News Items

[DrSmellThis]

The Tribute. (\"http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/05/01/abc.nightline/index.html\")


The Importance of

Integrity. (\"http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/01/iraq.prisoner.reax/index.html\")

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[Holmes]

</font><blockquote><font

class=\"small\">Quote:</font><hr />
Newspapers across the Arab world ran the photographs of U.S. soldiers

humiliating hooded, naked detainees at Abu Ghraib prison on their front pages. Newspapers in Iraq did not carry the

photos.

<hr /></blockquote><font class=\"post\">

They must\'ve been running low on Kebap.


Holmes

[metroman]

I for one am incensed

by the whole Afghanistan/Iraq debacle!...I cant believe there isn\'t more protest over what is going on...It took

a lot of people of conscience in the 60\'s &amp; early 70\'s to make a difference in our society. You know

they\'re just waiting till after the election to bring back the draft...

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[koolking1]

A lot of you won\'t

like this but I think a return to the draft is a damn good thing. We need conscripts with no other agenda than to

do their 2 years or thereabouts to keep an eye on the \"professionals\" so that we don\'t have more of these

very disturbing instances of abuse in Iraq.

[DrSmellThis]

I see your point,

which is a valid consideration. Whether or not I would agree depends on the continuing course of terrorism between

now and then. But warrior types (here I am thinking of the mindset of Plato\'s Republic) will always need

extensive molding by their superiors to correctly channel aggression, and it is looking that the prisoner abuses

started with the abuser\'s superiors in army intelligence, who issued loose directives to \"break down\"

prisoners physically and psychologically, to \"prepare for interrogation\". Moreover, those directives were echoed

in general terms all the way at the top of military command. So there appears to be a systems issue.

Drafts

are difficult for everyone when your country gets involved in unjust wars, (even though now that we\'re there we

should take care of our share of the mess before exiting \"gracefully\".) as the \"good of the union\" and fair

price for democracy to be payed by young citizens and their families is weighed unpleasantly against the bad of

forcing so many to engage in dubious violence against their moral values. That is a really huge, dehumanizing

individual abuse to perpetrate upon so many individuals, even if it was outweighed by their \"duty to

serve.\" So that would be a very sad time indeed for our country. It would be interesting to see how the Feds treat

the conscientious objector issue if indeed this draft comes to pass. Perhaps there are alternatives besides throwing

hundreds of thousands of new soldiers at the problem.

[metroman]

How many young people

were cut down in Vietnam? And for what I ask you??? Enough of this \"John Wayne\" mentality...those are innocent

kids being killed &amp; maimed, Americans &amp; Iraqi\'s...the whole premise of the invasion of Iraq is based on

lies &amp; falsehoods...WMD my ass...Oh I know, it was because Sadam was a bad guy &amp; tortured his people &amp;

now were taking the moral high ground by what? Oh just torturing the Iraqi people! The real reason we invaded Iraq

is so Bush/Cheney et al &amp; their oil company crony buddies can get their hands on the second biggest oil deposits

in the world.

Lets stop using the young people of this world as canon fodder for the political despots who are

trying to ruin our world.