Should anybody be charged with a crime for torture?

[Dan40]

The Treaty of Versailles "prevented" Germany from having an army of more than 100,000. with no tanks, airplanes, or subs. 6 ships were allowed.

Since that treaty was so punitive, WWII must have been our fault too.

The Japanese perspective that we forced, planned, instigated, the Pearl Harbor attack is interesting. Silly and stupid, but interesting.
I read a history book in Germany [actually a few German history books]. They disavow any responsibility for Hitler. The country was in turmoil with NEW Governments coming in AND going out, sometimes in the same day. Their version is the Hitler's Government was the FORTY-FIFTH different Government in a 90 day period. So HOW could they know he would turn out to be a mad man?

[Ron61]

Dan,

And they did abide by the treaty as they built the guns, planes, and subs and ships for other nations and were doing it just to generate jobs for the German people. Of course with German efficiency they had to test them before they would put them on the market.

Ron

[Excaliber]

So let me get this straight. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because the USA made them? Which is like a defense for drunk driving, "I didn't mean to your Honor 'cause I was drunk." Or maybe it falls under the category of "The devil made me do it." How about the drug addict who does burglary because he HAS to have the money to get more drugs and his addiction made him do it.

Unbelievable that someone from Japan would even SUGGEST such a stupid excuse for war! And this is in their TEXT BOOKS????

I understand the screwed up thinking process being espoused here. America didn't want to go to war, something had to be done to pull them in, blah blah blah. Ten pounds of BS in an eight pound sack, and it stinks!

Two words: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

[Tatsushige]

Originally Posted by Jamo

Steve...it's just fine, but it seems to me that if we are the ones guaranteeing their existence, we ought not hear nary a peep from that quarter.

That is funny ... the ONLY reason the US is NOT a 3rd world country at the moment is because both Japan and China holds over $900 Billion worth of your debt. Clinton was here a few months ago asking Japan to purchase another $100 billion to keep the US a float from going under.

Now if you know anything, if both Japan and China decided to DUMB the US bonds that they both hold it would send the US$ crashing faster than the WTC's hitting the deck, the US would take the same path that Argentina has taken. And look at the dumb.

I think it is Japan and China that are guaranteeing YOUR existence, and we ought not hear a peep from the US

Also look in to who is paying for your stupid wars, 2008 Bush asked Japan for $400 Billion which Japan handed over, against what the public wanted, The Japanese Tax payers said "NO it is a US Cluster F**K let the US citizens pay for it" But as the US is BROKE it once again has come to Japan to borrow money!

You have only just paid for the US embassy that was 15 years late at $10 Million a year, That bill was $225 Million. Thank you for paying that, please make sure you pay on time for now on.

Originally Posted by Excaliber

So let me get this straight. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because the USA made them? Which is like a defense for drunk driving, "I didn't mean to your Honor 'cause I was drunk." Or maybe it falls under the category of "The devil made me do it." How about the drug addict who does burglary because he HAS to have the money to get more drugs and his addiction made him do it.

Unbelievable that someone from Japan would even SUGGEST such a stupid excuse for war! And this is in their TEXT BOOKS????

I understand the screwed up thinking process being espoused here. America didn't want to go to war, something had to be done to pull them in, blah blah blah. Ten pounds of BS in an eight pound sack, and it stinks!

Two words: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Excaliber, Go look up on the NET the US Declassified Doc

"The McCollum Memo:
The Smoking Gun of Pearl Harbor"

On October 7, 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum of the Office of Naval Intelligence submitted a memo to Navy Captains Walter Anderson and Dudley Knox. Captains Anderson and Knox were two of President Roosevelt's most trusted military advisors.

The memo, detailed an 8 step plan to provoke Japan into attacking the United States. President Roosevelt, over the course of 1941, implemented all 8 of the recommendations contained in the McCollum memo. Following the eighth provocation, Japan attacked. The public was told that it was a complete surprise, an "intelligence failure", and America entered World War Two.

This memo, which proves that the government of the United States desired to lure Japan into an attack, was declassified in 1994.

A little from the Memo

9. It is not believed that in the present state of
political opinion the United States government is capable of
declaring war against Japan without more ado; and it is barely
possible that vigorous action on our part might lead the
Japanese to modify their attitude. Therefore, the following
course of action is suggested:

A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of
British bases in the Pacific, particularly
Singapore.
B. Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of
base facilities and acquisition of supplies
in the Dutch East Indies.
C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government
of Chiang-Kai-Shek.
D. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to
the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore.
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient.
F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in
the Pacific in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese
demands for undue economic concessions,
particularly oil.
H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan,
in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed
by the British Empire.

