I'm reading this book now, and I thought it was a shame she focused so much on trying to sell the book overall instead of answering the guy's questions.
Secret Prisons? We got none, right?

Remember those CIA rendition flights? They take you wherever in the world they want to torture you. No judge, no jury. Secret until somebody leaks it to the press. They even tried to kidnap a guy in Italy but their gov't found out. At least with the Gulags, everyone knew about them.

I find especially idiotic the question of what to do with these enemy combatants if we can't keep them in Guantanamo forever. Hey, I know, let's have a TRIAL where the gov't shows their evidence and lets the accused defend themselves against the charges. It's likely some people who have been rotting away in Guantanamo for 4 years haven't even been told why they are being held. Imagine living like that because some neighbor who hated you told the visiting US Army that you were a Taliban, and whoops, off you go. Does this situation more closely resemble a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, you tell me?

When she finally gets around to mentioning how the UK and Spain dealt with terrorists(following the law, regular trial), he just interrupts and laughs at her, then poses the question again as if she wasn't answering it. An inattentive viewer would just think she was going off on a tangent and didn't answer the question, being evasive because she can't answer directly.

The surveillance of citizens is the one point that disturbs me most as it affects many more Americans than secret prisons. I would have liked to see how Kasich explains how good this is, and also legal. Another post-9/11 power grab that the public still would not know about if it hadn't been leaked to the press. ATT currently filters all their internet traffic and lets the NSA spy on it with no warrants or oversight!! How is this legal?

The interviewer's bias is readily apparent, the best way she could have responded was succinctly answer his questions with facts, no long speeches. They call this a news channel?

ad hom from both sides... classy!

anyway ignoring that, i was intrigued by the "i've seen thousands of smiles" thing.

i mean, there's millions of people who wrongly support the war or in the short term think it's a good thing, but that doesn't make it right.

i could go to america and find millions of bush supporters, but that doesn't make bush a good president.

and no gunrock, people tend not to flip the bird at american soldiers occupying their country. for a start they don't even have the bird in their culture, and you might find they have a different opinion behind closed doors when the US Army isn't within 10 metres holding a big gun. Am i right?

Being a soldier "on the ground" might actually obscure the truth from you, rather than give you more qualification to say things about the war.

MINK:

I haven't had much experience with Marines but I've seen the US Army in action quite a bit and I have to say it's pretty par for the course. They're mostly late teens/early twenties and as most young men do when you get a critical mass of them they act like frat boys. With the added bonus that at least the ACTUAL frat boys passed High School for the most part.

How many intelligent people have you met who joined the US military as an enlisted rank (non officer)? The ones I knew could barely read and write.

P.S. This is not a dis of the US soldiers, it is rather a state of affairs brought about by a highly biased education system and a policy of quantity over quality in recruitment and low wages. Instead of putting the money into training and better wages the US military establishment would rather spend the money on implausible technologies that might maybe one day be somewhat better than useless because that is where the big donations come from for the politicians.

Or he's just been around the US Army long enough to pick up the vocabulary of its rank and file

c'mon... you guys gotta at least wonder... at a US army boot camp, first couple of days straight off the bus from home... do our N00Bs look much better? Synchronization takes practice people.

Lurch, i would refer to bases in germany, uk, lithuania and literally scores of other countries as a form of occupation, it's a kind of quiet empire. The presence of those bases gives the USA considerable political leverage.
"state sponsored killing" referred to collateral damage, not bases. i would definitely call the US Army blowing up Iraqi civilians "state sponsored killing". Hope that explains it.

As for the whole "there will be bloodshed if we withdraw"... damn, as if there isn't bloodshed now, and as if the bloodshed will stop quicker with an occupying christian army on their soil. Comparisons to Vietnam are interesting... last time I checked Vietnam was not a communist stronghold bathing in blood.

What you are saying, by extension, is "there should be US troops in every country where there's bloodshed" and that is totally impossible. What is so different about Iraq? Why not go prevent the bloodshed in Sudan or Burma or China or Russia? No war proponent has ever explained this to me.

About those bases you say aren't permanent:

We're talking about a U.S. embassy compound under construction these last years that's meant to hold 1,000 diplomats, spies, and military types (as well as untold numbers of private security guards, service workers, and heaven knows who else). It will operate in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone as if it were our first lunar colony. According to William Langewiesche, writing in Vanity Fair, it will contain "its own power generators, water wells, drinking-water treatment plant, sewage plant, fire station, irrigation system, Internet uplink, secure intranet, telephone center (Virginia area code), cell-phone network (New York area code), mail service, fuel depot, food and supply warehouses, vehicle-repair garage, and workshops."
...
When it comes to American construction projects in Iraq, the sky's really the limit. Just recently, National Public Radio's Defense Correspondent Guy Raz spent some time at Balad Air Base about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad. As Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post reported, back in 2006, Balad is essentially an "American small town," so big that it has neighborhoods and bus routes -- and its air traffic rivals Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174858/baseless_considerations

Of course they don't want to kill Bin Laden, but too many people find that concept oh so hard to fathom or swallow. You can still meet people that think they are legitimately bringing freedom and democracy through military occupation in Iraq.

