At this point, it is a very small minority of a few radical sects that are resorting to terrorism. Continued escalation against Islam in general, could lead to greater numbers of terrorists and greater support from the Islamic majority.

The parallel with the IRA is apt, in this case. While the situation in Ireland is still tenuous, it has been relatively peaceful (lately). Political processes and negotiation seem to have succeeded where brute force and military tactics have not. They are a long way from a final solution, but at least the violence has subsided.

While negotiating with terrorist is something that we will not do, negotiating with governments, political and religious entities that have influence with terrorists, seems to have had a degree of success in Ireland. It's a model we ought to consider.

What's your point?

I've read extensively on WWII and on the Japanese and Nuremburg trials. I know horrible things happen in war. That's got nothing to do with the original claim and my response.

There was no officially sanctioned torture that I ever heard of.


Mr Mephisto

My goodness. What a paragon of intelligent and well constructed argument.

A hit! A palpable hit!

Now, have you actually got anything other than guesses to support your claim?

And you don't make tea without boiling water.

What have either of these irrelevant and contextually senseless statements got to do with the issue at hand? That is, your claim that the US tortured enemies during WWII.

Absolutely nothing. Now let's move on.(org) :)

Mr Mephisto

SOME muslims don't like you. Most muslims probably couldn't care less about you or your paranoid delusions about their entire religion. It sounds to me like you'd rather kill off the whole lot of them so you could feel safe in your bed at night.

By your logic, all christians want me dead because i'm prochoice.

"Officially sanctioned"? Define that term. Then read up on the Island-hopping campaign, and why so few Japanese prisoners were taken. For example: there was a US submarine that sank a Japanese troopship carrying some 7,000 Japanese troops. After the ship had been sank, the captain surfaced the vessel, brought people on deck with small arms, and proceeded to machinegun as many of the helpless soldiers bobbing in the water as was possible. On land, there were far more Japanese captured "unofficially" than were captured "officially". In other words, they were often killed while surrendering or after surrendering. Those shot while surrendering were excused because some Japanese did indeed use a white flag to mount attacks on US troops, and those killed after surrendering were just ignored. For example, I don't know if you've ever seen real "bring-back" pictures from the war, but I have seen a LOT of them. All original, and not generally published anywhere. The most atrocious tend to be pictures taken from the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers as trophies. It's not at ALL uncommon to find them floating around gunshows, and most show things like using live Chinese people for bayonet or sword practice. Pictures of them killing Allied soldiers are far more rare, but do show up periodically. I've also seen some US atrocity pictures. One series I saw back in 1998 contained pictures of a Japanese POW who had been tied to a tree. He was wearing only a loincloth. The US GIs were pictured taunting him and "roughing him up". The final sequence showed one of them throwing a captured japanese ceramic grenade into his lap and the aftermath. The guy who showed me the pictures was the guy who threw the grenade, and he told me he had been given the honor of killing the POW because it was his birthday. I didn't buy them.

Moosenose I am beggining to wonder if you are trying to pull a fast one on the people here or if you are actually reading the links and seeing only what you want to see.

The PDF link is a copy of your earlier linked text.

Just as that first link if you actually read atleast a few of those 51,299 articles (the opinion of Christian www.cuttingedge.org aside) they almost unanimously disprove the point you are trying to make.

The people we are fighting are never going to stop fighting us. They will not listen to either attempts at peace or threats of war. The only way to possibly end their attacks is to completely withdraw from that side of the world; not just militarily, but politically and culturally as well. Even then, I believe they will come after us on our own shores because they hate us period.

I say if they are going to kill us, we should kill them while doing our best to undermine their efforts through not just simple warfare, but also bringing democracy to that area and letting the people as a whole decide their own fate as opposed to the minority with the dynamite vests.

You know exactly what "Officially sanctioned" means.

Torture was not the official policy of the US government or forces during World War II.


Now let's consider your argument a bit here.

Are you, and Ustwo, NOW saying that the actions of a few "bad apples" reflect official US policy?!!

My goodness! What a change from the Abu Ghraib days!


Oh, the delicious irony...



Mr Mephisto

ok in one sentence u talk about withrdrawing from that part oft he world in every sens eof the word, then u talk about bringing about regime change with democracy..which one is it?

and if the people there do have democracy introduced, and then decide they want a religious fanatic as their leader, would that suffice? or is only a leader merited by the west good enough?


also, the term "they", is a loose term.. is that supposed to mean all muslims/arabs? because i know that only a minute number of wackos would actually do it.

1) I was talking first about what we would have to do now to end the attacks, to point out how absurd it is, while the second part is what we should do.

2) It is only a minority of the population that is of the "Destroy America" feeling, so the majority would probably support a democratic government over a crazed dictator/severe fundamentalist government.

3) "They" refers to the people we are fighting, as I said in the opening sentence.