Chinese Lawyer Condemns Communist Government, Gets Tortured And Killed

Here we go, bringing religion into the mix and thinking since I am American I am Christian and Muslim hating. Your IQ must be as big as your TV, what 32"?

Oh, wait, you're from Spain, that says it all. Sorry, didn't catch that. You guys kill each other over a soccer ball. My baaaad.
 


popeye said:
PROVIDE PROOF THAT WE TOURTURE US CITIZENS BECAUSE OF RELIGEON OR ANTI-GOVERNMENT SPEECH. Until somone can prove this, the argument comparing the US and China is not only invalid but ignorant, inmature and irresponsible.
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Ignoring the fact that we should not be torturing ANYONE, whether they're a US citizen or not:
Americans held in Pakistan complain of torture (they implicate the FBI)

US Says it may Kill Americans Abroad

To be honest most Americans including myself could care less if we stripped some wana be terrorist in Iraq and made them form a cheerleader pyramid.
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Well, thank god that doesn't really matter. Or change the law.
Damn it just hit me! The ignorance and stupidy make sence now. Are you idiots posting this shit because you hate Christians and WANT to see them tourtured for their beliefs? I tend to forget that most "wana be athiest" are really just biggots and terrorst/islamic sympathizers.
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I don't give a fuck about religion. It's the same breed of crazy no matter what(atheists too).
But come off it. That's not why people are doing it.

This entire thread illustrates a point perfectly: When you endorse torture(as you and hellblazer have in the past), you lose the ability to call others out on it. People don't take it seriously anymore.
It's like a father that got caught with blow lecturing is heroin-addict son about the dangers of drugs.
 
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Blastyourass said:
Here we go, bringing religion into the mix and thinking since I am American I am Christian and Muslim hating. Your IQ must be as big as your TV, what 32"?
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Actually, I was talking about the OP and not you, so once again I have to call into question your reading comprehension. Kind of ironic with you taking a dig at my IQ level and all. You've yet to actually make any kind of rebuttal to any if the facts presented here other than "hurrr duuurrrr, you're an idiot" and linking to ridiculous urban myths.

Blastyourass said:
Oh, wait, you're from Spain, that says it all. Sorry, didn't catch that. You guys kill each other over a soccer ball. My baaaad.
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Actually, I'm Canadian from Vancouver and living in Spain and generally trying to experience as many places and cultures as I can. I'm not quite sure what football has to do with the argument at hand. How about you? Every experienced anything more worldly than a day trip to Tijuana?
 
Fatbat said:
Hey, thanks for presuming what I can and can't look at, have or haven't looked at, and for putting words in my mouth. No where did I condone what the Chinese do. All I said was look to yourselves and clean up your own act before you go criticizing others.

Unfortunately you've all proven that you're cool with torturing people if it's to your benefit. I'm sure the Chinese feel the same way about ridding themselves of those uppity Christians and cult members too.

You talk about Chinese atrocities and genocide, but you don't speak out about the murder of at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians (a number which may in fact be many times greater) nor the ongoing murder of innocents in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But hey! Those aren't your people, just some dirty rag heads in a far away place, so it's cool the kill them. "collateral damage"... "caught in the crossfire"... "unfortunate casualties of war".

Instead you keep parroting "show us where Americans are torturing Americans!" or "what the US does isn't NEARLY as bad as what the Chinese do" or "the Chinese are 1000x worse than us". You clearly don't get it. The United States does, and has over the years, engage in systematic and brutal torture and genocide all over the world, either themselves, or by backing regimes that do the dirty work for them. That they don't openly do it to their own people inside their own borders is a moot point. Torture is torture. Murder is murder.

You know that something like 1/3rd of the world's nations employ torture, including the US? Many of whom have signed treaties agreeing not to torture, including the US? Many of whom are members of the UN and allies and trading partners with the US? The US openly trades with China, and only occasionally murmurs the words "we call on China to clean up their human rights violations".

