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Because "justice" involves handing people over to be tortured. You trolls DGAF about justice anymore than Republicans care about perjury or affairs.

Before even seeking asylum, Assange offered to return to Sweden if they promised not to hand him over to the U.S. Sweden has refused to do so.

Because you are a very poor on-call troll.

Assange is in that embassy by choice. He could clear this all up by going for questioning, and possibly trial. If he is not guilty, then he goes free.

Repeating Big Lies doesn't make them true, it just makes you a bigger and more pathetic liar. Before ever seeking asylum, Assange offered to return to Sweden if the government promised not to hand him over to the United States - something they have done before - an offer that has been ignored.

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
https://firstlook.org/theinter...

and from 2009 : http://www.hrw.org/fr/node/818...

depicting Manning as a male

....as Manning was when the cables were handed over to Wikileaks.

That is a good explanation/excuse for why our left-wing Europeans depict Manning as a male while s(he) asked to be considered as a female - but i wonder if you suggest that the "new" transexual Manning is less of the man who the left-wing Europeans honor now (!) and if that "new" transexual Manning him/her-self believes that s(he) should not be associated with the acts of the "Manning the man"?

standing next to the political fugitive mister Assange

FTFY. If it had anything at all to do with rape, the Swedish government would have taken Assange up on his offer to return to the country if they promised not to hand him over to the U.S. they way they did to Mohammed al-Zari. They never have.

I will insist with my own original version ("fugitive suspect for the rape of a female mister Assange"), and i would note the hypocrisy of the left-wing Europeans that while strongly supporting the laws for rape of Sweden ... honors a Swedish justice fugitive suspect for the rape of a female!

Even i, a right-wing Greek, couldn't plan it better!

Are you a recent national socialist, or does it run in your family?

I wrote clearly that i am a right-wing Greek because i try to be honest about myself when i make comments about the left-wing.

I am NOT a "national socialist" (why did you thought i am?) - i am a LIBERAL (as the opposite of socialist - an anti-socialist!) GREEK NATIONALIST (like those who fought AGAINST Fascism and Nazism, as allies to the... alies! Yes, the Greek NATIONALISTS -under the leadership of dictator Metaxas, leader of Greece in the beggining of WW2- were the ones that fought Fascism and Nazism, while Greek communists believed that it's not right to do it... because Stalin was still an ally of Hitler!).

And even if my family has nothing to do with it, i will answer to your question about my family: my grandparent fought against Fascism and Nazism BUT THE COMMUNISTS -the ones your link is about- tried to kill him because he was a liberal - the same communists that tried to kill my uncles (they were kids), those that killed THOUSANDS in our civil war.

Do you have any other questions you would like me to answer? Preferably about myself and not my family, but if you insist i will try to ask my father about it (he was a baby when all those your link is about happened - by the way, his mother, my grandmother, with two more babies, was hiding from those communists, and my mother's family also was hiding from the communists that tried to abduct some uncles of mine).

depicting Manning as a male

....as Manning was when the cables were handed over to Wikileaks.

standing next to the political fugitive mister Assange

FTFY. If it had anything at all to do with rape, the Swedish government would have taken Assange up on his offer to return to the country if they promised not to hand him over to the U.S. they way they did to Mohammed al-Zari. They never have.

Even i, a right-wing Greek, couldn't plan it better!

Are you a recent national socialist, or does it run in your family?

UN says US violating international law, calls for closure of Guantanamo
US Attack On Syria Violates International Law
US drone strikes violate international law, harm civilians: Amnesty and HRW (VIDEO)
NATO Violates International Law
US: Prolonged Indefinite Detention Violates International Law
UN says US drone war in Pakistan violates international law
The Military Admitted Force-Feeding Gitmo Detainees Violates International Law and Medical Ethics
US violates int’l laws; moves USS Enterprise into Pakistani water near Balochistan
International community concerned America violating international law by striking Syria
Americans Abandon International Law

Whether they realize it or not, Americans are increasingly embracing policies that undermine the international rule of law, with self-identified liberals, in particular, seemingly reversing their positions on matters such as the Guantanamo prison camp, extrajudicial assassinations and arbitrary detention.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, for example, found that 70 percent of the American public approves of the U.S. government’s decision to indefinitely keep the Guantanamo prison open, despite widespread international condemnation of this policy.

