criminal, and the police, and they side with the violent criminal because they know the violent criminal better than they know the police. Maybe if there were better community policing, and maybe if there were better communication between kids in the hood, or ghetto, or gangsters with the outside world, this wouldnt be such a problem.
Why are there no websites on gangs from a gangsters perspective? It's nothing like those rap videos. Perhaps it is due to the code of silence, as all mafias have a code of silence, but in any case even with a code of silence, without any form of communication to the outside world, those who are inside this world are trapped.
The simple way to deal with violent crime is to track people who commit violent offenses or who are carrying a gun. If someone is a gang member, and we can see they carry a gun using advanced surveillance technology, we can track just these gun carrying persons. If someone is known to get into lots of fights and commit assaults we can track people with this criminal history. The violent criminal database would solve this problem. what do you think?
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm striving to underdstand your logic. You claim that the USA is civilized because it has laws banning torture. Yet, in spite of the fact that We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, there is uncertainty over whether the illegality of torture applies to non-citizens. This would suggest that non-citizens are not all men, but something else. Indeed, this wholly undermines any claims that the outlawing of torture are based on moral considerations. How can it be moral not to torture me, but to torture my neighbour?
The USA may guarantee freedom of speech. But it doesn't gaurantee freedom from execution from the state -- and many other things. Furthermore, when you think about recent concepts such as 'free speech zones', you see that the utility of freedom of speech extends only as far as the 'right' can be excercised -- which in the current US political climae is not very far at all.
Finally, if you use countries that practice infanticide or honor killing as your yardstick, then something is wrong. After Abu Ghraib, I heard people like yourself pointing out that 'at least we aren't as bad as Saddam was'. This sort of reasoning strikes me as very worrying.
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason he has to used honor-killings as a yardstick is because of people like you have who have absolutely no perspective.
I reject this argument entirely. Looking to the lowest common denominator and striving to be "a little better than they are" is sickening. We should strive to be the best at everything and look to the best at any given thing for our ideals. Anything else results in not reason, but rationalization of wrongdoing. "Someone else is still worse," is no excuse for wrongdoing.
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:3, Interesting)
And if you didn't notice that some people were beaten to death in Abu Ghraib maybe you need get an ear and eye test.
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:3, Insightful)
What quibble are you talking about? The current administration has asserted that even US citizens apprehended on US soil can be classified as enemy combatants and held outside of the usual (criminal, military) prison systems.
The quibble I'm concerned with is whether the laws of the nation apply to everyone, or if the president and his cronies are exempt.
But hey, it's a free country, so if you want to be
Re:The US is absolutely civilized. (Score:5, Informative)
How about the BBC? [bbc.co.uk]
The US used to be civilized. Then came Bush. (Score:5, Informative)
There's no quibble about whether the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments apply to our current law enforcement procedures. The restrictions are on the government, and they apply anywhere the government acts, and nowhere in the amendments is government only barred from action against citizens. Go, and see if you can find limitations to bar injustice against citizens only in the Constitution. Furthermore, given the results of Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld, it's pretty damn clear that torturing people is flat out illegal in the opinion of the Supreme Court.
The late 1990s. (Score:3, Insightful)
I pretty much consider the current peak of our civilization to have been the late 90s. We were moving towards a more tolerant society. We were widely respected for the freedom of our culture. We worked with the international community to end a civil war and genocide in Kosovo. We looked to the future with hope and expectation, and there was always a sensation that America was moving forward towards fairness
Re:Two things: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Two things: (Score:3, Insightful)
No it isn't, although I never said it was. I hope that this is just a troll and that you don't honestly think that it can ever be ok to do this to someone who *might* have done something wrong. I'm for harsh punishment for crimes as much as the next guy, especially murder, but I would only ever accept that any punishment could be ok if it had been proved beyond all reasonabl
Re:Two things: (Score:2, Insightful)
Holy shit.
One Question: (Score:5, Funny)
and the victim is unlikely to actually die if this is done by skilled practitioners.
Who'd they practice on before they became so skilled?
Gov't Torturer: I only lost 3 this week.
Superior: Good enough. Here's your "Skilled in Waterboarding" cert. And no, I don't want to know what you did with the bodies.
Gov't Torturer: Thanks. BTW, you might want to avoid the "mystery meat" at the cafeteria.
