That would most probably be true. They tested stuff related to pilot survival in extreme environments, including freezing seas, freezing air, high windspeeds and and low pressure. Some of their studies were brutal, but had an actual point from the point of waging a war.

That shits awesome, and pretty brutal.

Also, Unit 731 is a sick band name.

Haha, maybe it's a typo, but in the additional notes it says "Crucifried".

Not a typo, the link to the review shows its correct. I also thought Unit 731 would be a cool name for a thrash band when I heard it.

I love how the narrarator shows us the most gruesome, violent pictures while speaking about disgusting and cruel medical procedures in the most deadpan, friendly Discovery channel documentary host voice I've ever heard. This would only be better if it was read by Ben Stine.

I am not entirely convinced that terrorists should not be tortured but surely, it must not be inflicted on those not proven guilty through due legal process.

Thanks for the link.

Japan tried and failed to match us.

T51b:
From the article you directed me to:
"Gehlen returned to West Germany in the summer of 1946 with a mandate to rebuild his espionage organization and resume spying on the East at the behest of American intelligence. The date is significant as it preceded the onset of the Cold War, which, according to standard U.S. historical accounts, did not begin until a year later. The early courtship of Gehlen by American intelligence suggests that Washington was in a Cold War mode sooner than most people realize. The Gehlen gambit also belies the prevalent Western notion that aggressive Soviet policies were primarily to blame for triggering the Cold War."

Also, Soviet Union tested nuclear weapon first in 1949.

Also, why has there been no one yet going...

SURGERY! WITH NO ANESTHESIA!

That is not to say the Government and our intelligence agencies could not have guessed the route the world would take.

Regardless nuclear weapons or not I stand by the decision to exploit Nazi Spy networks against a possible enemy. Conventional or not war with the Russians was becoming a very real concern and I do not hold it against them for utilizing tools that were there to be used.

There was a quote I heard on some random history channel program I liked that sums this up well: "You cannot be in the intelligence business and ride a white horse".

The only way I could really see someone getting upset over using the network was the fact many of the Nazis involved who helped the States were pardoned of the crimes they committed. I admit that is a pretty shitty thing to have happen but I would have utilized the resources as well if I had been in that position.

Maybe I'm too much of a scientist, but this is basically why I don't find this as shocking as the thread title lead me to believe I would. SOMEONE's gotta figure this shit out. I mean, if they were torturing the prisoners just for sadistic intent, yeah I'd probably be shocked. But they wanted specific answers to quite relevant questions. The ends do not justify the means, but something useful did come from those ends.

Stalin, though not to the degree of Hitler, is pretty much unanimously bashed whenever he's brought up. Communist Russia is looked upon with as much fear and hate as Nazi Germany I'd say. Well, maybe not quite, but it's close.

That is the point being made -Nazis clearly responsible for atrocities were going unpunished because they are required to collect intelligence and use their contacts. Nobody has any issue with US government using data and archives already recorded by Nazis at the time of capture. But bargaining that information in exchange for full or partial pardon is another thing

Well, if you choose to defend horrible events that way, I am sure a similar case can be made for just about anything in history. Eg, Nazis believed that Jews would take over Germany and eventually kill people of other races and so acted the way they did in their defence. Or claiming that Iran or just about every Islamic nation is a potential threat to US and so justifies pre-emptive invastion.
I know I am using exaggeration to prove my point, but unless you provide solid evidence to support the possibility of total nuclear destruction brought on by Soviet actions, this is a weak argument you are putting forth.

Please, I can come up with several other quotes to the contrary.

Edit: Don't ignore the fact that the paragraph in the article suggests that the US triggered the intensification of hostility.

Its a matter of opinion in that case, I personally have no issue with such tactics but that is just me. I would not hold it against anyone to be disgusted by the practices.




It is just my opinion, as I said before I cannot even imagine what it was like living under the idea that a nuclear war with a super power might be possible. Much more scary than the fear of another terrorist attack I am sure.

Also as I said even if we were only thinking in the short term of just a conventional war with Russia I would still support using them. Nazi Germany had been crushed and these war criminals were of little real value anymore except for those who wanted "justice".
If they could be exploited to put the United States on a better standing strategically I would not have minded one bit.





Lets hear em .

What I was getting at (and the show the quote came at for that matter tho I cannot recall the title of it) is that "questionable" methods that are going to upset some people have gone hand in hand with the intelligence industry for a very long time.

Edit: Had to fix some broken quotes.

Can't honestly figure out how you came to that conclusion. Didn't WE invade THEIR country? Honestly what threat is some dude in Iraq who's fighting perceived invaders to you?