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/engl...

Psychopaths do not fear prosecution/punishment;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
Caste system created millions of psychopaths in India;
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/engl...
What else do you expect when Upper caste Brahmin Jyoti singh PANDEY abused/exploited Lower caste Mukesh singh YADAV for over 2000 years?
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

I am no expert on Swedish healthcare, but this didn't sound right to me. So I asked google. On the first page of results I learned that transgendered people seeking sex change operations have very onerous conditions imposed by law. Namely, if you want to get gender reassignment surgury, you have to be sterilized. Needless to say, they are not very happy about this.

Because healthcare is run by the government, getting these requirements changed involves changes to Swedish law, rather than a choice of healthcare provider.

Since this is a comment post rather than an academic study on the topic, I'll stop with this first article I found and say "I'll see your Swede who needed healthcare and didn't get it and raise you a 'wanted a specific treatment and got a forced sterilization on the side'".

When I was researching my earlier answer, even those Korea is stated as an exception to our policy, I read:

The US does not maintain any minefields globally after removing its mines from around Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba from 1996-1999.

I took that statement to mean that the US had probably turned over management of those minefields to the Koreans. This blog on the wsj says the same thing, but doesn't give sources.

So, yes, actually. It looks like those minefields are maintained by the Korean forces - they manufacture their own mines now, and we no longer manufacture nor export them. It could very well be that it's just a convenient technicality so the US can make such a statement, of course.

The South Koreans have a bat-shit-insane northern neighbor that still occasionally declares to the world that it's going to conquer them, so I don't think South Korea cares much about what the world thinks of landmines. It's sort of hard to blame them, honestly.

Well, perhaps one of the more obvious ones is the Srebrenica massacre where 10,000 muslims were killed by Serb Christian Orthodox in the 90s.

More recently, according to this link since 2008 until 2012 alone the LRA has killed 2,600 people:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/0...

We don't. Because the people in question are likely 12 and 13yrs old and couldn't get convicted anyway

You are forgetting that in the USA, it is not uncommon to sentence kids to jail for life.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2005/1...

There are at least 2,225 child offenders serving life without parole sentences in U.S prisons for crimes committed before they were age 18, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in a new joint report published today.

While many of the child offenders are now adults, 16 percent were between 13 and 15 years old at the time they committed their crimes. An estimated 59 percent were sentenced to life without parole for their first-ever criminal conviction. Forty-two states currently have laws allowing children to receive life without parole sentences.

also read, http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...

Does an 11-Year-Old Deserve Life in Prison?
Eleven-year-old Jordan Brown is accused of killing his father's pregnant fiancé with a hunting rifle. Does that means he belongs in an adult prison with rapists, murderers, and hardened criminals?

So 13 year old making death threats? Hey, they could spend many many years behind bars for that and anything related.

Because the UK, nominally at least, doesn't extradite people to countries where the suspect could be tortured or executed. Whereas Sweden DGAF. And even if he's not extradited, it is perfectly reasonable to be reticent to subjecting one's self to Sweden's Star Chambers. Suspects can be held for long periods of time incommunicado on the whims of the prosecution.

I know he is wanted on a rape charge and has decided the appropriate response is to hide. There is no valid explanation.

Actually, that's your willful ignorance talking. Assange has offered to be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors in the UK, or even return to Sweden if the government promises not to hand him over to the United States. So far they refuse to do so, which tells you that rape is the last thing this is about.

If you really think you are so important the US government wants to off you, in whatever sense, then stand up like a man and take it.

Annnd there it is: the mindless authoritarianism. Assange is not a U.S. citizen, and has never operated on U.S. soil.

You have the right to make the analogy less realistic, but I don't see how that's helpful. The reality is not a mere suspicion of rockets in a school, it's actual rockets in at least three actual schools:

(Reuters) - UNRWA said it found a rocket cache in one of its central Gaza schools on Tuesday, the third such incident.

http://www.france24.com/en/201...
Here Israel shelled a school because, they claim, they were returning fire on Hamas mortar positions, which may or may not be true. The problem with this, generally speaking, is that the warzone is so small and densely packed with civilians that there is nowhere that Hamas can attack from that isn't near, more or less, civilian installations and if Israel attacks or returns fire and isn't very exact with it then they will kill civilians.