Re:One Question: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Two things: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two things: (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a long divide between courtesy and torture. There are many ways to get someone to confess to their crimes or knowledge without torture. It is against everything we stand for to torture someone, even if it meant that a terrorist suspect would go free. After all, not all murderers are convicted because of confession. I figure under your system of goverment they probably would.
Re:Two things: (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, name a single piece of valuable correct information the US has ever gotten by means of torture. Didn't we supposedly overthrow Saddam because he was a vicious dictator who tortured his own people (that's the line these days)? Then how is the US government any different if they torture people?
Re:Two things: (Score:5, Informative)
Q: In your article, you describe Soufan's interrogation techniques. He engaged the suspects; he won their respect; he debated them on theological issues. In interrogations he carried out just after 9/11, these techniques worked very well; he got crucial information about the hijackers and their connections. His methods were very different from the "extreme measures" that we've been hearing about--waterboarding, sleep deprivation, humiliation--and that are being justified on the grounds that they're the only way to get this kind of information. Have we been given a false choice between abusing prisoners or letting something terrible happen?
A: Ali Soufan has shown that intelligent and careful interrogation can achieve real results. And it helps immensely, obviously, to have the language and cultural skills that he does. There are very few people in the American intelligence community that have his set of talents. The U.S. is known to have used these sorts of tactics. You mention the C.I.A.'s impulse has been to deliver Al Qaeda suspects to foreign intelligence agencies that could torture them and extract information the C.I.A. thought it couldn't otherwise obtain. However, what this abuse has yielded from the top Al Qaeda lieutenants is questionable. And I think that's because it's untrustworthy information obtained under torture.
Q: So the problem with torture isn't just that it's torture-- that it compromises America ethically, morally--but that torture doesn't always work.
A: It doesn't work. It often is misleading, as in the case of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, an Al Qaeda lieutenant who was tortured into saying that Saddam Hussein worked with Al Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction. That was the information that the U.S. was trying to get out of him, and he gave it to the interrogators under torture, and that became part of the rationale for the U.S. going to war with Iraq--a disastrous consequence of choosing an unethical approach to gaining information.
Re:Two things: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Two things: (Score:2)
Re:A 3rd thing (what got her fired) (Score:5, Insightful)
But seriously, do you believe she would have been fired if the content of her speech had been something else?
Snark (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Snark (Score:2)
To determine if this was appropriate. (Score:3, Insightful)
If they fire contractors who "waste" time, that's okay.
If they only fire contractors who "waste" time criticizing the government, that's not okay.
Re:Snark (Score:2, Informative)
Guess what, there's going to be a few morons in every bunch. Do you really believe these dozen or so people out of an active military of 1.4 million (not including 860,000 in the guards) [wikipedia.org] are representative of our military? If they were, you'd have a lot more evidence. What is also important to note is that several of these soldiers have had trials, been found guilty, and are serving time. We take care of our problems unlike our enemy.
And do you really kn
Re:Snark (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a breath of fresh air on slashdot to see someone else of a like mind. So many posts are just "Abu Ghraib! Torture! Bush is taking our rights!" (while the last has merit, a lot of misunderstanding goes on, and exaggerating)
Re:Snark (Score:3, Insightful)
No, please don't go on. Your ignorance is painful. About those bodies hanging from a bridge...
Re:Snark (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes.
Okay, you know the good event -- the press release events. Do you know the bad? Do you know about Sean Baker, [wsws.org] an MP that was beaten until permanent brain injury in a training exercise where the guards thought he was an actual inmate? Do you know about the repeated attempts at suicide by detainees that have lost hope? Do you know that the Red Cross has said that treatment of prisoners there is "tantamount to torture?"
How our our captured soldiers treated? We've had very few, but the enemy has gone out of their way to violate the Geneva Convention, has tortured and left beheaded bodies in the street, burned and left bodies hanging from a bridge. Do I need to go on?
Yes. Please do. Please explain exactly how just being better than the terrorists is the only moral end goal we should strive for.
Joseph Stalin killed about 10 million of his people, while Pol Pot killed only 2 million of his. Does that mean since Pol Pot didn't kill as many people that he's a decent and civilized fellow? Of course not.
