The Bobcat Nation

Can someone please tell me what is worse. Michael Moore exposing and publicizing
possible corruption in our government, industry and /or military, thus allowing both
ourselves AND our enemies to see our warts and problems OR the Bush administration
arguing that Torture should be allowed against our enemies/ combatants.

Follow the link:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040608_96.html

Even though Michael Moore is a film maker / political satirist / entertainer / propagandist
(choose your poison), I would argue, that Moore represents, what the true spirit, and
meaning of the term " patriot" as our founding fathers truly meant our constitution to
represented by. Moore is using the rights provided by our constitution (whether you
agree with his positions or not) to hold our politicians and citizenship’s feet to the fire,
EXACTLY as our founding fathers intended. By doing what he is doing he is I would
argue that there is nothing more Patriotic, and honors our country more, than his action.

On the other hand the Bush administration is trying to argue on technicalities that our
constitution should not apply to certain situations, thus undermining our own constitution
at the same time. We are talking Torture, here folks. I can not find anything more
repulsive than arguing before a court that our government should be able to sanction
torture. Some times sh*t happens and we find out thing have happened like what
occurred with the prisoners in Iraq, I don't like it and I am not proud of it, but because of
our country's constitution we are allowed to discover / expose and thus stop it. This
would not happen in 80% of the countries in the world. This though is completely
different. This was not rouge elements going unchecked, this was our head man (Bush)
saying “come on let us torture people, a little”! I find nothing patriotic in this action.

Just to offset the sensationalist headlines that the "torture" paper has caused in most media outlets, it should be noted that the paper was only a draft position paper done over a year ago by staff attorneys opining on the legalities of torture. It wasn't a policy paper or anything eventually adopted by the administration, and the conclusions of the paper have never been incorporated into any formal policies. It's essentially a memo that was disregarded by the ultimate decision makers, or perhaps it was considered as a measuring stick as to what the upper extreme limits of actions allowable would be, and then actual policy was set well below that threshhold (at least as far as public record is concerned).

MslaCat, I'm not sure where you are getting the information that the administration has argued in front of any court that torture is acceptable. At least their lip service to this topic in the press has been just the opposite. To my knowledge, this issue hasn't come up in any court to date.

As to the question of Moore's place as a "patriot," I would say that he is no more or no less a patriot than your typical person. If he wasn't such a self-promoter and was simply advancing a cause pro bono, I might give him more credit, but as is, he's just a good marketing guy in my book. I certainly don't place him lower on the patriot scale than a habitual flag waver simply because he chooses to question the decisions of our government, though.

Your point regarding the Founding Fathers is right on. In fact, if we think that Moore or anyone is nasty when it comes to smear campaigns in the modern day, just do some reading on the nasty stuff that went on in late 1700's politics. They challenged each other and dissented strongly in many cases, to put it mildly.

First, history decides who gets to be labeled a patriot and who doesn't IMHO. Thus Michael Moore doesn't get to be a patriot today, in my book - maybe 20-30 or 50 years from now. Unless he makes a much bigger impact on American politics or some other social aspect, history will probably forget Michael Moore in the long run. Plus, if what geogfather said is true about the 'untruths' told by Moore, most everyone would agree that being a liar and patriot are mutually exclusive.

Second, the U.S. Constitution is the basis for how U.S. citizens govern ourselves. It has nothing to do with how the U.S. military conducts war. You might want to make that leap, but such a leap can simply not be made - which is probably why the lawyers broached the subject in the first place.

Third, where do you draw the line on torture? I understand that the thought of torturing another human is repulsive, but what if an enemy had information that could lead to the saving of the lives of POW's or hostages, or it could lead to the capture of bin Laden?

Bleedinbluengold wrote:
Third, where do you draw the line on torture? I understand that the thought of torturing another human is repulsive, but what if an enemy had information that could lead to the saving of the lives of POW's or hostages, or it could lead to the capture of bin Laden?

What if the person had no information and was tortured?
Doesn't the Geneva Convention prohibit torture. If we were to make a practice of torture, it would invite others to do the same to our citizens.

the torture discussion is very interesting...this is what i know for what it is worth...torture is never a written policy...it is "institutionalized" by those in charge turning their heads when it is carried out...the torture "policy" is more of an internal military "grapevine" that "legitimatizes" activities or "procedures" that are carried out by subordinates...all superior officers were aware that torture was being used to gather info...

for example in southeast asia all those years ago torture was unfortunately common...pows were commonly locked in conex containers (steel cargo boxes) in the sun (commonly in excess of 100+ degrees) for hours without water to force the pow to talk in specifics regarding anything of military interest...in other circumstances pows would be taken up in helicopters for interrogation...sometimes the helicopter returned to the pad without the pows...

sometimes the torture was left to the koreans...the vietnamese...but the most effective at extracting intelligence was the cia...and other paramilitary operatives...

war is the most ugly of human endeavors...unless you have participated in a war there is just no way to explain or rationalize it...to my dismay torture is part of war and it always will be...

the information i've just posted is not hearsay or wild accusations...so i would appreciate it if it stands unedited...