Jody, in this thread you have: (1) indicated that you support Obama going before the UN General Assembly and essentially apologizing for America torturing detainees with the use of waterboarding (“…we fucked up. If we don’t fix our fuck-up with this and the related issues, it makes it damn hard for us to hold others accountable for their fuck-ups, let alone those who willingly maim, murder and destroy out of a sense of superstitious inspired superiority.”); and (2) cited the Pew Research Center’s “Global Attitudes Project” as a barometer that substantiates the deterioration of America’s image “due to our conduct against our enemies over the last 8 years.”

I reviewed the summary at the link you provided and I can’t seem to find any reference in it to “torture” or “waterboarding” or violations of the Geneva Conventions being the cause of the recent wave of anti-American sentiment. In fact, the report lists various causes for America’s declining global reputation, including: a perception of the US playing the role of bully in the school yard, throwing its weight around with little regard for others’ interests; the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003; US operations in Afghanistan; a majority of Indonesians, Jordanians, Turks and Egyptians remaining unconvinced that Arabs were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; Western disrespect for Islam with the publication of cartoons that depicted the prophet Muhammad; majorities in many Muslim nations – and in some Western European ones – believing that America’s war on terrorism is really an effort to control Mideast oil or to dominate the world; more than half of Jordanians and Pakistanis, as well as 40% or more of French and Germans believing that the US war on terrorism is a smokescreen for a campaign against unfriendly Muslim governments; a perception in Muslim nations that the US is “violent” and “selfish”; and a belief that US policy favors Israel too much.

So, Jody, if improving America’s reputation in the international community is a legitimate objective of Obama’s foreign policy (and clearly, you believe it is), and a reliable measure of America’s global reputation is the Pew Research Center’s “Global Attitudes Project” (clearly, you believe it is), then doesn’t that mean that we have to apologize for pretty much everything from the war in Afghanistan to western publications printing cartoons of Muhammad if we want our scores to ever improve? You’ve indicated that the war in Afghanistan “was and is a war that needed to be fought and won,” but apparently it’s one of the many things that’s ruining our reputation abroad and has caused the depletion of our moral authority as a nation. Don’t you think it’s time we apologized for that? Majorities in several Muslim countries don’t even believe that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by Arabs, so how can we possibly justify invading Afghanistan and expect these people to like us? Better that we apologize for everything we have done since 9/11 and promise to never do any of it again. That’s the only way we can get back the moral authority to hunt down and kill terrorists–by apologizing for doing so in the past and pledging never to do so again. Our scores on the “Global Attitudes Project” are sure to go through the roof!

And, Article IV deals with civilians (which AQ aren’t) and says:

“Article 4 defines who is a Protected person: Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals. But it explicitly excludes Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention… ” [Emphasis in original]

So they still aren’t covered.

Jody has provided a link to the Pew Research Center’s “Global Attitudes Project” where there are all of these handy-dandy charts, graphs, and statistics measuring global public opinion about America.

Yes I did, in response to the statement “America’s image hasn’t been tarnished.” You can opine over there fairness of the reasons for it or if we should even care, but the fact remains it has, and that a portion of that fall came about due to our conduct against our enemies over the last 8 years.

Ok, so Jody’s now refusing to admit facts.
Per Geneva we can just kill them on the battlefield. Instead we willingly violate Geneva by…

Nope. Not even wrong. Not what I said, nor what the sources I cited said.

Instead, Jody wants to accept court cases that bolster his arguement, ignore ones that don’t and compare pouring water down someone’s throat until their stomach bloats and punching them, to approved interrigation techniques.

Again, not even wrong. I’ll refer you back to Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

When confronted with the lie that KSM was waterboarded 183 times, he then moves the goal posts to “It was still wrong” Not, “I’m sorry, thank you for the correction, it’s still wrong” Jody specifically omits the part of Geneva that says all bets are off with AQ, then argues we’re violating the ’spirit’ of Geneva.

Nope, my point was that defending torture by appealing to accounting definitions, as the whole 183 times / 12 minutes / 40 seconds / two sessions argument becomes, doesn’t work. It’s that whole “no torture, ever” thing that’ll trip you up, just like “no murdering” and “no raping.” It’s pretty basic.

Fine the spirit of Geneva is that you find an ununiformed combatant making war on civilians, hiding in civilians… YOU KILL THEM. Period, they’ve forfitted all rights to Geneva.

