BS: Obama and torture

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 08:58 PM

Like torture, it is not clear whether the bombing campaign was worth the effort, or whether the consequences of stiffening the resolve of the enemy was a worse outcome. Like torture, it is an example of insufficient imagination -- a belief that the enemy is a lesser being, and not like us at all.

On the other hand, as my father used to say (he was a much decorated British bomber pilot who survived the catastropic odds), when the war began there was nothing much else to fight back with.



yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 09:08 PM

Seeing as how the US government executed Japanese military personnel during WWII for waterboarding US military personnel (calling it "torture"), it's hardly Obama's interpretation that waterboarding is torure. It's actual US law.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 09:09 PM

WE have laws against torture. We have signed treaties forbidding torture. A treaty that's not honored doesn't exist. A crime that doesn't get punished isn't a crime. Pretty simple.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 09:50 PM

I think the main reason to resist performing torture is not so much what it does to the victim, but what it does to one as perpetrator. I think there are good arguments that torture doesn't benefit one's side practically, it can extract confessions from the innocent, bad as well as good information from the guilty, and it creates martyrs. I think the last reason is the weakest, because in the case of the folks we're fighting in the 'war on terror', they are quite capable of creating martyrs out of whole cloth. Some of their martyrs are pretty horrible people who blew themselves up.

If you are trying to get information as to where a bomb is going to go off, if you are holding someone who's a suicide bomber wannabe, what motivation do they have for doing other than leading you to a booby trap?

There is a certain element of the ridiculous at work (and at play) here. Just as Winston Smith (1984) found his critical weakness to be rats, it was well understood in the framework of Orwell's novel that Room 101 contained the interogatee's worst fear. A good interogator is going to seek these out. Suppose I'm brought to a room against my will and subjected to a sophisticated 3-D encounter with one of the most objectionable characters I can imagine? (Barney). It would very definitely be torture to me, but is it torture by definition? I think not, unless Barney goes all saurus and starts chowing down on moi-meme.

I've heard stories that just such techniques have been tried. Have they been rendered illegal? I think not. The one who controls the cage and the caged has resource to many a fertile and fervid imagination.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 10:14 PM

Here's the definition of torture according to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which the US is a signatory, which makes it a law of the land...

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 10:34 PM

This part should be noted:

For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental...


That bit about mental suffering would make the Winston Smith rat scenario torture under the legal definition of torture.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 11:30 PM

Hell, it would make Bush's Presidency torture...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Teribus
Date: 01 May 09 - 04:10 AM

Again Artbrooks you are in error with regard to Dresden and who ordered what and who wanted to do what. The raid was carried out at the insistance of Winston Churchill and was carried out most certainly against the wishes of Sir Arthur Harris who would have preferred either Berlin or Leipzig, the target furthest down HIS list of priorities was Dresden. The decision to hit that target was a political sop to the Russians to assist Koniev's Army Group (IIRC).

As to US daylight "precision" bombing versus RAF Bomber Commands area bombing, here's a little exercise you should go through, and when you do remember that the aircraft in USAAF Strategic Bomber formations during the Second World War did not bomb individually they dropped their bombs simultaneously on command of the their formations "Master Bomber". The exercise is this:

Mark out, to scale, on a piece of paper in plan view a typical US Bomber Group formation and remember many Groups would fly in formation to carry out a single raid. Take a good look at the "block" of sky that that formation covers - each formation within that group drops on command of the "Master Bomber". Think of the consequences on the ground, the target is a factory for arguments sake - It has to be a pretty massive complex doesn't it.

Now come back and tell me that what the USAAF was doing was not area bombing.

As to whether the Strategic Bombing of Germany was effective or not, I would say yes. Those who disagree point to German production figures relating to aircraft (principally fighter aircraft), etc. So if the strategic bomber offensive was a failure, where were all these German fighter aircraft on D-Day?? With the masses of radar directed night fighters where were they when, in the prelude to the landing, they could have wrecked havoc in the streams of transport aircraft ferrying the paratroopers over to their drop zones. In considering this it should be remembered that from March 1944 until August 1944, RAF Bomber Command were assigned to Eisenhower for operations in support of preparations for D-Day and the bulk of their raids were directed against targets in France and very few operations were mounted over Germany. So if the Germans had increased production of fighters, and Germany was not under attack, where were they?? Why did they not take a part in attacks against the allied invasion??