There are also attacks where no valid military excuse has been given.

This is a bit dated, but worth a look:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/0...

Israel calls ceasefires and then doesn't honor them, which is disturbing to say the least.
"At least 17 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a packed Gaza market on Wednesday that followed soon after Israel said it would observe a four-hour humanitarian ceasefire beginning at 12pm (GMT)"
http://www.france24.com/en/201...

Here's another one during a supposed truce:
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

If Israel cared about Palestinian civilian casualties they would use ground forces to attack specific targets rather than shelling approximate locations.

Israel attacks anything, anytime, anywhere and doesn't care about the civilian casualties caused. They do what they want and they get away with it.

Oddly enough, when American citizens are killed by the thousands as a response to direct actions of their freely elected democratic government, its called "terrorism"

"Terrorism" is a method — targeting (rather than accidentally hitting) enemy civilians has been frowned upon since shortly after the WW2.

What you're saying is that anyone that suffered directly from decisions made by the US governments has the legitimate right of shooting down *any* american

I am saying nothing of the kind. My point was not, that Gazans all "deserved to die" because of their vote — I was simply responding to mrspooni's claim, that "Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas". They are Hamas or Hamas-sympathizers and do deserve the burdens of war. Any other country in the region would've summarily killed (Syria, Iraq) or expelled (Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) such people — Israel's restraint is, if anything, inhumane.

And now we can go back to those "direct actions" of our freely elected government, which, in your opinion, justify killing Americans. Which actions are those? Bin Laden's major grief with the US, for example, was — America's desecration of the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, which we defiled with our infidel boots. Is that a good reason for you?

Its not the hater's portrayal when you have western media covering it [...] Are you really convinced that Hamas has a super-duper propaganda machine that is bigger and more efficient than Israel's/US machine

Hamas has inherent propaganda-advantages:

• they are the underdog, whom "low-information" spectators always prefer;
• their non-military policies (inasmuch as they are known at all) are Socialist, bringing every "low-information" bum with a Che Guevara T-shirt on their side;
• Western countries have a much bigger share of Arabs and Muslims now, than even 20 years ago — who all sympathize with their "brethren"

After starting — and loosing — several "real" wars in the 20th century, Arabs have given up on the "honest" battlefield success. They've switched all their efforts into terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other. They are succeeding.

Shit happens when you bomb one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and they don't care.

Retaliation will hit any area in the world, from where thugs shoot at somebody. Israel's retaliation will try to hit the thugs only, but it is not, of course, guaranteed... That the area is "densely populated" should be the concern of the shooters, not of those, who defend themselves and their country.

You might want to check with these guys about promises to pay. I talked to a talented Russian once who told me that you get promises of money before you produce results and promises to let you live if you go away quietly after you produce results. Of course, if you're sufficiently talented at interpersonal politics, you may convince someone that they will see more benefit in the long run by cultivating a relationship with you now, but this money doesn't relate so much to their initial promise as to your negotiating skill.

First, let me say that I was talking about workplace harassment. I failed to specify that in my comment.

When I say that the organization is the first responder, I don't mean they're the first, last, and only. People can always call the police (or file a lawsuit), and obviously if your organization covers for harassers then that's the next step. But escalating to the courts is expensive, time-consuming, embarrassing, often bad for your career, and nowhere near certain. Even in severe cases, the police often don't take rape seriously. It seems like the best we can do is have a multi-tiered system of shared responsibility.

Not true, the military acts under strict ROE (in theory).
https://www.hrw.org/reports/20...

Then the NSA would be part of the U.S. Military, and they are not, and you should have known.

Or have him kidnapped and flown off to some dictatorship to be tortured. Having drugs planted on you, not so bad...in comparison.