See the last 70 odd comments above.

Oh, and BTW, we’ve never Ratified Protocol 4.

You are thinking of Protocol 1, which we also didn’t ratify (nor two or three.) But my argument has been about G1-4, not the later Protocols. You really haven’t paid any attention here.

Well, now isn’t that convenient everyone? Jody has provided a link to the Pew Research Center’s “Global Attitudes Project” where there are all of these handy-dandy charts, graphs, and statistics measuring global public opinion about America. Unfortunately, it would appear that if the election were held today, the US is NOT going to make it onto the homecoming court, darn it! But the good news is that all we have to do is spend a few years sucking up to the European elites and appeasing homicidal Muslim fanatics and our numbers will totally rebound. Here’s just a couple of excerpts that us American imperialist bullies should take to heart:

“Many Muslims have an aggrieved view of the West. Majorities in many Muslim nations – and in some Western European ones, for that matter – believe America’s war on terrorism is really an effort to control Mideast oil or to dominate the world. In the 2004 Pew Global Attitudes survey, more than half of Jordanians and Pakistanis, as well as 40% or more of French and Germans – said that the war on terrorism was a smokescreen for a campaign against unfriendly Muslim governments.”

Hmmmm. Very interesting. Majorities in Muslim nations and Western European nations believe the US is engaged in an effort to control Middle-Eastern oil or generally just trying to dominate the world. Of course, that would include the War in Afghanistan which Jody calls “a war that needed to be fought and won.” So, all we have to do is turn those Muslim and Euro-frowns upside-down and voila! Moral authority restored!

“Less expectedly, the 2006 survey found that a majority of Indonesians, Jordanians, Turks and Egyptians remained unconvinced that Arabs were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.”

Eh. No biggie. I’m sure they’ll come around eventually.

“The furor in Islamic countries over the publication in Denmark of cartoons that depicted the prophet Muhammad revealed a similar divergence in perspective. Respondents to the 2006 survey in four Muslim countries blamed Western disrespect for Islam.”

Yes, that was very insensitive of us and the West deserves the PR fallout that accompanied our impertinent refusal to ensure that our publication guidelines were more consistent with Muslim religious tenets than the First Amendment. Hopefully, now that the Yale Press has wisely decided to publish the definitive book about the controversy WITHOUT reprinting the cartoons themselves, those justifiably outraged Muslims will put down their machetes, stop hacking off people’s arms and legs, and start loving us again. I just hope it’s not too late.

Per Geneva we can just kill them on the battlefield. Instead we willingly violate Geneva by…

-Detaining them instead
-Giving them three hots and a cot,
-access to Korans
-deference to their religion
-pointing out where Mecca is
-subjecting them to SERE techniques that have undeniably saved lives

Instead, Jody wants to accept court cases that bolster his arguement, ignore ones that don’t and compare pouring water down someone’s throat until their stomach bloats and punching them, to approved interrigation techniques.

When confronted with the lie that KSM was waterboarded 183 times, he then moves the goal posts to “It was still wrong” Not, “I’m sorry, thank you for the correction, it’s still wrong” Jody specifically omits the part of Geneva that says all bets are off with AQ, then argues we’re violating the ‘spirit’ of Geneva.

Fine the spirit of Geneva is that you find an ununiformed combatant making war on civilians, hiding in civilians… YOU KILL THEM. Period, they’ve forfitted all rights to Geneva.

Oh, and BTW, we’ve never Ratified Protocol 4.

All it takes is a Mrs. Kravitz type to start a search and destroy mission. Just like all you need is the claim of murderous bastards taught to whine that they were tortured.

Well, except when it came to Pierreisna Archille. And nobody noticed Rilya Wilson was missing for two whole years. Yeah it is pretty lame until DCF is held accountable in court.

Well there you go. DCFS nannies routinely lose children, destroy lives, destroy families, destroy reputations, destroy careers etc. etc. etc. All of this “for the children”. And how many cases have there been where the children wind up dead after DCFS came to visit and saw nothing wrong?

Yeah, they used to excuse their behavior by saying all that too, especially when the photographs of the blood and bruises, or the infant tox screens, or the doctor’s findings of sexual abuse were put before them. Lame argument.

Yeah. Keep going down that little “morality” road where you believe America’s image has been tarnished.

Nope, America’s image is just fine. No problems. None at all.