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Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

nytimes.com

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Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#51

Post by dualogy »

rublev wrote: post #49
spraak wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While Soros brightest younguns riot for transgender bathrooms when not on campus indulging in Play-Doh and therapy dogs.. What are you referencing?

Probably United We Dream.

> Probably United We Dream

And BLM and MoveOn and Femen and all those well-funded (mostly by the same "billionaire philantrophist" famed for regime change since the late 80s) "activist groups". Brilliant stuff, back around the millenium "young liberal idealists" took to the streets against neocon governmental action like Kosovo war, the first post-9/11 wars, "WTO/world bank/IMF globalization" and such. Today, it is someone like Trump singlehandedly dismantling TPP and TTIP before even taking office, while this generation of young liberals are protected in very "safe spaces" from the knowledge of their governments' MENA meddlings, wedding dronings, or indeed good ole Guantanamo.. quite convenient for the "Democrats" of the last 8 years that most of the liberals/millenials go around in circles about gender and race and vegan superfoods. Real issues in society. ODDLY convenient!

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#52

Post by ap22213 »

dualogy wrote: post #51
rublev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably United We Dream.

> Probably United We Dream And BLM and MoveOn and Femen and all those well-funded (mostly by the same "billionaire philantrophist" famed for regime change since the late 80s) "activist groups". Brilliant stuff, back around the millenium "young liberal idealists" took to the streets against neocon governmental action like Kosovo war, the first post-9/11 wars, "WTO/world bank/IMF globalization" and such. Today, it is s…

I have no idea what that all means.

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#53

Post by Belenus »

dualogy wrote: post #44
pmoriarty wrote: post #25

Trump has said that "torture works" , and "I like waterboarding a lot" , and that he would "bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding" . When asked about former CIA Director Michael Hayden’s recent comments that the military could defy unlawful orders to torture or kill civilians, Trump said, "They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse, believe me." Thanks 50% of American voters. You're helping to make…

That's what Obama gets for not closing Guantanamo Bay after 2 terms, 8 years+ since the promise. Different political brandings during the elections for the peons, same neocons behind the curtains doing Just Neocon Thangs. What would Hillary do, "we stayed, we tortured, they died"? While Soros brightest younguns riot for transgender bathrooms when not on campus indulging in Play-Doh and therapy dogs..

And now Trump says he's going to bring back the banned techniques. Great.

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#54

Post by pavlov »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #46
pavlov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read this: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-f... Yes, it's very long. It turned out to be much harder to close Guantánamo Bay than Obama thought, with powerful forces in the government opposing or stalling. (It's also illustrative of the difficulties Trump may have carrying through any of his promises that are controversial with the Republican orthodoxy.)

Whether it was feasible for Obama to close it or not, it's hard to deny that there was a fundamental shift in Obama's ideology once he took office (see: extra-judicial assassinations, abandoning Guantanamo closure, etc) I suspect that there are some pretty powerful briefings a new president receives that draw back the veil in such a way that targeted killings and torture seem like the only effective response.

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post today about these covert-op and nuclear briefings for the president-elect:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/presi...

Some quotes that kind of confirm what you inferred about Obama:

After one of the briefings in 2008, Obama told a close adviser that it was perhaps one of the most sobering experiences of his life. He said, “I’m inheriting a world that could blow up any minute in half a dozen ways, and I will have some powerful but limited and perhaps even dubious tools to keep it from happening.”

“Events are messy out there,” he said. “At any given moment of the day, there are explosive, tragic, heinous, hazardous things taking place.” He acknowledged that as president it was his responsibility to deal with all these problems. “People are saying, ‘You’re the most powerful person in the world. Why aren’t you doing something about it?’ ”

The following made my hair raise a bit:

Trump will receive a book of options benignly called the “Presidential Decision Handbook.” This top secret/code-word book, known as the “Black Book,” of about 75 pages has separate contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against potential adversaries such as Russia and China. ... Two officials said that the “Black Book” also includes estimates on the number of casualties for each of the main options that run into the millions, and in some cases over 100 million.

A man who habitually gets into 3am Twitter fights will command choices that can result in the near-instant death of 100+ million people. That's way more than Hitler, Stalin and Mao managed to kill all together. It's a strange world.

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#55

Post by vacri »

benchaney wrote: post #47
Chris2048 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comment said "of American voters". If you don't vote, you lose it, so why mention this?

Even if you include only votes cast, both Clinton and Trump got < 50% of votes.

Oh, then if Trump only got 47% of the vote, the OP's point is irrelevant? Phew.

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#57

Post by sean_patel »

dualogy wrote: post #51
rublev wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably United We Dream.

> Probably United We Dream And BLM and MoveOn and Femen and all those well-funded (mostly by the same "billionaire philantrophist" famed for regime change since the late 80s) "activist groups". Brilliant stuff, back around the millenium "young liberal idealists" took to the streets against neocon governmental action like Kosovo war, the first post-9/11 wars, "WTO/world bank/IMF globalization" and such. Today, it is s…

You lost me when you brought "vegan superfoods" into your rambling response :)

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#58

Post by pessimizer »

bitJericho wrote: post #4

The staff and all involved are traitors to the human race. I hope they're charged as war criminals some day.

They will die in their own beds, surrounded by their grandchildren, whom your grandchildren will be begging for a job.

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#59

Post by proksoup »

75j wrote: post #30

One of the most disturbing stories that I don't hear mentioned is of Sean Baker, who was working undercover for the USAF as part of an attempt to gauge the abuses at Guantanamo. Baker was beaten by the guards so badly that he got a serious brain injury. " In January 2003, Baker was ordered by an officer at Guantanamo to play the role of a prisoner in a training drill. [...] The soldiers in the reaction force were ope…

Seems pretty cruel to me. Would be nice if we had some sort of standards or guidelines or laws against this sort of treatment of prisoners.

Would one need a safe word at all if we did?

Re: Where Even Nightmares Are Classified: Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo

#60

Post by dualogy »

sean_patel wrote: post #57
dualogy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably United We Dream And BLM and MoveOn and Femen and all those well-funded (mostly by the same "billionaire philantrophist" famed for regime change since the late 80s) "activist groups". Brilliant stuff, back around the millenium "young liberal idealists" took to the streets against neocon governmental action like Kosovo war, the first post-9/11 wars, "WTO/world bank/IMF globalization" and such. Today, it is s…

You lost me when you brought "vegan superfoods" into your rambling response :)

I guess the essential message to my upper comments' parent was that when the "center-left" become neocons-in-practice-when-at-the-helm with plenty of social-justice-facade distractions (gender/race/bla) from the real crimes, the alt-right wins just a small-but-decisive extra contingent of people simply by sloganeering "let's tone down our too many military engagements in the world". A challenge to suggest such dynamics in brief outside the scope of a multi-page essay, but still wanted to quickly put the thought out there for anyone willing to ponder
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