10. If by these means Japan could be led to commit an
overt act of war, so much the better. At all events we must be fully
prepared to accept the threat of war.

Excaliber, Two words: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY


Go to war with Iraq because of WMD, Unbelievable that someone from the USA would even SUGGEST such a stupid excuse for war! Maybe they should look at the WMD in their own back yard and start a war with themselves.

[Jamo]

Tatsushigi...you're most certainly providing an interesting perspective here.

Please be aware that you are being a bit, shall we say "aggressive" in your comments which border on being a rather unmitigated example of complete and utter valueless utterances.

Calm down a bit so you can stick around here for longer than knat fart.

[Dan40]

Tatsushigi,
You must be a sad, sad, HIGHLY IMPRESSIONABLE, conspiracy theorist.

Your "source," whatreallyhappened.com is a comedy store. Reading thru just a little of their site says, "EVERY WAR THE US HAS BEEN IN, IS a result of US Gov't conspiracy to START that war.

The 'Maine' a plot
Pearl Harbor, a plot
Vietnam, a plot,
Kosovo, a plot,,
Iraq, a plot, Don't know how they skipped over the Alamo.

Here is a excerpt from the site:
"While several American Presidents have willingly started wars for personal purposes, perhaps no President has ever carried it to the extreme that Bill Clinton has.

Coincident with the expected public statement of Monica Lewinsky following her testimony, Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on Sudan and Afghanistan, claiming to have had irrefutable proof that bogeyman extraordinaire (and former Afghani ally) Osama Bin Ladin was creating terrorist chemical weapons there.

Examination of the photos of the debris revealed none of the expected structures one would find in a laboratory that handled lethal weapons-grade materials. Assurances from the CIA that they had a positive soil test for biological weapons fell on their face when it was revealed that there had been no open soil anywhere near the pre-bombed facility. Sudan requested that international observers come test the remains of the factory for any signs of the nerve gas Clinton had insisted was there. None was found. The Sudanese plant was a harmless aspirin factory, and the owner has sued for damages.

Later examination of the site hit in Afghanistan revealed it to be a mosque.


Click for larger image
Meanwhile, back in Kosovo, stories about genocide and atrocities were flooding the media (in time to distract from the Sudanese embarrassments), just as lurid and sensational and as it turns out often just as fictional as most of William Randolph Hearst's stories of atrocities against the Cubans.

Again, the government and the media were hoaxing Americans. The above photo was shown on all the American networks, claiming to be one of Slobodan Milosovic's Migs, shot down while attacking civilians. Closer examination (click on the photo) shows it to be stenciled in English!

Like Germany under Chancellor Hitler, there have been events in our nation which strike fear into the hearts of the citizens, such as the New York World Trade Tower bombing, the OK City Federal Building, and the Olympic Park bomb (nicely timed to divert the media from witnesses to the TWA 800 shoot down). The media has been very quick to blame such events on "radicals", "subversives", "vast right wing conspiracies", and other "enemies in our midst", no different than the lies used by Cicero and Hitler. "

Liberals are going to be upset that Clinton was the worst!

So thanx for the laughs

[392cobra]

Originally Posted by Jamo

Tatsushigi...you're most certainly providing an interesting perspective here.

Please be aware that you are being a bit, shall we say "aggressive" in your comments which border on being a rather unmitigated example of complete and utter valueless utterances.

Calm down a bit so you can stick around here for longer than knat fart.

Tatsushigi,
Are you by any chance related to VRM - Steve ?
Or maybe go to the same school ?

Just askin'.

[Tom Kirkham]

With all the talks about prosecuting the lawyers...

I would be a little bit nervous if I were a White House Lawyer working on bail outs...

[Tatsushige]

Dan40, I trust the US as much as I trust a terrorist with a IED strapped to his chest.... NOT!

With any luck Obama will chance the crappy image the US has around the world!




PS : Can you let me and the rest of the world know when you find the WMD in Iraq please. I like to know what my taxes are paying for!

[stuartb]

That's the problem with the rest of the world they think that its all about image, but it's not it is about [size="6"]RESULTS[size="3"]. That is pretty much why the U.S. has to be police man to the world.

[Ronbo]

Perhaps you slept through the Chemical attacks and the de-classified info about the 300 tons of yellowcake that was removed from Iraq.

As far as trusing governments with WMDs, how about the nuke test in Australia back in the 50s where they "forgot" to relocate the local natives.

