I have to hand it to India, they sure know how to extract information:
Indian police interrogators are preparing to administer a “truth serum” on the sole Islamic militant captured during last week’s terror attacks on Mumbai to settle once and for all the question of where he is from.
The mystery of the man dubbed “the baby-faced gunman” has weighed heavily on India’s relations with Pakistan as the nuclear-armed neighbours dispute each other’s accounts of his origin.
Police interrogators in Mumbai told The Times that they have “verified” that Azam Amir Kasab, who was captured after a shoot-out in a Mumbai railway station on Wednesday night, is from Faridkot, a small village in Pakistan’s impoverished south Punjab region. They say that the nine dead gunmen are also Pakistani.
Disputing that account, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan told CNN last night: “We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt it … that he is a Pakistani.”
He added: “The gunmen plus the planners, whoever they are, [are] stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world.”
Proof that the militants were Pakistani would rapidly escalate the pressure on Mr Zardari’s government to take action or risk a backlash from allies including the United States.
Police interrogators in Mumbai told The Times that they are poised to settle the matter of Kasab’s nationality through the use of “narcoanalysis” – a controversial technique, banned in most democracies, where the subject is injected with a truth serum.
But wait a minute. Don’t they know they have another secret weapon in Obama? I mean, he could fly in on Air Force One and ask him politely. That should get him talking.
See author page
Isn’t the use of drugs on a detained terrorist a form of torture and a violation of his human rights?
Where the handwrining lefties with more concern for cold blooded killers than their victims?
Couldn’t they just waterboard the little puke and get the information they need?
P.S. I am getting a little tired of Pakistan saying these terrorists are “stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world.”
If the Pakistanis were doing their job these “stateless actors” wouldn’t be able to live and train in Pakistan.
Obama as the secret weapon, i like it! But not really. The liberal illuminati definitely have the world thinking that though, thinking that Obama is going to be the hero to “talk” all war to an end. Probably not. It will be interesting to see what he does do though.
the only way that talk for obama will do anything with terrorists to talk them to death, they will die of boredom, or kill themselves after losing count of the uhh’s and umm’s, and ahh’s.
torture the little fucker, please, make him an example.
I say we send both obama and McCain. Let them view the bodies of the victims the terrorists tortured and murdered.
Then we’ll see if they object to what they call torture–stress positions, sleep deprivation, etc.
Yeah, because only torture will work when it comes to getting accurate, useful information from terrorists. Please. This has been disproved so many times. There are reasons why the US has always, ALWAYS been against torture, until the present administration slithered into power. Information obtained by torture is notoriously unreliable. It also makes us barbarians, bringing us to the level of the beasts who would destroy us. When we stoop to this level, they win. I realize it sounds muy muy macho to take the Jack Bauer approach and pull a few fingernails, making us believe we’re doing something tough and determined. In actuality, it only makes us look desperate and impotent, while doing nothing to achieve our goals of acquiring information that can help us root out the cancer. Torture is bad. Torture is un-American. Torture is a betrayal of fundamental American values Period.
Waterboarding is not torture and neither is the drug of truth. The first one is scary but not harmful, the second one is not any different than the drug addicts does willingly, Richard.
The leftists are so out of control that all they think of is to preserve the rights of the terrorists. And what about the rights of the victims of terrorists? Don’t they have any?
Actually Richard, even though your heart bleeds for this poor guy who went out with the rest of his “pals” with the intention to kill upwards of 5000 innocents, you are wrong. Torture has worked in the past as McCain has attested to when the Vietnamese captors used it to break him and his fellows. Do you really think terrorists do not torture their captives in ways that would make Gitmo look like grade-school hazing? Agreed the Geneva Convention does not allow for the torture of P.O.W.s and America as a signatory cannot use it against POWs.
Besides the point (which has been well made here numerous times), that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists because they ARE unlawful combatants involved in war crimes, who do not follow the rules of L.O.A.C., and certainly not P.O.W.s, it’s not up to you to say what India is allowed to choose to do to terrorists who invaded their country to create such turmoil on their sovereign soil.
Article 17 of the Geneva Convention is rather vague concerning truth serums. The Red Cross has conceded that as phrased, it is not clear whether the use of truth serums on P.O.W.s would constitute a violation.
