What did anyone expect

[denniseagle]

Gosh, you've read some book and now you're an expert. I don't need you to tell me what to read - I studied history at university, and, besides, I grew up with someone who [just about managed] to live through the actual experience. Someone would have to be either extremely arrogant or exremely stupid to suggest, as you have, that reading one book makes the difference about being qualified to comment on any particular issue.

As for the actions of the US/UK there are plenty of verifyable cases of torture and death in the 'war on terror'. Read the Amnesty reports for a start. As well as this, there is the out-sourcing of torture to other regimes http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6
Also consider the Padilla case - where an american citizen has been tortured in the US to the point where he can no longer assist in his own defence as he is so metally damaged.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/greenwald1.html

You can assume all you like, I find it tends to portray a certain ignorance towards others , seeing as you know very little about them.

Never stated I was an expert, never stated that I have read just one book, didn't inform you of my academic qualifications either, nor of my family history in relation to war crimes committed by the Japanese.

Like you it is a subject very close to a certain family member but not one I would endevour to use to score points.



I have asked for verifiable incidents where UK and US troops committed acts that bear relation to those committed by the Imperial Japanese army.
After all who was it that posted that they had done.....................?

I mentioned Lord Russell's book because it does furnish detailed accounts of war crimes committed by the Japanese, the example you brought forward.

 

[denniseagle]

So you think that because the US and UK are 'civilised' nations that torture and human rights abuses never take place?

I'd like to see some evidence please.

Never said that UK or US were 'civilised ' have I?
Please furnish the evidence where I have.

Never said that torture and human rights abuses NEVER take place have I ??
Again please post evidence.

Just questioned someones statement that UK and US troops have committed war crimes that bear any relation to those committed by the Imperial Japanese army and the GeStaPo ( though a real student of history would know far more war crimes were committed by the Waffen SS and those SS who manned the KZ's)


BTW going to answer my question about when US troops cut babies out of Vietnamese wombs to increase body counts?

 

[nino_savatte]

Never said that UK or US were 'civilised ' have I?
Please furnish the evidence where I have.

Never said that torture and human rights abuses NEVER take place have I ??
Again please post evidence.

Just questioned someones statement that UK and US troops have committed war crimes that bear any relation to those committed by the Imperial Japanese army and the GeStaPo ( though a real student of history would know far more war crimes were committed by the Waffen SS and those SS who manned the KZ's)


BTW going to answer my question about when US troops cut babies out of Vietnamese wombs to increase body counts?

Are you fucking thick? I answered your fucking question. Did I say that "US troops cut babies out of Vietnamese wombs to increase body counts"? Please produce the post where I said this or shut the fuck up.

My Lai

You want it, you Google it.

 

[ZAMB]

You can assume all you like, I find it tends to portray a certain ignorance towards others , seeing as you know very little about them.

Never stated I was an expert, never stated that I have read just one book, didn't inform you of my academic qualifications either, nor of my family history in relation to war crimes committed by the Japanese.

You kept on insisting I read the book like there weren't dozens of other sources for information on this matter.

Like you it is a subject very close to a certain family member but not one I would endevour to use to score points.

Who was trying to score points, you total sicko? I was trying to point out that torture is not just something that effects the victim - it can cause severe damage to whole families. The govt. and the RAF provided no medical support either - they shipped my dad back to NI as soon as he could walk properly and then forgot about him.
You might call my post point-scoring - I call it speaking from personal experience. [or is it only ok to post here about things you have read a certain book about?]

There is ample evidence that the UK used torture here in NI in the 70s - never mind its current little adventure with the US into the torture markets. I've posted examples on this and other threads - or you could always use your massive brainpower sufficiently to google it.

 

[ViolentPanda]

There is ample evidence that the UK used torture here in NI in the 70s...

And that the techniques used in N.I. were used to formulate the British Army's standard anti-interrogation training.

 

[denniseagle]

Are you fucking thick? I answered your fucking question. Did I say that "US troops cut babies out of Vietnamese wombs to increase body counts"? Please produce the post where I said this or shut the fuck up.

My Lai

You want it, you Google it.

Hipipol post #17 claimed US Troops increased body counts by cutting babies out of wombs in Vietnam

Army of One questioned the statement in post #18

Hipipol didn't reply to Army of Ones question .

YOUR reply to Army of Ones post#18 was ,

"There are legions of examples of cruelty meted out to the vietnamese at the hands of US troops. My Lai was only the tip of the iceberg (they were the ones who got caught in other words)

These 'legions of examples' ergo include incidents where babies were cut out of wombs to increase body counts.

If not why reply to Army of Ones post quoting his question to Hipipol????

I asked for verifiable details , not much to ask seeing as you stated your knowledge of 'legions of examples'

Comprende????

 

[denniseagle]

You kept on insisting I read the book like there weren't dozens of other sources for information on this matter.