Bans won't help much, because:

1) The countries most likely to develop these weapons are the powers that can veto UNSC resolutions, or be an unattractive target for sanctions anyway (like Russia is now, due to its gas exports to the EU), and
2) Based on their past record, I doubt the US will ratify such a treaty (e.g. http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/0...), and rivals won't exactly line up to disadvantage themselves.

Sad to say, but if the weapons are deemed useful, they will be developed and used.

When I was in US, I was very puzzled at the lack of empathy in public discourse towards prison rape. This was especially surprising since US leads the world in incarceration rate (3.5 times the supposedly âoeevery thing is a crimeâ Singapore) - so it is not even as if prison is reserved for the worst of the worst, with non-violent offenders frequently jailed, let alone the argument of punishing as sentenced and nothing more.

However, I don't understand your chain of reasoning. You argued that there is significant amount of rape when prisons are taken in account and then go on to say...

> Rape has the lowest occurrence rate in the US of any violent crimeâ.
> Men are several times more likely to be KILLED.

Clearly not, even with just using numbers you list.

According to Human Rights Watch though
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/200...

âoe4.5 percent of the state and federal prisoners surveyed reported sexual victimization in the past 12 months. Given a national prison population of 1,570,861, the BJS findings suggest that in one year alone more than 70,000 prisoners were sexually abused.â

According to this somewhat dated stats...
http://www.oneinfourusa.org/st...

Rape is far, far more common compared to homicide, anywhere in the world.

> You can either listen to the gender issues folks, who make it sound like violence against women is a HUGE CRISIS, or you can read the BJS statistics. Women have been, and continue to be, a protected class in the US.

Yes, it has declined according to BJS. But the starting numbers are so high, that it is still considered a large problem.

You seem to be under the delusion that a single non-neocon-hit-piece from Human Hack Watch negates the dozens of naked propaganda pieces they do every few years on the NOT CAPITALIST!!!! country of Venezuela.

Venezuela: Investigate Deaths in Prison Crackdown

You seem conflicted about the role of a free media in trying to build and maintain a free society and in fighting corruption.

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/22/...
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/0...

Here is Human Rights Watch's discussion of how ethnic gangs teach white prisoners tolerance:

Past studies have documented the prevalence of black on white sexual aggression in prison.(213) These findings are further confirmed by Human Rights Watch's own research. Overall, our correspondence and interviews with white, black, and Hispanic inmates convince us that white inmates are disproportionately targeted for abuse.(214) Although many whites reported being raped by white inmates, black on white abuse appears to be more common. To a much lesser extent, non-Hispanic whites also reported being victimized by Hispanic inmates.

Other than sexual abuse of white inmates by African Americans, and, less frequently, Hispanics, interracial and interethnic sexual abuse appears to be much less common than sexual abuse committed by persons of one race or ethnicity against members of that same group. In other words, African Americans typically face sexual abuse at the hands of other African Americans, and Hispanics at the hands of other Hispanics. Some inmates told Human Rights Watch that this pattern reflected an inmate rule, one that was strictly enforced: "only a black can turn out [rape] a black, and only a chicano can turn out a chicano."(215)

The benefits of this therapy have been documented by the government's study of the phenomenon:

Prison rape worldview doesn't interpret sexual pressure as coercion," he wrote. "Rather, sexual pressure ushers, guides or shepherds the process of sexual awakening.

Imagine the homophobia to which the world would be subjected if it weren't for the sexual awakening offered by the government's integration of angry white males with the rest of society.

Try dangling this in front of your nose. After a day or two, you might see it.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/1...

They did try. Ever hear of the Korean War? The difference is they were smacked down for it before they could get very far. It would be like the rest of the world coming in and smacking down Germany as soon as they thought about annexing Austria.

And to claim DPRK atrocities are "in the past" is ridiculous http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/north-korea

The Korean War was essentially a civil war. Germany's claim to Austria wasn't nearly as strong though the Austrian's were at least partially supportive of it.

As for the current state of DPRK actions, no one contests that they're horrible, but they're sustainable which is what I was getting at, the things you list are the cost of maintaining a horrible repressive government. But as for atrocities, supposedly 11% of the North Korean population died during the Korean war (most not DPRK's direct fault, there was a war), that's not sustainable. I don't know a lot about the initial consolidation of power before/after but I doubt the upheaval was sustainable either. That's what I mean by the difference between horrible repression and atrocities.