You know I hear this pissing and moaning about how the US is this big bully, yet you a-holes never consider the fact that even you take for granted the US will never attack you.

As far as your "scoop" that our government provoked Japan, well Japan was trying to solve it's age old problem of lack of land mass to support it's population by grabbing territories in SE Asia. The US was well aware of the atrocities they were commiting in these countries. My Parents as well as others told me of the newsreels that were shown in the US prior to Dec '41 of footage of Japanese soldiers commiting horrible acts (like tossing babies in the air and catching them on their bayonets).

Not to mention the medical experiments, death marches, ect. Maybe you need to crack open a few books (outside of Japan) to enlighten yourself.

Until then might I suggest a non-US forum???

[Tatsushige]

Originally Posted by Ronbo

Maybe you need to crack open a few books (outside of Japan) to enlighten yourself.

Australian Born and raised to a British Father and Sicilian Mother, I was educated in the same western bulls**t you yanks are brainwashed with, the only difference is I have lived in over 8 countries around the world and have cracked open a lot of books and learnt that the Western History Crap we were taught is school IS bulls**t by the US, UK and Australian Government. You learn more when you can speak, read and write other languanges.

I only moved to Japan in 2003. I spent 2 years living in Taiwan in the early 1990’s, and if you care to learn Chinese and travel to Taiwan, you will read their history books that showed the Emperor of China asked Japan for help in the 1930's because the Communist were taking over China. Japan was helping the Emperor and the National Party to set up a Country with in China, but the Communists cried to the US and the US wanted to help but could not unless their declared war against Japan, which also leads to the US provoking Japan to war.

Most of the murders in China were carried out by the National Party that ended up fleeing to what is now known as TAIWAN. But at the end of WWII the US and China BLAMED Japan for most of the Murders in China, if you care to get an education you will read in both Taiwan History Books and Japanese History books that the Japanese only killed about 100,000 people the rest of the people killed were by both the National Party of China and the Communist Party of China. But Hey China will NOT tell the truth when they get $10Billion a year from Japan as compensation for WWII that the US forced on Japan when the US was occupying Japan.

Question to you, Why did the US military in the Korean War stand by and watch as the South Korean Government murdered over 100,000 of their own citizens. It has been in the news a lot of late with Photos of US military Personal standing by and taking photos of the South Korean Military murdering civvies and tossing the bodies in to mass graves.

Death squads and mass graves: the full horror of the Korean War, finally unearthed

Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's US-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.

With US military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea.

Women and children were among those killed, many of whom never faced charges or trial.

Blah Blah Blah

Through the postwar decades of South Korean right-wing dictatorships, victims' fearful families kept silent about that blood-soaked summer. American military reports of the South Korean slaughter were stamped "secret" and filed away in Washington. Communist accounts were dismissed as lies.

Only since the 1990s, and South Korea's democratization, has the truth begun to seep out.

In 2002, a typhoon uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine.

Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city.

Now Kim's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has added government authority to the work of scattered researchers, family members and journalists trying to peel away the long-running cover-up.

The commissioners have the help of a handful of remorseful old men.

"Even now, I feel guilty that I pulled the trigger," said Lee Joon-young, 83, one of the executioners in a secluded valley near Daejeon in early July 1950.

The retired prison guard said he knew that many of those shot and buried en masse were ordinary convicts or illiterate peasants wrongly ensnared in roundups of supposed communist sympathizers. They didn't deserve to die, he said. They "knew nothing about communism."

The 17 investigators of the commission's subcommittee on "mass civilian sacrifice," led by Kim, have also been dealing with 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks.

Blah Blah Blah

In 1953, after the war ended in stalemate, after the deaths of at least 2 million people, half or more of them civilians, a US Army war crimes report attributed all summary executions here in Daejeon to the "murderous barbarism" of North Koreans.

Such myths survived a half-century, in part because those who knew the truth were cowed into silence.

You can see (In Red Font) the US LIED about the MURDERS and BLAMED the NORTH KOREANS. So you are telling me I should believe the US about Japan and WWII.. yeah right, in ya dreams!

Not that I really give a rats a**e about the South Koreans, but let me Guess, if you are on the US side you can commit any crime against humanity that you like and get away with it, but if you are not on the US side then you will hear the BS from the US for the next 100 years.






My advice to you, obtain a passport and leave the security of the US, travel the world, crack open a few books outside of the US to EDUCATED yourself, but we both know that will NOT happen, as when you can only speak English, you cannot know the truth in other languages, so you are stuck believing the BS you are taught in English!