The United States engages in Torture by Proxy by sending its agents to foreign countries to train in methods of interrogation and torture and then sends people to these countries to be tortured so they can supposedly keep their hands clean. One has to wonder how they perfected such methods but I guess it's better if we just don't talk about it.

The "war on terror" is just a convenient label to let the US government do what they want, when they want, to whomever the want. If you're declared an enemy of the State, the US will pretty much do whatever they want to you, even if you are innocent of having done nothing at all.

So the Chinese have declared Falun Gong and Christians enemies of the state. Brutal? Yes. "Worse than the US?". Yes. Is it a whole lot different? No. The US openly condones torturing and killing people if the ends justify the means. So get over yourselves.
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Couldn't have said it better. Torture is torture and murder is murder.
The wisdom is strong with this one. +1
 
xmcp123 said:
This entire thread illustrates a point perfectly: When you endorse torture(as you and hellblazer have in the past), you lose the ability to call others out on it. People don't take it seriously anymore.
It's like a father that got caught with blow lecturing is heroin-addict son about the dangers of drugs.
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Immaculate logic.
 
popeye said:
The foreigners are always hating until they get invaded and then guess who they call on? Ignorant bastards! Don't worry friend, I am still in the reserves, Even though you and your kind are anti-American, I'll come save your sorry ass anyways, if I am called to do so.
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Very true. They can keep up their anti American bashing, but come war, or natural disaster guess who'll be there to pick up their wounded, & help rebuild. The good ole US of A.
 
xmcp123 said:
This entire thread illustrates a point perfectly: When you endorse torture(as you and hellblazer have in the past), you lose the ability to call others out on it. People don't take it seriously anymore.
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Actually not at all.

Thats kind of like saying "Killing another human being is always wrong, therefore capital punishment is wrong". And then equating the execution of a serial killer with being shot in the face for your watch.

Now, "killing another human being is always wrong" is a valid opinion. And so is the opinion that capital punishment is wrong. But dont mix the two. Clearly there is a valid opinion that in some circumstances it is in fact "ok" to kill another human being, even if you disagree with it. Or that its worse in some circumstances then others.

Likewise with torture. There is the opinion that "inflicting pain/torture on a human being in captivity is always wrong". Which is a valid opinion. However there is a completely separate argument about whether torturing a human being because the death of a large number of innocent people is imminent and there is no time to pursue any other method of obtaining information is "ok". And equating that action with say torturing someone simply because you don't like their race, beliefs or religion is disingenous. Or torturing to get information on whether a minor stole a chocolate bar from a corner shop.


Could you argue that this:
'Gang of barbarians' go on trial for Paris torture and murder of Jewish man - Telegraph

is morally equivalent to waterboarding a known mass murderer because he may have information about a plot to kill 1000 or your countrymen tomorrow?

Now, whether torture is actually effective in obtaining information is yet another argument entirely.

It's like a father that got caught with blow lecturing is heroin-addict son about the dangers of drugs.
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Again, thats not logical. Blow and heroin are completely different drugs. Heroin is far more dangerous. Just because both are illegal does not them equal. Its a perfectly valid argument that smoking a joint is or having an occasional line of blow is fine, while shooting up smack is not. Personally I would be fine if my son, if I had one, had a line of blow every now and then. But I would be devastated if he was shooting up smack. I've known heroin addicts and I've known heroin users who are now dead. I also know a lot of people who occasionally do blow and there is no comparison.
 
Dispel said:
Actually not at all.

Thats kind of like saying "Killing another human being is always wrong, therefore capital punishment is wrong". And then equating the execution of a serial killer with being shot in the face for your watch.

