Bill Maher: The United States also burns people alive...from the air

[Cali_Democrat]

Maher: U.S. Not Morally Equivalent to ISIS, But We ‘Burn People Alive from the Air’
by Josh Feldman | 11:43 am, February 7th, 20

In the Overtime segment of his show last night, Bill Maher took a viewer question on Fox News’ controversial decision to post the entirety of ISIS’ latest video. Amy Holmes, host for TheBlaze (one of the other media outlets to post the entire ISIS video) admitted she’s conflicted, because while posting it is “very disrespectful to the pilot and to his family,” sometimes people just need to “see the reality” of what ISIS does.

Johann Hari brought up the brutality from nations supported by the United States and said lots of jihadist actions result from U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. And, he said, “the more we show ourselves to be good or loving or decent people,” the less there will be.

Maher didn’t think showing the ISIS video is necessary, and then remarked upon how “America has also burned people alive from the air.” And while he acknowledged that collateral damage from drone strikes is different from deliberately burning a man alive and “we’re not the moral equivalent of ISIS,” Maher said the U.S. isn’t “guilt-free” when it comes to horrible acts.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maher-u-s-not-morally-equivalent-to-isis-but-we-burn-people-alive-from-the-air/

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He's right. While many of these deaths aren't video taped and spread through social media, they absolutely happen.

[Hoyt]

1. Tend to agree. What's difference in separating head and body with a sword vs bombs?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Friedrich Nietzsche

[tclambert]

9. With bombs dropped from airplanes, you don't get any goo on you.

If you chop up someone right in front of you, you have to change clothes and take a shower, plus clean up your makeshift studio. With aerial bombs, somebody else cleans up the mess.

[NuclearDem]

3. Ah, forgot the rule.

When discussing horrific acts carried out by someone who is not the US or the West, someone must, must, must bring up at least one or two examples of a similar act carried out by the US or the West.

Sounds like a plan!

[cwydro]

6. I know, right?

These threads remind me of school...well Johnny did it too! So did Mary!

The US is in no way blameless.

But this does not excuse these barbarians burning a man alive in a cage. Or the beheadings.

[frylock]

22. it's obvious that you're uncomfortable in facing this reality..

one or twi examples. hunh. how many people were burned, or buried alive during shock and awe? how many decapitations do you suppose occurred between those one or two examples?

[NuclearDem]

23. Actually, I'm not.

The use of white phosphorous is absolutely despicable. I've had to come to terms with some of the things I helped enable during my time in the service, and I'm not proud of them.

What I'm also sick of is the trend of someone always having to pull out a ridiculous tu quoque argument every single damn time someone other than the US does something.

[JEB]

4. I suggest cleaning our own house before

bitching about how dirty some other house is.

[sabrina 1]

5. He's right, he must be reading DU where this has been pointed out numerous times.

The ONLY reason for singling out a horrible atrocity, while ignoring the thousands that occurred in Iraq, is to try to get support for another WAR!

If they want to stop Isis, tell the Saudis to stop funding, and the Western Powers to stop arming people in the ME.

Simple.

[polly7]

10. +1000.

And stop the 'war on terror' that creates more hatred and terrorism than it does anything else, probably a large part of it due to the innocents killed with not a mention, let alone an apology.

[Ramses]

17. Their hypocrisy is breathtaking

and the ONLY reason to ignore US war crimes is to lead us into more illegal wars.

The people who do this have no conscience and are likely sociopaths that belong in prison cells along with the violent warmongers

[Fred Sanders]

18. MSM and Fox news executives in prison cells? Good idea. Bankers and Cheney first, though.

[ileus]

7. and that's why we should support ISIS: the enemy of my enemy....

[BlueJazz]

8. "People who live in glass...."

It's not just the good people who pull the triggers.

[stevenleser]

11. How far do we want to go back for blame for use of incendiary devices? Gunpowder goes back to

China in the 9th century. The use of fire on enemies goes back to the ancient Greeks. If we include anything that could burn an enemy to death, and go back throughout history, there are very few blameless countries and therefor no one to hold anyone else accountable for it and thus no one able to hold ISIS accountable.

Do we need to be that silly?

They put someone in a cage who they had in their custody and burned him alive.

[Fred Sanders]

12. The point Obama and Maher make is to not to repeat the mistakes of history. How can you not repeat

the mistakes if you are afraid to examine the history because it is either too ancient or too horrific to lok at? And some of the history is much more recent.

Obama took 16 minutes to explain his position, he recieved six rounds of applause from a tough live audience, I just wish folks would take the time to view the whole speech and then think about the words as spoken, not the words filtered.

[stevenleser]

13. I agree we should examine each time countries have burned POW's alive to know the history

I am not afraid of that at all. Please proceed.

[Fred Sanders]

14. If you have not viewed your President's latest topical speech there is no arguing with me.

[Fred Drum]

15. the man in the cage in florida...burned alive

they say the prison guards were fired, not sure thats the same

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/mentally-ill-florida-inmate-scalded-to-death-by-guards-and-authorities-dont-seem-to-care/

whose war was he a prisoner of?

[Fred Sanders]

16. Deflection, and topically irrelevant.

[Fred Drum]

20. topically irrelevant

a prisoner, confined in a cell, burned to death

yeah i see the difference

[MannyGoldstein]

24. Should it be limited to burning POWs?

What about other horrific, slow, tortured deaths?

