"Palme D'Or" for Mike Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11&

[ShadowHM]

*sigh* How I tire of hearing this. 

You and me both! Your post is full of such tripe that it is hard to know where to start or complete a response. It was even harder to decide whether I felt like squandering energy and time responding at all, because it is unlikely that you are going to pay any attention and I there are limits to my time and energy for this sort of discourse. However, here goes:

People who oppose dealing with a grotesquely brutal dictator hated by all and who consistently caused or encouraged unrest in the Middle East simply cannot be reasoned with.

What reasoning are you thinking of? The end of that line of thinking has the U.S. of A. 'dealing with' an alarming number of brutal regimes all over the world. And if you are suggesting that only the Middle East deserves such care and attention, then you are falling right into the trap of saying that only brutal dictatorships that impact on oil are important.

Too often, they abandon reason for a blinding desire to accuse the Bush administration of scandal and incompetence.

That may well be true. It is human nature to demonize those with whom we disagree. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of scandal and incompetence demonstrated already. President Bush started this war on the pretext of still undiscovered Weapons of Mass Destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein. So he either lied about his reasons or he acted too hastily on poor information. So take your pick - scandalous or incompetent; he certainly is one of the two.

If unconventional methods aren't going to be used to extract information, information will not be gained by the good guys.

If 'unconventional methods' is a code for ignoring basic human rights, then it really does not matter. The basic premise of democracy is that everyone has the same rights. The test of democracy is whether the scum get the same rights as the privileged.

More innocent Americans will die simply so that maniacal extremists receive the same rights as a petty shoplifter.

And what about innocent Iraqi lives? Do they matter as much as innocent American lives? You seem to be suggesting that they do not.

America's enemies in the modern era do not follow the same rules we do.

And this means that your ideals should be tossed aside so that you can descend to their level?

Certainly, the abuse at Abu Graib was disgusting, and those Reservists had no business getting their punk-asses involved in the U.S. military.

There are a whole series of responses to that comment. However, it would appear from what little has been made public so far that the problem was systemic, not just a few poorly prepared and overworked reservists. And that is a serious problem that does need to be addressed.

However, people whining about discomforture* and psychological torture need to shut their holes.

So in your democracy there is no room for dissent of any kind? And since those are vague terms, how much discomfiture and for how long do you really think is a suitable amount to allow, especially with no legal recourse for the accused?



* That typo/misspelling would be almost amusing if the topic were not so grave. Discomfiture is one thing. But your spelling makes it look like 'mild torture'. Exactly what does 'discomforture' imply?