first, do harm: the law on terror creates the hypocritic oath

[silverwhisper]

short version: healthcare professionals* have been involved in designing torture or harsh treatment programs, according to a DOD task force report. long version here.

commentary: just when i forgot just how much i hated w, this shows up to remind me why!

ed

*including physicians, psychologists, nurses & servicemen and women.

 

[excwizitsire]

I take the point that war is awful, any war, but it is even worse if you are on the weak irresolute loosing side.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I take the point that war is awful, any war, but it is even worse if you are on the weak irresolute loosing side.

There's more than one way to lose a war.

The objective of terrorism isn't to win by annihilating your enemy's armed forces. Terrorist doctrine aims to provoke overreaction that's much more harmful than the original attack - like one of those nasty diseases where your own immune system goes berserk and starts attacking its own cells.

Strength and resolution would mean saying "no, we're NOT going to accept rape, torture, and wide-ranging espionage on our own people, even if it costs us - because becoming another bad guy isn't much of a victory."

 

[silverwhisper]

excwizitsire quoth:
i take the point that war is awful, any war, but it is even worse if you are on the weak irresolute loosing side.

define "losing". it's absolutely beyond question that civil liberties have been whittled away in the US under both republican and democratic presidential administrations ever since october 2001.

we may already have passed the point in the US where we can ever call ourselves "the land of the free" ever again except ironically.

and as bramblethorn noted: you don't "win" by becoming what you oppose. that's actually a classic definition of failure.

ed