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Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
40hz:
So, why should Germany of all countries offer asylum to an American? Hochhuth writes that “more than any other, the German people are obligated to honour the right of asylum because, beginning in 1933, our elite, without exception from the Mann brothers to Einstein, survived the 12-year Nazi dictatorship purely because other countries, with the US as the greatest example, offered asylum to these refugees.”
--- End quote ---
Einstein, the Mann brothers - plus those 500 or so Nazi scientists and engineers who "emigrated" to the US with "bleached" records and amnesty from any future prosecution - provided they took the research jobs they were offered once here. And all of this is thanks to something called Operation Paperclip.
But that was only to keep them out of the hands of the Russians, who were doing the exact same thing, so apparently that made it all hunky-dorey! :-\
These really were a sweet bunch of guys. Here's a picture of 104 of them, looking healthy and happy at the US Ft. Bliss military research facility in Texas, taken back in 1946:
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Interesting historical note: the US military detenion center operating in Cuba is not the first secret detention and interrogation facility the US military has operated in direct and knowing contravention of the Geneva Convention.
Back at the end of WWII, the US operated a similar facility dubbed "P.O.Box 1142" in Ft. Hunt, Virginia, that was used to detain and interrogate what would today be called "high value prisoners."
Although the program code-named MIS-Y secretly transferred "nearly 4000" prisoners (in a manner eerily similar to today's practice of "extraordinary rendition") to this facility from where they had been captured in Europe, the surviving camp records (and actual later accounts from those who had been "processed" and released from this facility) seems to conclusively indicate that no form of torture had ever been used on any of the detainees.
Nice to see that the Americans, who faced down something as monstrous as Nazi Germany, still remembered what the United States - as a nation - stood for when dealing with its enemies. That's something many in our succeeding generations seem to have strangely forgotten.
The bulk of P.O. Box 1142 facility, which was begun in 1942, was completely bulldozed in 1946.
There's a monument at Ft. Hunt commemorating this largely unknown bit of US WWII history:
8)
wraith808:
It seems like after all this time, and with all of the research on the subject... not just being humane (and human), but being practical, we'd get it through our minds that torture (not enhanced interrogation, but torture) results in inconsistent and unreliable intelligence. So... even if you don't want to be human, you just want to make it appear so, we'd just do away with it. :-\
40hz:
It seems like after all this time, and with all of the research on the subject... not just being humane (and human), but being practical, we'd get it through our minds that torture (not enhanced interrogation, but torture) results in inconsistent and unreliable intelligence. So... even if you don't want to be human, you just want to make it appear so, we'd just do away with it. :-\
-wraith808 (July 22, 2013, 02:25 PM)
--- End quote ---
This.
By the same token, "enhanced interrogation" was never really about getting tactical information. Any it did obtain was purely a side effect.
The real goal for these practices (i.e. torture, kidnapping, etc. - I'll leave the reader to pick their own mealy-mouthed euphemisms like our government has) is found within the much bandied phrase: Shock & Awe.
Have you ever seen a pack of adolescent boys hunkered down next to an anthill with one of them holding a magnifying glass? That's what you have here.
Guantanamo is not about security. Or obtaining information. It is about malice, and punishment, and reprisal, and cruelty - and clearly conveying the message that the United States is one crazy mean bastard that everybody else in the world had better think twice - and then think twice about again - before they go messing with it.
Because if you do, this current government of ours promises that it will dedicate every last drop of it's vast resources to first hunting you down - and afterwards making you wish by all you hold holy, that you had never been born.
There are easily a dozen things far worse than dying. And the US wants everyone to know with absolute certainty that it can do all of them.*
Now time was when this sort of behavior would be considered a form of state sponsored terror. But "terrorism" is what other nations, and political groups, and police and military forces do - not us.
What we do is "shock and awe." Because we say that's what it is we do.
Anybody got a problem with that?
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*Note: to get an idea of where the mindset behind this is, look no further than the words of Cofer Black, the individual heading the CIA’s post-9/11 counterterrorism programs:
"When I speak, I think the American people need to look into my face, and I want to look the American people in the eye. My name is Cofer Black. This is a very highly classified area. All you need to know is that there was a before 9/11 and there was an after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves come off."
