The programme made me very angry - it shows American citizens acting in a very inhuman way, totally contradictory to the Christian beliefs held by the President. What has been the reaction to this film by the US authorities?
Greecemonkey... This programme is DESIGNED to make you angry, if you're a moron that is. Do you believe ANYTHING just because it's on TV? Then believe the images you saw on 7/7, they WERE real, no dramatisation necessary. Believe too what’s happening in Iraq but whom should we really blame for it? Do you know? Or are you waiting for someone to show you the ‘facts’ in a Drama-doc? I’m afraid there is sometimes such a thing as a just war.
And where do you get your clearly bigoted views Robert? You don't believe anything on TV, how about newspapers or the radio? Perhaps you have a mystic friend with a crystal ball or perhaps your views are just the product of an incomplete racist upbringing? Yes i think i'll blame the parents on this on :-)
It’s true I started the name calling with ‘Moron’ so for the purposes of clarity lets take closer look. ‘Bigot’ – roughly means prejudiced and intolerant of other people’s views, right? Well I’ll accept the intolerant part but ‘bigot’ implies I pre-judge which I don’t, i.e. I only make my judgement, about you for example, based on the crap you write, so that’s fair isn’t it?! I.e. and read slowly here… I simply don’t agree with you, about something, that does not make me a bigot or a racist. But it DOES sadly make you an idiot for saying it does.
Hmmm, so aren’t you a bigot to call me a racist? I made no reference at all to race in my previous post. My point was about accepting any version of events and how we treat ‘people’ who set out to kill other ‘people’ you are the one presuming a racist motivation.
And it’s SO non-bigoted of both you, and Manic_UK, to question my parentage as your first and only point of argument. You both proudly display the ultimate bigoted viewpoint i.e. you assume that my, gun welding right wing Dad knocked up my 16 year old trailer trash Mom on their first ‘date’ just before going ‘coon huntin’ and that only people from such a limited upbringing, could possibly have a view that differs from yours. In fact my Mum and Dad are still together after 50 years, Manic. They are kind, loving, and sternly liberal, believe it or not.
And this, oh this is just SO clever…
quote:
(Boy this weighty assumption thing works wonders with high-caps. I must try it more often.)
How wonderfully self-congratulatory you guys are, constantly amazed at the wonderment of your own intellect, almost daily, no doubt. I think the world’s universities need the likes of you badly, it keep’s you out of the real world. Still you’re both probably the result of an upbringing by squishy, beardy lefty types anyway, so it’s not really your fault. Oops, but it would be prejudiced of me to think that now wouldn’t it?
I do apologise for making assumptions about your parentage, Robert1234. I'm sure that you would never make any assumptions about my upbringing or beliefs. Or another person's guilt.
One can imagine these things happening to numerous numerous people but to actually see it was truly shocking. The documentary sent a strong message about lack of justice, lack of knowledge, lack of understanding all on the point of America. When a man, or a country for that matter is down in the dirt this is when the true values and strengths come out and sadly all of this was lacking from America’s standpoint. The phrase – a bull in a china shop comes to mind – which is probably not appropriate but it typifies policy at the moment!
If these young men were combatants – which given the evidence of the programme seems not to be the case and has been subsequently proven that no evidence could be found – why weren’t they treated as combatants with all the rights of the Geneva convention. On top of this the authorities seemed totally blinkered to facts, which would have proven the case for these men.
To treat people in this way in reality shows the place where American society is at – its cruel, clinical, uncaring and selfish. Check out there prison system. It doesn’t want to understand or seems it doesn’t! Yes, it’s the richest and technologically advanced nation on earth but there is something within the American psychic which I’ve found colder than Europeans, Africans and Asians. They seem cut off from the rest of us, (is it their media or education one thinks) they seem to look at us like an impatient Father to a problem son or daughter. But I do not forget that America is by far the biggest donor of aid and help to the world and good causes. Its this lack of this joined up engagement which causes problems for America and obvious jealously and bitterness from elsewhere. Just like in any relationship – like a marriage you can shower your partner with gifts for a year and a day but insult them or intimidate them just for one day and all the gifts will be quickly forgotten. This is why America is loved and hated with the same level of passion all over the world.
I think the trouble with America today is everything is black and white, no shades of grey, no realisation that in the REAL world situations are usually in the grey area.
If anything these “likely” lads from the Midlands showed grit and strength of character, which honours them and their families.
BAM! There goes that direct hit, the POINT is in your face. You are correct Manic I would never assume, but these guys were ON THE BATTLEFIELD, assumption over! Oops, golly how DID we get here! Jeepers, must have taken a wrong turn 800 miles ago. You also assume that everything the Americans say is a lie and these TV pics are representative of the truth.
Chris Africa You base everything too on the belief that this is a Documentary, could you ever conceive of the idea that it just may be a clever but cynical work of fiction.
