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Real American Patriot
14 years ago
The part that is so disgusting about that statement is that you actually believe it…
And on top of the you seem to believe we are safer because of it..
@Real American Patriot: It’s the words of Obama’s Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence.
Are you suggesting they are LYING?
IDIOT!
mynameis
14 years ago
Indulging in even a teensy, weensy bit of torture still makes you a torturer. You have to believe that it “saved thousands of American lives” because you know it’s wrong, and you don’t want to think you are evil. The poor sod who was told to gas the the kurds by Saddam probably believed that he was saving thousands of Iraqi lives too.
1903A3
14 years ago
I cant take it anymore…….I CONFESS!!!
bill-tb
14 years ago
Well, but that doesn’t count how many of our own troops gets waterboarded each year …
this was good for a smile this morning, we have so little to smile about. Let me see if I can make you smile:
It was once said that a black man would be president when pigs flew. Well, behold 100 days into his presidency …. Swine Flu…
Real American Patriot
14 years ago
bill-tb
The US needs to stand on moral high ground. The republicans here and elsewhere know it but for some dumb reason they are backing the Bush administration on this.
Mike:
I am suggesting that water boarding was not need to achieve the same result. Some members of the FBI agree and have publicly spoken out about this.
From what I am gathering you one of those that actually believes water boarding makes us safer.
I think I remember your answer from before, but could you remind everyone what your position was regarding the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?
Sneaky liberal
14 years ago
Real American Patriot and Mynameis – I read this blog, along with a few others, from time to time only to gauge the temperature, so to speak, of the conservative movement. In all honestly, I am a lefty liberal who usually gets apoplectic when reading this site (which is fair – I’m sure if you and others read some of our vaunted lefty sites, you have similar reactions). When I saw your comments, though, alluding to the unacceptability of torture under any circumstances, I have to say I felt immense pride and admiration, for all (or most, at least) of us, from the right to the left, for our refusal to compromise as a nation and as a society on moral absolutes; such as, for example, the notion that torture is never acceptable. This is, of course, what differentiates us from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists who use torture (and other heinous acts) as tactics of terrorism and social control. I glibly expected the vast majority of conservatives to defend vocally the use of torture, especially since Cheney and Co. (not really conservatives, though, technically, right?) have endorsed and defended it so stoically. It is refreshing to know that my assumption was wrong.
@Real American Patriot: CRAP, There is NOTHING to suggest we might have gotten the same information necessary to prevent the attacks had we not waterboarded JUST THREE TERRORISTS.
There is everything to suggest the opposite which is exactly why Obama won’t release the memos detailing this.
However, we do have the statement of former CIA Director Tenet who said:”I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
@SARGE CHARLIE: Good one! It’s worth repeating:
It was once said that a black man would be president when pigs flew. Well, behold 100 days into his presidency …. Swine Flu…
@Sneaky liberal: Torture has been defined as that which causes lasting physical or mental harm. Since we perform waterboarding on our own troops without ill effect you can hardly call it torture.
But I do admire your strong moral stand. Especially the part about your “refusal to compromise as a nation and as a society on moral absolutes.”
What a shame you only apply this code of moral absolutism in this one area of your existence. I could think of multiple other areas where most liberals violate that code with impunity and laugh about it.
What’s really funny about your post is that you praise RAP and mynameis while you mistake them for conservatives.
Obviously you don’t read this site nearly as much as you need to in order to make any sort of informed commentary.
Exit questions:
What laws, if any, do you contend were broken by the EIT’s used on the three people in question?
What is your definition of the word “torture”?
Lorraine
14 years ago
What a shame you only apply this code of moral absolutism in this one area of your existence. I could think of multiple other areas where most liberals violate that code with impunity and laugh about it.
Yeah MA: Lilke the Liberals stand on abortion. Where is the moral absolute in that.
Liberal logic is priceless. They want to protect a person who is trying to destroy this nation. But they allow a little unborn person to be aborted, even if the little unborn person is capable of living life outside the womb, like the Partial birth abortions. Priceless logic.
Sneaky liberal
14 years ago
Aye Chihuahua:
Here are the definitions of torture I find most accurate:
TORTURE:
anguish: extreme mental distress, unbearable physical pain;
agony: intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain; “an agony of doubt”; “the torments of the damned”;
torment: torment emotionally or mentally;
distortion: the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean;
subject to torture; “The sinners will be tormented in Hell, according to the Bible”;
the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason; “it required unnatural torturing to extract a confession.”
As defined by wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn.
As regards “broken laws,” I would refer to the Geneva Convention, portions of which President Bush attempted to abrogate. Our own criminal legal codes, however, classify torture as “aggravated assault,” a felony crime which carries stiff penalties, as a rule.
Ah yes, and a final note. Please excuse my mistake in believing that many conservatives do not support torture. Thank you for pointing out my error.
Some members of the FBI agree and have publicly spoken out about this.
Problem here is, the FBI has a different mindset. There’s a difference between the needs of law enforcement interrogations and military interrogations. The FBI has a difficult time separating the need to make a criminal case and the one needed for determining strategic information.
mynameis,
How do you define torture? Are there gradations? how far do we “dumb down” the definition? Some might say tickling is torture. So would that be “off the tables” as well, and should we announce that to the enemy? Would a moment of creating pain/discomfort be a moral outrage if it saved 1 life? 10 lives? 100? ten thousand? A city? The CIA says the coercive techniques/harsh interrogations yielded actionable intelligence. FBI method might have eventually yielded the same results…..but how long does that take, and might time not be of the essence if plots are to be disrupted? Is not sooner better than later, in this case?
The UN has made the claim that simply being detained at Guantanamo is “tantamount to torture.” Is this the case? If only prisons all over the world could have it so good!
Many Arabs consider Gitmo to be a joke and call it “The Religious Resort of Islamic Militants”. For them to see it otherwise, we’d have to go significantly beyond the act of waterboarding (how many terrorists did this happen to, again?).
What we’ve done to terrorists like Zubaydah and KSM pales in comparison to the lives they’ve destroyed and the torture they’ve inflicted. What if Daniel Pearl were your son? Your father? Was he tortured and killed to save innocent lives? Your attempt at drawing moral equivalence with the Kurd gassing is laughable.
What I’m horrified by, is your lack of outrage over “the attention grab”:
“(G)rasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator.”
Utterly barbaric! How dare the Bush attorneys approve such a demeaning technique and simply label it “enhanced” interrogation!
As the torments were gradually increased, next up the interrogation ladder came “walling.” This involves pushing the terrorist against a flexible wall, during which his “head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to prevent whiplash.”
People pay to have a lot rougher stuff done to them at Six Flags Great Adventure. Indeed, with plastic walls and soft neck collars, “walling” may be the world’s first method of “torture” in which all the implements were made by Fisher-Price.
As the memo darkly notes, walling doesn’t cause any pain, but is supposed to induce terror by making a “loud noise”: “(T)he false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will further shock and surprise.” (!!!)
If you need a few minutes to compose yourself after being subjected to that horror, feel free to take a break from reading now. Sometimes a cold compress on the forehead is helpful, but don’t let it drip or you might end up waterboarding yourself.
The CIA’s interrogation techniques couldn’t be more ridiculous if they were out of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition sketch:
Cardinal! Poke her with the soft cushions! …
Hmm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch … THE COMFY CHAIR!
So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair! …
Now — you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunchtime, with only a cup of coffee at 11.
Further up the torture ladder — from Guantanamo, not Monty Python — comes the “insult slap,” which is designed to be virtually painless, but involves the interrogator invading “the individual’s personal space.”
If that doesn’t work, the interrogator shows up the next day wearing the same outfit as the terrorist. (Awkward.)
I will spare you the gruesome details of the CIA’s other comical interrogation techniques and leap directly to the penultimate “torture” in their arsenal: the caterpillar.
In this unspeakable brutality, a harmless caterpillar is placed in the terrorist’s cell. Justice Department lawyers expressly denied the interrogators’ request to trick the terrorist into believing the caterpillar was a “stinging insect.”