Now, "killing another human being is always wrong" is a valid opinion. And so is the opinion that capital punishment is wrong. But dont mix the two. Clearly there is a valid opinion that in some circumstances it is in fact "ok" to kill another human being, even if you disagree with it. Or that its worse in some circumstances then others.
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killing someone serves an end goal that can only be achieved via killing; to remove them from society and the gene pool. Torture is different. The only function unique to torture is "prolonging death" - the other functions (information) are not only pretty poor in quality, but also can be achieved via other means. There are reasons to kill. There are no reasons to torture.
Likewise with torture. There is the opinion that "inflicting pain/torture on a human being in captivity is always wrong". Which is a valid opinion. However there is a completely separate argument about whether torturing a human being because the death of a large number of innocent people is imminent and there is no time to pursue any other method of obtaining information is "ok".
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That would be at least close to a valid point if torture actually got accurate information. But it doesn't. And that's not how we're using it. And it doesn't address the after-affects.
And equating that action with say torturing someone simply because you don't like their race, beliefs or religion is disingenous. Or torturing to get information on whether a minor stole a chocolate bar from a corner shop.
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The real irony here is that the same people supporting US torture and saying that it's different because "we're not torturing due to beliefs or religion" are (in other threads) consistently relating the "war on terror" to religion. Very rarely people say "Iraqis" or "Afghanis" here. It's "muslims".

But once again, a large part of it is that once you find yourself making these distinctions about motivation for torture, it relies on everyone to making the exact same conclusions about the motivation. Because otherwise they won't have to listen when you come crying that they're torturing people...or maybe even your soldiers. It creates an ambiguity that will always cause problems.

Everyone always thinks their reason to torture is just. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
Could you argue that this:
'Gang of barbarians' go on trial for Paris torture and murder of Jewish man - Telegraph

is morally equivalent to waterboarding a known mass murderer because he may have information about a plot to kill 1000 or your countrymen tomorrow?
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I do not find them equal but I find them both disgusting and approve of neither. It's not about 'moral equivalents', it's about rule of law and the precedent that we set that other countries follow. Even if it was about 'moral equivalents' something being more moral than another action doesn't make it moral or ok.
Plus once again, you're assuming that torture will get the information AT ALL. Though I hate to turn the discussion towards effective vs. not (because it doesn't fucking matter, it's torture and it's illegal), it can't be ignored that the motivation doesn't matter if the action isn't effective.
Now, whether torture is actually effective in obtaining information is yet another argument entirely.
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I think it's a different part of the same discussion. It just has a nasty habit of being what gets talked about the most when it's included, even though it's the least important to the underlying problems.

Again, thats not logical. Blow and heroin are completely different drugs. Heroin is far more dangerous. Just because both are illegal does not them equal.
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Yeah I know.
Its a perfectly valid argument that smoking a joint is or having an occasional line of blow is fine, while shooting up smack is not.
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This has nothing to do with the analogy, you know exactly what I meant.
If we're really going to be anal retentive about this, you can inject cocaine, at which point it is still better than heroin, but still not a thing to 'sample'
 
xmcp123 said:
killing someone serves an end goal that can only be achieved via killing; to remove them from society and the gene pool. Torture is different. The only function unique to torture is "prolonging death" - the other functions (information) are not only pretty poor in quality, but also can be achieved via other means. There are reasons to kill. There are no reasons to torture.

That would be at least close to a valid point if torture actually got accurate information. But it doesn't. And that's not how we're using it. And it doesn't address the after-affects.

The real irony here is that the same people supporting US torture and saying that it's different because "we're not torturing due to beliefs or religion" are (in other threads) consistently relating the "war on terror" to religion. Very rarely people say "Iraqis" or "Afghanis" here. It's "muslims".

But once again, a large part of it is that once you find yourself making these distinctions about motivation for torture, it relies on everyone to making the exact same conclusions about the motivation. Because otherwise they won't have to listen when you come crying that they're torturing people...or maybe even your soldiers. It creates an ambiguity that will always cause problems.