Our military’s position on the use of truth serum on P.O.W.s is:
http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL32567.pdf
Again, that ONLY refers to it’s use on P.O.W.s by America’s military forces. The problem remains, the Geneva Convention ONLY applies when both parties involved in military actions are BOTH signatories. If one party is NOT a signatory, or does not adhere to the tenets of the Geneva Convention, the other party is absolved from being forced to act in kind. Terrorist organizations are neither lawful military combatants of signatory nations, nor do they abide by the Geneva Convention when they take captives. The do not hold tribunals and release non-combatants, they torture and kill anyone they wish to. Hence, torture and even the execution of terrorists sans trial could theoretically be justified.
As for water-boarding and other techniques reported to have been used at Gitmo, As I pointed out in another thread, individuals determined to be illegal combatants were not exposed to any techniques that have not been used numerous times in the training of our own specially assigned government personnel who were at high risk of being captured or to volunteers who agreed to participate to discern technique effectiveness.
@richard:
richard says: “This has been disproved so many times. There are reasons why the US has always, ALWAYS been against torture, until the present administration slithered into power. Information obtained by torture is notoriously unreliable.”
And your definition of torture is????? Coerced interrogation methods used by the US to extract crucial information to save lives is not/was not torture. The animals that were put through these methods were not criminals that are entitled to rights under our Constitution, they are enemies of this country who are determined to murder multitudes of our citizens.
Your comment doesn’t square with the evidence George Tenet and Michael Scheuer speak of.
From:
Curt’s “Hyperventilating Liberals On Torture” column available in the sidebar (Top Posts Overall)
“Both former CIA chief George Tenet and former CIA
official Michael Scheuer, once the head of the bin Laden unit, told me
that coerced interrogation methods often provided accurate intelligence
that potentially saved thousands of lives.”
richard wants to be nice to the terrorists, those thousands of lives of innocents and troops be damned.
Rocky- Very well said, McCain admitted that they broke him with THEIR methods. The saving of lives doesn’t seem to be very high on the lefts agenda, they hide behind platitudes of decency that astound me. I remember during a senate debate on assassination of World leaders, Teddy Kennedy said “better one million people die than we assassinate one world leader” or words to that affect. So Murderers are to be babied and protected with rights that they refused to give to their victims. How moral of you when it’s not your family that is murdered isn’t it Richard.
Ummm richard, if torture doesn’t work how come the North vietnamese extracted so much GOOD info from our captured soldiers? In WWII the nazis regularly crushed entire French resistence cells thanks to the info obtained by torture. When saddam captured a few Coalitiuon pilots in the first Gulf War, they were tortured. They gave up solid intelligence by their own admittance. So tell me, who has disproven torture works? How did they do so? Can you name some names or are you just spouting the typical BS line like a parrot? Please don’t give us that crap that they will tell you whatever you want to hear to stop the torture. It only shows how those that say such things are merely towing the line or staggeringly ignorant. Torture does work, but we don’t do it.
Also as everyone else mentioned, we haven’t tortured anyone. Yes I saw where some journalist went through waterboarding voluntarily and called it torture.
Here’s a little hint for that jackass, torture is something so horrible you wouldn’t even think about willingly exposing yourself to it ever.
I haven’t posted here in awhile but reading the various posts about torture I felt compelled to jump in. First off I’m against it. The reason being if you capture an innocent man and torture him…and yes I consider water boarding torture) he’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. In fact I am certain that if any one of you poster’s were swept up in some sort of raid…held by a foreign government and tortured…despite being innocent…you would eventually tell them anything they wanted.
Having said that I’d like to add that there was an article in the Washington Post written by an interrogator. I encourage everyone to read it. The title is called “I’m Still tortured by what I saw in Iraq”. Below are some excerpts:
“I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I’m still alarmed about that today”.
“I’m not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me — both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn’t work”
“Amid the chaos, four other Air Force criminal investigators and I joined an elite team of interrogators attempting to locate Zarqawi. What I soon discovered about our methods astonished me. The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators’ bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules — and often break them. I don’t have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse”.