North Korean is a horrible place to live, but that doesn't mean we can't make it worse. If we try a serious intervention of any kind and it goes badly things could get a lot worse, just recently a marginally reformist member of the government maybe did push too far and it did get a little worse.

DPRK is more like a Nazi Germany who never tried to invade Poland and just focused on running Germany. The DPRKs atrocities are in the past, they're still doing massive horrible repression, but they've purged all the people they want to purge so the sense of urgency is gone.

They did try. Ever hear of the Korean War? The difference is they were smacked down for it before they could get very far. It would be like the rest of the world coming in and smacking down Germany as soon as they thought about annexing Austria.

And to claim DPRK atrocities are "in the past" is ridiculous http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/north-korea

I hope that, for consistency, you are a staunch critic of Venezuela

Because "not renewing the license of a radio station that backed a freaking coup is so "authoritarian".

See http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/03/05/venezuela-chavez-s-authoritarian-legacy

Chavism:
1) Turned the Supreme Court into its puppet.
2) Directly controls a large part of the media, and harasses much of the rest into submission.
3) Threatens, promotes hatred against, harasses and sometimes arrests, political dissidents.

Venezuela still has elections, yes. So did the Soviet Union. Elections are not enough to guarantee freedom; the elections need to be free and fair, and there needs to be freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and generally the majority must respect the rights and liberties of the minorities and individuals. Also, the current government must never entrench itself. These guarantees were violated by the Soviet Union and are violated by Venezuela.

By the way, Chavez attempted a coup d'état himself, and constantly licked the boots of Fidel Castro and other dictators who were his heroes. A chavist complaining of "golpismo" is like the Ku Klux Klan complaining of racism. It is beyond incoherent.

When has the U.S. sold large amounts of weapons to Cuba, Vietnam, or China?

I don't get your point.

Human Rights Watch just posted the results of their own analysis. They say it was Assad and not the rebels, mainly because the rebels are not known to have 140mm or 330mm rockets or their associated equipment.

Numerous Irish women are doing it now because the constitution of the country has been amended to make it legal.

Was this supposed to be a counter-argument?..

There's always freedom of movement - and an authoritarian government is far more likely to deny it.

There is nothing "authoritarian" about Romney in general nor in his views on abortion in particular. Though I don't share this opinion myself, various cultures world-wide believe, life begins at conception — heck, the entire China counts people's age from that point (however approximate).

you with your libertarian views will join the gays, the openly atheist and other "subversives" in the camps.

What camps? Michael Moore is still alive, free, and enjoying his substantial wealth made by criticizing and mocking the government... No one raised an eyebrow over calls to kill Bush, but simply mocking the President now may lead to the offender's losing his livelihood. NSA's surveillance blossoms, as does TSA's abuse of travelers (spilling already from airports to train stations). IRS is used — with Obama's knowledge if not outright direction — to suppress opposition. Are you sure, it is the Republicans, who are the "authoritarian" ones?

As for armed/disarmed, if you're not willing to use the guns to protect your liberties - and you here are explicitly arguing that you'd be willing to trade off a lot of them for lower taxes, more or less - then what use are they?

There may be a point, in a not-so-distant future, when the government is not quite yet able to openly use officers to kill, beat-up, and otherwise suppress opposition, but is already able to send pro-government "enforcers" to do the job, while the officers are ordered to look the other way. It happened in Côte d’Ivoire, it happened in Zimbabwe, it happened in Chicago, and in Philadelphia. Being able to resist that kind of threat is why citizens should be able to arm themselves without much ado.

"Socialist" countries with more personal liberties - like Western Europe - are doing far better than authoritarian countries with more economic liberties, in terms of how well off their citizens actually are.

Citation needed.

Check out our friends and allies: http://www.hrw.org/news/2007/11/15/saudi-arabia-rape-victim-punished-speaking-out

How about this, all leaders everywhere are evil mofos. I'll agree with that.

You seem to be confusing things that sometimes happen in the US with things that always happen in the US.