Similarly, we've tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Bagram. Our administration has fought tooth and nail for the "right" to continue torturing suspects and people "of material importance." Sure, we haven't beheaded any of our prisoners (though we have beaten to death a few). [wikipedia.org] We haven't been rounding up people and executing them like the Sunnis and Shia have been doing with each other, but is being better than freaking terrorists the best that we can do or should strive to do?
I disagree. I think it takes a sick level of moral sloth to advance the idea that we shouldn't care as long as our enemies are worse.
Re:Snark (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the legal perspective.
However, much like the Constitution, I believe that the Geneva Convention is in many ways partially an expression of moral values that demands decency and just behavior.
The terrorists may not have signed it, but they didn't sign any statements ag
Overreacting (Score:5, Funny)
So does anything go in YRO now?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So does anything go in YRO now?? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's a government intranet. Paid for by US taxpayers and in blood by others.
Let's think about this for a second... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also... people... read the article. It indicates her "security badge was revoked". If the government yanked or suspended her security clearance, she would no longer be able to access classified material or work on classified projects. If this is indeed what happened (the wording is a bit vague), then her employer had no choice but to fire her, as she was no l
Re:So does anything go in YRO now?? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's on YRO because there are a bunch of goddamn children around who think "TOP SECRET" means "I won't talk about it unless I'm of a mind to."
When you're a contractor (Score:2)
When you're a human being (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have issues with torture (Score:2)
Re:When you have issues with torture (Score:3, Insightful)
as expected (Score:2, Insightful)
The CIA has bloggers... (Score:2)
Well at least (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well at least (Score:2)
Had something similar happen to me (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Had something similar happen to me (Score:2)
P.S. yes, I know it's satire
This wasn't the peoper place for her to complain (Score:5, Funny)
-Eric
Re:This wasn't the peoper place for her to complai (Score:2)
Morale equals food? (Score:2, Funny)
She has an outside blog here... (Score:4, Informative)
from the BoingBoing story a day or two ago..
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
A contract software developer for the CIA was kidnapped and tortured by the CIA. Details to follow.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Why was this greenlighted? (Score:2)
Oh, it was on a BLOG on an INTRANET - guess that must make it newsworthy. Feh - this is partisan posting and nothing else.
Here we have a contractor who did something the employer didn't like. Employer fires contractor. End of story.
Having consulted for 10 years, I can tell you that generally contracts are written to allow either party to terminate their agreement for almost any reason with almost no notice. If you'
Re:Why was this greenlighted? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, it was on a BLOG on an INTRANET...Here we have a contractor who did something the employer didn't like. Employer fires contractor. End of story.
I take it you don't understand the difference between private companies and government actions? A private company can fire you for saying something. If the government takes any action to get you fired for saying something, they have violated the First amendment in the Bill of rights and broken the law.
I can tell you that generally contracts are written...
I can see both sides here (Score:3, Insightful)
This is also the sort of thing where, despite needing to really know a bit more to be able to make any reasonable judgement, we are simply never going to hear anymore due to secrecy constraints. I guess that means I'll just flag it as "mildly dubious" and keep an eye out for any more of this sort of shenanigans.
Chilling Effect (Score:2)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Being fired seems like the logical concequence.
Criticize and be prepared (Score:3, Insightful)
Why people haven't figured this out..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, this was an internal blog that was actually used BY the CIA employees to discuss information that may be needed...this type of post was uncalled for and deserved a punishment, though maybe a suspension would do. Blogs are nothing but a way to get in trouble.
Maybe you should keep your mouth shut (Score:4, Insightful)
It has shown many times that torture often produces falses confessions, so I'm skeptical of its effectiveness for gathering information. I will not deny its effectiveness for punishment though. Punishment that leaves no scars is a step up from the usual beatings that take place.
Punishment is effective? (Score:2)
Wrong all around (Score:4, Informative)
This was undoubtedly at least SECRET codeword information, and she posted it on a network where, with certainty, not everyone on the network had been "read into" the compartment. In other words, she violated "need to know."
So they pulled her clearance, and since clearance was required for her job, they fired her.
She's lucky they didn't arrest her. Dammit, "I don't like this" is not a sufficient reason for violating classification.
Re:Wrong all around (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, yes it is.
Should she have been fired for breaking security? Yes.
Should she have done it anyway? Yes.
This is a classic case for civil disobedience. There come times when following the law violates your own integrity as a person, and the dual virtues of loyalty and compassion conflict. At that point, you must showcase you humanity and be willing to take the punishment for it.