“I refused to participate in such practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology — one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they’re listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of “ruses and trickery”). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi”.
“Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq. Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money. I pointed this out to Gen. George Casey, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, when he visited my prison in the summer of 2006. He did not respond”.
“Perhaps he should have. It turns out that my team was right to think that many disgruntled Sunnis could be peeled away from Zarqawi. A year later, Gen. David Petraeus helped boost the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces, cutting violence in the country dramatically”.
“Our new interrogation methods led to one of the war’s biggest breakthroughs: We convinced one of Zarqawi’s associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader’s location. On June 8, 2006, U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders”.
Again I encourage all of you to read it. I think it’s easy to be in favor of torture when none of you (please correct me if I’m wrong on this) have ever been tortured or interrogated. Back during World War II American Intelligence officers obtained information from captured German officials playing Ping Pong. The FBI has a policy of not torturing as well.
I agree that we are much better than our enemies if we behave as evil men do, then we ourselves become evil. My ideology on torture stems from my belief in a great man who was tortured and murdered for who he was…and his name was Jesus Christ.
I am not trying to be self righteous with any of you as I greatly respect your opinions but I do believe we should abide by the moral code laid out for us by the teachings of Christ.
Anyway
Thanks for listening to my little rant.
As always
Ron
McCain also admitted to giving false information (though he could’t keep his story straight).
I think the standards for what should be considered torture are fairly simple. What are you willing to let captured Americans endure? If you are going to prosecute other countries for war crimes for performing a given action, then it’s a crime when you do it as well.
Richard: How do you know it is unreliable. Apparently the people who act upon the ‘information’ feel otherwise. Information is analyzed for its content and apparently some very helpful things are coming out of the mouths of those thugs getting those three hots an a cot courtesy of American taxpayers who were their targets in the first place.
For all the naysayers such as the link below, information gleaned from such ‘confessions’ are not something that is given to the MSM to spin for the masses, so it appears that those who use it know something you don’t.
Just pump the guy full of viagra and force him to work in 50 bollywood porn movies.
The way he has been begging for his life should make him an excellent actor for indian bondage movies.
Richard: Waterboarding saved thousands of lives by getting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to reveal plots that were later foiled.
So, according to your statement above waterboarding isn’t torture or if it is, then torture is effective.
Had these plots not been prevented I imagine you would have been first in line demanding to know why we didn’t do more to get the information that proved to save lives.
Mike did you read my post? Just curious
Ron
@Mike’s America: Torture???? What torture. Did these bastards not come to die in the first place. Human Rights are for humans, not these psychopathic monsters.
Did this Kasab punk not say that the orders he had from his master was “kill, Kill Kill until the last breath”. If you are caught red-handed killing people, then all bets are off and your ass becomes mine!!!! For god’s sake, he was caught on tape killing innocent people. Trying to get information so that we can avoid his buddies from doing it again is not torture. And if we fail in getting the information because we want to be “politically correct” and respectful of his “human rights”, then the blood of the next person to get killed will be on our hands.
The truth serum: The method was widely used by Western intelligence agencies during the Cold War, before it emerged that the drugs used – typically the barbiturate sodium pentothal – may induce hallucinations, delusions and psychotic manifestations.
Here is an eye opener for people worried about his human rights:
Hallucinations: the 72 virgins in heaven
Delusion: Moral right to kill people
Psychotic Manifestation: 200 killed in cold blood in a span of three days
He already suffers from these conditions, even without a truth serum. So why worry. Just get that mofo talking so we can kick some terrorist ass.
And I watched the Zardari interview with Larry king. His defensiveness was reeking of a supremely guilty conscience. He knows who in his army or ISI ordered this attack, but he cannot do anything about it. Even if he wanted to do, he would be assasinated too, probably by Kasab’s younger brother.
Normally I would say, that actions of a military establishment are the business of the home coutry, and nobody else’s. but when the actions of a military establishment directly affect citizens outside the borders of their country, then it becomes everybody’s business. It is our business now and we need to ensure we put an end to it. Where are our world leaders? Does anyone have the balls to do what is right?
No Ron, I didn’t read your comment. What’s your point?
