As world power go, US is not pretty begnign

Be serious...

Published on May 5, 2004 By Jepel In International

I'm sorry to copy a title from Brad, but I was a bit outraged about his article. (he is probably very happy about that...)

Any people who believe in the power of justice and law would not allow himself to have any deviation on torture because of their nationality.

One of his argument is that abuse by US force is OK, it is just depending on your angle. If your think that America is good for the world, so a little of torture is good for the world. So I'm not American, I do think that America can be a pretty good thing for the world, but there is no way than torturing can be good way to handle dissident. Torture is the divide between a state in which law rule and a state ruled by the law of jungle. Brad will argue that he hasn't clearly said that. but read previous articles and you'll find some arguments trying to diminish what the picture showed and increased the culpability of the victims. Notably that you don't know if those prisoner would have been killing GI before. How demagogic... I'm not going in this.

I happened to be not naive. Believe me or not, but when I heard about torture from US soldier on Iraq prisoners, I was thinking "It is war time, and there is torture, really?!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm against war, just because war mean death, war mean atrocity, and war mean pain. talking straight, but I would be a soldier in Iraq or in any hostile country, I would like to know the most in order to prevent anything bad happening to me or my men. I think that it wouldn't be normal time and you need to reach other level to get information. in a way, the big problem is that a lot of people think that a war can be clean...

Before people start to say that I'm supporting torture, let me say that:

- I was against war just because of this kind of reason, war is creating area of no law which is always used by the worst people.

- If USA was better to sell its war, and would show more efficiency in building Iraq, the Iraqi people would follow USA and therefore torture wouldn't be that necessary

- Bush and Rumsfeld can play their most naive acting, torture seem to have been under the supervision of private contractor (out of reach of military justice). So practical .. and so not wanted...

There is one thing certain, credibility of USA is going ground 0 in Arab countries. When you are selling freedom, you have to display samples... and not showing why US was supporting Pinochet.

PS. Brad asked "what real world power would you prefer be in the US's position? China? Russia? France? Germany? Japan? UK? "

Let see

UK is not that different. be serious

France and Germany have both been in colonialist war, and it looks very similar than Iraq war.

Russia: think Chechen

China: Think Tibet

USA: Think Vietnam (and may be Iraq in a few years)

Comments (Page 2)

Draginol

on May 08, 2004

Paul - again it's about relativity here.

When Europe was the center of the world, the world got countless wars and the slaughter of hundreds of millions of innecents in the course of just 30 years.

When the Soviet Union was in power it exterminated tens of millions of its own people and supressed all of Eastern Europe.

China, in the past 40 years, has killed off 20+ million of its own people, invaded Tibet, suppressed its own citizens and made noises about conquering Taiwan.

There's no equivalent in the US. The best you'll get is Vietnam where a couple million Vietnamese died in the fighting but who was the aggressor there? It's, at best, arguable. And once the north conquered the south, vastly more millions died from the various purges and such (the killing fields, boat people, etc. come to mind).

Anti-Americans have to go around knit-picking little actions. I'm sorry but RELATIVELY speaking, the abuse of some POWs is nothing compared to the alternatives. And look at the treatment US soldiers get when they're captured. where's the outrage? You never hear it.

The question isn't whether the US is benign comjpared to some mythical perfect benevolent power. The question is whether the US is benign relative to the alternatives. History has provided ample evidence of the actions of alternatives.

messybuu

on May 08, 2004

I don't think anybody here (well I can't speak for everybody) is trying to make the abuse look better than it is, but people are trying to put it into perspective, that it's happened before, it'll happen again, and it's happened by even soldiers not American. The thing is, some people are acting as if this is the worst atrocity ever and even saying it is the end of America. Trivializing it is bad, as it'd be so shameful if those responsible weren't punished for their actions, but so is making more of it than it really is. Also, as Brad keeps mentioning, it's also happened to Americans, but without any outrage against the Iraqis responsible and the Iraqis who supported the acts. I think some even acted as if it was just. Sure, one might expect such actions to occur to Americans, but that doesn't mean one has to condone it or remain silent about it.