Might I have the strength to choose as wisely.
Re:Wrong all around (Score:3, Insightful)
I have never held a security clearance. While I agree that "I don't like that" is not OK, what we are talking about here goes *way* beyond that. I believe that the *vast* majority of the US population would condemn torture if asked. Most of those people aren't just vaguely opposed -- They find the concept to be morally reprehensible.
So my question is this: What *is* sufficient justification for violating the terms of your securit
Re:Wrong all around (Score:5, Informative)
That's not how clearances work. There are two aspects that must be satisified to allow access to classified material:
1. Clearance. You must have a sufficient clearance level to view the material.
2. Need to Know. You must need to know the information in order to properly carry out your job.
She clearly violated the second part: the need to know. Personally, while I agree that torture is wrong (and useless as an information gathering technique), she didn't need to reveal that she knew about instances of it from secured information. If all she had said was "I think waterboarding is bad" she probably wouldn't have gotten into any trouble. However, she clearly violated the need to know, clearly demonstrating herself to be a potential security risk.
There are rules about how security is handled, and when the US government desides to trust you to follow them, you'd damned better follow them! In this case, American lives may not have been at stake, but make no mistake: there are instances when information is classified because revealing it will endanger Americans and allies, and I'd much rather she follow the rules and disagree with the CIA than decide she can determine when it's OK to break them.
Security in the armed forces and the CIA is not a laughing matter. There are arguably times when it's time to break the rules and reveal terrible things. One of the side effects you must be prepared for, though, is losing your clearance and potentially being arrested and jailed for it. Part of civil disobedience is accepting the consequences of your actions.
A little paranoid, but still... (Score:2)
I'm also kind of curious about why the poster didn't follow Rule #1 of contracting...do your job, stay invisible, and collect your paychecks. This has been true in every place I've worked
UNAUTHORISED USE (Score:2)
Torture CREATED the fundamentalist jihad movement (Score:5, Interesting)
From Baby it's cold outside [telia.com]
Torture will always give you a confession... (Score:4, Insightful)
Confessing to a crime is always better than being tortured by another.
White House responds in 3...2... (Score:4, Funny)
Welcome to Government Contracting (Score:3, Interesting)
FYI, just having a security clearance is not enough to work at a particular facility. You need the requisite clearance AND access. Access is at the absolute discretion of whoever is running the facility.
Contractors in such a setting are always in a precarious circumstance. In many ways, they're encouraged to feel like part of the team, but they're not. Contractors who become nuisances or whose choices require the customer to spend time and effort usually get their access yanked.
At one place I worked, incoming contractors were explicitly cautioned about all the way in which some of their predecessors had gotten their access yanked. Because our customer was the only one the company had, losing your access to the customer's facitily meant you got fired. Some of the reasons that had resulted in losing access seemed incredibly petty.
I can think of many reasons this woman lost her access. The biggest problem is that she used her customer's computer system to criticize that very customer! As a contractor to the US government, she should have just known better than to critique foreign policy on a CIA intranet. A secondary problem is that she based her opinions on an interrogation transcript for which she apparently had need-to-know at some point. However, it's inappropriate in that setting to share even the fact that she had access to the transcript with anyone who didn't have a need to know about that.
Contractors who think independently and who aren't willing to follow even the most picayune of the customer's rules are problems (from the customer's point of view) that are very easily solved.
I'm not saying that I disagree with her comments or that I don't think this is all much ado about nothing. However, she should have seen that extending her comments from funny discussions about the cafeteria food to her opinion of the country's foreign policy was turning her into a nail that was sticking up. If there's one thing that places like the CIA can do very well, it's knowing how to hammer down any nail that sticks up.
EXACTLY as Evil as any Nazi was. (Score:4, Interesting)
The ONLY differences being the methods and bodycount (so far.)
Do you think to the VICTIM it matters one bit if it's one, or 12 million?
Re:Torture Saves Lives (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Torture Saves Lives (Score:5, Funny)
Your ideas intrigue me. Please tell me more about how torturing children will keep them safe from terrorists. Also, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Re:Torture Saves Lives (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't tell if Sir Buzz is being fecetious or actually believes what he wrote. Whi
Re:Fired for blogging? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fired for blogging? (Score:3)
Re:Fired for blogging? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a farsical assertion. Israel still wants to permanently keep some of the best land in the West Bank and to deny the Palestinians the use of East Jerusalem as a capital. They've built a wall through the West Bank that cuts off portions of the land belonging to Palestine to make a de facto land grab. The abandonment of Gaza was explicitly done around the idea of consolidating the hold over the West Bank.