Wow….my point is contained in the post. But since you asked Torture is not as reliable as you present it to be. Again Read the post as it provides information contrary to you stated opinion on torture. And if you like I can provide you numerous links to articles written by interrogators who also believe torture is ineffective.
Ron
Above is the link to the article I referenced.
Another excerpt:
“I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans”.
Considering the fast that this person actually conducted interrogations I’d say he probably knows what he’s talking about.
Ron
@Ron: Ron, you do make a point and I dont think anyone here disagrees that Abu Ghraib showed us in a very bad light. But I think the point here is, what if you know that the person who you have captured has killed innocent peopel and that he may hold information that could save lives of hundreds of people. and to add to it, you are working against time, because another attack could just be around the corner?
Would you recommend that we dont try aggressive interrogation techniques even then, just on the basis that it has been ineffective in some cases in the past, but equally effective in other cases. If I was the one in charge of the security of my nation, I would not hesitate one bit to do whatever it takes to assess what information I can gain from the terrorist. you may say that the info is not reliable….but it is info nevertheless and we should not leave any stone unturned. Of course, the authorities dont solely rely on interrogation. So we have multiple source of info, and we need to treat each source with equal importance.
To VikK:
You too make a very good point. I have this bad habit of taking the opposite side in a debate ( I actually believe torture is morally wrong). It just seemed as though most of the posters on this thread were pro-torture or “enhanced Interrogation”…so I jumped in to point out the other side. Look I by no means think I have all the answers nor do I think that I am absolutely correct. I’m simply saying that for every person who says torture is effective, there’s someone on the other side of the issue saying it isn’t. Sometimes I read posts on this site where individuals make statements as if what there are saying is absolute when it isn’t…..and I am referring to you Mike. I guess that was my point.
Just to be fair I’ll say this…sometimes torture works and sometimes it doesn’t. But again…what about innocent people who are tortured? How do we prevent that?
Ron
The roughest techniques were used very rarely on what was it, three al Qeada leaders? Valuable information was obtained that saved lives.
Since the incident at Abu Ghraib the rules have changed drastically, interrogators aren’t even allowed to touch a detainee. Guards escort them from their cells and stand watch in the interrogation room throughout the questioning to make sure they are not touched. My nephew guarded and protected these animals for eight months at Abu Ghraib, detainees that make it to the level of interrogation aren’t innocent.
To Missy
I understand what you are saying about Abu Ghraib and your nephew…but the notion that they’re aren’t innocent people swept up inraids, detained and then totured simply isn’t true.
See below:
Conservatives urge immediate release for 17 Muslim Uighurs held at US naval facility in Cuba
HOPE YEN
AP News
Nov 20, 2008 09:22 EST
A group of conservatives is chastising the Bush administration for refusing to free 17 Turkic Muslims being held without charges at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying their continued detention defies legal principles and “undermines our standing in the world.”
The 10 conservatives, including legal scholars and officials who worked for Republican presidents, said the Uighurs — a group of Muslims from China — should be freed immediately because they are no longer considered enemy combatants. Their statement comes as a federal appeals court was set to hear arguments next week on whether the Bush administration overstepped its constitutional bounds by blocking the Uighurs’ release.
“The executive branch is wrong to have detained the Uighurs for nearly seven years without meaningful review,” says a letter being released Thursday by The Constitution Project, a bipartisan think tank. “Moreover, it is wrong in opposing the exercise of their habeas corpus rights, and it is wrong in asserting they can be detained indefinitely.”
The letter was signed by Stephen E. Abraham, a 26-year veteran of military intelligence who played a key role in the “enemy combatant” hearings at Guantanamo Bay before repudiating the process last year; Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell; and Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration.
“The continued detention of the 17 Uighurs in Guantanamo compromises our principles and undermines our standing in the world,” they wrote.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina in October ordered the government to immediately free the detainees into the United States, criticizing their detention as having “crossed the constitutional threshold into infinitum.”
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked their release while the Justice Department appeals the decision, a process that could take years.
At issue is whether a federal judge has the authority to order the release of prisoners at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay who were unlawfully detained by the U.S. and cannot be sent back to their homeland.