Everyone always thinks their reason to torture is just. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

I do not find them equal but I find them both disgusting and approve of neither. It's not about 'moral equivalents', it's about rule of law and the precedent that we set that other countries follow. Even if it was about 'moral equivalents' something being more moral than another action doesn't make it moral or ok.
Plus once again, you're assuming that torture will get the information AT ALL. Though I hate to turn the discussion towards effective vs. not (because it doesn't fucking matter, it's torture and it's illegal), it can't be ignored that the motivation doesn't matter if the action isn't effective.

I think it's a different part of the same discussion. It just has a nasty habit of being what gets talked about the most when it's included, even though it's the least important to the underlying problems.


Yeah I know.

This has nothing to do with the analogy, you know exactly what I meant.
If we're really going to be anal retentive about this, you can inject cocaine, at which point it is still better than heroin, but still not a thing to 'sample'
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See, in this post you're actually making valid arguments, not just being a retard like Fatbat. I still disagree with you, but I respect your position. Does torture bring valid information? I really don't know, and I dont know why you're so sure it doesn't. Sometimes it probably does. If someone kidnapped my sister and didn't tell me where she was and I got hold of them and they won't tell me where she is I'll probably be punching them in the face til they tell me. I won't be wiretapping their phone, tailing their friends and tracing their bank accounts. Yes, the information can be gotten by other means, but other means take much longer. My argument is that torture is almost always wrong, but there may be extreme circumstances when its a last resort. And some circumstances are worse then others. Its not always all the same, as even you've admitted.

as for "war on terror" and muslims, well personally I believe there is a "war on terror" and then there is a culture "war". War on terror is a war against terrorists who happen to be muslims, its not a war on Islam. There is a completely separate "battle" - the cultural one, where secular democracy is up against Islamism (and other totalitarian political systems) and this is not and should not be a violent "battle" - it is the battle of ideas. The two should never be confused. The West is winning the war on terror. However in some parts of the West, in parts of Europe for example, the West is losing the battle of ideas, and this is in large part due to useful idiots like Fatbat.

As for the drugs argument, sure, I've watched people shoot up heroin, cocaine, speed, ecstasy... I know quite a lot about drugs and their physiological effects, so my opinion is that shooting up recreationally is not a good idea with any of them. However you're merely being defensive here, when you know your argument had a hole in it the size of Baghdad.
 
China, United States, etc.

You don't have to live in a squeaky clean nation to merely point out the wrongs in this world.

It seems however like a better idea to get our shit together here rather than bitching bout the actions abroad. If not it'll be easier for the US to go down that path because we had our heads too far up our ass thinking "well its not as bad as [insert regime name here]". Rights, privileges, etc when they are stripped they are done little by little, usually in the guise of being for or safety, or for the better good.

So go ahead and point out the wrongs in the world as you see fit, but lest not be distracted of our problems here at home.

Far as torture goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
 
Here's the best discussion on torture that I've ever read and that I agree with most, for those actually interested in real discussion this is a must read.
I'm posting the whole let because its subscription content, apologies for the length.

source: Torture and the U.S. Intelligence Failure | STRATFOR


Torture and the U.S. Intelligence Failure
April 20, 2009 | 1747 GMT


By George Friedman

The Obama administration published a series of memoranda on torture issued under the Bush administration. The memoranda, most of which dated from the period after 9/11, authorized measures including depriving prisoners of solid food, having them stand shackled and in uncomfortable positions, leaving them in cold cells with inadequate clothing, slapping their heads and/or abdomens, and telling them that their families might be harmed if they didn’t cooperate with their interrogators.

On the scale of human cruelty, these actions do not rise anywhere near the top. At the same time, anyone who thinks that being placed without food in a freezing cell subject to random mild beatings — all while being told that your family might be joining you — isn’t agonizing clearly lacks imagination. The treatment of detainees could have been worse. It was terrible nonetheless.
Torture and the Intelligence Gap

But torture is meant to be terrible, and we must judge the torturer in the context of his own desperation. In the wake of 9/11, anyone who wasn’t terrified was not in touch with reality. We know several people who now are quite blasé about 9/11. Unfortunately for them, we knew them in the months after, and they were not nearly as composed then as they are now.