Human rights groups have variously described being trapped in a cell with a live caterpillar as “brutal,” “soul-wrenching” and, of course, “adorable.”
If the terrorist manages to survive the non-stinging caterpillar maneuver — the most fiendish method of torture ever devised by the human mind that didn’t involve being forced to watch “The View” — CIA interrogators had another sadistic trick up their sleeves.
I am not at liberty to divulge the details, except to mention the procedure’s terror-inducing name: “the ladybug.”
Finally, the most savage interrogation technique at Guantanamo was “waterboarding,” which is only slightly rougher than the Comfy Chair.
Thousands of our troops are waterboarded every year as part of their training, but not until it was done to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — mastermind of the 9/11 attack on America — were liberal consciences shocked.
I think they were mostly shocked because they couldn’t figure out how Joey Buttafuoco ended up in Guantanamo.
As non-uniformed combatants, all of the detainees at Guantanamo could have been summarily shot on the battlefield under the Laws of War.
Instead, we gave them comfy chairs, free lawyers, better food than is served in Afghani caves, prayer rugs, recreational activities and top-flight medical care — including one terrorist who was released, whereupon he rejoined the jihad against America, after being fitted for an expensive artificial leg at Guantanamo, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
Only three terrorists — who could have been shot — were waterboarded. This is not nearly as bad as “snowboarding,” which is known to cause massive buttocks pain and results in approximately 10 deaths per year.
Normal human beings — especially those who grew up with my older brother, Jimmy — can’t read the interrogation memos without laughing.
At Al-Jazeera, they don’t believe these interrogation memos are for real. Muslims look at them and say: THIS IS ALL THEY’RE DOING? We do that for practice. We do that to our friends.
But The New York Times is populated with people who can’t believe they live in a country where people would put a caterpillar in a terrorist’s cell.
the techniques used by the United States military and intelligence agencies are NOT torture. It’s no different than how they’ve redefined the term “sexual assault”. It used to mean an ASSAULT of someone in a sexual manner. It involved rape, penetration, inappropriate touching, non-consensual sex, and child molestation. When this wasn’t occurring at levels high enough to get proper government funding, the term was redefined to include voyeurism and exhibitionism. That wasn’t good enough, so it was further defined to include yelling.
The same thing has happened with torture. Real torture, you see, doesn’t exist at the hands of this country. You will never find a prisoner having their fingernails pulled out, being forced to kneel on bamboo reeds, having extremities cut off, being skinned alive, or placed in an iron maiden. Since this real torture doesn’t exist, the left has had to redefine it. So, they decided that torture included such actions as waterboarding. When there weren’t enough incidents of that happening, liberals decided that we needed to redefine torture to include sleep deprivation, loud music, and standing for long periods of time. Now, we can’t even place harmless caterpillars in their cages or flush their holy books down toilets!
When I saw your comments, though, alluding to the unacceptability of torture under any circumstances, I have to say I felt immense pride and admiration, for all (or most, at least) of us, from the right to the left, for our refusal to compromise as a nation and as a society on moral absolutes; such as, for example, the notion that torture is never acceptable. This is, of course, what differentiates us from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists who use torture (and other heinous acts) as tactics of terrorism and social control.
Translation: “We, who smugly believe in moral absolutes and who won’t compromise our moral high ground, if given a choice between kid-glove “torture” of a terrorist to save a city of a hundred thousand lives would rather allow those lives to perish if it means we’d have to soil our clean conscience.”
This is the same ethical standard that had Carter withdraw support of the Shah who did not live up to his moral standards on human rights; the same one that saw Clinton gut our CIA by requiring we recruit spies of not so questionable character, when the whole business of spy recruitment is to deal with unsavory characters willing to sell out their own countries!
You can smugly declare, “A hundred thousand lives were lost that I could have helped prevent; but at least I didn’t compromise my moral principles!!!!”
What’s so moral about not saving lives?
Sneaky liberal
14 years ago
The “ethical standard” you appear to ridicule, Wordsmith, is the same standard that saw us triumph over the Soviet Union; that helped the North defeat the South in the Civil War; that urged American patriots to revolt again oppressive and unjust British tactics in the Revolutionary War; in short, that “ethical standard” is America’s commitment to freedom, fairness, justice, and equality (review the Bill of Rights). It is, in short, what makes America, America. Finding grey areas and ways to justify deviating from our moral bedrock is a slippery slope, as other nations and leaders who sacrificed “ethical standards” (like the Shah, for instance, or Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Chile’s Pinochet, or the USSR’s Stalin) soon discovered. God save us from heading down that road – though people like you would, it appears, willingly lead us there.
Favre
14 years ago
Personally i would KILL to protect my family. Waterboarding is not torture, but i guess that depends on what your definition of is is. Libs: Just say no to torture… unless its sucking out a baby with a vaccum from the womb, thats ok… retards.
Scott Malensek
14 years ago
WAY TOO FUNNY! Some want to look back and view this as a mocking or dumbing down of the interrogations that happened seven years ago. Me, I like “looking forward” (to paraphrase our President), and I see this-instead-as a mocking of the now approved methods of interrogation during the Obama years. Oooooo, I bet the bad guys are shaking in their boots now!
@Sneaky liberal: I define torture as having to endure such willful ignorance as you display in your comments above. Can I know have you prosecuted?
Please cite the section of the Geneva Conventions which have been changed to permit them to cover illegal combatants who wear no uniform and answer to no state?
As for that “ethical standard” which “helped the North defeat the South in the Civil War” you have to be kidding right?
Ever hear of Andersonville Prison? How about Lincoln’s suspension of habeus corpus?
If you suddenly suggest we now only have to adhere to a 19th century standard of conduct then Bush Administration officials should be prosecuted for failure to do more.
I am thrilled to learn you have a moral standard. I’m disappointed to discover your moral compass is hopelessly broken.
As I have said to others, perhaps you should visit the Library Tower in L.A. and explain to the folks whose lives were saved why we would be better off following your moral absolutism.
Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and a 747 from the presidential fleet to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.
In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD, the Federal Aviation Administration’s James Johnston said the agency was aware of “the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes” in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor’s office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.
“To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare people it’s just confounding,” Sen. Charles Schumer said. “It’s what gives Washington and government a bad name. It’s sheer stupidity.”
Roll the tape:
Mental or physical distress? Check.
Torment? Check.
Fear? Check.
Panic? Check.
People fleeing their workplaces? Check.
Emotional anguish? Check.
Knowledge that might end badly? Check.
Yeah, Obama is now guilty of “torture” by your own definition.
Ya better get busy gettin’ him impeached.
As regards “broken laws,” I would refer to the Geneva Convention, portions of which President Bush attempted to abrogate.
Ohhh….sorry.
You should read the GC’s.
If you did, then you would find that they specifically exclude the captives in question.
Care to try again?
Our own criminal legal codes, however, classify torture as “aggravated assault,”
Again, nice try….but you fell miserably short.
The contents of US criminal codes are irrelevant to what is to be applied to combatants captured on the battlefield halfway ’round the world.
Perhaps you should try less “sneaky” and more “smart”.
Exit question:
Did you support or oppose the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?
@Aye Chihuahua: Not wanting to veer too far off topic, but we now learn that the F-16 accompanying Air Force One was from the “Red Tails” unit in Alabama which became famous for being the first black air force unit.
Now, let’s get back to watching Sneaky Lib squirm out from under his mass of twisted talking points.
Hard Right
14 years ago
CRAP and SL display their raging narcissism with their positions. They pretend it’s for the good of America and others, but it’s really all about them.
They get to tell themselves how superior they are to those who support what they call torture and what good, moral people they are.
As someone said, they ARE willing to let thousands of their contrymen die (and have already done so) just so they can feel good about themselves.
BTW, we haven’t tortured anyone. You want to see torture? Look what has been done to our troops when captured by the Vietnamese or Saddam during the first Gulf War.
