pudge's Journal: "You Know Full Well"

you know full well that the abuses [like those in Abu Ghraib] are widespread, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, and that they result from policies and statements issued from the top

Let's see. We have no evidence that the abuses are widespread. We have no evidence that the abuses we do know about resulted from policies or statements from the top, as we have seen no policies or statements from the top that say such abuses are OK (and the only policies and statements any of us HAVE seen, in fact, are in direct opposition to such abuses).

And yet apparently I am "profoundly ignorant" for saying "no, I do not know that at all." Because I, you know, don't say I "know full well" something for which there is no evidence.

Again I say: reality-based community, my ass.

Obviously

[nandorman]

Pudge, Pudge, Pudge.

You know full well that when people use phrases like "you know full well," "truthfully," "honestly," "I am God," or "the wolfman ate my cat," that they are crazy and should be left alone. Introducing a concept with one of those phrases typically means that they either actually have no idea what they're talking about or they mean the opposite of what they're saying. Leave the crazy folk alone and don't poke them any more, unless you want them to get stark raving mad instead of just mad.

Re:Obviously

[ellem]

Not to be contrary but the wolfman recently at my cat

Re:Obviously

[nandorman]

Honestly, mine too!

Re:Obviously

[RailGunner]

And you know full well that vi is the one true editor. ;)

Truthfully, emacs is the scourge of text editting.

Re:Obviously

[Degrees]

The wolfman recently did what at you cat????

Please man! Take care to protect your kitty! Poor thing is going to be freaked out for while now....

;-)

The error is

[SimianOverlord]

of oversimplification. You don't have to explicitly say that "Torture is OK" to give a green light to torture occurring. You can be more subtle than that. You can, for instance, redefine the word "torture" so that it doesn't officially include actions that the worldwide consensus, and indeed an individual's moral opinion, DO regard as torture. So you advocate a policy that torture isn't torture, and, hey presto, inevitably torture occurs.

The evidence that torture became de facto policy comes from the wid

Re:The error is

[eglamkowski]

And there's no actual evidence that Hitler EVER personally ordered the genocide against the jews.

Re:The error is

[pudge]

of oversimplification. You don't have to explicitly say that "Torture is OK" to give a green light to torture occurring. You can be more subtle than that. You can, for instance, redefine the word "torture" so that it doesn't officially include actions that the worldwide consensus, and indeed an individual's moral opinion, DO regard as torture. So you advocate a policy that torture isn't torture, and, hey presto, inevitably torture occurs.

The question is not whether or not torture, by some person's opinion,

Re:The error is

[extra88]

Sleep deprivation, waterboarding. OK, those are two controversial practices. What about stress positions? What about terrorizing prisoners with dogs? There have been evidence of their use outside of Abu Ghaib at least in Afghanistan (I'm pretty sure stress positions are/were used at Gitmo, not so sure about the dogs). And there is evidence of at least some of them being sanctioned at, or near, the top.

So there is evidence of abuses taking place, of them being widespread (if "widespread" is defined as taking

Re:The error is

[pudge]

What about stress positions? What about terrorizing prisoners with dogs? There have been evidence of their use outside of Abu Ghaib at least in Afghanistan

Even if that's true, it's beside the point: for the umpteenth time, we were talking about the full extent of abuse at Abu Ghraib, and no, there is no evidence that happened anywhere else, let alone that it was widespread or systematic.

We can also perhaps point out that there was country music played at Abu Ghraib, and also in most other facilities, and I

reality

[jamie]

We don't have all the evidence yet, but the evidence we do have is pretty clear. Here's a quick refresher.

Bush got a lawyer to write a memo saying torture may be justified and lawful, and that memo was used to draw up the interrogation rules at Guantanamo Bay. [1] That memo declared that physical abuse that produces anything less than "the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" is not torture. Bush also got a lawyer to declare the Ge