The Uighurs (pronounced WEE’-gurz), who are Turkic-speaking Muslims in western China, have been cleared for release but fear they will be tortured if they are turned over to China.
The Bush administration, which contends the Uighurs are too dangerous to be admitted into the U.S., has said it was continuing “heightened” efforts to find another country to accept them. Albania accepted five Uighur detainees in 2006 but since has balked at taking others, partly for fear of diplomatic repercussions from China.
Other signers to Thursday’s statement are David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, a lobbying group; Richard Epstein, a prominent conservative legal scholar at the University of Chicago; former FBI director William Sessions; Thomas B. Evans Jr., former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee; Mickey Edwards, former chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee; John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute; and Don Wallace Jr., chairman of the International Law Institute.
And God only knows what really goes on at Guantanamo…with regard to “enhanced interrogation”
We’ve put innocent people on death row in this country…why is it so hard to understand that we also do the same to people from other countries?
Ron
And also there is this film which I saw:
Documentary: Taxi to the Darkside
ABOUT THIS FILM
Over one hundred prisoners have died in suspicious circumstances in U.S. custody during the “war on terror”. Taxi to the Dark Side takes an in-depth look at one case: an Afghan taxi driver called Dilawar who was considered an honest and kind man by the people of his rustic village. So when he was detained by the U.S military one afternoon, after picking up three passengers, denizens wondered why this man was randomly chosen to be held in prison, and, especially, without trial? Five days after his arrest Dilawar died in his Bagram prison cell. His death came within a week of another death of a detainee at Bagram. The conclusion, with autopsy evidence, was that the former taxi driver and the detainee who passed away before him, had died due to sustained injuries inflicted at the prison by U.S. soldiers. The documentary, by award-winning producer Alex Gibney, carefully develops the last weeks of Dilawar’s life and shows how decisions taken at the pinnacle of power in the Bush Administration led directly to Dilawar’s brutal death. The film documents how Rumsfeld, together with the White House legal team, were able to convince Congress to approve the use of torture against prisoners of war. Taxi to the Dark Side is the definitive exploration of the introduction of torture as an interrogation technique in U.S. facilities, and the role played by key figures of the Bush Administration in the process.
I recommend that you see this film…it’s very powerful.
Ron
A ‘truth serum’ doesn’t qualify as torture (unlike waterboarding). On the other hand, from what I recall of the CIA’s conclusions regarding sodium thiopental and other such substances, the optimistic conclusion that this is really going to help is premature. You seem to have jumped from ‘those guys in India are willing to go to extremes!’ to ‘those guys in India really know what they’re doing!‘ without filling in the details.
In this case, I thought the guy was talking already. Which makes me wonder why they’re pulling this out on top of it. Maybe they have reason to think he’s holding out on them; maybe they figure it can’t hurt and might get them some extra information. The biggest handicap to my mind is that they only got one guy, which makes corroborating stories and claims between captives impossible. The tendency to get him to tell them what they think they already know will probably be irresistible.
Anyway, my own operating assumption is that the Indian intelligence is likely to have the same level of competence as their security (showing up ten hours late, hiding from gunbattles): not very high. The willingness to drug captured terrorists isn’t going to fix that.
ron
i’d have to say after carefully reading the article you quote from that there are too many internal inconsistancies and exaggerations for me to take it as a credible statement of facts rather than one mans opinion fueled by hyperbole
but thanks for trying
@bbartlog: The Indian intelligence and response infratructure is currently very inadequate. Just like it was for those of us in the US before 9/11. The Indian police really had no clue what had hit them until it was too late and even after that they were ill-equipped. What baffled me was that they had to wait for daylight to rapelle commandos onto the roof of that building. If they had used night vision hardware, they would have been more effective. But hindsight is 20/20 and I am sure they have learnt a tough lesson.
Having said that, if I know anything about the Indian intelligence (I am Indian and from Mumbai), it is that they dont mess around when they interrogate. The Indians, like the Israelis, are fighting Islamic terror (though not as effectively) since the last 20+ years. And if there is one thing they have learnt in all these year is how to make these dogs yelp, and they are pretty darned good at it. It figures, because when you dont have a good counter-intelligence establishment, your main source of information becomes captured terrorists. Right now, the Indians will take what they can get and I can assure you that killer-boy Kasab is nowhere nearly as comfortable as he must have been when he was inside the Taj Mahal Palace hotel.