So this is what the President was referring to when he mentioned the British interrogation techniques.
Catherine
14 years ago
Sneaky liberal
So you are against waterbording any US military member?
And these monsters in GETMO are not under the GC because they were not wearing uniforms or playing by the rules you state.
what does the GC say about enemy who do not play by the GC rules you might want to look that up.
FDR hung 7 of 8 in less than 2 weeks.
You are trying to change the rules we do not torture or have we ever torture. If it was good enough to do on our own men well.
and the a-hole you are so worried about WHAT did he do Cut off D.Pearls head off and put it on tape to spread his filth.
took part in killing 3000 Americans hoping it was more. Took out 1trillion of the US eco.
are you charging them as well.
How much did that photo opp cost?
so much for worried about global warming
flying in guy for pizza
When I saw your comments, though, alluding to the unacceptability of torture under any circumstances, I have to say I felt immense pride and admiration, for all (or most, at least) of us, from the right to the left, for our refusal to compromise as a nation and as a society on moral absolutes;
“Immense pride and admiration” simply because (hypothetically assuming RAP and myn were conservative readers- *snarf*!) someone agrees with you?!?! Kind of arrogant, don’t you think? The presumption that your morals trumps my morals? Maybe I should feel “immense pride and admiration” because some Hillary Dems miss Cheney?
It’s strange how in #18, you say it’s our “ethical standard” that saw us triumph over the Soviet Union (thank you, Reagan!), then go on to talk about the “slippery slope” of “sacrificing” “ethical standards” by our support of Pinochet. What those on your side of the political aisle fail to understand is the situational logic of the time determined that it made sense to support reliably anti-Soviet allies in Pinochet and Marcos than the alternatives at the time. It’s the principle of lesser evils. America and the real world don’t operate on the basis of permanent allies and friendships but upon permanent self-interests which will see us allying ourselves with Stalin in order to defeat a Hitler; somehow, in the mind of Howard Zinn liberals, this translates as “propping up Stalin”. What if during the Carter years, we refused to allow the Shah’s fall to take place? Is it a good thing that we let a deeply pro-American dictator lose power to be replaced by an even more ruthless and repressive theocratic regime? Is the world safer today, because of Carter’s sanctimony? Will Obama’s sanctimony make us safer today and tomorrow?
Have the libbos all abandoned the field and gone into hiding or is there a Moveon.org circus in town they are required to attend to update the brain chip that was implanted.
Never mind… next post we do on this subject they’ll be back repeating the same lines as if none of us ever bothered to refute their silliness in the first place.
They’re like parrots that only know a few words and just repeat them over and over:
Jim B
14 years ago
Compaired to what happened to this gentleman, his family, Mr. Berg, Mr. Pearle, etc, I have no compassion for those waterboarded.
“The body of a Polish engineer killed by the Taliban in Pakistan back in February, was returned to his family on Wednesday. The wife and son of Piotr Stanczak received the coffin at the Warsaw airport. He was kidnapped in Pakistan and beheaded after the government ignored a deadline for releasing Taliban prisoners.”
Yes we should stop waterboarding, right after we have all needed info, then start beheading. Death to our enemies!
Jim B
14 years ago
Based on crimes he committed, KSM deserves many more waterboardings
By Gary Harmon
Friday, April 24, 2009
The people who think that waterboarding constitutes torture are bruiting about the fact that the mastermind of the Sept. 11. 2001, attacks on the United States was treated to the experience 183 times in a single month.
Knowing that Khalid Sheikh Muhammed — KSM as he’s come to be known — was the organizer of the plot to hijack four fuel-laden airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and, most presume, the nation’s capitol, there seems to be a single inescapable conclusion:
The attacks claimed 2,998 innocent lives, which means that KSM has 2,815 more waterboardings coming to him.
That’s pretty much a minimum number.
Feel free to add to the amount however you see fit.
For instance, KSM has boasted that he killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. While some doubt his veracity, his eagerness to claim the deed makes him eligible for waterboarding No. 2,816.
Uplifting as it is to contemplate the waterboarding of a 9/11 participant, let alone a mastermind, a few questions come to mind.
The most significant one is: If a person can be waterboarded 183 times a month, how exactly can the procedure be considered torturous?
Remember, the idea behind the waterboard is to make a person feel as though he’s drowning.
An astute observer such as KSM, the holder of a mechanical-engineering degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, might have gleaned from the presence of medical personnel that the idea was to scare him, not kill him.
It also might be that after 183 tries, there’s as much suspense — and gravity — as there is on Elm Street at midnight. Freddy Krueger and KSM just won’t die, and everyone knows it.
That, course, suggests that if waterboarding isn’t torture, might it also be ineffective?
In fact, just about everything you know about waterboarding is wrong.
Far from being kept in the dark about the technique, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was vividly aware of it as far back as 2002.
And she was a big fan.
In fact, the speaker-to-be was a bit worried that waterboarding might not be tough enough to get the dope — that’s spy talk for intel.
Before the CIA decided it needed to play tough with KSM, he played coy with them, perhaps trusting that no one would touch a hair on his head, to say nothing of leaving it securely in place on his shoulders.
KSM would say only, “Soon you will know,” according to CIA memos.
Waterboarding made KSM less cryptic and more loquacious, according to the CIA memos, which said, “the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al-Qaida has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.”
Not only that, but it seems that KSM got almost chatty, letting his interrogators onto the little secret of an attack on the other side of the United States.
The plot called for East Asian operatives to hijack an airliner and crash it into a building in Los Angeles.
No such attack —cross fingers — has taken place. Sure, a few architectural aficionados might complain that some serious demolition is in order, though perhaps not on the scale or by the means envisioned by KSM.
The Obama administration, with much ado, released memos detailing the careful approach its predecessor took in determining on whom to use waterboards, how often and to what end.
That decision was made over the objection of the current head of the CIA, who once served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton, whose administration slept through KSM’s years of preparation for the Sept. 11 attacks, even though he played a role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. You know, the one that stood in Lower Manhattan until Sept. 11, 2001.
As it stands today, quite possibly thanks to waterboarding, the Los Angeles skyline, when it can been seen, is untouched. Waterboarding means surfing at Huntington Beach in Valley Girl-speak and Hollywood is still spewing drivel.
What would it look like if KSM had his way?
Most of us would rather not know.
liam09
14 years ago
I think it is torture every time one of our enemies gets shot in the pelvis. I heard the pain is excruciating. I believe that kind of pain will last the whole persons life (in their emotions at least). I believe we should take the moral high ground and equip our troops with gay-pride flags, love as their bullets, and hand grenades that when they blow up, all kinds of candy pours fourth from them for the little kids to eat. Like a pinata. As far as torturing to get information; I agree it goes nowhere. Just ask Jack Bauer.
liam09
14 years ago
Also, here is the question:
Knowing what we know with 911, would you have tortured (water boarded) a captured terrorist, /knowing/ that it would have circumvented all of the plots from happening? Simple answers only.
Looks like Sneaky Libtard has engaged in “Premature Evacuation”.
Don’t you just hate it when that happens?
You’re there on the computer having a stimulating conversation and just when it starts to get good……. “BAM” it’s all over….leaving disappointment all around.
What a shame….
So many hard questions left to answer…..
So many unresolved, unsupportable claims left lingering……
Crumbs all over the carpet…..
We Conservatives could have had so much fun if Simple Leftist had been able to maintain control. It takes backbone to face withering debate, especially when you’re so demonstrably ignorant of what you’re discussing.
Hey SL, if you’re still reading, just remember, FA is not occupied by the “Amen Chorus” and we won’t just smile and politely nod along.
Of course, if you read here very often, as you claimed in your first post, you would know that already.
When you come here to chat, you better bring your “A” game because without it, as you quickly discovered, you’ll beclown yourself, and everyone will giggle at you.
Please come back!
Please oh please oh please…..I wanna laugh at you some more.
Heh.