The reasons we invaded and are still there are another matter completely and I see no reason to beat that dead horse in a thread that is already going off topic.

The people we are fighting however are currently a direct threat to the servicemen and women of the United States and its allies in the current war. If* torture would help save American lives I am for it 100%. American lives in this case being the boots we have on the ground in Iraq.


*the question of torture even being a reliable technique at all is an entirely different argument. I was simply stating I have no moral objection to using it.

The End justify the means and all that.

edit: Also on a more personal note if you meant "you" as in not my country but me in particular I am giving serious consideration into enlisting before I go after my career in law enforcement.

If that is the case I would be one of those "invaders" you spoke of.

Indeed.

The video didn't shock me at all, really. I knew grotesque shit like this has happened in the past. Perhaps it should've shocked me, but all I got out of it was a few chuckles (mainly due to the narrator as Crick said).

How about serial killers and rapists be rehabilitated and enlist them in law-enforcement so that they can use personal insights to fighting crime more effectively? Without ever punishing them.
Does that sit well with your sensibilities.
Please don't point out that they can never be fully corrected - that is not the issue here.


If you just want quotations, none less than the President-elect has said that "America does not torture, and we will not" .

I understand that but it is hardly any justification.

That is a different issue and one I do not have an opinion on. The use of the Nazi spy network was done in a covert fashion and the general public was not aware of it. Directly enlisting the aid of serial killers or rapist into the police force would draw national attention.

If the serial killer or rapists has knowledge that on a national level the nation could benefit from I am sure some type of deal could be struck.
If only to get what was needed and arrange for an "accident" to take place in prison. Who would really miss a serial killer or rapist?





Yes of course leaders must say things such as this. That does not stop it from happening or even mean behind closed doors said leaders do not support it to an extent. You just have to put on a happy face for certain individuals who frown on such methods.

Better yet hand the prisoners off to Israel or Egypt and let them do the dirty work for us. That is where I was going when I tossed that extraordinary rendition comment in one of my post.

edit: hell here is a Bush quote for you: "I've said to the people that we don't torture, and we don't."



Maybe not for you as clearly you seem to value the rights of enemy combatants more than I do. Again it is all personal opinion.

You have made your position very clear in this statement. I wish to argue no further. I was quite an idiot having gone so far in rebuttal.

I agree which is why I was throwing the word "opinion" around so much. We differ in views so strongly arguing is really no use as neither is going to give an inch on these issues.

the intro to the video would be a good intro for a brutal death metal song

I think thats from the movie these guys are talking about:make sure you do a two-fer and follow up with "Black Sun"

The thing that I still don't quite understand about this video is how this nightmarish research was suppose to lead them to have better biological diseases. I mean, were they mixing new chemicals in a lab to use on the victims or were they just testing diseases that were already known to exist? Were they just trying to find out which diseases were the most effective or were they inventing new ones? It seems to me that most of the research they did was simply for their perverse delight in seeing what would happen to people when you did sick experiments to them. The fact that they considered these tests "scientific" is just mind boggling. In one scene from the movie "Philosophy of a Knife" a dentist is yanking out a woman's teeth and a nurse is standing there with a clipboard taking notes and gathering data. What the hell kind of data would they be getting? Records of how loud she screamed or how much pain she felt? How much she bled? This research was beyond fucked up. Yet to this day many Japanese officials deny that these atrocities took place. At least the germans have condemned the actions of their ancestors and have offered compensation to the victims.

Japan is not a culture known for admitting their wrongs.

I have read about Josef Mengele and I by no means insinuated that those who suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany got off easy. I am aware of the horrors that took place in the concentration camps and I acknowledge that many people suffered terribly. Looking back on my post, it does appear that I was ignorant to the way prisoners were treated in the concentration camps, but I can assure you that I know what occurred. My bad for not making that abundantly clear.

To rephrase my point more accurately; I have found that any war crime I hear or read about that was carried out by Japan seems to show an exceptional lacking of, not just empathy, but any emotion at all. Most war atrocities seem to stem from a hatred of some kind, where as the Japanese made it seem so routine and clinical. Rather than an active contempt for those who they tortured, they seem to not even care; as if without feeling. To me there is something chilling about that idea. My opinion, your not being forced to share it.

Oh, I can exclude how Japan treated the Chinese. I get a real sense of detestation there.

