Comments on: Do you know Binyam Mohamed?

By: Brad Smith

Brad Smith — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:00:17 +0000

You might be a neo-con,

If you defend torture to get false information and use it to kill the innocent.
If you defend torture to get a “terrorist” to say what you want them to so you can start a war.
If you defend war by saying oh well that’s just human nature let the boys have their fun.
If you kill a million innocent people and use 9/11 as an excuse.

That was fun. I’ll bet I could go on all day. Someone should do a “You might be a Zionist if” post.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:02:51 +0000

I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:00:09 +0000

That was the most bizarre and convoluted thing I have ever read on antiwar.com.

By: marko

marko — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:13:23 +0000

Thanks for the clip Brad – nothin’ scares the powers that be more than authentic life!

By: Brad Smith

Brad Smith — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:14:44 +0000

Marko, Douglas Adams is great I like the Monty Python series as well. Many of the Brittish comedies were fabulous. Here in the US I always thought that George Carlin and Lenny Bruce were brilliant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCmfEWDU7pQ

Peace!

By: Brad Smith

Brad Smith — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:02:42 +0000

That’s of course if your trying to find out how many humans there are per planet in the Universe.

By: marko

marko — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:56:41 +0000

yeah, same difference – that anti-nihilist joker!

By: Brad Smith

Brad Smith — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:56:34 +0000

Printing massive amounts of Federal Reserve Notes = hyperinflation = economic draft? Sounds about right to me. If this is the case and it’s part of the plan than we have obviously decided that it’s time to say the Hell with production. Lets just use our military to plunder. I wonder how Russia and China will take this? China could lose a billion people and still not be forced to it’s knees, and if any country has shown an ability to suffer huge losses it’s Russia. The Bear might have been hibernating but it’s waking up now.

It’s obvious that “our” Rulers love to use fear to get what they want even if they are to ignorant to even know what that is. However, they scare me a whole lot more than some terrorist. Living where I do I’m more likely to be attacked by a dangerous chipmunk than a “terrorist”. It’s time to make a stand or start stocking up, I’m finding it easier to stock up than to make a stand, but I live in the country and don’t owe the bank a dime.

Peace!

By: Brad Smith

Brad Smith — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:22:36 +0000

Didn’t they show mathimatically that there are no Humans in the Universe in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? It went something like: sense there is at any one given time a finite number of Humans on Earth and an infinate amount of planets you would simply devide the number of planets (an infinate number) by the finite number of humans and it would be as close to mathimatically possible to zero as you can get.

Peace!

By: marko

marko — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:45:25 +0000

Um.. Dave – first, your mangled cultural references. It was not Monty Python who reduced the meaning of life to a number, that was Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. In “Monty Python’s The Meaning of LIfe” they say “Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.” I suspect you’ve either never read Adams or seen the Python movie, or if so for either, I think you need to review your sources because they are saying quite a bit more than your tortured references to them.

As to the ticking bomb nonsense – let’s take it at face value for a moment. If I’m a “terrorist” and I’ve planted a bomb big enough to blow up whatever city, killing any number of innocents – why would torture make me tell where it is? Why wouldn’t I just endure whatever you can dish out long enough to make sure the damn thing goes off? Or failing that, if I’m dedicated enough to go to all the trouble of planting a nuke – that is to say, years of planning and skulking about – and I just can’t take whatever devious torture Jack Bauer comes up with for me, why wouldn’t I just lie long enough to stall off and mislead the search until the thing explodes? Ultimately, “24″ notwithstanding, the ticking nuke scenario is silly. It’s an adolescent justification for torturing people, and nothing more than that.

If I take at face value your argument (as well as I can make it out) that it’s just a fact of life and only human nature to torture or do violence, then why obey any law except physical restraint? If I want to do something and there’s no one who can stop me, why not just do it? If that question intrigues you, may I recommend for you the works of Marquis de Sade. Particularly “Juliette” if you are the religious type, or “The 120 Days of Sodom” if you are a Jack Bauer fan. I suggest these in all seriousness. “Juliette” explores morality vs religion while “120 Days..” explores morality vs criminality. Despite their reputation, these are serious books and not for the faint-hearted. You might look at Pasolini’s “Salo” if you have less time to research your fears, however it also is not for the faint-hearted. Neither is facing up to your fears, actually.

I understand that it’s easy to be frightened in these times – you seem frightened yourself. But the reality is that those who are doing the frightening are part and parcel of a power-hungry state apparatus that has far more to gain from your fear than they do from your feeling of safety and contentment.

By: Lear K

Lear K — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:29:39 +0000

“One would think that the experience with the “cakewalk” in Iraq would make the US hesitant to attempt to occupy Afghanistan, an undertaking that would require the US to occupy parts of Pakistan. The US was hard pressed to maintain 150,000 troops in Iraq. Where is Obama going to get another half million soldiers to add to the 150,000 to pacify Afghanistan?

One answer is the rapidly growing massive US unemployment. Americans will sign up to go kill abroad rather than be homeless and hungry at home.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02092009.html

By: kirk hayes

kirk hayes — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:51:32 +0000

Create hardened enemies and then provoke them to action based on the hatred created. At this point, rush in to “defend” the public and provide “security” from the enemies created by those offering the defense and security. When the chumps loosely referred to as “christians” and “citizens” fall in line, as the majority always will, the road to tyranny has been paved.

We are now on that paved road with tyranny being the terminal stop.