@Ron: I have seen the documentary. It is very insightful. I have also seen the latest Spurlock one, “Where in the world is Osama Bin laden”. That is also a very interesting documentary which has conversations with everyday blue collar citizens of the middle east i.e. Muslims with families and children and bills. Their issues are not very different than our middle class. How do I send my kids to school? How will I pay my bills? How am I going to put provide for my family etc.
To me, it is a tight rope that unfortunately free societies have been forced to walk due to the actions of these fanatics. What I have a problem with, is using torture as a “blanket” argument to vilify perfectly safe and proven interrogation techniques. Truth serum and waterboarding to name a few. No irreversible physical damage is done to the interrogee, though the experts would have to verify my statement. But if you tie the suspect to the back of your humvee and drag him through the streets of Mumbai, that is torture. So we have to be very careful what we term as torture and what we term as necessary and structured interrogation techniques. We dont like to interrogate people for the heck of it. We have a reason to do so, and unfortunately, some innocents get caught in the investigative maelstorm, just like innocent diners got caught in the crossfire of Jihad, for no apparent reason. That is the unfortunate hard reality of today’s world and the faster we work to defeat the terrorists, the sooner we can get back to issues that will make humanity a better race. I believe, that there is no one, liberal, conservative or moderate who does not oppose terror. The difference is in how they want to deal with it. Let’s not forget, at the end of the day, it is the terrorist who is the enemy, not liberal or conservative or moderates. We need to be united.
Ron, you are clearly a moonbat. Waterboarding isn’t torture. It’s an extreme stretch to claim otherwise. I’ve seen you post heavily slanted and even dishonest stories to support your America bashing.
You mention the Uigars, well guess why they haven’t been released? NO ONE WILL TAKE THEM. If we send them back to China they may be imprisoned, tortured, or executed. But you make US the bad guys. You are quite transparent. You haven’t fooled anyone.
The torture at Bagram? People were prosecuted and convicted. It’s also sickening the way you take isolated incidents and claim that it’s sytematic and widespread. It isn’t and wasn’t. You are a despicable SOS.
Oh an Fit, McCain lying likely didn’t accomplish much. You see thanks to the other POWs they broke, they probably knew the answers to the questions they asked or had an idea about what the answer should be.
Leftist are all phonies. They are against torture for proven terrorists but then again they are for abortions and even to let born babies dies after a botched abortion. Leftists make me sick.
to Hard Right and Craig:
You two should actually know what you are talking about before making such wild and INCORRECT statements. First of all I am a conservative…voted for McCain..but please don’t let facts stand in the way of the imaginary arguments you two have with those boogey men liberals living inside your heads. There was a excellent debate going on where each poster was polite and made valid points. You two jump in and the debate turns into a high school cafeteria food fight. How mature. I wasn’t going to respond to your immature drivel but since you made such ridiculous and patently false statements I felt compelled to respond. Do everyone a favor next time and stay out of debates…your input is neither welcome nor wanted.
It’s truly astounding to me how you two are even allowed to post on this sight at all. You give Conservatives a bad name. This is exactly why Conservatives are in trouble politically…because neanderthals such as yourself open your mouths and spew the sort of bile that turns people away from Conservatism. There are in fact varying opinions amongst conservatives with respect to various issues…not every conservative thinks and feels as you two do..Than God for that….it would be truly sad if they did.
Go back to your caves a leave intelligent and polite debate to the grownups.
Ron
To Wordsmith, Mata Harley, Curt, Mike, etc.:
I have always been polite, open minded and treated others with respect when posting. I realize you are not responsible for what others post but people like Hard Right and Craig lower the standards of not only true conservatism but this site as well. It’s a shame too because I enjoy reading this site and interacting with other posters during a debate..having said that it is truly despicable the way Hard Right and Craig spew such hateful and destructive rhetoric at fellow conservatives.