Catherine
14 years ago
Like I said no one will do what it takes to save another American city or anywhere else.
sorry.
let holder and bho do those interviews themselves.
sorry Europe.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gS_wCwVf04MPhiRv1lwDohnZy8gAD97SBFS80
Holder urges allies to take share of detainees
April 29, 2009
In speaking to reporters Wednesday, Holder also said it is possible the United States could cooperate with a foreign court’s investigation of Bush administration officials.
Holder spoke before the announcement that a Spanish magistrate had opened an investigation of Bush officials on harsh interrogation methods. Holder didn’t rule out cooperating in such a probe
like I said.
Pressed on whether that meant the United States would cooperate with a foreign court prosecuting Bush administration officials, Holder said he was talking about evidentiary requests and would review any such request to see if the U.S. would comply.
NOW IF THIS DOESN’T YOU PISSED?
HELL IT IS THE LAW IN SOME COUNTRIES TO CUT PEOPLES HEADS OFF
AND MARRY LITTLE GIRLS AS YOUNG AS 8 YEARS OLD TOO.
Catherine
Liberals, moving a eight month old in the womb to the birth canal, plunging a pair of scissors into its skull and then sucking out its brains, and removing the corpse, placing it in a glad bag, and disposing of it with medical wastes, is not torture.
Placing a caterpillar in a sleeping bag with a murderer of three thousand people, torture.
If waterboarding is torture, then here are few more things that save or improve lives, but cause as much or more suffering, and so should be outlawed on the same grounds:
1. Chemotherapy
2. Tetanus vaccinations (Ouch — mine hurt for days! Waterboarding lasts how long after?)
3. Surgery
4. Abortion
5. Childbirth
6. CPR (my husband’s chest hurt for weeks after his successful out of hospital resuscitation)
The bottom line is that waterboarding was effective. It saved lives. It’s more of a mental trick than actual torture — there are few, if any, lingering side effects. By calling it torture, we are making a mockery of real torture — especially that which is done only to terrorize, and not done to gain information to save lives. Shame on those who would hand our enemies such a gift.
The US would have plenty of high ground to stand on regarding torture if it weren’t for these liberal pettifoggers and their twisted carnards of torture digging it out from under us.
Just for clarification and before one of the handwrining lefty ninnies starts screaming, the 183 figure for waterboarding KSM refers to the number of “pours” of water, not the total number of sessions.
And I do believe KSM deserves many thousand more and worse.
It’s difficult to believe that the Dems really want to release Gitmo terrorists in American cities. But I wouldn’t put it past them. I think all good libs, starting with the ones who usually whine on these pages should stand up and be first in line to volunteer to host one of these terrorist monsters in their own home.
BREAKING: White House Overrides FBI and DHS on Gitmo Release
by Jed Babbin
04/30/2009
Moving quickly to release Chinese Uighur terrorists into the United States, Obama administration officials have — for the second time — overridden objections of federal agencies responsible for national security.
The first time — as I reported on April 20 — the White House overrode the inter-agency panel it created from all the national security agencies to review all the cases of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. That panel found that the seventeen Uighurs — members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement captured at an al-Queda training camp in Pakistan — were too dangerous to release in the United States.
Now — according to a federal agency source who requested anonymity — the White House has also overridden opposition to the release from both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
Beginning yesterday and continuing today, Obama administration officials are briefing key members of Congress on the release, which may happen as early as next week. There apparently has been no decision on where the Uighurs will be turned loose. Earlier reports suggested they could be released in Alexandria, Virginia or Washington, D.C.
Emphasis added by me.
Combine that with the story from a week or so ago that Iran offered multiple Al Qaeda members and the US refused them.
Hmmmm…..where have we heard that story line before?
Timothy
14 years ago
President Obama mentioned we should be more like Churchill who didn’t torture.
Ahhhhhh….didn’t he realize what the British did to German SS troops post WW2???
SAS DEATH SQUADS ANYONE???? Retribution killings anyone????
Brits weren’t too understanding towards “freedom fighters” or separatists either.
ChipD
14 years ago
There are several points here that need refuting- one, that waterboarding and “harsh interrogation techniques” are necessary and morally acceptable.
Without getting into a jailhouse lawer game of what the definition of “torture” is, the first point, that it is necessary to get info, is wrong:
Link to Col. Steve Kleinman, an Air Force intelligence officer:
He makes the point that extreme methods are not reliable or necessary, and can’t be dismissed as a sissy liberal.
The notion that we need to do it to “save lives” is a bit easy to do- but we could also “save lives” by banning guns, or publically burning criminals at the stake, or any number of other things that take away liberty and cause us to lose our sense of dignity.
Nice attempt with the Kleinman piece, however his position has been soundly refuted by numerous people up to, and including, the President of the United States.
George Tenet has said that “this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
I could cite Porter Goss and many others but I doubt it would make any difference to someone who is not even willing to try to define the word “torture”.
I’ll take the word of the intelligence community over someone who has an axe to grind or an agenda to meet. It’s clear to me where Kleinman falls.
Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent’s life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy. Even John McCain, the most admirable and estimable torture opponent, says openly that in such circumstances, “You do what you have to do.” And then take the responsibility.
Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don’t entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.
The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. This case lacks the black-and-white clarity of the ticking time bomb scenario. We know less about the length of the fuse or the nature of the next attack. But we do know the danger is great. (One of the “torture memos” noted that the CIA had warned that terrorist “chatter” had reached pre-9/11 levels.) We know we must act but have no idea where or how — and we can’t know that until we have information. Catch-22.
Under those circumstances, you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding. (To call some of the other “enhanced interrogation” techniques — face slap, sleep interruption, a caterpillar in a small space — torture is to empty the word of any meaning.)
Did it work? The current evidence is fairly compelling. George Tenet said that the “enhanced interrogation” program alone yielded more information than everything gotten from “the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together.”
Michael Hayden, CIA director after waterboarding had been discontinued, writes (with former attorney general Michael Mukasey) that “as late as 2006 . . . fully half of the government’s knowledge about the structure and activities of al-Qaeda came from those interrogations.” Even Dennis Blair, Obama’s director of national intelligence, concurs that these interrogations yielded “high value information.” So much for the lazy, mindless assertion that torture never works.
Could we not, as the president repeatedly asserted in his Wednesday news conference, have obtained the information by less morally poisonous means? Perhaps if we’d spoken softly and sincerely to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, we could equally have obtained “high-value information.”
There are two problems with the “good cop” technique. KSM, the mastermind of 9/11 who knew more about more plots than anyone else, did not seem very inclined to respond to polite inquiries about future plans. The man who boasted of personally beheading Daniel Pearl with a butcher knife answered questions about plots with “soon you will know” — meaning, when you count the bodies in the morgue and find horribly disfigured burn victims in hospitals, you will know then what we are planning now.
The other problem is one of timing. The good cop routine can take weeks or months or years. We didn’t have that luxury in the aftermath of 9/11 when waterboarding, for example, was in use. We’d been caught totally blind. We knew there were more plots out there, and we knew almost nothing about them. We needed to find out fast. We found out a lot.
“We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened,” asserts Blair’s predecessor, Mike McConnell. Of course, the morality of torture hinges on whether at the time the information was important enough, the danger great enough and our blindness about the enemy’s plans severe enough to justify an exception to the moral injunction against torture.
Judging by Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress who were informed at the time, the answer seems to be yes. In December 2007, after a report in The Post that she had knowledge of these procedures and did not object, she admitted that she’d been “briefed on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.”
Today Pelosi protests “we were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.” She imagines that this distinction between past and present, Clintonian in its parsing, is exonerating.
On the contrary. It is self-indicting. If you are told about torture that has already occurred, you might justify silence on the grounds that what’s done is done and you are simply being used in a post-facto exercise to cover the CIA’s rear end. The time to protest torture, if you really are as outraged as you now pretend to be, is when the CIA tells you what it is planning to do “in the future.”