While we are on the Second World War:

"Seeing as how the US government executed Japanese military personnel during WWII for waterboarding US military personnel" - CarolC

Not strictly true CarolC, we are talking about one Japanese Officer here who did waterboard US military personnel but did a whole lot of other, much nastier, stuff to US military personnel besides. The waterboarding got a mention because the man he waterboarded survived to testify against him, the people he did the other stuff to could not testify because he killed them. So to try and claim he was executed solely for waterboarding US personnel is not correct and a willful misrepresentation of the facts and actual circumstances involved.

On the other matter, when will Obama order the release of Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed (waterboarded 183 times) and Abu Zubaydah (waterboarded 83 times)?? No jury would even be allowed to listen to what they told their interrogators let alone convict them - True??

Their claim for compensation against the US Government will be enormous.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 May 09 - 08:28 AM

Terebus, please feel free to maintain your opinion. I shall stick to the historical sources.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Donuel
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:05 AM

Obama would be in violation of the Geneva Convention should he not call for investigation of torturers for the US goverment.\\

The Geneva Convention states clearly that failure to investigate state torture is a crime. I do not think he will want to remain on the wrong side of international law for an extended period of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Teribus
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:28 AM

Most certainly Art, I am more than happy to stick to recorded historical facts. What those facts tell me is that where the crews of RAF Bomber Command bombed individually on markers laid by the RAF's Pathfinder Force, US Bomber crews bombed en masse by group on command of their "Master Bomber". Those recorded historical facts also state that whereas US Bomber formations were guided to their targets by a "Master Navigator" RAF Bomber crews navigated their aircraft individually to their targets.

On the 15th of February 1945 when the USAAF arrived over Dresden around midday they found the city totally obscured by cloud. Using USAAF bombing tactics six groups each occupying one square mile of airspace bombed "blind" using H2X radar.

You may wrap yourself up in sources that quote the euphemism "precision daylight bombing" and fool yourself into believing it, which you obviously do otherwise this would never have appeared:

"The Dresden firebombing was the result of a bombing raid by the Royal Air Force."

After all the Americans would never, ever do a terrible thing like that would they?? But historical fact and extremely credible historical sources show that between 13th and 15th of February 1945 the RAF visited Dresden on two occasions, exactly the same number of times that the USAAF did. Oh yet another well documented historical fact, sources in the form of official records show that the composition of bomb loads for both RAF and USAAF aircraft were identical in proportion of HE bombs to incendiaries.

What they called their method of bombing is immaterial, the effect of it was no different to what was done by RAF Bomber Command, please don't try to pretent otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:44 AM

If waterboarding was included in the torture charges against the Japanese officer, then it was included in the definition of torture. To suggest otherwise is a willful misrepresentation of the facts and actual circumstances involved. However, here is some background on the subject of the US and waterboarding...


"After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

In this case from the tribunal's records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies: (see linked page for testimony of waterboarding)...

...As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is -- as well as what it ought to be."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Teribus
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:53 AM

OK CarolC we agree waterboarding = torture = very bad thing.

So when will Obama order the release of Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed (waterboarded 183 times) and Abu Zubaydah (waterboarded 83 times)??

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: artbrooks
Date: 01 May 09 - 11:37 AM

Suit yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 01 May 09 - 11:45 AM

I don't know when he will, but I hope he will do the right thing. At the very least, I hope the people who waterboarded Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed, and Abu Zubaydah will be brought to justice.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 May 09 - 12:16 PM

For a project awhile ago I read through the volumes of the Strategic Bombing Survey(done in Germany just after the war by such luminaries as JK Galbraith), and I think that while some damage was done, it was not clear that the effort was worth it except -- a big except -- for morale boosting among the Allies. The big question is the timing: the early bombings up till let's say 1943 were generally conceded to be pretty useless on balance; and the later ones were all entangled with the general deterioration in the German situation overall. So it has always been hard to single out the bombing.

This is in comparison with the Survey done in Japan, whose results were completely different. There, the embargo on incoming shipping created massive obvious, damage. The economy essentially ground to a halt. Indeed, a number of researchers have used the Japanese case as an example of the collapse of an economy.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: robomatic
Date: 01 May 09 - 01:45 PM

Re: Bombing. Japan lost the ability to defend herself against aerial bombing, the US established large airbases in the islands of the South Pacific and with large airplanes flying low rained down air raid after air raid upon Japan.

