TheNecroswanson post=18.73001.780528 said:
Khedive Rex post=18.73001.780507 said:
TheNecroswanson post=18.73001.780499 said:
Let me ask you then, whom still abides by the Geneva convention and reglarly goes to war?
Let me ask you. What do we gain by blowing off the Geneva Conventions and torturing 90% civilians, 10% cannon fodder for information?
The Geneva conventions are the law. If your suggesting we ignore them, the burden of proof is on
you to show why they are bad. Not on us.
Who's law? I'm not asking for proof that they're worth it. But at this point abiding by the Geneva covnention is on par with playing king of the hill with only your hands while everyone else has pointy sticks. We'll lose, and noone will come to our aid when we call them cheaters. Since the cold war we have been doing
nothing but proving words are useless and action is what counts. I'm not saying it's a bad "law", but when was the last time one of the coutnries named who plays by "the rules" went to war with someone who didn't?
First of all, are you seriously suggesting that failure to torture civilians will result in the United States losing a war with
rag-tag guerilla terrorist groups?! How, may I ask, do you imagine that ending going? A group of 200,000 (and I'm being chairtable) with maybe a 100,000 sympathizers armed with what they could buy off the black market with limited funds storms Washington DC and conquers a country of 300,000,000 containing more than 2/3rds of the
world's fire arms
in civilian hands?
Now, alternately if you are suggesting we can lose a war with a terrorist organization by simply not conquering them, I would say it's coincedental you brought up the cold war in your response. Soviet Russia was a force to combat the United States at the prime of it's power and don't pretend it wasn't. The "Red Scare" happened because Soviet Russia was looming like an all-powerful juggernaut.
They invaded Afghanistan. They used torture. They "broke the rules and picked up a pointed stick." They got their asses handed to them.
If you are suggesting that merely playing at the same level your enemies are willing to stoop to means you will win you are quite wrong. Torturing civilians didn't help Russia because
civilians don't know anything useful. The technique doesn't aid the war effort in anyway and it costs American tax-payer dollars to keep these civilians in prison. In the mean time,
If violating the Geneva Conventions is illegal by UN treaties;
If violating the Geneva Conventions does not provide us with worthwhile information from our torturees;
If violating the Geneva Conventions does not gaurantee us victory or even make it more likely;
Then what rationale is there to violate the Geneva Conventions? Are you seriously arguing we should ignore laws about human rights because "It's the hip thing to do"?