To those arguing that the threat of nuclear war with the USSR made it acceptable or understandable to use Nazi intelligence networks, a few things you should consider. The use of these networks as early as 1946 and 1947 should cue you in that nuclear war was not even a consideration in using Nazi spies; at that time a nuclear Soviet Union would have been unthinkable. The Soviet's first nuclear detonation caught America's poor intelligence agencies completely by surprise (they had predicted it wouldn't be for another decade). Now, once the Soviet's did detonate one, that almost certainly played into espionage concerns, as the CIA spent the next decade lying to Truman and Ike about their knowledge of Russia and overstating Russia's capabilities as a precaution (you'd never guess it from all the crap you've heard about the "communist threat," but by the time Kennedy took office the total amount of operational ICBM's the Soviet Union had was.....four; that's single-digits, not 400).


The big thing to keep in mind here is that U.S. intelligence services were vary poor in those years, especially when dealing with the USSR. Thus, I think it's reasonable to assume that better intel in general, not the threat of nuclear war, was the chief reason for using Nazi spies.

I don't know how far you are accurate in making those claims. It is quite vaguely worded and could be interepreted in various ways depending on context- examples include :no emotion at all", "routine and clinical" ,"not caring, no feeling".
I am not bent on contradicting you here but would like to point out that the same phrases can be used to describe a lot of atrocities committed by Europeans as well as people of other races, including Nazi Germany ,Native American massacres by European colonists, Combodian genocide etc. As for being cold and calculated, I think many experts share the view that a lot of the Nazi treatment of Jews was in similar vein ( not being a product of hatred alone; more a shocking inability to consider their victims as human beings). DOn't get me wrong -hatred was probably the primary motive behind Nazi racial policies but there were several for whom killing was a routine and regarded their victims as little more than animals.

That should not surprise me, considering how often the country has succumbed to fears of external aggression and has adopted policies that violate the basic freedoms guranteed by Constitution. The whole shameful episode of McCarthy Witch Hunt comes to my mind that in hindsight cannot be seen as anything more than rabid paranoia and grave intolerance.

That was the most disturbing thing I've ever viewed...

Which makes them different from everyone else in the world in what way, exactly?

It was my mistake and I changed my post back around to "conventional" war with the Russians.




I have no idea about the budget the U.S. intelligence groups ran on back in those days. Your assessment of it sounds logical enough however if the funding was that bad for them.

As I said in one of my later post nuclear or conventional it does not really matter to me. I can understand the various intelligence services wanting to stay ahead of the Soviets when it came to the "information war".

From the wiki article:

Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson recorded the song 'The Breeding House', about Unit 731.

I wasn't too shocked by this video. I suppose I've become far to desensitized by explicit images over the years that nothing will shock me now.
The thing which probably was the most disturbing for me was the fact that the U.S. government let these men who committed these awful atrocities go free.
Anyway our history is chock full of mass murder, torture, rape and other terrible things - a lot of them being carried out by insitutions.

well businesses like JP Morgan and Wachovia like to for PR (ironically it may have been those slaves' descendants who helped to cause those companies' woes), and on the government-level there's Affirmative Action and a host of other social programs in the name of Civil Rights, states like Florida and New Jersey, or even the entire country (also Germany), apparently feel the need to make such unnecessary statements (Japan did something of the sort as well)

next on the humiliation table...reparations (which have actually been paid for years by many countries, including US specifically to Injuns and interred Jap-Americans [though not to the interred German-Americans], so there is precedent...)

its this damn de-balling of the Western male...there is so much we could afford to learn from the Japanese that we have apparently forgotten

HAHAHA

Sorry for something I didn't commit.

Inspired by this, due to my Lakota heritage, I'm going to find the nearest white person, and make them say sorry for stealing my land.

Oh, the funding wasn't the problem. Intelligence operations were fairly new to the U.S.; we had mostly relied on European allies in both World Wars. Remember, we didn't even have a permanent peacetime army until after WWII, so there was not much of a perceived need for espionage. The KGB had a 20 year head start on the CIA (it had previously worked under a different name, Cheka), and Britain even longer. The NSA wasn't around until later.

To claim that Japan didn't kill in volume is quite exaggerated...at the very least, half of the dead of WW2 belong to Japan, not Germany. And German spies didn't kill jews for all I know.

Mengele had to flee for whatever he may have done and Israelis chased him around the world while these japs were welcomed in the US, once again proving that killing Jews is a bigger crime than killing asians/europeans as the Japanese did.

fixed.

Whether or not the Japanese killed Americans at these facilities, they were killing them in POW camps.

Anyways, I found that the video seemed to lack a lot of necessary information and I would expect that someone with a PhD. would be able to narrate it in a more 'scholarly' fashion. This sounded like an 11th grade history seminar or somthing. Also, be sure to check out the link to his website ...i LOL'd

What made you laugh about it?