How come we are shocked and offended, when we learn some country is guilty of spying on it's citizens and torturing foreigners, but when we learn our own country is found guilty of the same crimes, we just shrug and say they must have had their reasons?

I guess it depends on what they do with the spying.

And I, for one,did not shrug Gitmo off. I think it was horrible.

I am shocked and offended that the US does it. I don’t shrug and say they must have had a reason.

There is a great deal of the US that has blind allegiance.

But @SQUEEKY2 is Canadian. What have our neighbors to the North been up to?

I am more offended by Goody Two Shoes Gore

”‘extraordinary renditions’, were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government…. The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: ‘Lloyd says this. Dick says that.’ Gore laughed and said, ‘That’s a no-brainer. Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass”

It started with Clinton and continues to this day where we grab terrorist suspects and “render” them to other countries who make our enhanced interrogation techniques seem like a day at the beach. You ask why Nobel Obama hasn’t stopped using this covert option? Answer because it works and he know this and we need to continue to use it for the valuable info it provides.

I’m horrified at all of it.

@tinyfaery The good news is we are very close to developing technology that will allow one to read minds and thusly eliminate any need to torture anymore. No surprise either that the research is being supported by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army.

thats the same logic as killing people so they stop killing people. When you become your enemy by using their tactics no one wins, and you lose your moral high ground and any argument for fighting an enemy that is the exactly the same as you.

Since I’m not Canadian I guess you would have to ask your own fellow citizens that question. You are Canadian, right? Since I’m not I don’t put that much thought into what other countries are up to unless it affects my country. It is not my place to be critical of things I don’t know that much about or knock other countries just for the hell of it.

Bottom line is if we didn’t use enhanced interrogation on the terrorists our countries and other countries would be in great peril. At least 50 major terrorist plots against the US have been thwarted since 9/11 and these are the ones made public. If you read each of them and I encourage you to do so….you will see the level of hatred and determination these terrorists have to do us harm that is truly unimaginable yet it is real and what we are up against. So let’s see how shocked, offended and horrified you are about enhanced interrogation the next time the terrorists blow up a damn, poison a reservoir, hijack a plane or shut down the electric grid and Heaven forbid kill many Americans. It is not a matter of if…it is a matter of when.

I agree with Cruiser on the spying issue.

It shocked me more when we did it. I had thought we had consigned medieval torture chambers to the dustbin of human history. I thought we had progressed beyond that.

I am neither shocked, nor “offended”. Saddened, maybe. Frustrated, annoyed, exasperated, angry…all those I am regardless of which country is guilty.

And we’d deserve it.

Is that all? I am not offended and hardly shocked that those things go along. If anything, I am shocked that people would even be shocked over something like that.

Because those people are so weak mindet, that they will support ANY atrocity, as long as it is their side that is doing it.
Torture, concentration camps, murder. It is all fine, because “we are the good guys”.
as a side note, the “heritage foundation” is not a valid or trustworthy source

@ragingloli just google it and you will see numerous sources for foiled terrorist plots…..Heritage dutifully provided the most details and why I chose their link.