Their cities were simply pulverized. The only one that was exempted from bombing was Kyoto, for cultural reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 May 09 - 02:17 PM

Again, the authoritative study showed that, while the bombing of Japanese cities was completely horrific (still under-acknowledged in the histories), the big problem was the tight embargo -- Japan was totally dependent on imports of a range of strategic materials (oil, particularly). Its manufacturing and transportation capacity dried up -- in the last few months of the war, people were reduced to bartering for food (many people left the cities for the countryside carrying valuables to sell or to live with relatives still in farming communities).

It is very, very arguable that there was no need to bomb Japan at all starting in 1945. The country was being reduced to virtual starvation anyway. All the Allies really had to do was wait. Whether the ensuing result would have been more humane than what happened is an interesting question.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 May 09 - 03:31 PM

I agree, Peter. No invasion was necessary. No 1945 bombings were necessary. Just wait. The Japanese were already sending out feelers to negotiate an end to the war and the only real sticking point was their fear of what might happen to the emperor if they were to surrender (given that he was considered a divine figure by the Japanese).

Japanese surrender was inevitable. All the Allies need hsve done was talk to them and discuss conditions instead of the usual lunacy of demanding "unconditional surrender". Who the hell needs unconditional surrender to end a war when the other side is desperately looking around for a way to end it? Nobody.

Unconditional surrender is a demand made by exceedingly arrogant and vain people with a grand sense of entitlement, and it stems from a desire to utterly humiliate and dominate the loser of a conflict. I don't find that noble or admirable in any way.

Wars were almost always negotiated to an end in prior centuries. When one side clearly could not win anymore, then they sent emissaries and discussed terms of surrender. This was a normal diplomatic measure taken to end most wars in Europe for many centuries. It's a pity that the custom has not held into modern times, because it is the sensible and rational way of ending most conflicts.

The Germans who attempted to assassinate Hitler were looking for the means to negotiate terms with the Allies. Supposing they had succeeded and killed Hitler, and taken over the Reich...they would have been willing at once to negotiate an end to the fighting on some kind of mutually agreeable terms.

But would the Allies have been equally willing to do so? I doubt it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 May 09 - 04:25 PM

I think the Allies had the experience of Germany after World War I on their minds (and the Americans, this time in charge, had the Civil War). They wanted the enemy to absolutely capitulate, rather than have anyone left standing to deny what had happened.

But getting rid of Hitler was always a good idea!!

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:01 PM

"But getting rid of Hitler was always a good idea!!"


                Then you must agree that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a good idea, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:13 PM

Saddam Hussein was a monster. The world is full of monsters. The Burmese government leaders, a chunk of the leaders of Africa, the leaders of China for their genocide of the Tibetan people, and so on.   One country doesn't have the right to decide which ones it will kill and which it won't.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:16 PM

There's no useful comparison. Hitler was in command of a major world power in 1939-45. Saddam was in command of a battered and helpless shell of a beaten country in 2003 that was incapable of militarily threatening any of its neighbours in any serious manner. To compare them is, in my opinion, illogical and unrealistic in the extreme, but self-serving if you want to justify an illegal attack on Iraq in 2003, of course.

There's basically been no one on the world scene whom you could accurately compare to Hitler since 1945...although there would have been if Bush and Cheney had staged a coup, taken over the USA government in 2008, and run the place under a Republican Party dictatorship AND then pre-emptively attacked several more countries. THEN you would have something on the scale of Hitler to deal with.

Fortunately, they did not.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:47 PM

Furthermore, countries cannot just "get rid of" every bad leader of some other country here and there around the world just because they don't like him. You have to have much more pressing reasons than that to go to war. If it was okay to just get rid of "bad" leaders in other countries, then every leader of every nation in the world would be in constant possible danger of his country being invaded or himself being assassinated by foreign agents...all on the sayso of someone in some other country who decided he was "bad". That would be a complete end to international law in the world. You might as well just make the world totally lawless and rule it by brute force.

And it would apply equally well to getting rid of presidents of the USA then, wouldn't it?

So the simple rule is: don't do it to others if you don't want someone to do it someday to you.

The "good guys" don't get to break international law just because they think they are the "good guys". Hitler thought he was, after all, therefore he could do what he wanted, and you see what happened to him in the end. The same can happen to others, no matter how militarily strong they are right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 01 May 09 - 11:03 PM

The real reason we don't get rid of all of the bad leaders, though (because we do get rid of quite a few of them, one way or another), is because a lot of those bad leaders are working for us.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 May 09 - 01:03 AM

Ah, yes... (smile)

Realpolitik.

