Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
Get real people. The GC has never protected American POWs, not once. And the chances it will ever protect our POWs are slim to none unless we go to war with the UK or one of our other allies. I don't even think the fucking Mexicans would adhere to the GC if we went to war with them.
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Well said, cept for that Mexican dig. Our enemies have almost gone to great lenghts to prevent their soldiers from deserting (or sometimes, from even retreating). One of the common ways is to repeatedly tell your soldiers that they will be tortured. Oh, and while zee Ahmarycons are torturing yous, vee veel bee funking your mothers, sisters, daughters and wives as punishment for yous surrendering.
And, as long as its what they need to tell their people, and as long as the threat should be real to try and make sure the Americans don't feel constrained either, they torture our people.
One of my books on the Korean war has a picture of a dead American soldier on the side of a road in N. Korea with his arms bound behind his back. From the early days circa Chosin, there are numerous, numerous stories of systematic torture and execution of POWs.
And then there is the Bataan death march, the Bridge on the River Kwai forced labor in inhumane conditions, the exposure of torture as
the Soviet doctrine in the Vietnam war, the rape of female POWs in Iraq I and II, the fucking beheading of Americans on videotape (ok, terrorists aren't signatories), blah blah blah.
I hate to say this, but I think he-whose-name-begins-with-"Hit"-but-whose-name-should-never-be-stated-lest-one-automatically-lose-an-argument, may have been been the only guy who didn't have a policy of torturing Americans. Weird that, because his people tortured and murdered almost everybody else as policy.
Anyway, torture isn't wrong per-se (this is what you were saying, right). Its wrong when its not done for some important governmental purpose, or when its done in contravention of a treaty or what-have-you which you've voluntarily signed.
If we signed a treaty saying torture is wrong per-se, then I think we need to back out of the treaty and push for one that says we won't torture yours so long as you don't torture ours.
Along the lines of all above, if we do ever get in a conventional war with NK again, I'd encourage all of you not to surrender under any circumstance. Better to go down fighting than to end up in a picture with your arms bound and a bullet in your head.
But I think lots of other places will be nice these days if you ever have to surrender.
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