Another problem with westerns is that we have a CLOSED mind and REFUSE to accept other things and will ONLY believe what we have been taught from when we were children. When OTHERS try and tell us something that is NOT to our liking or beliefs we label then as crack pots or lefties or any number of other small minded labels.

[Dan40]

Originally Posted by Tatsushige

Dan40, I trust the US as much as I trust a terrorist with a IED strapped to his chest.... NOT!

With any luck Obama will chance the crappy image the US has around the world!




PS : Can you let me and the rest of the world know when you find the WMD in Iraq please. I like to know what my taxes are paying for!

You are mired in misguided conspiracy nonsense. Who you trust only matters to the weirdos that have you brainwashed into believing absolute dribble. Distrust the US all you want, but remember, without the US you would NOT be able to post your fanatic rantings.

[fsstnotch]

I did not read all of this thread.. mainly the first page and some of the 2nd but here is my take. Mind you, I served in teh military during this umm... war? Lived at Camp Bucca for a year which is one of the biggest prisons in Iraq... sorry.. the Government doesn't want them called prisons anymore because we don't take prisoners.. we take "detainees." So Detainment Facility!

Anyways, the question is should anyone be charged for torture? The answer.... unfortunately YES. Taking orders or not, every military member is given the same training. The training that says to do the right thing even if ordered to do else. Also unfortunate for these individuals is the Geneva Conventions Act of 1957 that says all prisoners will be treated fairly yadda yadda yadda.

Now if the question had read.. Do I think they should be punished? For the most part my answer would be no. Why? Imagine the message we would be sending to the world if we treated prisoners.. err.. detainees, sorry, like these criminals treat our PRISONERS. Cutting their heads off, etc. The difference here is that we are fighting CRIMINALS... not other countries who follow any sort of rules of war. And that is why I don't feel geneva conventions should apply so much here. To an extent, yes... but partly not.

That's my take. Like it or not! haha

[Jamo]

Tatsushige...you're actually promoting the arguement that Japan was trying to save China?

...and I s'pose Okinawa invited the Japanese to come in and set up shop as well?

Are you Turkish?

[Tatsushige]

Jamo .... and I s'pose Hawaiians invited the US to come in and set up shop as well?

Are you Jewish?


Any way go research the Last Emperor of China and you will see his brother Pujie, was married to Hiro Saga, a distant cousin to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito and they asked Japan for HELP against the Communist that were taking over China. NOW do not read english sites as a lot of it is BULL, go read Japanese or Taiwanese sites where the TRUTH is on what REALLY happened!

After WWII he was FORCE by the Chinese to go against the Japanese or be EXECUTED when he returned to Mainland China.

[Ron61]

Maybe you should remove this lne from your signature since you obviously don't live by it.

You only live once, so forgive and forget.


Ron

[Jamo]

No, not Jewish, but you obviously missed the point.

You know, I pride myself on being pretty damn open minded about historical accounts and have done a fair share of study in my lifetime. Seems to me that while you broadbrush Westerners about being closed minded, you seem to have built up quite a strict viewpoint on how you perceive things.

I've read numerous accounts of Chinese political situation in the early 20th Century and it is evident that the Japanese hardliner recreation of those events (what you seem to believe as the absolute truth) have been disregarded by historians from all over the world...and most certainly by the millions of folks who suffered under the brutal march to empire by the Japanese warlords. Obviously, this includes far more nationalities than the Chinese.

My point is that there is a slim minority of folks who belong to cultures who have committed attrocities in the past who seek to recreate history and deny historical events. You are certainly entitled to your beliefs, but please don't presume them to be welcome in the face of overwhelming factual data.

Me thinks your time in the spotlight on this subject has passed.

[bomelia]

Originally Posted by Jamo

...My point is that there is a slim minority of folks who belong to cultures who have committed attrocities in the past who seek to recreate history and deny historical events. You are certainly entitled to your beliefs, but please don't presume them to be welcome in the face of overwhelming factual data.

Me thinks your time in the spotlight on this subject has passed.

Well said. This would of course, include the Germans. To Tat: 60 years after both "empires" of slaughter met their demise, superiority again raises its ugly head in a new form. Elitism (you will find friends here). Both cultures (Japan and Germany) have caused more death and mayhem in this world than any US unilateral, military actions. Japan owes its existance and wealth status to the US. The US asks for nothing in return. No land. No booty. Nothing. Except that you behave like civilized human beings. Now, your line of thinking is taking it too far. You are not better than the rest of us. But you are a good friend. Please don't trampel all over that.

Mike

[Jamo]

Keep it nice, Dan.