"He's a scoundrel...but he's OUR scoundrel." Therefore, we work with him most enthusiastically as long as we need him...

They needed Saddam as long as he could serve as a useful threat and nemesis to Iran. That ended when his 8-year war against Iran failed utterly. He was no longer considered useful to the West after that.

Manuel Noriega was once a good buddy and pal of the USA too. So were any number of other such scoundrels. The North American media convert them into "the next Hitler" as soon as the USA decides it's time to "take them out".

Right now it is primarily Mr Ahmadinejad who is occupying that media spot. After him it'll be someone else. Wait and see. It's as predictable as the Perils of Pauline. There always must be a boogeyman out there to empower the $ySStem. If there isn't a real one (and there usually isn't), they just invent one.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 May 09 - 06:57 AM

I always loved the joke about Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek --

What we want from Chiang is more generalling and less issimoing.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 May 09 - 09:26 AM

If the Brits had simply made a deal with Hitler, America wouldn't have opposed him, and he would have been just like a lot of other leaders America deals with on a day to day basis. It's all subjective.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 09:50 AM

"The Japanese were already sending out feelers to negotiate an end to the war and the only real sticking point was their fear of what might happen to the emperor if they were to surrender (given that he was considered a divine figure by the Japanese)."

The fear of losing their devine emperor .... conditional or uncondtional they could have called the end to the carnage by just surrendering ... and there were those (in Japan) who just wanted to do just that ... and many who questioned the whole aura of the the emperor ... Hirohito was the individual who enthusiastically put the final stamp to go to war in the first place even after being advised that in most certainties they would lose the war in the long run.

The divine Hirohito was quite frankly nothing but war criminal.

IMHO unconditional or conditional surrender is completely irrevelant when being applied to the insanity of war.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 May 09 - 10:33 AM

No, it's not.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 10:49 AM

yes, it is.

your,

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:01 AM

It's only irrelevant if one doesn't care how many people get killed.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:28 AM

It is irrelevant since war is absolutely insane.

In the case of japan.

You had the allies bent on revenge wanting the kick the crap out of Japan into complete submission.

On the other side there is an emperor (and his warlords) not wanting to give in, continuing to sacrifice human lives (including his own people) while not giving so that his holy diviness could be preserved.

It's all absolute lunacy which can't be denied.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:31 AM

Definitely. But if it can be stopped sooner and lives can be saved by allowing a conditional surrender, it seems worth it to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:42 AM

yeah, I know what you mean carol and I can agree with that, but I feel wars are caused by bloated egos of the machines in power and are ended by the one who has the biggest ego which subsequently is aligned with having the most power.

The common people are always the victims regardless. Big egos never come to the defence of them.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:55 AM

Yes, that's true.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 May 09 - 12:11 PM

You would not regard it as irrelevant if you were on the losing side in a war, Number 6.

Remember, people who start and fight wars are always under the impression that they are absolutely in the right and fully justified AND defending their nation. Not sometimes. Always.

It is only after the war is lost that their assumptions in that regard may come into question.

Had Hitler won his war, for instance (which was extremely unlikely in the long run), he would have been hailed worldwide as a great hero, it would have been Churchill and Stalin who were dead or in a war crimes trial, and the general public would never even have heard about the Nazi death camps. Not a peep would be heard about it.

Note: I am NOT saying Hitler was right or that his cause was right! He was dead wrong. His cause was dead wrong. But...I am saying that history is written by the winners, and the winners go to great lengths to whitewash their own sins.

It's absolutely stupid to hold an opposing side to an unconditional surrender when a conditional surrender is possible. It's asinine to do so. It only means that there will be a lot more fighting and death and destruction before it ends than there needs to be.

It was Ulysses S. Grant who most popularized the modern concept of "unconditional surrender" during the Civil War, so much so that he became known as "Unconditional Surrender Grant". He did the world no favor.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 May 09 - 12:43 PM

While I agree with the sentiment (I am an advocate of non-violence), I think there are questions: it is true that sometimes peoples just go mad or are in a system that is mad: unconditional surrender breaks that. You need to deligimate the whole enterprise: shock it.
I don't agree with this, but I can see its strength.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 May 09 - 02:04 PM

That is quite correct, Peter, in a few rare cases. Germany under Hitler's leadership would not have been willing to negotiate any kind of conditional surrender even if the Allies had offered to. Hitler himself was the problem in that case, and that's why some of his own people tried to kill him (on several occasions). Yes, when the leader is mad then the usual rules of engagement cannot be applied.