But Pelosi did nothing. No protest. No move to cut off funding. No letter to the president or the CIA chief or anyone else saying “Don’t do it.”
On the contrary, notes Porter Goss, then chairman of the House intelligence committee: The members briefed on these techniques did not just refrain from objecting, “on a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.”
More support, mind you. Which makes the current spectacle of self-righteous condemnation not just cowardly but hollow. It is one thing to have disagreed at the time and said so. It is utterly contemptible, however, to have been silent then and to rise now “on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009” (the words are Blair’s) to excoriate those who kept us safe these harrowing last eight years.
@Wordsmith: Krauthammer does his usually brilliant job of taking all the threads of an issue and weaving an appealing tapestry of truth.
And let’s just repeat this for the doubters out there:
““We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened,” asserts Blair’s predecessor, Mike McConnell.”
mynameis
14 years ago
It’s interesting some commenters have brought up abortion, because I see conservative positions on abortion and torture to be contradictory. We rightly abhor the killing of an unborn child under all circumstances, because we recognise that our paramount duty is to protect the innocent. Yet some seem ok with a more utilitarian approach when it comes to terror suspects – and some terror suspects are innocent. The test of whether you have any principles comes when you apply them and they don’t accord with your gut instinct, but you stick to them anyway. I thought conservatives were supposed to have values, and i think one of the most obvious and basic values is “don’t torture people” – right up there with “don’t kill babies” and “don’t have sex with your neighbours wife”
liam09
14 years ago
So are we torturing the baby or just straight up murdering it because it is an inconvenience (i’m not referring to the exceptions)? People disagree with ‘torture’ because of what the word conjures up in their mind. How about “make the person really uncomfortable until they talk” or “scare the person with harmless insects because they are afraid of them until they decide to tell us where the bomb is”. I have yet to hear any real alternative solution from the left. Seems like they are doing what they do best, critisize and talk, and then make a bad decision. I.E. Close Gitmo. Wouldn’t it make sense, that if you have to think really hard about closing Gitmo, the rest of the world doesn’t want the criminals contained within Gitmo, and a large amount of accurate information says that there are /really/ dangerous people IN gitmo… then we shouldn’t close it?! Its not rocket science. Raging against ‘Bush policies’ isn’t a good reason.
If Gitmo is no big deal then here is what I suggest as a solution: since the left seem to be the ones so sure of themselves and closing the camp, lets start a sponsorship program. A liberal sponsors a prisoner and is responsible for that prisoner in their home. Achmed can serve as a baby sitter and house sitter when you are away. He can sleep on a fold out couch and probably won’t eat a lot. I bet the government would be open for tax incentives and bonuses. Its genius! Put your money where you mouth is liberal left.
Hard Right
14 years ago
Mynameis, it is very simple. Unborn babies are innocent. Captured terrorists are not.
@mynameis: Funny how you folks have no problem murdering unborn children but get all worked up or whether we saved lives because we gave some terrorist monsters a bath.
What do you think a fetus feels as it’s being aborted? Certainly more pain than a terrorist getting wet.
Mynameis you made a valid point (I think), however, IMO, I doubt that applies to water boarding. The definition given by the 1984 United Nations Convention on Torture is “the intentional infliction of severe pain.” To use a phrase from the left, it should be “rare, safe, and legal.” On the other hand, any torture done for sadistic purposes I’m vehemently opposed to, regardless if it’s Saddam H or Hitler. I’m not even “ok” with water boarding except perhaps in rare “ticking time bomb cases.”
Another thing to remember is an unborn baby is always totally innocent; a person of torture more often than not is guilty of great evil deeds which make the “torture” necessary in the first place. Still, if we are civilized, they BOTH deserve dignity, However “rare circumstances” can occur where water boarding (hard to truly define as torture), might be justified. Ethically, no case could ever be made for a partial birth abortion (sorry, “life of the mother” simply doesn’t fly that a healthy 8 month old fetus couldn’t only live outside the womb but be born via C-section).
While most true conservatives are probably ok with water boarding in “ticking time bomb cases”, I doubt most go beyond the “extraordinary and rare” water boarding scenario I just outlined, the same as with the death penalty. A true conservative value is pro life, and pro life is pro life; let God sort out the justice part. BTW, self defense is always a moral and ethical reason, even to kill.
All said, the water boarding vs. partial birth abortion is most interesting. I’ve often written that the one sure way abortion will end in America will be after the first one airs on national TV. Funny how something so “accepted” and popular is so not ever going to happen, despite our obcession with exploitive reality TV. In the meantime, I think all of congress, including President Obama and Hillary Clinton, should be required, together, to watch a partial birth abortion video for every water boarding video.
The part that is so disgusting about that statement is that you actually believe it…
And on top of the you seem to believe we are safer because of it..
IDIOT!
@Real American Patriot: It’s the words of Obama’s Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence.
Are you suggesting they are LYING?
IDIOT!
Indulging in even a teensy, weensy bit of torture still makes you a torturer. You have to believe that it “saved thousands of American lives” because you know it’s wrong, and you don’t want to think you are evil. The poor sod who was told to gas the the kurds by Saddam probably believed that he was saving thousands of Iraqi lives too.
I cant take it anymore…….I CONFESS!!!
Well, but that doesn’t count how many of our own troops gets waterboarded each year …
this was good for a smile this morning, we have so little to smile about. Let me see if I can make you smile:
It was once said that a black man would be president when pigs flew. Well, behold 100 days into his presidency …. Swine Flu…
bill-tb
The US needs to stand on moral high ground. The republicans here and elsewhere know it but for some dumb reason they are backing the Bush administration on this.
Mike:
I am suggesting that water boarding was not need to achieve the same result. Some members of the FBI agree and have publicly spoken out about this.
From what I am gathering you one of those that actually believes water boarding makes us safer.
Idiot!
@Real American Patriot:
I think I remember your answer from before, but could you remind everyone what your position was regarding the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?
Real American Patriot and Mynameis – I read this blog, along with a few others, from time to time only to gauge the temperature, so to speak, of the conservative movement. In all honestly, I am a lefty liberal who usually gets apoplectic when reading this site (which is fair – I’m sure if you and others read some of our vaunted lefty sites, you have similar reactions). When I saw your comments, though, alluding to the unacceptability of torture under any circumstances, I have to say I felt immense pride and admiration, for all (or most, at least) of us, from the right to the left, for our refusal to compromise as a nation and as a society on moral absolutes; such as, for example, the notion that torture is never acceptable. This is, of course, what differentiates us from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists who use torture (and other heinous acts) as tactics of terrorism and social control. I glibly expected the vast majority of conservatives to defend vocally the use of torture, especially since Cheney and Co. (not really conservatives, though, technically, right?) have endorsed and defended it so stoically. It is refreshing to know that my assumption was wrong.
@Real American Patriot: CRAP, There is NOTHING to suggest we might have gotten the same information necessary to prevent the attacks had we not waterboarded JUST THREE TERRORISTS.
There is everything to suggest the opposite which is exactly why Obama won’t release the memos detailing this.
However, we do have the statement of former CIA Director Tenet who said:”I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
IDIOT!
@SARGE CHARLIE: Good one! It’s worth repeating:
It was once said that a black man would be president when pigs flew. Well, behold 100 days into his presidency …. Swine Flu…
@Sneaky liberal: Torture has been defined as that which causes lasting physical or mental harm. Since we perform waterboarding on our own troops without ill effect you can hardly call it torture.
But I do admire your strong moral stand. Especially the part about your “refusal to compromise as a nation and as a society on moral absolutes.”
What a shame you only apply this code of moral absolutism in this one area of your existence. I could think of multiple other areas where most liberals violate that code with impunity and laugh about it.
@Sneaky liberal:
What’s really funny about your post is that you praise RAP and mynameis while you mistake them for conservatives.
Obviously you don’t read this site nearly as much as you need to in order to make any sort of informed commentary.
Exit questions:
What laws, if any, do you contend were broken by the EIT’s used on the three people in question?