Just something for you to consider particularly if you are trying to bring in new readership. Trust when I tell you the more you allow people like Hard Right and Craig to post such garbage..the more you will alienate other intelligent and polite conservatives who don’t subscribe to their sort of gutter behavior.
I really thought this site was better than that.
Ron
Ron;
In Craig’s defense,I don’t see where he actually went after you in this thread and he has calmed down quite a bit on his rhetoric from how riled he was following the election by Obamites popping in here to gloat and “rub our noses in their $h!7” so-to-speak. Unless you assumed, that he assumed you were on the left, though you clearly claim you are typically conservative on most issues. Apparently Hard Right thinks you are a leftist moonbat troll who is only “pretending” to be a conservative and therefore a “a person who is a traitor to his claimed ideologies”.
Sure he sounds a lot like the “crotchety old men sitting on their porches” I recall from my youth. I remember many angry platitudes from them pissed off at how people were trying to send the America they loved “to hell in a handbasket”. Knowing English is not Craig’s native tongue, so he like Sigmund from China,” does get some forgiveness for not being particularly loquacious.
I do think Craig’s point in #32 is very valid and does not read as an attack on you at all. Craig questioned the moralities/sensibilities of those who get upset if someone whom has committed crimes, including multiple-murders, is treated in any manner more harsh than some stupid kid that’s in Juvenal Hall for shoplifting candy one too many times. Yet they have little concern for victim rights, or any qualms about the execution of the perfectly viable infants. Abortions committed at the bequest of mothers who could have just as easily prevented the pregnancy and the expense of the procedure when they or their lovers could have spent the damned fifty cents to purchase a condom or even perhaps got some free ones from planned parenthood.
You see, there are good historical arguments for any punishment less than an “eye for an eye” to be considered a travesty of justice and to “turn the other cheek” on people who would not hesitate a moment to kill you or those you love as naive folly. I see libs all the time taunting conservatives with, “What would Jesus do.” Well, that assumes ALL conservatives are Christians, which is certainly not true. However, if one recalls the Biblical legends, Jesus had the power to raise the dead, heal the injuries, and suffering of others. And in the non-canonized text describing his adolescence, he also had the power to take away life, punish and make to suffer evil-doers with a word or gesture.
“What would Jesus have done?” Possibly resurrected the fallen, perhaps damned those who committed such acts to suffer. Yet, there is not a one of us who could have gone behind those terrorists in Mumbai and changed the fates of those who were so callously slaughtered.
My regards to Sigmund for his countrywomen who met such a fate. My prayers of comfort to those who mourn the loss of others who have dies or suffered at the hands of such vicious subhumans and for the damnation of those who inflicted such harm in their selfish hopes of becoming martyrs.
Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA
November 02, 2007
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:
“For all the debate over waterboarding, it has been used on only three al Qaeda figures, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials.
As ABC News first reported in September, waterboarding has not been used since 2003 and has been specifically prohibited since Gen. Michael Hayden took over as CIA director…
The most effective use of waterboarding, according to current and former CIA officials, was in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, who subsequently confessed to a number of ongoing plots against the United States…”
Ron, voting for McCain does not make you a Conservative. Being religious either. My friend’s last boyfriend was a flaming liberal (Birkenstocks, pony-tail, and tons of Kerry stickers on his car). Yet he was very religious. Granted he was a member of a very liberal church, but religious all the same.
Now you want me to believe you are a Conservative after you post one sided stories accusing our armed forces of widespread torture as a matter of policy, and even post something like this:
Ron, at the very least you are lying to yourself.
Ron, you neglected to add that those reservists who committed those horrendous acts were punished, nothing like is sanctioned by our government or military. Because of those who committed crimes against mankind in this war, the rules of engagement have become so strict that men in my nephews unit were claiming that they would not even fire their weapon. Everytime they get into a skirmish with the enemy where they use weapons, grenades, etc. they have to explain why, fill out paper work, and it’s investigated, much like what our own police officers do here. Hesitation like that, can get people killed, both troops and citizens, it’s like operating under harsh conditions with one hand tied behind their backs, because of the wrongs others have committed.
In every war there is crime committed by a very small percentage of those that fight, it’s unfortunate, but to put something out there as if it’s condoned is an insult against the vast majority that serve this country honorably with the threat of great risk to their own lives and loss to their families.