Who was trying to score points, you total sicko? I was trying to point out that torture is not just something that effects the victim - it can cause severe damage to whole families. The govt. and the RAF provided no medical support either - they shipped my dad back to NI as soon as he could walk properly and then forgot about him.
You might call my post point-scoring - I call it speaking from personal experience. [or is it only ok to post here about things you have read a certain book about?]

There is ample evidence that the UK used torture here in NI in the 70s - never mind its current little adventure with the US into the torture markets. I've posted examples on this and other threads - or you could always use your massive brainpower sufficiently to google it.

YOU keep mentioning 'personal experience ' of the trauma of torture as if that give YOU the right to dismiss anyone elses opinion on the matter.

You also make far too many assumptions that YOU are the only one to have 'first hand ' knowledge where torture committed by the Japanese is concerned.

As I posted previously, I too have 'personal experience' of what a member of my family experienced at the hands of the Japanese.
Perhaps he was luckier than your father in that alcohol was a ready remedy to blot out what he had experienced, I don't know.

He too was left with a suit and his train fare home when he returned to these shores, 18 months after the end of the war and 5 years after he had left them.



I never once made any statement how torture affected the victim or their families, (please post where I did)
Nor have I stated the British Army has NEVER USED torture .
My posts have never stated my views on the use of torture.

I did however question YOUR statement that UK and US troops committed war crimes on par with those committed by the Imperial Japanese Army.

You seem to find answering that part of my posts difficult.
Care to give it a go anyway?

 

[denniseagle]

You kept on insisting I read the book like there weren't dozens of other sources for information on this matter.



Who was trying to score points, you total sicko? I was trying to point out that torture is not just something that effects the victim - it can cause severe damage to whole families. The govt. and the RAF provided no medical support either - they shipped my dad back to NI as soon as he could walk properly and then forgot about him.
You might call my post point-scoring - I call it speaking from personal experience. [or is it only ok to post here about things you have read a certain book about?]

There is ample evidence that the UK used torture here in NI in the 70s - never mind its current little adventure with the US into the torture markets. I've posted examples on this and other threads - or you could always use your massive brainpower sufficiently to google it.

YOU keep mentioning 'personal experience ' of the trauma of torture as if that give YOU the right to dismiss anyone elses opinion on the matter.

You also make far too many assumptions that YOU are the only one to have 'first hand ' knowledge where torture committed by the Japanese is concerned.

As I posted previously, I too have 'personal experience' of what a member of my family experienced at the hands of the Japanese.
Perhaps he was luckier than your father in that alcohol was a ready remedy to blot out what he had experienced, I don't know.

He too was left with a suit and his train fare home when he returned to these shores, 18 months after the end of the war and 5 years after he had left them.



I never once made any statement how torture affected the victim or their families, (please post where I did)
Nor have I stated the British Army has NEVER USED torture .
My posts have never stated my views on the use of torture.

I did however question YOUR statement that UK and US troops committed war crimes on par with those committed by the Imperial Japanese Army.

You seem to find answering that part of my posts difficult.
Care to give it a go anyway?

 

[ZAMB]

YOU keep mentioning 'personal experience ' of the trauma of torture as if that give YOU the right to dismiss anyone elses opinion on the matter.

You also make far too many assumptions that YOU are the only one to have 'first hand ' knowledge where torture committed by the Japanese is concerned.

BS - I originally only mentioned my experience in the context of how torture can effect future generations. I never said that no-one else has experienced this - I was putting it on the record that I had - at a time where there were some pretty blase posts about torture.

I never once made any statement how torture affected the victim or their families, (please post where I did)

Well, that was my main reason for posting about it - as stated above.

Nor have I stated the British Army has NEVER USED torture .
My posts have never stated my views on the use of torture.

I did however question YOUR statement that UK and US troops committed war crimes on par with those committed by the Imperial Japanese Army.

All torture is a war crime by international law - you cannot separate out degrees of torture and permit them - this goes against the law of both this country and the US - countries which are forever criticising others for their human rights records.

You seem to find answering that part of my posts difficult.
Care to give it a go anyway?

Not difficult at all - but you weren't actually asking me that, you were telling me what to read. If you read the Amnesty reports on torture that I posted you would see that this point [that torture is torture, and there are no grey areas] is made again and again.

Care to actually read my posts before you shoot your mouth off.
[BTW you didn't need to post your diatribe twice]

 

[bendeus]

FWIW, I had a relative who was captured in Singapore and routinely tortured in a Japanese labour camp until his release in '45.

From what I can gather, comparing the levels of inhumanity institutionally visited on British and Commonwealth soldiers by their captors to what is happening in Iraq is, IMO, a bit wide of the mark. We are talking of routine starvation, a high percentile of prisoners tortured or routinely executed, etc. This was conducted by a military dictatorship with a pliant media and a populace who believed that their supreme ruler was a god. In the modern, media-orientated age, this could not happen.