This was not the case at all in the case of Japan. They were not mad. They were proud, fatalistic, and motivated by national self-interest (as is everyone), but they were quite capable of rational thought and decision-making if it was required. They knew perfectly well that the war was unwinnable after the battles at Leyte Gulf in '44.

Hitler, I'm afraid, had pretty well lost all capacity for rational thought by 1945. He was moving phantom armies around on the map in his bunker and was totally unhinged.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 09 - 03:12 PM

I think the important question is whether or not people are willing to conditionally surrender. If they are, and if an acceptable agreement can be found, there is no valid reason to not accept a conditional surrender.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 03:48 PM

Great idea Carol ... but as loing as there are wars .... it could never happen.

``Hitler, I'm afraid, had pretty well lost all capacity for rational thought by 1945.

I don`t think Hitler ever had a rational thought.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 09 - 05:01 PM

I don't think that can necessarily be said about Japan towards the end of that conflict. It looks like they were willing to conditionally surrender, but we didn't want to let them.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 May 09 - 06:15 PM

My reading of the last week or so of the Japanese war was that it was a completely paralyzed system. That does not mean that a little patience on the part of the Allies might have paid off -- there were all sorts of crossed signals. And Russian entry into the war at the last minute didn't help.

It is of course the case that the Japanese appeared to be madmen -- after the kamikaze and the long fight up the Pacific Islands and then Iwo Jima, there was a pretty strong case to be made. I think the Allies couldn't fathom what would make the Japanese ever give up.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 May 09 - 06:16 PM

"might not have paid off"

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 08:10 PM

The Japanese knew they were finished by the end of February 1944. The reason that they did not surrender was the uncertainty of being allowed to keep the Imperial dynasty. Hirohito himself was the one to hold out (guess he didn't want to lose his job). He held out even when the bombing intensified and even after the first A-bomb was dropped. He encouraged and demanded that his subject sacrifice their lives for the Imperial Dynasty, first starting with the battle of Okinawa, then demand they do the same if the U.S. attacked the mainland.

There was no good guys, vs bad guys in this tragic debacle of conditional/unconditional surrender. It was all about personal preservation (Hirohito) and revenge (allies)

BTW ... as I previously mentioned the Japanese went to war quite well knowing that in the long run they would more than likely lose. Hirohito was very well aware of it.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 May 09 - 08:57 PM

"The Japanese knew they were finished by the end of February 1944. The reason that they did not surrender was the uncertainty of being allowed to keep the Imperial dynasty..."


                  Once Lyndon Johnson knew he was finished in Vietnam, he simply refused to run for a second term so he wouldn't be the first American president to lose a war. No better than Hitler, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Janie
Date: 02 May 09 - 09:04 PM

Oh, how to keep humans from acting like humans....

Not being cynical, just wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 May 09 - 09:48 PM

Number 6, you are being emotionally overwrought and quite naive to say of Hitler "I don`t think Hitler ever had a rational thought." It's wishful thinking on your part, based on your extreme dislike of the man (needess to say).

Yes, I know you enjoy venting your spleen over Hitler, many do, but I am sure he had, like any other person, a great many rational thoughts, specially when things were going his way. He was a canny and very capable politician who bit off more than he could chew in the end...and that's when he experienced mental breakdown.

You should not allow sheer hatred of the man to cause you to compose convenient mythology just so you can enjoy your own anger.

Hitler was a clever and capable man in a number of ways. He would not have been successful in the first place if he was incapable of rational thought. He would have accomplised absolutely nothing, led no one, commanded no position, and would undoubtedly have been confined in a mental ward at an early age, rather than leading a political movement and a nation.

I say this not to defend Hitler in any way. I don't wish to defend him. I simply say it to remind you that grossly unrealistic hyperbole about people you hate remains grossly unrealistic hyperbole regardless of who those people are.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 10:54 PM

Hitler was successful .... ?!?!?!

I don't think he was a genius at all ... he was nothing but an egostistical bully with illusions of grandeur. The mistakes he made were horrendous and inexcusable.

"convenient mythology" ... what convenient mythology are you accusing me of?

He was also a mediocre artist BTW.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:09 PM

Oh I forgot .... I guess his stroke of genius was building a highway.

Yes .... I guess he was successful.

Geeeeesh.

biLL