What is your definition of the word “torture”?
What a shame you only apply this code of moral absolutism in this one area of your existence. I could think of multiple other areas where most liberals violate that code with impunity and laugh about it.
Yeah MA: Lilke the Liberals stand on abortion. Where is the moral absolute in that.
Liberal logic is priceless. They want to protect a person who is trying to destroy this nation. But they allow a little unborn person to be aborted, even if the little unborn person is capable of living life outside the womb, like the Partial birth abortions. Priceless logic.
Aye Chihuahua:
Here are the definitions of torture I find most accurate:
TORTURE:
anguish: extreme mental distress, unbearable physical pain;
agony: intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain; “an agony of doubt”; “the torments of the damned”;
torment: torment emotionally or mentally;
distortion: the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean;
subject to torture; “The sinners will be tormented in Hell, according to the Bible”;
the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason; “it required unnatural torturing to extract a confession.”
As defined by wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn.
As regards “broken laws,” I would refer to the Geneva Convention, portions of which President Bush attempted to abrogate. Our own criminal legal codes, however, classify torture as “aggravated assault,” a felony crime which carries stiff penalties, as a rule.
Ah yes, and a final note. Please excuse my mistake in believing that many conservatives do not support torture. Thank you for pointing out my error.
RAP #7:
Problem here is, the FBI has a different mindset. There’s a difference between the needs of law enforcement interrogations and military interrogations. The FBI has a difficult time separating the need to make a criminal case and the one needed for determining strategic information.
mynameis,
How do you define torture? Are there gradations? how far do we “dumb down” the definition? Some might say tickling is torture. So would that be “off the tables” as well, and should we announce that to the enemy? Would a moment of creating pain/discomfort be a moral outrage if it saved 1 life? 10 lives? 100? ten thousand? A city? The CIA says the coercive techniques/harsh interrogations yielded actionable intelligence. FBI method might have eventually yielded the same results…..but how long does that take, and might time not be of the essence if plots are to be disrupted? Is not sooner better than later, in this case?
The UN has made the claim that simply being detained at Guantanamo is “tantamount to torture.” Is this the case? If only prisons all over the world could have it so good!
Many Arabs consider Gitmo to be a joke and call it “The Religious Resort of Islamic Militants”. For them to see it otherwise, we’d have to go significantly beyond the act of waterboarding (how many terrorists did this happen to, again?).
What we’ve done to terrorists like Zubaydah and KSM pales in comparison to the lives they’ve destroyed and the torture they’ve inflicted. What if Daniel Pearl were your son? Your father? Was he tortured and killed to save innocent lives? Your attempt at drawing moral equivalence with the Kurd gassing is laughable.
What I’m horrified by, is your lack of outrage over “the attention grab”:
Utterly barbaric! How dare the Bush attorneys approve such a demeaning technique and simply label it “enhanced” interrogation!
And there’s more, via your favorite conservative satirist:
And as CJ says,
What torture?
Translation: “We, who smugly believe in moral absolutes and who won’t compromise our moral high ground, if given a choice between kid-glove “torture” of a terrorist to save a city of a hundred thousand lives would rather allow those lives to perish if it means we’d have to soil our clean conscience.”
This is the same ethical standard that had Carter withdraw support of the Shah who did not live up to his moral standards on human rights; the same one that saw Clinton gut our CIA by requiring we recruit spies of not so questionable character, when the whole business of spy recruitment is to deal with unsavory characters willing to sell out their own countries!
You can smugly declare, “A hundred thousand lives were lost that I could have helped prevent; but at least I didn’t compromise my moral principles!!!!”
What’s so moral about not saving lives?
The “ethical standard” you appear to ridicule, Wordsmith, is the same standard that saw us triumph over the Soviet Union; that helped the North defeat the South in the Civil War; that urged American patriots to revolt again oppressive and unjust British tactics in the Revolutionary War; in short, that “ethical standard” is America’s commitment to freedom, fairness, justice, and equality (review the Bill of Rights). It is, in short, what makes America, America. Finding grey areas and ways to justify deviating from our moral bedrock is a slippery slope, as other nations and leaders who sacrificed “ethical standards” (like the Shah, for instance, or Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Chile’s Pinochet, or the USSR’s Stalin) soon discovered. God save us from heading down that road – though people like you would, it appears, willingly lead us there.
Personally i would KILL to protect my family. Waterboarding is not torture, but i guess that depends on what your definition of is is. Libs: Just say no to torture… unless its sucking out a baby with a vaccum from the womb, thats ok… retards.
WAY TOO FUNNY! Some want to look back and view this as a mocking or dumbing down of the interrogations that happened seven years ago. Me, I like “looking forward” (to paraphrase our President), and I see this-instead-as a mocking of the now approved methods of interrogation during the Obama years. Oooooo, I bet the bad guys are shaking in their boots now!
@Sneaky liberal: I define torture as having to endure such willful ignorance as you display in your comments above. Can I know have you prosecuted?
Please cite the section of the Geneva Conventions which have been changed to permit them to cover illegal combatants who wear no uniform and answer to no state?
As for that “ethical standard” which “helped the North defeat the South in the Civil War” you have to be kidding right?
Ever hear of Andersonville Prison? How about Lincoln’s suspension of habeus corpus?
If you suddenly suggest we now only have to adhere to a 19th century standard of conduct then Bush Administration officials should be prosecuted for failure to do more.
I am thrilled to learn you have a moral standard. I’m disappointed to discover your moral compass is hopelessly broken.
As I have said to others, perhaps you should visit the Library Tower in L.A. and explain to the folks whose lives were saved why we would be better off following your moral absolutism.
@Sneaky liberal:
OK, cool, we got a definition from a dictionary….not from a law book…but from a dictionary.
Let’s try this one on for size shall we?
Roll the tape:
Mental or physical distress? Check.
Torment? Check.
Fear? Check.
Panic? Check.
People fleeing their workplaces? Check.
Emotional anguish? Check.
Knowledge that might end badly? Check.
Yeah, Obama is now guilty of “torture” by your own definition.
Ya better get busy gettin’ him impeached.
Ohhh….sorry.
You should read the GC’s.
If you did, then you would find that they specifically exclude the captives in question.
Care to try again?
Again, nice try….but you fell miserably short.
The contents of US criminal codes are irrelevant to what is to be applied to combatants captured on the battlefield halfway ’round the world.
Perhaps you should try less “sneaky” and more “smart”.
Exit question:
Did you support or oppose the overthrow of Saddam Hussein?
@Sneaky liberal:
Can you tell me which “ethical standard” was at the root of the Civil War?
I can hardly wait to hear your answer.
@Aye Chihuahua: Not wanting to veer too far off topic, but we now learn that the F-16 accompanying Air Force One was from the “Red Tails” unit in Alabama which became famous for being the first black air force unit.
An AF blogger speculates that this incident may have a racial component:
http://ci-report.blogspot.com/2009/04/was-nyc-flyover-racially-motivated.html
Now, let’s get back to watching Sneaky Lib squirm out from under his mass of twisted talking points.
CRAP and SL display their raging narcissism with their positions. They pretend it’s for the good of America and others, but it’s really all about them.
They get to tell themselves how superior they are to those who support what they call torture and what good, moral people they are.
As someone said, they ARE willing to let thousands of their contrymen die (and have already done so) just so they can feel good about themselves.
BTW, we haven’t tortured anyone. You want to see torture? Look what has been done to our troops when captured by the Vietnamese or Saddam during the first Gulf War.
So this is what the President was referring to when he mentioned the British interrogation techniques.
Sneaky liberal
So you are against waterbording any US military member?
And these monsters in GETMO are not under the GC because they were not wearing uniforms or playing by the rules you state.
what does the GC say about enemy who do not play by the GC rules you might want to look that up.
FDR hung 7 of 8 in less than 2 weeks.
