Whether any of this is true or absolutely false propaganda, doesn't really matter anymore. What matter's is the battle of the narrative and the negative words (Like torture) is starting to be turned and used against you in the international scene. You guy's have my sympathies (though i haven't expected any in return from other countries for five years now), because no matter how much of the truth is on your side... the great lies will always be twisted against your every efforts to trump them. Good luck!

panther we have cut a deal with the afghans to allow us access to prisoners taken by canadian troops and then turned over to the afghans so we can document and hopefully prevent prisoner abuse.  the afghans have failed to live up to their obligations under the deal and have been outed for their failure. 

 

this is nothing like the abuse of prisoners the us gov't is responsible for.

Just keep drinking that kool-aid, Ehran. Canadians don't do what is necessary.

 

Herald 

Ah... but i think you miss my point ehran? It doesn't matter anymore what you think or how the Canadian government goes about preventing such occurences, regardless of the fact's. What matters now, is that now your country... among many other western countries, and of course... who can forget us, will be irrationallly and dishonestly singled out as a bunch of blood-thirsty people hell bent on torturing poor, helpless terrorists, regardless of the truth, as you so unsubtly proved my point for me, thus: this is nothing like the abuse of prisoners the us gov't is responsible for. That's nice.. keep spreading the love! 

 Like i said, i am not into the game of pointing fingers at anyone. But as for your country, you guy's have my profound sympathy in this media war...... you blood thirsty torturer you! 

if it was necessary or even helpful you might have a point.  if you want to talk about doing what's necessary and the failure to do so let's take this up in 10 years or so when we discuss the american gov't hasty and premature exit from iraq with particular emphasis on the consequences of that exit.

 

That'll be the day.

 

Like I said, keep drinking that kool aid, Ehran.  

so i take it you are in favour of the assorted crap the bushies have the usg doing like torturing prisoners along with dissappearing inconvenient people etc then herald?  americans are going to be busy glossing over this presidency for a very long time to preserve their illusions about themselves.

 

 

It never really has mattered what i am in favor for or against. Most within the world usally makes up their minds with the first shrill headline. Case in point, your last sentence pretty much answered your own question for me! Your mind was made up a very long time ago. So why bother in discussing that issue any further, in what i think about it?

 

Whoops... i thought the question was directed at me. After going over ehran's post again.... Ehran, either i have no perceptive abilities to speak of; Or perhaps... a little punctuating on your part wouldn't kill you from time to time?

The trouble is not that the Bush administration hasn't been fighting the shadow war at all, Ehran; the trouble is that the Bush administration hasn't been fighting the shadow war WELL.

WELL.  something of a novel take on a guy whose single handedly managed to increase the world supply of actively po'ed radicals several fold, started a largely pointless war in iraq while ignoring the problems in afghanistan and supporting the nice folks in saudi who have been largely responsible for funding the whole damn problem in the first place.  yeah he's doing a brilliant job on that front.

And your trouble is that you are naive, Ehran. If you think for one moment that I don't know about the crap the US had to pull to keep the lid on this slaughterhouse of a planet for the last fifty years, then you must really think I am one of those guys who believes in anybody's mythology and propaganda.

I have no illusions. NONE.

Herald  

hmm usually i'm accused of excess cynicism.  it's not whether you know about the assorted skullduggery herald it's whether you approve of it.  to my mind there are standards to uphold that even if they cost you from time to time separate you from the barbarians baying at the gates.  not a lot of point in winning is there if in the end you are just another of the barbs.

there are also the practical considerations on just how well this sort of stuff actually works vs the kinder gentler approaches as well as the effects on your own people of doing this stuff. 

mea culpa on that punctuation issue panther.  sorry for the confusion.

 

I have a ROMAN attitude toward maintaining the pax, Ehran. War is immoral as it is mass indiscriminate murder. So if I murder the actual troublemakers through covert assassination and bribe the wrong people to do the right things for me, and generally corrupt my enemies into doing what I want them to do, then I have less trouble with doing that morally, including using the tools of selective torture and murder, than if I send over a quarter million soldiers and sailors, blow up an entire country, and kill up to 50,000 people more or less indiscriminately in the process. Its also cheaper to spend $2 billion dollars in a brutal shadow war than $2 trillion dollars in a moral "just" war. 

Herald 

was that the way things had been approached in the first place things would have been a lot better today.

i suspect our differences are more about the threshold at which action needs to be initiated and perhaps our definitions of who exactly the bad actors really are.  i for instance would be deeply interested in the money guys more so than the actual bad guys in the field.

 

course one of the questions is whether the humint resources of the usg are up to something like this.

Just to be clear, Herald, these are the same Romans who not only beat Carthage in a war but erased the entire city, and the entire civilization? Whose answer to the revolt in Israel was to exile the population?  Who exterminated the Druids for their support of Celtic rebels?   75% of the Helvetti population?  And the Eburones?   You haven't heard of the Eburones, have you?  Guess why. 

 

Not that I am categorically against these methods.  Sometimes, you have no choice but to drain the swamp if you want to be rid of the alligators. 

 

The West may face the same choice.

 

SGTObvious