1. I've seen a dui roadblock once in the US (another one in Canada). The officer asked a couple questions ("had I been drinking?" "no") then let me on my way. It's not like the Iraqi style checkpoints where the whole vehicle gets searched over.
2. That's a generalization. Some airports just have metal detectors. If you're flying on a private plane you won't see any of that. Pretty much the same in other countries.
3. That may be true for some police officers (the ones you see on youtube), but you're not going to read about the millions of friendly interactions that happen. I bet you could find similar bad apple officers in other countries.
4. There are very few cases of this. The Swartz case was terrible, there are others like it that shouldn't have happened either, but lots of countries prosecute computer crimes.

We do have problems with our drug laws and sentencing, but that doesn't make us a Police state like Syria.

As for an American freedom most countries don't have - out first amendment rights are a great example. Now I know you're going to say "OMG but Bush's freedom of speech zones and that time a police officer silenced someone!" but the reality is we have much more protection to say what we want than other countries in the world. Just look at the KKK and Nazi parades that are allowed.

You seem to think that there are all these perfect countries outside of the US, but failed to list a single one of them (aside from the ones with friendly police - Cuba, Laos, Columbia, and Malaysia). Is that because they're all imaginary or because you wouldn't want people to find similar counter examples for those countries?

Not sure I agree with sam_vilain's claim that it's "worth reading" (seems more like a string of poorly-reasoned ad-hominem to me), but here you go:

Following his request for asylum in Russia, it's become pretty clear that Edward Snowden is officially the most naïveperson in the room.

Not only is he surrounded by members of Russia's Foreign Security Service (FSB) — the successor to the KGB — but he's loudly trumpeting the moral superiority of the Putin government, one of the most repressive, cutthroat regimes in modern history.

David Francis' Fiscal Times write-updigs into Snowden for his "mind boggling naiveté":

He is asking for asylum in a country that continues to openly squash dissent, often using violent tactics. Putin runs the country with an iron fist, has jailed people who oppose him, and has chased others out of the country. Opponents have been known to meet early deaths, often under suspicious circumstances.

Francis notes theuntimely,often gruesomedeathsof several political opponents to Putin over the years.

Snowden's statements about Russia's sterling Human Rights image come within days of the imprisonment of high-profile political opposition leader Alexei Navalny,on what some call trumped-up embezzlement charges.

Snowden himself acknowledged his potential for naivetyto Bart Gellman of the Washington Post: “Perhaps I am naïve, but I believe that at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents.”

To make matters worse, the person seemingly speaking for Snowden now —Russian attorney Anatoly Kucherena — also happens to be the head of public relations for the FSB.

Freelance reporter and intelligence expert Joshua Foust writes:"The involvement of known FSB operatives at his asylum acceptance ... suggests this was a textbook intelligence operation, andnota brave plea for asylum from political persecution."

"The Russians are very good at what they do," wrote Foust, referring to their simultaneous control of the "principal" — Snowden — and the public message.

Putin — a former lieutenantcolonelin the KGB — drew laughs from Finland students when he said regarding Snowden, "If you want to stay, please, but you have to stop your political activities. We have a certain relationship with the U.S., and we don’t want you with your political activities damaging our relationship with the U.S."

The Russian president just as deftly shifted the blame to the U.S., a foreseeable consequence of the State Department's decision to revoke Snowden's passport.

It seems in all of this, Snowden is not the super-intelligent super spy he makes himself out to be, but just an analyst who is in over his head.

Looking at his statement that he could be "petting a phoenix, in a palace" in China, indicates that he expected to be gree

http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/2010/06/green-revolutions-dark-side-effect-disease/
http://newsdesk.org/2008/08/dark_side_of_th/
http://www.hrw.org/news/2005/09/04/dark-side-ethiopia-s-green-revolution

etc etc

At "best" the "Green Revolution" postponed the inevitable and meanwhile increased the number of people who would eventually inevitably die from starvation as the land becomes unable to support farming due to depletion and destruction of soil diversity inherent to these methods.

