Iron said once that he was from Kenya... but English is an official language there as well, so that doesn't make his story any more convincing. So Iron, tell us, what's your life story?

Really, it's not suprising. I have seen plenty of native Americans with terrible terrible English, so I guess I am not awed.

|>I'm going to say this VERY carefully as to not spread the fire even more, so please don't misinterpret what I say. |>On September 11, 2001 19 terrorists from Al-Qaeda hijacked 4 passenger airplanes and flew 2 into the Twin Towers, 1 into the Pentagon, and 1 crashed into a field outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. |>Nearly 3000 people died in the attacks, 1100 of them first responders such as firefighters and medical staff.

|>I personally do not agree without waterboarding myself, and it has been outlawed here in the states (although they still probably use it). |>However, if I needed to torture 50-60 people in order to save 3000, I'd go right for it.

50-60? Rather thousands and thousands of innocent people! And not only that, in Iraq they even killed civilians and people who surrendered! Have you seen the "Collateral murder" clip?



|>Assuming the US has 300 million people, the death rate is 6887 per day. |>At 8.38 deaths/1,000 population (July 2009 est.). |>100's of people is small. |>Before you go acting all smart about things why don't you do you research first? |>If the US gets yelled at for invading Iraq and trying to stop the war there, wouldn't we do the same thing by invading Syria?

There's a difference between dying from old age or some random disease and dying because you were murdered in an act to protest against the government there! And I'm not saying America should invade it, I'm extremely against the US invading anything. But they won't even let the UN drop food and medical supplies on the people's villages!

Dude, Moros, don't get angry about the US' proud and successful history of invading brown countries! In life, one must play to their strengths, and our strength is invading people. And reality TV.

wat the heck i never said am from kenya

and i never said english schools were great texas also i don't hate the usa

"our"?

I thought you were from China!?

Texasjohn most american programs suck, and dont be proud because america can invade most countrys.

I live in China, but I am 100% Texan til I die!

And what's it mean, "most American programs suck"? Like computer programs? Social programs? Kicking ass programs? 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

|> I personally do not agree without waterboarding myself, and it has been outlawed here in the states (although they still probably use it). However, if I needed to torture 50-60 people in order to save 3000, I'd go right for it.

It doesn't matter if it has been outlawed in the States; US law does not apply in Guantanamo Bay.
Doesn't it shock you that it's outlawed but "they still probably use it"...!?
You're also contradicting yourself, on the one hand you don't agree with it, yet on the other hand you'd "go right for it".
Also, where do you draw the lines? Apart from the obvious "how much torture is okay", who's bad enough to be eligible? Torture 50 to save 3000 is one thing, but what if it's torture 1 to save 1 (example: torture the kidnapper to make him tell you where the victim is locked up before the victim starves to death)? Is that okay as well?

Some other problems with your statement:

- Legalizing torture wouldn't have prevented 9/11, who would you have tortured?
- There's a large amount of people in Guantanamo Bay who are actually innocent. And I don't mean the "innocent until proven guilty" technicality (which could take a while, since indefinite detention without even charging people seems to be okay nowadays), I mean in the "some Afghan dude hates some other guy, so he tells an American soldier the other guy is Taliban and he, how convenient, disappears" way.
- The whole torture-to-save-lives approach is broken: by the time the judicial system finally finishes the last appeal and once-and-for-all establishes someone is in fact a terrorist, any knowledge that guy has is so hopelessly outdated it's probably worthless. So, that means you can only possibly torture people who might be innocent. Sorry to get personal, but that means *you* could get tortured, just because a soldier or intelligence officer screwed up and got the wrong guy. Are you *sure* you still think torture should be legal...?
- The idea behind terrorism is not to kill us all, they want to force us into making decisions (whether that is not invading other countries or implementing an Islamic legal system) we would not otherwise (read: voluntarily) make. That's exactly the same concept behind torture: "We'll make the pain stop as soon as you tell us what we want to know" (versus "We'll stop killing random people as soon as you pull back your soldiers from Afghanistan"). Quite simply, torture is a form of terrorism.
- There's such a thing as human rights. I've always thought it makes absolutely no sense at all for people you take *prisoner* during the *war* on terror not to be considered prisoners of war, but I've never even heard an attempt by US officials to explain why human rights don't apply in Guantanamo Bay.

---

The point is that "we" (the Western world) are supposed to be the good guys. We'll have to find and use other ways to gather intelligence and prevent crimes and terrorism. If we give up our freedoms and turn into police states where everyone can "disappear" just for some vague suspicion he might've thought the wrong thing... *they win*!

|> Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah

As much as I would love to sit here discussing American Politics and such, it has no point. No one here is going to change anyone elses opinions. Us sitting here talking about it isn't going to matter. 10 years from now when they make new laws and crap, no one is going to say, "Wait! look what these dudes on Warlight said."

Stop flaming the [USA] Group thread, let them grow and prosper. If you want to keep talking about politics go make its own thread for it and stop doing it in random threads that have already been created.

TL;DR - Go be active in your community if you want to make a difference, nothing you say on this thread will change anyone opinions, and go make your own thread if you want to talk about politics.

|> Stop flaming the [USA] Group thread

There have been all of three on-topic reactions, all of them "not overly enthusiastic" with the idea of a USA Group and/or [USA] tag; I'm not going to feel guilty for "hijacking" the thread, as there really wasn't much of one to begin with.

|> Go be active in your community if you want to make a difference

No matter what I do in my community, that can't possibly have an effect on USA politics. Trying to explain Americans (the people who actually get to vote on USA elections) what I feel is wrong with current USA politics has at least an ever-so-small-but-nonzero chance of having an effect...

|> No matter what I do in my community, that can't possibly have an effect on USA politics. Trying to explain Americans (the people who actually get to vote on USA elections) what I feel is wrong with current USA politics has at least an ever-so-small-but-nonzero chance of having an effect...

Most Americans realize what's wrong with our political system. The problem is no one does anything about it because they all have the same attitude as you.