Renegade:
Now time was when this sort of behavior would be considered a form of state sponsored terror. But "terrorism" is what other nations, and political groups, and police and military forces do - not us.
What we do is "shock and awe." Because we say that's what it is we do.
Anybody got a problem with that?
-40hz (July 22, 2013, 03:33 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes. ;)
There's a difference between places like North Korea and the US.
In North Korea, the totalitarian state is so utterly and openly oppressive that nobody dare speak out or step out of line.
In the US, people are mostly brainwashed into not speaking or stepping out of line, and they stay in line willingly as their capacity to question has been removed, thanks to a wonderfully effective propaganda machine. However, it is still possible to do so with a much lower risk than in North Korea.
AN UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTION
I rather doubt that there are many people here that regularly donate to support the KKK, Stormfront, al-Qaeda, or other similarly sinister organisations. That's probably because supporting evil is evil.
What does that then say when people support wars of aggression (and all the other nastiness) done in their names?
An older reference, but still very relevant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_in_Our_Name
Full text of the Not in Our Name Pledge of Resistance
We believe that as people living
in the United States it is our
responsibility to resist the injustices
done by our government, in our names
Not in our name
will you wage endless war
there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions of blood for oil
Not in our name
will you invade countries
bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course
over the graves of the nameless
Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms
you have claimed to fight for
Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding
for the annihilation of families
on foreign soil
Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us
Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples
or countries to be deemed evil
Not by our will
and Not in our name
We pledge resistance
We pledge alliance with those
who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war
or for their religion or ethnicity
We pledge to make common cause
with the people of the world
to bring about justice freedom and peace
Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real
The more people that withdraw their support for the criminal systems that we now have, the sooner we won't have these criminal systems. The biggest problem is not "out there", the biggest problem is in our minds. If everyone simply walked away from it, it would cease to exist.
tomos:
Re Germany and Snowden / NSA / etc.
There's a lot of questions being asked in Germany - there's supposed to be an official statement today or tomorrow (sorry forget which) but I dont have great expectations.
here's a good summary via Reddit (Snowden Gets Whistleblower Award in Germany)
Spoiler[–]prollyjustsomeweirdo 728 points 20 hours ago
People here need to realize that this is not a government sponsored award. Germany didn't "give him" this award, he gets it in Germany.
The irony of this is not lost on me though. He would be put in chains the moment he tried to receive this award in person.
[–]ademnus 30 points 17 hours ago
especially because it just came out in the wash that germany partnered with the US to spy on german citizens too.
[–]grimhowe 4 points 14 hours ago
Wow, i hadnt heard. Dudnt Germany 'demand answers' from Obama in regards to the spying of the US on german citizens shortly after the NSA thing,
Goes to show ..
[–]ademnus 15 points 14 hours ago
they did and then the truth came out. oops!
[–]prollyjustsomeweirdo 5 points 5 hours ago
Yeah we did, it was hilarious. Our minister of the interior went to Washington to "demand answers". Obama basically told him "Just because, now go back home" and he did. Said afterwards his trip was a success and he now understands why PRISM is awesome, and every other citizen should too.
[–]underwaterlove 13 points 11 hours ago
Well, it's not like Germany is a single entity with a single mind. It's quite possible that those who didn't know were genuinely upset and really wanted to know what was going on, while those in the know just played along, pretended they didn't know anything either and hoped it'd just blow over.
[–]ClownWithCrown 4 points 7 hours ago
We have different political parties you know?
[–]Asyx 10 points 13 hours ago*
The opposition did. Merkel was quiet. We now know why...
[–]nyando 3 points 6 hours ago
The thing is, when this whole shebang started out, the opposition parties were actually in power. So they definitely knew about this.
[–]FormalyKnownAsFury12 2 points 3 hours ago
It is still debated whether the cabinet/chancellor knew about this (allthough it seems very likely). However, there is pretty decisive evidence that the BND (german intelligence agency) has been cooperating with the NSA ever since 1962.
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