Israel's version of peace and a Palestinian state leaves them with complete control over the airspace over Palestinian territory, the waters, and the borders, leaving them imprisoned. It takes away the best land and the capital that they have their hearts set on. It provides no sharing of access to the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock. They don't care to set up the travel corridors between the two segments provided for in the Oslo peace accord.
It also does nothing for the "right of return" that the Palestinians grudingly gave up in that peace accord. That isn't "98% of what they asked for" in the peace accords, much less 98% of what they actually want (and probably shouldn't get; I don't like the idea of right of return at this late of a date).
Personally, I think Israel has bent over backwards trying to live in peace with its neighbors. Meanwhile, the surrounding countries have people sworn to the destruction of all Jews.
Israeli settlers are also religious fanatics dedicated to the idea of displacing all the Arabs from the area they claim for Greater Israel. [wikipedia.org] Some believe that the statements made by God in the Pentateuch and later books like Joshua and Judges are still in effect and that Israel must conquer all the lands given to them in those passages. Most Israelis are more reasonable than that, though.
So, please define "equitable" in terms that don't allow more bombs to be lobbed into a soverign state from its neighbors.
How 'bout a definition that doesn't allow either side to lob bombs into their neighbors.
Re:Fired for blogging? (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "better" you mean "women are no longer dragged out into what used to be a soccer field in front of a crowd at lunchtime and shot in the head for daring to teach their daughters to read," then... yes, better.
Re:Fired for blogging? (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, that still happens, just not in the major cities. Town/Village centers suffice if there is a lack of a soccer field. Also they don't send out invitations or make public announcements. Smaller crowds but the end result is pretty much the same.
Re:Fired for blogging? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not the same. Yes, Afghanistan has long been a fractured place with a wide range of local cultural pockets ranging from Cool to Insane. But the Taliban moved in and said, "Now there's a central authority here, and a dominant theocratic culture that we will enforce at the point of a gun, and one feature of that culture, country-wide, is: women who try to get a job (even if we've killed her husband), or who teach daughters to read will be put to death."
Of course it's horrid that there are spots in that country where that same attitude still exists. But the difference is that now there is no longer a "government" that directly embraces and celebrates that medieval nonsense by actually having government employees who run around and do that evil crap. It will be at least a generation before it becomes culturally embarassing, for more like a majority of Afghanis, to have that stuff happening in their more rural areas. But the difference is crucial: before, it was the law of land, and now it's not.
Just like it took a while before some people in the deep south of the US stopped openly lynching blacks (and getting a nudge-nudge-wink-wink from the local law enforcement). Now, such a think is loudly, and instantly condemned from every meaningful corner of the culture, and perpetrators of such crimes get what they deserve. The Taliban was still running the courts and what passes for law enforcement in Afghanistan just five years ago. This stuff takes a little while - but to suggest that there's no difference between the two conditions is absurd. Both in philosophical and practical terms.
Re:Why Is This News?!! (Score:2)
Re:Why Is This News?!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:is it any wonder why intelligence fails? (Score:2)
Re:Misleading Contribution (Score:5, Informative)
Dude. That's pretty messed up. Read up more on the subject. [wikipedia.org]
Salient points to consider:
- People think they're drowning to death. The terror response to this is wired into the most primitive parts of our brain. It's the mental equivalent of hitting below the belt.
- The average person lasts 14 seconds before caving in.
- The toughest prisoner they had lasted two minutes before begging them to stop.
- This isn't "getting a swirly" in a high school locker room. This is being convinced that people who hate you are in the process of trying to kill you.
You have to be completely lacking in the human trait known as empathy to consider this "sissified." I'd love to see how well you hold up to this kind of treatment, especially if no one's taught you that it's unlikely that you'll actually die from the water you're inhaling while struggling to breathe.People subjected to this can be traumatized for life afterwords and may develop phobias of water from it.
(Note, once again, that even people taught what the procedure is rarely last more than a few seconds under it.)
Mythbusters.. (Score:3, Informative)