The whole prerogative is to keep the population in a perpetual state of fear. "You shouldn't get rid of us! The terrorists! No one else knows how to fight this war but yes! We don't need checks and balances because that threatens national security! TRUST US!"

It's the beginnings of an authoritarian state, weaken the democracy through fear.

But as I said this is a concept people find too hard to take in the US, Even though the government lies to them profusely they willingly accept anything that comes from them. Anything else is attacked as being anti-american, anti-military, anti-whatever as long as you shut up.

In reply to this comment by MINK:
Farhad, you seem to be making the mistake of thinking that they actually wanted to kill bin laden, which i doubt, seeing as they attacked from all directions except the pakistani border.

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
This is stupid. The US army keeps assuming that it can counter any force threat with enough technology. Network centric warfare, asymmetrical warfare, Future combat systems, don't mean shit when you are an occupational army. The enemy will adapt to counter your technology, MOABs slamming into all part of Tora Bora did not end the Taliban nor did they kill Osama Bin Laden.

Farhad, you seem to be making the mistake of thinking that they actually wanted to kill bin laden, which i doubt, seeing as they attacked from all directions except the pakistani border.

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
This is stupid. The US army keeps assuming that it can counter any force threat with enough technology. Network centric warfare, asymmetrical warfare, Future combat systems, don't mean shit when you are an occupational army. The enemy will adapt to counter your technology, MOABs slamming into all part of Tora Bora did not end the Taliban nor did they kill Osama Bin Laden.

This is stupid. The US army keeps assuming that it can counter any force threat with enough technology. Network centric warfare, asymmetrical warfare, Future combat systems, don't mean shit when you are an occupational army. The enemy will adapt to counter your technology, MOABs slamming into all part of Tora Bora did not end the Taliban nor did they kill Osama Bin Laden.

Here are some examples of videos that demonstrate what our soldiers are going through without the thrilling fun of showing them get killed to pieces or that are more documentary/reporting/informative style and less "hey, watch these guys get blown to shit!" style:
http://www.videosift.com/video/US-Army-fight-with-insurgents-in-Fallujah-from-War-Tapes
http://www.videosift.com/video/Weapons-of-US-soldiers-in-Iraq-plagued-with-problems
http://www.videosift.com/video/IED-blows-up-road-in-middle-of-convoy-no-injuries
http://www.videosift.com/video/Jubilation-as-IED-misses-target-completely
http://www.videosift.com/video/I-get-blown-up-US-troops-and-their-up-armoured-Humvee-get-hit-by-IED-and-everyone-survives-nsfw-language
Etc, etc.

Iran's parliament has just voted overwhelmingly to categorise the CIA and US army as terrorist organisations.

Scary thing is they are right.

er ok point by point.

i am saying that iraq is a complete waste of money if your objective is defending freedom of speech. however, we all know that's not the objective (except hannity)

i am not mad at the military for following orders, i am not mad! but i do question the idea of volunteering to do the emperor's bidding... i am not sure that is what protects free speech in the world.

the chinese have a basic human right to free speech, they are just not permitted to exercise it. i don't think the US army should go over there and give them the "gift" of free speech. That's not how I would word it. This is semantics.

Iraqi babies have a right not to be bombed to shit, a right that in some cases has been denied them by the US/Royal Air Force.

What i take issue with is Hannity's retarded assertion that "the military fights to protect your freedom so how dare you criticise them?"
it's stupid, i mean what are you saying, freedom of speech has limits? They fought for your freedoms but you shouldn't actually exercise your freedoms?

The military, as far as i can see, is duped into fighting for the King's Treasury, now as it always has been.

But that doesn't mean i agree with this asshole, he is an asshole, and celebrating the death of a human being is repulsive, whether it's a US soldier or Saddam Hussein.

Indeed, this is still interesting from a technical viewpoint, but the US army sure has all the technology ready. Basically, as we saw with Iraq, they can simply take out an entire country in three weeks. the trick is building it up again, and here, mach 8 weapons are of little use.

Bill Moyers is simply presenting/culling reports from various media sources; White House Press releases, Bush's own speeches, Ad campaigns from Freedom Watch, National Public Radio, US Army Ads, The Observer, NBC news, Associated Press, Stars and Stripes, US Army website and the New York Times (a story written by soldiers from the 82nd Airborne).

I don't even know how you can compare that to Fox News.

Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2147052,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

With the U.S army in this state I wouldn't be surprised.