HTH, HAND

... and by that logic, the real problem is not the Green Revolution, but agriculture itself.

http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/2010/06/green-revolutions-dark-side-effect-disease/
http://newsdesk.org/2008/08/dark_side_of_th/
http://www.hrw.org/news/2005/09/04/dark-side-ethiopia-s-green-revolution

etc etc

At "best" the "Green Revolution" postponed the inevitable and meanwhile increased the number of people who would eventually inevitably die from starvation as the land becomes unable to support farming due to depletion and destruction of soil diversity inherent to these methods.

HTH, HAND

These guys claim to have been waterboarded when sent to Gadaffi's custody (by the Bush administration), contradicting the 'only three waterboarded' claim, but I imagine you've already chosen who you prefer to believe.

Shit like what the CIA do in Libya..? ;) (Along with other enlightened nations' intelligence services, of course)

Okay, so let's limit this to what you two agree on.

"There are tons of crappy cops, yes."

"and they have power over you."

Based on those two alone, I personally would agree that "Thus, you must be on your guard against bad cops, and you must assume that any cop interaction will go wrong" is a prudent course of action.

Oh, and as a bonus: "They have not taken responsibility as a group and purged their ranks of bad cops" [citation]

I agree that there are a lot of cops that are just trying to do their job. There are also a lot of them who don't mean any harm but still really enjoy the power that comes with the job. The biggest way I have found to tell the difference between good and bad cops is that if you have to deal with a cop, odds are they are one of the bad ones, as the good ones tend to leave normal people alone and/or give them some slack. If you know a cop personally, they are more likely to seem to be a normal person, partially because you don't see them at work, but partially because there isn't the selection bias of being one you have to deal with.

Oh boy, what rubbish. Let's address some of your points:

1. You failed to show a correlation between drug prohibition and incarceration. Do we have substantially more people in jail *because* of the war on drugs? If so, prove it.

2. It doesn't matter that everyone consumes drugs at the same level (to be proven, where is your source?). What matters is who deals and distributors said drugs. I highly doubt that as many white people distribute drugs as other ethnic groups and it makes perfect sense to dish out longer jail time to distributors than users. So what are you really complaining about here?

3. There is a reduction (on a gross-level, not net), but the population is increasing and drug distributors are better funded than people enforcing the law. Are you implying that ineffective drug enforcement means we should give up altogether? Sex trade and child labor is on the rise too, should we stop trying to curb those crimes too?

4. I'm not going to argue for/against this.

5. I'm sure terrorism had nothing to do with it. The world is changing my friend, drugs are only part of the problem.

6. I'm not sure what you're referring to here. The DEA and main police force are separate beats. I trust my local police force just fine, thank you very much.

7. Last time I checked, drug use was illegal (and enforced as such) in most countries around the world, so I have no idea what you're referring to.

8. Poor logic. Again, should we legalize all form of criminal acts for fear of what the black market will do? Laws exist for morale reasons. Selling drugs is like selling Alcohol to a known Alcoholic. It is highly addictive and prays on people's weakness.

9. Many people experiment, but most move on and hold nothing but respect for law enforcement. Most people don't smoke pot and do crack through the rest of their life.

10. That's a problem that affects all felons. Where do you draw the line? Shouldn't we try to improve the life of *all* felons? Why the focus on drug felons alone?

Obviously you failed to watch the debate.

1. 50% of the Federal inmates, 25% of state inmates for drug offenses: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs

2. You're just being racist.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-abuse-drugs-than-blacks/
http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/19/race-drugs-and-law-enforcement-united-states#_Part_I:_Race

A recent study in Seattle is illustrative. Although the majority of those who shared, sold, or transferred serious drugs[17] in Seattle are white (indeed seventy percent of the general Seattle population is white), almost two-thirds (64.2%) of drug arrestees are black.

3. I don't even understand you're point in the first sentence. It's totally incoherent. The second, about the sex trade, completely misses the point because the number of people who use prostitutes is vastly smaller than those who use drugs. The drug war is like outlawing french fries -- sure, they make you fat but so many people use them, it's pointless to push against the tide. The same cannot be said about prostitution. If we ever get to the point that is the case, then we can address that -- right now, it's just off topic. A diversion.

5. As Greenwald pointed out in his debate, the egregious civil liberties violations of the last decade, first took root in the drug war.