[Rex]

27. Good luck getting any kind of coherent response.

[MannyGoldstein]

29. I'll probably be outfoxed again.

[Rex]

25. Well you are silly there is no doubt. Nobody asked you to jump in here and defend the USA.

We get it steven, you are an ultra-nationalist.

[stevenleser]

30. It's a message forum, not email. Anyone can comment on any topic, as you just demonstrated.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you not realize you contradicted yourself in a most embarrassing way?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

19. And then there are executions in the US that take 30 minutes or more

Joseph Wood, a double murderer, "gasped and struggled to breathe for about an hour and 40 minutes", his lawyers told CNN. They filed an emergency appeal to halt the execution, but it was denied.

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/58333/botched-execution-why-us-has-turned-untried-drugs#ixzz3RD5SeLiM

After Lockett said he had no last words, the execution began. They administered the drug midazolam, which is meant to induce unconsciousness. Ten minutes later, they announced that he was unconscious. “This is the first execution I’ve covered that they’ve made a point of pronouncing someone unconscious before they pronounce him dead,” Branstetter said.

Three minutes later, “the violent reaction” began, she said. First, she saw his foot kick. Then his body bucked, he clenched his jaw and he began rolling his head from side to side, trying to lift his head up, grimacing and clenching his teeth. “He mumbled some things we didn’t understand,” Branstetter said. “The only thing I could make out was when he said ‘man.’”

It looked like he was trying to get up, she said.

“He looked like he was in pain to me,” Branstetter said. “How much pain, nobody knows but him.”

A prison official looked under the sheet and announced that they were going to close the blinds temporarily. The beige blinds went back down and never went back up. “Reporters exchange shocked glances,” Branstetter wrote in her account. “Nothing like this has happened at an execution any of us has witnessed since 1990, when the state resumed executions using lethal injection.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/05/02/what-it-was-like-watching-the-botched-oklahoma-execution/

[Downwinder]

21. On the ground too.

Marcia Powell was a 48-year-old inmate who died May 20, 2009 after exposure to 107-degree temperatures for four hours in an outside cage at Goodyear's Perryville Prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_Prison_Complex_%E2%80%93_Perryville#Death_of_Marcia_Powell

[kwassa]

26. Black people were burned alive in the US.

1916. Texas.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/black-men-were-burned-alive-bible-belt

Here is the photograph. Take a good look at Jesse Washington’s stiffened body tied to the tree. He had been sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman. No witnesses saw the crime; he allegedly confessed but the truth of the allegations would never be tested. The grand jury took just four minutes to return a guilty verdict, but there was no appeal, no review, no prison time. Instead, a courtroom mob dragged him outside, pinned him to the ground, and cut off his testicles. A bonfire was quickly built and lit. For two hours, Jesse Washington — alive — was raised and lowered over the flames. Again and again and again. City officials and police stood by, approvingly. According to some estimates, the crowd grew to as many as 15,000. There were taunts, cheers and laughter. Reporters described hearing “shouts of delight.”

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/yes-isis-burned-man-alive-white-americans-did-same-thing-thousands-black-people

White Georgians tracked Hose down and prepared for his lynching. Two thousand people gathered for the killing, some taking a special excursion train from Atlanta for the purpose. The leaders of the lynching stripped Hose, chained him to a tree, stacked wood around him, and soaked everything in kerosene. The mob cut off Hose's ears, fingers and genitals; they peeled the skin from his face. They watched, a newspaper reported, ''with unfeigning satisfaction'' as the man's veins ruptured from the heat and his blood hissed in the flames.

[PosterChild]

28. No comparison whatsoever.

There is no comparison between taking the life of an active beligrrent who is an ongoing threat, and taking the life of a prisoner of war who is no longer capable of doing any harm. A prisoner of war is a ward of the state and must be treated humainly.

On edit, Maher qualified his remark, but for those who might not understand the distinction, my comment stands.

[polly7]

31. Over 2,000 innocents have reportedly been killed by drones, burnt where they stood

or cut into pieces their family members tried to put together to bury. They weren't 'belligerents'. They were human beings just hoping to live another day. Women, children and men with no involvement with terrorism of any kind.

Then there's Fallujah - women, children and men trapped and burnt where they stood. They weren't 'belligerents' either. They were citizens locked in their own city with the skin burned from their bodies.

[PosterChild]

33. Yes, it is true...

... that innocent people die in warfare all the time. Drones, fire bombs, nukes... We all know that.

But the fact is that when an enemy combatant has been captured, incapacitated, and becomes a prisoner of war he becomes a ward of the state and the state is obliged to treat him humanly.

Is this true, or isn't it? Was this done or wasn't it? And did the United States do anything remotely similar to any prisoners of war?

[daredtowork]

32. Just the rumor that they happen

Has been enough to destroy the International credibility of the US as a moral leader. And our government hasn't had its ear to the ground on this. What people THINK the US does is also important.

"Impersonal" forms of destruction are, in a way, more cruel that up close and personal ones. The horror of the Holocaust was the mass gas chambers - the reduction of genocide to science. People were not looked in the eye before they were killed. Drones are perceived in the same way.

By the way, people in the US feel the same way about drones purchased by local police departments. Even if those drones aren't carpet-bombing the inner city yet, we all know the government is laying contingency plans for what to do if social unrest should turn into outright revolution.