You are trying to change the rules we do not torture or have we ever torture. If it was good enough to do on our own men well.
and the a-hole you are so worried about WHAT did he do Cut off D.Pearls head off and put it on tape to spread his filth.
took part in killing 3000 Americans hoping it was more. Took out 1trillion of the US eco.
are you charging them as well.
How much did that photo opp cost?
so much for worried about global warming
flying in guy for pizza
You libs make me sick.
Catherine
Sn l #9:
“Immense pride and admiration” simply because (hypothetically assuming RAP and myn were conservative readers- *snarf*!) someone agrees with you?!?! Kind of arrogant, don’t you think? The presumption that your morals trumps my morals? Maybe I should feel “immense pride and admiration” because some Hillary Dems miss Cheney?
It’s strange how in #18, you say it’s our “ethical standard” that saw us triumph over the Soviet Union (thank you, Reagan!), then go on to talk about the “slippery slope” of “sacrificing” “ethical standards” by our support of Pinochet. What those on your side of the political aisle fail to understand is the situational logic of the time determined that it made sense to support reliably anti-Soviet allies in Pinochet and Marcos than the alternatives at the time. It’s the principle of lesser evils. America and the real world don’t operate on the basis of permanent allies and friendships but upon permanent self-interests which will see us allying ourselves with Stalin in order to defeat a Hitler; somehow, in the mind of Howard Zinn liberals, this translates as “propping up Stalin”. What if during the Carter years, we refused to allow the Shah’s fall to take place? Is it a good thing that we let a deeply pro-American dictator lose power to be replaced by an even more ruthless and repressive theocratic regime? Is the world safer today, because of Carter’s sanctimony? Will Obama’s sanctimony make us safer today and tomorrow?
Have the libbos all abandoned the field and gone into hiding or is there a Moveon.org circus in town they are required to attend to update the brain chip that was implanted.
Never mind… next post we do on this subject they’ll be back repeating the same lines as if none of us ever bothered to refute their silliness in the first place.
They’re like parrots that only know a few words and just repeat them over and over:
Compaired to what happened to this gentleman, his family, Mr. Berg, Mr. Pearle, etc, I have no compassion for those waterboarded.
“The body of a Polish engineer killed by the Taliban in Pakistan back in February, was returned to his family on Wednesday. The wife and son of Piotr Stanczak received the coffin at the Warsaw airport. He was kidnapped in Pakistan and beheaded after the government ignored a deadline for releasing Taliban prisoners.”
Yes we should stop waterboarding, right after we have all needed info, then start beheading. Death to our enemies!
Based on crimes he committed, KSM deserves many more waterboardings
By Gary Harmon
Friday, April 24, 2009
The people who think that waterboarding constitutes torture are bruiting about the fact that the mastermind of the Sept. 11. 2001, attacks on the United States was treated to the experience 183 times in a single month.
Knowing that Khalid Sheikh Muhammed — KSM as he’s come to be known — was the organizer of the plot to hijack four fuel-laden airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and, most presume, the nation’s capitol, there seems to be a single inescapable conclusion:
The attacks claimed 2,998 innocent lives, which means that KSM has 2,815 more waterboardings coming to him.
That’s pretty much a minimum number.
Feel free to add to the amount however you see fit.
For instance, KSM has boasted that he killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. While some doubt his veracity, his eagerness to claim the deed makes him eligible for waterboarding No. 2,816.
Uplifting as it is to contemplate the waterboarding of a 9/11 participant, let alone a mastermind, a few questions come to mind.
The most significant one is: If a person can be waterboarded 183 times a month, how exactly can the procedure be considered torturous?
Remember, the idea behind the waterboard is to make a person feel as though he’s drowning.
An astute observer such as KSM, the holder of a mechanical-engineering degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, might have gleaned from the presence of medical personnel that the idea was to scare him, not kill him.
It also might be that after 183 tries, there’s as much suspense — and gravity — as there is on Elm Street at midnight. Freddy Krueger and KSM just won’t die, and everyone knows it.
That, course, suggests that if waterboarding isn’t torture, might it also be ineffective?
In fact, just about everything you know about waterboarding is wrong.
Far from being kept in the dark about the technique, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was vividly aware of it as far back as 2002.
And she was a big fan.
In fact, the speaker-to-be was a bit worried that waterboarding might not be tough enough to get the dope — that’s spy talk for intel.
Before the CIA decided it needed to play tough with KSM, he played coy with them, perhaps trusting that no one would touch a hair on his head, to say nothing of leaving it securely in place on his shoulders.
KSM would say only, “Soon you will know,” according to CIA memos.
Waterboarding made KSM less cryptic and more loquacious, according to the CIA memos, which said, “the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al-Qaida has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.”
Not only that, but it seems that KSM got almost chatty, letting his interrogators onto the little secret of an attack on the other side of the United States.
The plot called for East Asian operatives to hijack an airliner and crash it into a building in Los Angeles.
No such attack —cross fingers — has taken place. Sure, a few architectural aficionados might complain that some serious demolition is in order, though perhaps not on the scale or by the means envisioned by KSM.
The Obama administration, with much ado, released memos detailing the careful approach its predecessor took in determining on whom to use waterboards, how often and to what end.
That decision was made over the objection of the current head of the CIA, who once served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton, whose administration slept through KSM’s years of preparation for the Sept. 11 attacks, even though he played a role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. You know, the one that stood in Lower Manhattan until Sept. 11, 2001.
As it stands today, quite possibly thanks to waterboarding, the Los Angeles skyline, when it can been seen, is untouched. Waterboarding means surfing at Huntington Beach in Valley Girl-speak and Hollywood is still spewing drivel.
What would it look like if KSM had his way?
Most of us would rather not know.
I think it is torture every time one of our enemies gets shot in the pelvis. I heard the pain is excruciating. I believe that kind of pain will last the whole persons life (in their emotions at least). I believe we should take the moral high ground and equip our troops with gay-pride flags, love as their bullets, and hand grenades that when they blow up, all kinds of candy pours fourth from them for the little kids to eat. Like a pinata. As far as torturing to get information; I agree it goes nowhere. Just ask Jack Bauer.
Also, here is the question:
Knowing what we know with 911, would you have tortured (water boarded) a captured terrorist, /knowing/ that it would have circumvented all of the plots from happening? Simple answers only.
Looks like Sneaky Libtard has engaged in “Premature Evacuation”.
Don’t you just hate it when that happens?
You’re there on the computer having a stimulating conversation and just when it starts to get good…….
“BAM” it’s all over….leaving disappointment all around.
What a shame….
So many hard questions left to answer…..
So many unresolved, unsupportable claims left lingering……
Crumbs all over the carpet…..
We Conservatives could have had so much fun if Simple Leftist had been able to maintain control. It takes backbone to face withering debate, especially when you’re so demonstrably ignorant of what you’re discussing.
Hey SL, if you’re still reading, just remember, FA is not occupied by the “Amen Chorus” and we won’t just smile and politely nod along.
Of course, if you read here very often, as you claimed in your first post, you would know that already.
When you come here to chat, you better bring your “A” game because without it, as you quickly discovered, you’ll beclown yourself, and everyone will giggle at you.
Please come back!
Please oh please oh please…..I wanna laugh at you some more.
Heh.
Like I said no one will do what it takes to save another American city or anywhere else.
sorry.
let holder and bho do those interviews themselves.
sorry Europe.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gS_wCwVf04MPhiRv1lwDohnZy8gAD97SBFS80
Holder urges allies to take share of detainees
April 29, 2009
In speaking to reporters Wednesday, Holder also said it is possible the United States could cooperate with a foreign court’s investigation of Bush administration officials.
Holder spoke before the announcement that a Spanish magistrate had opened an investigation of Bush officials on harsh interrogation methods. Holder didn’t rule out cooperating in such a probe
like I said.
Pressed on whether that meant the United States would cooperate with a foreign court prosecuting Bush administration officials, Holder said he was talking about evidentiary requests and would review any such request to see if the U.S. would comply.
NOW IF THIS DOESN’T YOU PISSED?