However much we like to compare 'our' brutes against 'their' brutes, we cannot, on these terms, find a parallel. We have brutes now, they behave in a brutish way, and sometimes they get away with it. There is, however, scrutiny. Often obfuscated and often weak, but word gets out, it gets into the papers, and people hear of it. Recent examples have shown that American and British troops and government operatives have been and are capable of the most appalling inhumanity towards prisoners, but this is not comparable to the scale of the atrocity visited on so many by the Japanese or the Gestapo in their labour camps and torture cells.

I can understand people's anguish at seeing more recent atrocities carried out 'in their name', and do not doubt that our bad guys are as capable of the next of meting out the most hideous and degrading of treatment, but there are checks and balances, as we have found out by the publicity surrounding Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the CIA special rendition prisons globally.

In cruelty they are the same. In terms of scale and impunity, they don't come close.

 

[denniseagle]

BS - I originally only mentioned my experience in the context of how torture can effect future generations. I never said that no-one else has experienced this - I was putting it on the record that I had - at a time where there were some pretty blase posts about torture.



Well, that was my main reason for posting about it - as stated above.


All torture is a war crime by international law - you cannot separate out degrees of torture and permit them - this goes against the law of both this country and the US - countries which are forever criticising others for their human rights records.



Not difficult at all - but you weren't actually asking me that, you were telling me what to read. If you read the Amnesty reports on torture that I posted you would see that this point [that torture is torture, and there are no grey areas] is made again and again.

Care to actually read my posts before you shoot your mouth off.
[BTW you didn't need to post your diatribe twice]

Post #42 comparison of Japanese being tried for war crimes whereas UK /US troops not.
YOUR POST.

Correct?

My proposition to you was to compare war crimes as documented in an easy to find and concise record by Lord Russell of Liverpool to those you seem to have knowledge of having been committed by UK/US troops.
And to then furnish details where they were in any way comparable.

Care to read MY original post before getting on YOUR high horse?

 

[denniseagle]

BTW double post due to computer crashing half way through posting not intentional in any way though would struggle to call my posting a diatribe in comparison to some on here ...................... still each to their own i suppose.

 

[denniseagle]

FWIW, I had a relative who was captured in Singapore and routinely tortured in a Japanese labour camp until his release in '45.

From what I can gather, comparing the levels of inhumanity institutionally visited on British and Commonwealth soldiers by their captors to what is happening in Iraq is, IMO, a bit wide of the mark. We are talking of routine starvation, a high percentile of prisoners tortured or routinely executed, etc. This was conducted by a military dictatorship with a pliant media and a populace who believed that their supreme ruler was a god. In the modern, media-orientated age, this could not happen.

However much we like to compare 'our' brutes against 'their' brutes, we cannot, on these terms, find a parallel. We have brutes now, they behave in a brutish way, and sometimes they get away with it. There is, however, scrutiny. Often obfuscated and often weak, but word gets out, it gets into the papers, and people hear of it. Recent examples have shown that American and British troops and government operatives have been and are capable of the most appalling inhumanity towards prisoners, but this is not comparable to the scale of the atrocity visited on so many by the Japanese or the Gestapo in their labour camps and torture cells.

I can understand people's anguish at seeing more recent atrocities carried out 'in their name', and do not doubt that our bad guys are as capable of the next of meting out the most hideous and degrading of treatment, but there are checks and balances, as we have found out by the publicity surrounding Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the CIA special rendition prisons globally.

In cruelty they are the same. In terms of scale and impunity, they don't come close.

Agree entirely , great post.

 

[ZAMB]

However much we like to compare 'our' brutes against 'their' brutes, we cannot, on these terms, find a parallel.

Parallel

They engage in torture [I do not think that torture comparisons are helpful - torture is an international criminal act, regardless of degree]

BUT People were executed or given life sentences for such crimes in WW2 - in comparison with the current US policy of getting these people out so that they can't be tried, or choosing a patsy who will be labelled as a 'bad apple'.

FWIW, My dad was also captured in Singapore.

 

[nino_savatte]

Hipipol post #17 claimed US Troops increased body counts by cutting babies out of wombs in Vietnam

Army of One questioned the statement in post #18

Hipipol didn't reply to Army of Ones question .

YOUR reply to Army of Ones post#18 was ,

"There are legions of examples of cruelty meted out to the vietnamese at the hands of US troops. My Lai was only the tip of the iceberg (they were the ones who got caught in other words)

These 'legions of examples' ergo include incidents where babies were cut out of wombs to increase body counts.

If not why reply to Army of Ones post quoting his question to Hipipol????

I asked for verifiable details , not much to ask seeing as you stated your knowledge of 'legions of examples'

Comprende????

Like I said, you want it, you Google it.

Tell me, were you around during the Vietnam War? Did you see the pictures of bloodshed on the telly every tea time?

You're trying to make an unnecessary issue out of this for whatever reason you have. The US military engaged in acts of wanton cruelty during the Vietnam War, that is fait accompli.

Comprends?