In the days after the story's publication, government agencies on both sides of the Atlantic did what they could to neutralise its influence. In the US, Pentagon spokesmen told reporters that the Tipton Three's claims were simply untrue. According to Steve Rodriguez, Guantanamo's chief interrogator, he and his staff had gathered intelligence so valuable that, 'We have been able as a result of information gained here to take operational actions, even military campaigns.' As the New York Times dutifully recorded, he emphatically denied 'the specific allegations of mistreatment made by prisoners recently returned to Britain'. Less than three months later, internal US administration memos confirmed that the treatment described by the three men corresponded exactly to official Pentagon policy.
In London, the spin machine chose Trevor Kavanagh, then political editor of The Sun. Sourcing his claims to the London US embassy, he wrote that two of the three Tipton men had trained to be killers at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 2000 - ignoring the fact that MI5 had already proved that they did not leave Britain at any time that year. Kavanagh quoted an anonymous cabinet minister: 'God knows why we are bringing these people back to Britain. The best thing that could happen is that they fell out of the plane somewhere over the Atlantic.'
Now, with The Road to Guantanamo, a partly dramatised feature film directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, Rasul, Iqbal, Ahmed and the furore surrounding them are back. Due to be screened on Channel 4 on 9 March and released in cinemas and on DVD the next day, the film is provoking a familiar backlash. At a question-and-answer session following a press screening last Monday, some of the journalists present seemed intent on recycling the arguments of 2004. One put it to Winterbottom that the Tipton Three had indeed been part of al-Qaeda, and had taken part in a last-ditch firefight with the Taliban in a network of caves. Told that there was no evidence to support this allegation, he retorted that it was merely an 'alternative view'.
Look at the situation objectively. It seems rob1234 generalises a lot of the facts. You can't just wage a war on Afghanistan, because they are not the enemy. It is the minority in charge of the majority, as is the same in all countries. Theefore the Taliban and those at the core of it's administration, and those enforcing the regime and it's narrow minded exremeist views need to be dealt with. An all out war simply doesn't work. The same with rounding up Afghans and placing them in Guantanamo. Little effort has been made to imprison specific military/political figures.
The film exists for a reason, to counter the never-ending stream of political propeganda that fills satellite channels day in, day out. The political agenda is transparant, Bush making his war on terrorism translates effectively to war against all Afghans (indiscriminate of whether they are members of the Taliban or not), and acts as a demonstration that he is doing something. The real intelligence work (if any is actually going on), cannot be made as readily available as news on the battlefield.
Whenever Bush comes under criticism from the home front, from protestors etc, he always manages to wheedle his way out of it, giving non-specific statements about his so-called war on terror. A great tactic to use to keep him in power, the idea of increasing security appealing to Americans, and a way to be remembered with integrity in the history books.
Artistic license is taken in nearly all films, but this came aross as brutally realistic. Having not been in the situation, I cannot compare it's level of realism, but it certainly does away with any percieved ideas of humane treatment. It is not a frivilous film all respects, and the biggest creative leap leap it takes is showing the 3 in Pizza hut, or riding on a scooter in Tipton. That is about as far as it goes.
Damn! Terrorists, or tyranny. Everything is propaganda for one thing or the other these days. It’s true that terrorists must be stopped, but it is also true that the government should not resort to tyranny to stop them. Guantanamo bay is one step closer to something I hope never happens- regardless of whether the Tipton three are lying or not.
I wouldn't take the christian beliefs of Bush Jr very seriously - this is a man who found God when he hit a low addicted to booze (after years of fratboy hedonism rumoured to have included cocaine). He found God when he was treated for alcholism - though the campaign in 2000 avoided the term 'alcoholic' - which is odd as the first step is to admit you're an alcoholic! Bush does not appear to be much of a christian - he signed more execution warrants than the amount Saddam Hussein is on trial for when he was Governer of Texas. One famous example of the malignant Bush younger was found in his sneering sarcastic contempt when questioned why he would not pardon a female who had murdered her lover (they were both alcoholics, she was abused by him). It was pointed out that she had found God - just like Dubya - and he spewed up sarcastic vitriol. One rule for the entitled, one rule for those created in the society people like his father created. That wasn't very christian, and the commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' is another one the devoted christian broke.