HELL IT IS THE LAW IN SOME COUNTRIES TO CUT PEOPLES HEADS OFF
AND MARRY LITTLE GIRLS AS YOUNG AS 8 YEARS OLD TOO.
Catherine
Liberals, moving a eight month old in the womb to the birth canal, plunging a pair of scissors into its skull and then sucking out its brains, and removing the corpse, placing it in a glad bag, and disposing of it with medical wastes, is not torture.
Placing a caterpillar in a sleeping bag with a murderer of three thousand people, torture.
Yeah, libs sure have the moral high ground.
If waterboarding is torture, then here are few more things that save or improve lives, but cause as much or more suffering, and so should be outlawed on the same grounds:
1. Chemotherapy
2. Tetanus vaccinations (Ouch — mine hurt for days! Waterboarding lasts how long after?)
3. Surgery
4. Abortion
5. Childbirth
6. CPR (my husband’s chest hurt for weeks after his successful out of hospital resuscitation)
The bottom line is that waterboarding was effective. It saved lives. It’s more of a mental trick than actual torture — there are few, if any, lingering side effects. By calling it torture, we are making a mockery of real torture — especially that which is done only to terrorize, and not done to gain information to save lives. Shame on those who would hand our enemies such a gift.
The US would have plenty of high ground to stand on regarding torture if it weren’t for these liberal pettifoggers and their twisted carnards of torture digging it out from under us.
@Jim B: Thanks for sharing that article with us.
Just for clarification and before one of the handwrining lefty ninnies starts screaming, the 183 figure for waterboarding KSM refers to the number of “pours” of water, not the total number of sessions.
And I do believe KSM deserves many thousand more and worse.
@Catherine:
It’s difficult to believe that the Dems really want to release Gitmo terrorists in American cities. But I wouldn’t put it past them. I think all good libs, starting with the ones who usually whine on these pages should stand up and be first in line to volunteer to host one of these terrorist monsters in their own home.
@Mike’s America:
It’s like we’re living in Bizarro World, eh?
Here’s a story you may have missed:
Emphasis added by me.
Combine that with the story from a week or so ago that Iran offered multiple Al Qaeda members and the US refused them.
Hmmmm…..where have we heard that story line before?
President Obama mentioned we should be more like Churchill who didn’t torture.
Ahhhhhh….didn’t he realize what the British did to German SS troops post WW2???
SAS DEATH SQUADS ANYONE???? Retribution killings anyone????
Brits weren’t too understanding towards “freedom fighters” or separatists either.
There are several points here that need refuting- one, that waterboarding and “harsh interrogation techniques” are necessary and morally acceptable.
Without getting into a jailhouse lawer game of what the definition of “torture” is, the first point, that it is necessary to get info, is wrong:
Link to Col. Steve Kleinman, an Air Force intelligence officer:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torturingdemocracy/interviews/steven_kleinman.html
He makes the point that extreme methods are not reliable or necessary, and can’t be dismissed as a sissy liberal.
The notion that we need to do it to “save lives” is a bit easy to do- but we could also “save lives” by banning guns, or publically burning criminals at the stake, or any number of other things that take away liberty and cause us to lose our sense of dignity.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the ignorance of the Obamateur last night.
His comments regarding Churchill were, in no way, accurate. The Brits were less than accommodating and kind to the Germans that they captured.
The prisoners were given the choice: work for us (the Brits) or go to the gallows.
The Brits also used drugs on the prisoners they held as well.
Obie seriously needs to read some history books.
@ChipD:
Nice attempt with the Kleinman piece, however his position has been soundly refuted by numerous people up to, and including, the President of the United States.
George Tenet has said that “this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
I could cite Porter Goss and many others but I doubt it would make any difference to someone who is not even willing to try to define the word “torture”.
I’ll take the word of the intelligence community over someone who has an axe to grind or an agenda to meet. It’s clear to me where Kleinman falls.
Thanks anyway though.
Nice Krauthammer piece in Friday’s WaPo:
@Wordsmith: Krauthammer does his usually brilliant job of taking all the threads of an issue and weaving an appealing tapestry of truth.
And let’s just repeat this for the doubters out there:
““We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened,” asserts Blair’s predecessor, Mike McConnell.”
It’s interesting some commenters have brought up abortion, because I see conservative positions on abortion and torture to be contradictory. We rightly abhor the killing of an unborn child under all circumstances, because we recognise that our paramount duty is to protect the innocent. Yet some seem ok with a more utilitarian approach when it comes to terror suspects – and some terror suspects are innocent. The test of whether you have any principles comes when you apply them and they don’t accord with your gut instinct, but you stick to them anyway. I thought conservatives were supposed to have values, and i think one of the most obvious and basic values is “don’t torture people” – right up there with “don’t kill babies” and “don’t have sex with your neighbours wife”
So are we torturing the baby or just straight up murdering it because it is an inconvenience (i’m not referring to the exceptions)? People disagree with ‘torture’ because of what the word conjures up in their mind. How about “make the person really uncomfortable until they talk” or “scare the person with harmless insects because they are afraid of them until they decide to tell us where the bomb is”. I have yet to hear any real alternative solution from the left. Seems like they are doing what they do best, critisize and talk, and then make a bad decision. I.E. Close Gitmo. Wouldn’t it make sense, that if you have to think really hard about closing Gitmo, the rest of the world doesn’t want the criminals contained within Gitmo, and a large amount of accurate information says that there are /really/ dangerous people IN gitmo… then we shouldn’t close it?! Its not rocket science. Raging against ‘Bush policies’ isn’t a good reason.
If Gitmo is no big deal then here is what I suggest as a solution: since the left seem to be the ones so sure of themselves and closing the camp, lets start a sponsorship program. A liberal sponsors a prisoner and is responsible for that prisoner in their home. Achmed can serve as a baby sitter and house sitter when you are away. He can sleep on a fold out couch and probably won’t eat a lot. I bet the government would be open for tax incentives and bonuses. Its genius! Put your money where you mouth is liberal left.
Mynameis, it is very simple. Unborn babies are innocent. Captured terrorists are not.
@mynameis: Funny how you folks have no problem murdering unborn children but get all worked up or whether we saved lives because we gave some terrorist monsters a bath.
What do you think a fetus feels as it’s being aborted? Certainly more pain than a terrorist getting wet.
Mynameis you made a valid point (I think), however, IMO, I doubt that applies to water boarding. The definition given by the 1984 United Nations Convention on Torture is “the intentional infliction of severe pain.” To use a phrase from the left, it should be “rare, safe, and legal.” On the other hand, any torture done for sadistic purposes I’m vehemently opposed to, regardless if it’s Saddam H or Hitler. I’m not even “ok” with water boarding except perhaps in rare “ticking time bomb cases.”
Another thing to remember is an unborn baby is always totally innocent; a person of torture more often than not is guilty of great evil deeds which make the “torture” necessary in the first place. Still, if we are civilized, they BOTH deserve dignity, However “rare circumstances” can occur where water boarding (hard to truly define as torture), might be justified. Ethically, no case could ever be made for a partial birth abortion (sorry, “life of the mother” simply doesn’t fly that a healthy 8 month old fetus couldn’t only live outside the womb but be born via C-section).
While most true conservatives are probably ok with water boarding in “ticking time bomb cases”, I doubt most go beyond the “extraordinary and rare” water boarding scenario I just outlined, the same as with the death penalty. A true conservative value is pro life, and pro life is pro life; let God sort out the justice part. BTW, self defense is always a moral and ethical reason, even to kill.
All said, the water boarding vs. partial birth abortion is most interesting. I’ve often written that the one sure way abortion will end in America will be after the first one airs on national TV. Funny how something so “accepted” and popular is so not ever going to happen, despite our obcession with exploitive reality TV. In the meantime, I think all of congress, including President Obama and Hillary Clinton, should be required, together, to watch a partial birth abortion video for every water boarding video.
And then, lets have the “torture” debate!