Sept. 11 was terrifying for one main reason: We had little idea about al Qaeda’s capabilities. It was a very reasonable assumption that other al Qaeda cells were operating in the United States and that any day might bring follow-on attacks. (Especially given the group’s reputation for one-two attacks.) We still remember our first flight after 9/11, looking at our fellow passengers, planning what we would do if one of them moved. Every time a passenger visited the lavatory, one could see the tensions soar.

And while Sept. 11 was frightening enough, there were ample fears that al Qaeda had secured a “suitcase bomb” and that a nuclear attack on a major U.S. city could come at any moment. For individuals, such an attack was simply another possibility. We remember staying at a hotel in Washington close to the White House and realizing that we were at ground zero — and imagining what the next moment might be like. For the government, however, the problem was having scraps of intelligence indicating that al Qaeda might have a nuclear weapon, but not having any way of telling whether those scraps had any value. The president and vice president accordingly were continually kept at different locations, and not for any frivolous reason.

This lack of intelligence led directly to the most extreme fears, which in turn led to extreme measures. Washington simply did not know very much about al Qaeda and its capabilities and intentions in the United States. A lack of knowledge forces people to think of worst-case scenarios. In the absence of intelligence to the contrary after 9/11, the only reasonable assumption was that al Qaeda was planning more — and perhaps worse — attacks.

Collecting intelligence rapidly became the highest national priority. Given the genuine and reasonable fears, no action in pursuit of intelligence was out of the question, so long as it promised quick answers. This led to the authorization of torture, among other things. Torture offered a rapid means to accumulate intelligence, or at least — given the time lag on other means — it was something that had to be tried.
Torture and the Moral Question

And this raises the moral question. The United States is a moral project: its Declaration of Independence and Constitution state that. The president takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. The Constitution does not speak to the question of torture of non-citizens, but it implies an abhorrence of rights violations (at least for citizens). But the Declaration of Independence contains the phrase, “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” This indicates that world opinion matters.

At the same time, the president is sworn to protect the Constitution. In practical terms, this means protecting the physical security of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Protecting the principles of the declaration and the Constitution are meaningless without regime preservation and defending the nation.

While this all makes for an interesting seminar in political philosophy, presidents — and others who have taken the same oath — do not have the luxury of the contemplative life. They must act on their oaths, and inaction is an action. Former U.S. President George W. Bush knew that he did not know the threat, and that in order to carry out his oath, he needed very rapidly to find out the threat. He could not know that torture would work, but he clearly did not feel that he had the right to avoid it.

Consider this example. Assume you knew that a certain individual knew the location of a nuclear device planted in an American city. The device would kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, but the individual refused to divulge the information. Would anyone who had sworn the oath have the right not to torture the individual? Torture might or might not work, but either way, would it be moral to protect the individual’s rights while allowing hundreds of thousands to die? It would seem that in this case, torture is a moral imperative; the rights of the one with the information cannot transcend the life of a city.
Torture in the Real World

But here is the problem: You would not find yourself in this situation. Knowing a bomb had been planted, knowing who knew that the bomb had been planted, and needing only to apply torture to extract this information is not how the real world works. Post-9/11, the United States knew much less about the extent of the threat from al Qaeda. This hypothetical sort of torture was not the issue.

Discrete information was not needed, but situational awareness. The United States did not know what it needed to know, it did not know who was of value and who wasn’t, and it did not know how much time it had. Torture thus was not a precise solution to a specific problem: It became an intelligence-gathering technique. The nature of the problem the United States faced forced it into indiscriminate intelligence gathering. When you don’t know what you need to know, you cast a wide net. And when torture is included in the mix, it is cast wide as well. In such a case, you know you will be following many false leads — and when you carry torture with you, you will be torturing people with little to tell you. Moreover, torture applied by anyone other than well-trained, experienced personnel (who are in exceptionally short supply) will only compound these problems, and make the practice less productive.
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second part:

Defenders of torture frequently seem to believe that the person in custody is known to have valuable information, and that this information must be forced out of him. His possession of the information is proof of his guilt. The problem is that unless you have excellent intelligence to begin with, you will become engaged in developing baseline intelligence, and the person you are torturing may well know nothing at all. Torture thus becomes not only a waste of time and a violation of decency, it actually undermines good intelligence. After a while, scooping up suspects in a dragnet and trying to extract intelligence becomes a substitute for competent intelligence techniques — and can potentially blind the intelligence service. This is especially true as people will tell you what they think you want to hear to make torture stop.

Critics of torture, on the other hand, seem to assume the torture was brutality for the sake of brutality instead of a desperate attempt to get some clarity on what might well have been a catastrophic outcome. The critics also cannot know the extent to which the use of torture actually prevented follow-on attacks. They assume that to the extent that torture was useful, it was not essential; that there were other ways to find out what was needed. In the long run, they might have been correct. But neither they, nor anyone else, had the right to assume in late 2001 that there was a long run. One of the things that wasn’t known was how much time there was.
The U.S. Intelligence Failure

The endless argument over torture, the posturing of both critics and defenders, misses the crucial point. The United States turned to torture because it has experienced a massive intelligence failure reaching back a decade. The U.S. intelligence community simply failed to gather sufficient information on al Qaeda’s intentions, capability, organization and personnel. The use of torture was not part of a competent intelligence effort, but a response to a massive intelligence failure.

That failure was rooted in a range of miscalculations over time. There was the public belief that the end of the Cold War meant the United States didn’t need a major intelligence effort, a point made by the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan. There were the intelligence people who regarded Afghanistan as old news. There was the Torricelli amendment that made recruiting people with ties to terrorist groups illegal without special approval. There were the Middle East experts who could not understand that al Qaeda was fundamentally different from anything seen before. The list of the guilty is endless, and ultimately includes the American people, who always seem to believe that the view of the world as a dangerous place is something made up by contractors and bureaucrats.

Bush was handed an impossible situation on Sept. 11, after just nine months in office. The country demanded protection, and given the intelligence shambles he inherited, he reacted about as well or badly as anyone else might have in the situation. He used the tools he had, and hoped they were good enough.

The problem with torture — as with other exceptional measures — is that it is useful, at best, in extraordinary situations. The problem with all such techniques in the hands of bureaucracies is that the extraordinary in due course becomes the routine, and torture as a desperate stopgap measure becomes a routine part of the intelligence interrogator’s tool kit.

At a certain point, the emergency was over. U.S. intelligence had focused itself and had developed an increasingly coherent picture of al Qaeda, with the aid of allied Muslim intelligence agencies, and was able to start taking a toll on al Qaeda. The war had become routinized, and extraordinary measures were no longer essential. But the routinization of the extraordinary is the built-in danger of bureaucracy, and what began as a response to unprecedented dangers became part of the process. Bush had an opportunity to move beyond the emergency. He didn’t.

If you know that an individual is loaded with information, torture can be a useful tool. But if you have so much intelligence that you already know enough to identify the individual is loaded with information, then you have come pretty close to winning the intelligence war. That’s not when you use torture. That’s when you simply point out to the prisoner that, “for you the war is over.” You lay out all you already know and how much you know about him. That is as demoralizing as freezing in a cell — and helps your interrogators keep their balance.

U.S. President Barack Obama has handled this issue in the style to which we have become accustomed, and which is as practical a solution as possible. He has published the memos authorizing torture to make this entirely a Bush administration problem while refusing to prosecute anyone associated with torture, keeping the issue from becoming overly divisive. Good politics perhaps, but not something that deals with the fundamental question.

The fundamental question remains unanswered, and may remain unanswered. When a president takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” what are the limits on his obligation? We take the oath for granted. But it should be considered carefully by anyone entering this debate, particularly for presidents.
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