6. Google "drug war militarization of the police force" and pick an article: https://www.google.com/search?q=drug+war+militarization+of+the+police+force

7. Again, you totally didn't watch the debate

Lets see what Human Rights Watch has to say:

• 
  In Cold Blood:
  Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias
• 
  Torture Archipelago
  Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria;s Underground Prisons since March 2011
• 
  Syria: Mounting Casualties from Cluster Munitions
• 
  We've Never Seen Such Horror:
  Crimes against Humanity by Syrian Security Forces

Lets see what Human Rights Watch has to say:

• 
  In Cold Blood:
  Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias
• 
  Torture Archipelago
  Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria;s Underground Prisons since March 2011
• 
  Syria: Mounting Casualties from Cluster Munitions
• 
  We've Never Seen Such Horror:
  Crimes against Humanity by Syrian Security Forces

Lets see what Human Rights Watch has to say:

• 
  In Cold Blood:
  Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias
• 
  Torture Archipelago
  Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria;s Underground Prisons since March 2011
• 
  Syria: Mounting Casualties from Cluster Munitions
• 
  We've Never Seen Such Horror:
  Crimes against Humanity by Syrian Security Forces

Lets see what Human Rights Watch has to say:

• 
  In Cold Blood:
  Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias
• 
  Torture Archipelago
  Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria;s Underground Prisons since March 2011
• 
  Syria: Mounting Casualties from Cluster Munitions
• 
  We've Never Seen Such Horror:
  Crimes against Humanity by Syrian Security Forces

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Iraq is less free than ever. The jailing of dissidents and journalists continues just as it did under Saddam.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/22/iraq-intensifying-crackdown-free-speech-protests

You realize their university system is destroyed?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/02/04/0414251/the-destruction-of-iraqs-once-great-universities

Core infrastructure is destroyed, and the west will be loathe to spend money on actually rebuilding it. Gender inequaity is worse than it was under Saddam.

As to the remark that they are "killing each other"--you realize no research was done beforehand into the sort of sectarian violence swapping the lead political religious sect would bring? You think that once peoples' livelihoods are destroyed, once they are threatened with starvation, any infighting afterwards is simple THEIR fault? See your home destroyed and then face starvation yourself--then see how you see how much you long to destroy yourself and your fellow man. This is akin to a white man watching slaves fighting and insisting their anger is merely towards each other.

You shouldn't post nonsense about Iraq when it's clear you've spent the last decade in a beltway media bubble (as has the fool you responded to).

I cannot say it was pleasant, but it was not even close to being a scenario in which I could have been the victim of homosexual rape or any of the other awful things idiots on Slashdot speculate about when they imagine prison.

I'm glad you got lucky, but it's hardly mere "speculation": the prevalence of rape in U.S. prisons, by both guards and other inmates, is well documented.

I'm really curious, why do you think Sweden would be more willing to give Assange to the US than the UK?

Perhaps because Sweden's done it in the past? No extradition - just handed them over to the CIA, who took them to Egypt to be tortured. http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-ban-cia-rendition

From what I can tell, Sweden let Egypt have some suspects

Bull-fucking-shit. In 2001, it was CIA operatives that took possession of the two Egyptian men at Bromma airport in Stockholm. What you are confused about is what happened in 2006 with one individual when Sweden was found to be complicit with the CIA in the case of extraditing I-Zari again to Egypt. I bet you would get the facts right if it was you that was bound, gagged and put on that airplane.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2163436/Seven-Britons-extradited-US-sent-lopsided-act.html

With legal recourse. What was the legal recourse of the people extradited from Sweden?

From what I can tell, Sweden let Egypt have some suspects

Bull-fucking-shit. In 2001, it was CIA operatives that took possession of the two Egyptian men at Bromma airport in Stockholm. What you are confused about is what happened in 2006 with one individual when Sweden was found to be complicit with the CIA in the case of extraditing I-Zari again to Egypt. I bet you would get the facts right if it was you that was bound, gagged and put on that airplane.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2163436/Seven-Britons-extradited-US-sent-lopsided-act.html

With legal recourse. What was the legal recourse of the people extradited from Sweden?