Americans acting in an inhuman way is nothing new though - the massacres of Native Americans; slavery;the apartheid system effectively in action until Rosa Parks said no;the murder of peace-workers (remember 'Mississippi Burning'); being the only nation to drop atom bombs on another; the execution of the Rosenbergs; backing the French in Indochine; backing the inhumane Batista regime;the various assassinations (Lincoln, JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy);the CIA approach to foreign policy (quite a wide issue); the 'School of Americas' torture institution that exported techniques to Latin America; sponsoring such dubious souls as Saddam Hussein (a CIA agent in the late 50s), Osama Bin Laden and Noriega; the policy of Realpolitik; the CIA-backed coup that replaced the democratically elected leader of Chile Salvador Allende and replaced him with General Pinochet - whose military junta raped, tortured and murdered thousands (ironically that coup was another 9/11); supporting the Shah of Iran and his dubious human rights approach (which lead to the Khomeni Revolution); training the Mujahadeen; trading with the Taliban; the secret boming of Cambodia - the effect of which was partly responsible for the rise of the Khmer Rouge and their Killing Fields; 4 million deaths in Vietnam; the use of agent orange and napalm on civilians in Vietnam (& Cambodia & Laos); backing Saddam Hussein as Vice President in 1975 against Kurdistan (funding was removed by the Americans); backing Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran in 1980, starting the Gulf War which went on for eight years and lead to the deaths of thousands; people like Envoy Rumsfield visiting Saddam and providing him with WMD, biological/chemical and intelligence against Iran (notably crimes Saddam is not on trial for...); backing the guerrilla Contras against the democratically elected government run by the Sandinistas (remember the Iran-Contra case?); invading Panama in 1989 and killing thousands (a show of strength to justify the vast military spending the US had and didn't require with the end of the Cold War and Glasnost); arming warlords (the realpolitik notion) on both sides in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s; the Basra highway massacre and related war-crimes (including targeting a vast bomb shelter and killing 400-plus women and children) in Iraq 1991; backing the dictatorships of Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan...this could go on some time. Have a look at the work of Howard Zinn and his famous 'The People's History of the United States' - America (the country, not all of the people) have frequently been inhuman (...just like most countries really).
Robert1234's lame response#1 is fun - it's DESIGNED to make you angry...like Colin Powell's comedy Ricin-routine in the United Nations when the US tried to get the war voted on? Did you believe Bush and the Neo-Cons TV spin and fictional reasons for war in Iraq? Have a look at Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch's websites - Gitmo, Bagram et al are just as real as the 7th of July 2005 in London or the 9th of September 2001 in New York and Washington. I'm not aware that the 7/7 was presented as a docu-drama at any point, so not sure if your black and white comparison has any validity beyond lamely attempting to support your stance. Is the US TV movie 'DC 9/11: Time of Crisis' (funded by Republicans) as fake? What about all the fictional spin presented by the Bush administration since - from thunderbirds-style bases inside the Tora-Bora mountains (Rummy went on Fox to tout that one!)to Al Queda in Iraq (none there until after the Americans and their coalition of the willing were in power), the various coloured alerts, the Ricin-plot after 9/11 which went quiet (I take it the substance emanated from a US lab?), or the hilarious Saving Jessica Lynch slice of propaganda with a staged rescue given to all media as if truth? Don't you think the Neo-Cons have had enough of their own bias in the mass media in support of their aims spelt out by the PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY in the late 1990s????
'Believe too what's happening in Iraq but whom should we really blame for it' - not sure exactly what you're driving at here. If you mean Iraq now, well the US lead coalition of the willing made the initial attack, invaded and occupied Iraq. The country was under their power as occupants - under International Law they are responsible for what happens in that country "we break it - we own it", Colin Powell stated in 2003. The approach of the American lead coalition - Abu Graib, mass arrests, inflaming Al-Sadr, the use of rebranded napalm (mk77) and white phosphorous, the siege of Fallujah (all males aged 18-55 were not allowed to leave before the siege - a crime equal to Putin's vile assault on Grozny in 1999), the use of mercenaries (aka 'security contractors'), billions of Iraqi money being stolen by American businessmen, the Americans letting the mass-looting happen, American military staff saying things like "Let's make Iraq the battleground for the War on Terrorism!", the general tone of the War on Terror (Gitmo, Bagram, the mass-murder carried out in the Middle East, the support for Sharon's 'realities on the ground' etc) which has made many across the Middle East want to go and fight the Americans as they did the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 80s (ironically the US supported the latter), American corporate interests creaming off Iraq (have a look at today's Independent), the power-cuts/no water/general chaos of Iraq under US-lead occupation, the dubious Iraqis who were implanted in the new Iraqi government (e.g. the CIA-associated Chalabi)...I think some blame has to be aportioned to the abortive actions of America and those countries who went along with its policy of invasion and occupation for fictional reasons, don't you? 'there is sometimes such a thing as a just war' - are you referring to Iraq here? Or Afghanistan? - you should note that thousands of innocent Afghanis died as a result of the 2001 mass-bombing by the US and NATO? I wonder why Saudia Arabia wasn't bombed - the majority of the 9/11 bombers came from there after all! The War on Terror isn't a war, so can't be just...you can't have a war on a concept - traditionally it war has been between countries/states. This is muddled 'war on drugs'-style idiocy - and we'll note America has peddled plenty of terror itself: supporting the IRA/Sinn Fein - the School of Americas - the use of Napalm and related weapons of mass destruction - providing biological and chemical weapons to people like Saddam Hussein - supporting the Pinochet regime that dumped people in the pacific, electrically shocked democratic people and had women raped with dogs - & dropped atom bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sounds to me like the concept known as 'terror' - an adjective you can use against others but not when looking in the mirror?
"See you on doomsday!"- Sadegh Hedayat's suicide note