Corio

on May 08, 2004

You're way off here, Brad. This has absolutely nothing to do with relativity. Why do you bring up China and Tibet? The Soviet Union? You can dig up any old regime that has committed war crimes and done worse things than the US, but it doesn't really matter. You try to make this incident look insignificant by making irrelevant comparisons.

Ethically, this is despicable. End of story.

Draginol

on May 08, 2004

Corio: It's not my fault you don't understand what this discussion is about.

This article is in response to my article that explicitly points out that while the United States isn't perfect, it is relatively benign as world powers go.

What IS ethically despicable is people trying to paint the entire US and its decades of good deeds in a bad light because a dozen or so soldiers abused some POWs.

Comparisons matter because here, in the REAL world, we have to deal with things as they are, not as we really wish they might be in some fantasy land.

Corio

on May 09, 2004

Oops, posted in the wrong article. Sorry 'bout that. Kudos for managing to insult me in three different ways in such a short response, though.

Solitair

on May 09, 2004

Brad,
you are well aware that I don't like using history to justify the now. Comparing the modern US against European imperialism, Stalinist Russia and Maoist China is pointless. So is harping on about Vietnam and attrocities there (killing fields was Cambodia by the way). We are in the 21st century and we are talking about current perceived US interaction. The US does not give a benign appearance to the world.

How many times must I also stress that there WAS outrage of the treatment of American prisoners. The abhorrent way 4 military contrators were killed and treated in Falluja was condemned across the globe. It was condemned in Iraq by the moderate Iraqis. Convenient of you to forget that and use a 'everyone is against us' mentality. Everyone is not against the US. Most people condemned mistreatment fo Americans and likewise condemned mistreatment of Iraqi pows.

America's problem at the moment is not that a few soldiers mistreated pows, but that it was systematic and the government did not stop it a year ago when the red cross first reported it. If the US could have turnwed around when the pictures were first released and said, 'This occurred last year, the soldiers responsible are in prison, the supervisors have bneen disciplined, the international red cross has inspected the prison many times since and no torture is going on. It was a once off' then they wouldn't be in the mess they are now in. The fact is they can't do that because they didn't care about the torture. They care now, but probably only because of the negative publicity.

That lack of care about the torture is a prime eample of WHY the US is not benign. Just look at how easily Americans justified and were willing to accept Guantanemo bay. You don't care about the means only the result, so torturing a few prisoners to get them to talk is considered acceptable.

Paul.

Frogboy

on May 09, 2004

Solitair - if you're not willing to speak in a relative sense then the discussion is meaningless.

How does one define what a benign power is if one cannot reference other world power examples?

Americans ARE outraged by the abuse of POWs in Iraq. I'm outraged by it. Sickened. I think those responsible should be tried and punished to the severest extents allowed.

Solitair

on May 10, 2004

Brad,
I am happy with relative comparisons, just not with comparisons across history. Morals have changed very dramatically over the past 100 years. What was acceptable in WW2 times is often not acceptable today. What was acceptable in Vietnam times is often not acceptable today. Indeed many of the human right requirements of todays conflicts stem from the lessons learnt in these earlier periods. The same is true of empires. What was acceptable during the British empire is not acceptable today what was acceptable in Russia during Stalin's time is not acceptable today.

This refusal to accept comparisons across history does indeed make comparisons difficult as there is no other super power. What's harder still is that the modern world has far higher expectations of what benign is than even 20 years ago. What we can still compare though are the individual segments of it's policies. We can compare it's human right record against current human right treaties. We can compare it's foreign policy against current international treaties and current norm of international behaviour.

So to conclude I believe the US can be compared relative to other countries. It's foreign aid spending, willingness to assist others, human rights record, respect for international treaties can all be compared against other countries or blocks of countries. These are the criteria against which people now measure benign.

Paul.

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