Abu Graib is like a luxury hotel compared to the interrogation centers in SEAsia.
I find it laughable when some americans so roundly condemn the rough treatment in Abu Graib…..sure it is regrettable because it was not ordered, but aren’t you supposed to be fighting a war, americans????
Perhaps some americans want to fight a war without killing and hurting people?????
Do remember that you dropped 2 nuclear weapons on japanese civilians in WW2. that’s how you win a war……by killing lotsa people. Do remember that you killed 2-3 million vietnamese civilians too.
And you want to complain about a few dozen terrorists getting roughed up in Abu Graib???? This is just hypocrisy and playing politics to bring down the Bush admin to gain power for its opponents.
Nobody in the rest of the world gives a DAMN about the little bit of rough treatment in Abu Graib. In fact we are more surprised at the bleating, hypocritical reaction of some americans who pretend to be horrified by Abu Graib, but are fine with killing 2-3 million vietnamese and 100,000s of japanese civilians with nuclear weapons.
If I were Bush, I would consider opening a few more Abu Graibs.
Good point Sigmundringeck! This new generation of leftists is completly astonishing. Their values are insane. They like and want to protect terrorists… lol. In fact, they hate their own civilization and would like it to be destroy by these terrorists. But they will never admit it to nobody, not even to themselves.
Guy Millière once said about them: “Their real motivation is the hater they have for their own Civilization and what this Civilization has best produced: capitalism, rights and freedom. Knowing themselves incapable of the least fecondity and capable only to envy the other’s fecondity, a destruction spirit animates them”. I’m sorry for the poor translation that I have made of this French author, but I guess you still see his point.
Last I checked REAL Conservatives weren’t spewing lines straight out of the left’s playbook.
Craig, what you see is extreme guilt over having it so good while others do not. From studying the left there are many reasons why they hate America so much. I won’t go into a lot of detail, but will say you should Google Dr. Sanity and read the articles on the left side to better understand the left.
@Ron:
Ron,
I just happened to stumble in here, and haven’t read the subsequent 33 comments before yours, yet.
I think you bring up an issue worth mulling over by the authors.
Should FA (which is a rightwing blog whose purpose isn’t to claim a role of non-partisanship nor wear the pretense mantle of objectivity) slap the hand of those commenters who add little and only engage in ad hominems when it’s directed at conservative readers, while turning a “blind eye” to those commenters from the right, who attack those on the left?
I’d say there should be a little bit of regulating, but not get draconian about it. Only if it gets out of hand. Where the line is drawn, I don’t know.
I don’t think the authors themselves always agree on who’s crossing a line, and who isn’t.
I’ve broken lances with Hard Right and Craig, myself as well. Two readers who I’m politically aligned with, (more or less). Hard Right thinks I should leave the party; Craig has projected Scott’s admission to being a registered Democrat onto me, since Craig sees me too much to the center and not enough to the right. Whatever. They’re entitled to their opinions and to challenging my positions every bit as much as those politically to the left of me disagree with me.
But when it comes to “insults”…..I’m not sure if there can be a distinct line drawn on that one. I just chalk it up to personal posting style and temperament. If someone “insults” me, I tend to shrug it off. It’s my problem to deal with, not theirs, if I feel personally attacked. I think it says more about the person who makes the ad hominem.
I engage in it myself, from time to time, as do the FA authors.
In general, so long as no one is personally threatened to come to harm, I think readers should have the freedom to express themselves in whatever language and tone they wish to set for themselves.
I certainly don’t want to lose you as a reader of FA, Ron, and appreciate your visits here. If this warrants further discussion, you can always contact us by mail, too. Or, let’s just hijack this 2-day old thread and discuss it in the open, too. 😉
To Wordsmith:
Thank you for the kind words. Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken Hard Right’s comments to heart. After all he is clearly one of those types who has extreme tunnel vision and probably has a difficult time admitting when he is wrong….or even having the capacity to see another person’s point of view. He’s actually quite comical. He sounds like Rush Limbaugh on Steroids. Anyway perhaps I will refrain from commenting but don’t worry you won’t lose me as a reader.
Thanks again
Ron