mz. said:

We only do it to people we are nearly 100% sure are witholding valuable information. Using the intelligence of one of our many agencies we could piece they confession together with what we already know help to determine if they are lying. There was nothing on your hypothetical situation in the report released so this hasn't been a problem as of yet. Although, I fear that terrorist will use this report to train against releasing information when waterboarded, or other things. With the report being released, your situation has a better chance of occuring shall we ever decide to reinstate waterboarding as an interrigation method.

Speaking of waterboarding, once again,

Nasty Pelosi is a liar. Just found out this evening, from a Rep. Congressman, that the waterboarding, etc.

policy was discussed and established in conjunction with DEMOCRATS and REPUBLICANS in CONGRESS.

CONGRESS was BRIEFED more than SEVERAL TIMES and CONGRESS GAVE THE GREEN LIGHT.

So, watch any Dem investigation go nowhere and quietly goes away.

No wonder Obama doesn't want to have the investigation into the issue. This should be good.

Sivlerback DPOY said:

How do we know what the guy is "confessing" isn't the result of telling us what we want to hear due to torture?

mz. said:

Personally, I'm against torture as a pure human rights issue. I'm also not inclined to believe information given under duress as being valuable. As Harvey Keitel said in Reservoir Dogs, "cut off his little finger, and tell him his thumb is next. After that, he'll tell you he wears women's underwear."

I am all for human rights too. But wouldn't it be worse to let thousands die in a terrorist attack than it would to dump water on someone with medics by their side?

@inspecta said:

Had we had water boarding in 2000, would you have been in favor of it had we captured a guy with intimate knowledge of 9/11 and water boarding was the only way to get him to talk?

We did have it. And so did the Spanish Inquisition. Only The Bush Administration (the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition "dun dun dunnnhhh" would be appropriate here) gets blamed for it, which was the point of my post.

Personally, I'm against torture as a pure human rights issue. I'm also not inclined to believe information given under duress as being valuable. As Harvey Keitel said in Reservoir Dogs, "cut off his little finger, and tell him his thumb is next. After that, he'll tell you he wears women's underwear."

The problem is that in the real world for every real lead gained through torture, there are tons of bogus ones. And I seriously doubt that a situation would arise where you know that only waterboarding would work. The real way to foil plots is through police work, not torture.

Thankfully, we have smart guys like Salon's Glenn Greenwald to turn to afterwards.

They lie, they manipulate right out of Saul Alinkski's Rules for Radicals.

This White House presidency is full of stinkie stink.

I revised that as you responded bud.

WSS

what I MEANT was, a better, more decent and acceptable way to acquire the desperately needed information to save American lives.

Comedy that goes around, comes around, says I. Ya big turkey. @@

@calfoxwc said:

To put in "All this waterboarding is WRONG and there MUST be a better way" assumes that a better way exists,

It does.

The absolutely shocking tortures by the terrorists and middle east dictators probably work a lot better in a Machiavellina way.

It just doesn't get as much press, save for the Pearl beheading.

Honestly I don't know why sodium pentathol isn't a first line.

Ask a million questions you already know the answers to and check their validity before you proceed.

WSS

WSS

***********************************************************************

Nope, I wrote it entirely on my own. I just put conditions on the premise, that you make a choice between

two choices. Well, I put in a third to be funny...

To put in "All this waterboarding is WRONG and there MUST be a better way" assumes that a better way exists,

hence, the two narrow choices. I was just wondering, in light of the information that another 9/11 was in the works

for LA...

And, I didn't know how far the traing for our own servicemen went. That's stupid crap right there.

OUR servicemen are not the bad guys, THEY don't have information that they can give to end it.

When you mistreat a human being violently, and with torture in other ways, you change them. With children,

it easily becomes a cycle of violence. With terrorists, they are already violent and dangerous way over the edge.

But to treat our own soldiers this way? For what END? To condition them to accept violence and torture as

acceptable? The author makes an excellent point. I can only imagine the trouble some of these servicemen

have afterwards and especially, back in civilian life.

It's enough to be play acted to teach our servicemen, but to actually do it to them? That's a sick, twisted

experiment. That must be stopped.

In a small way, it reminds me of how saddam treated his sons brutally... to teach them to be cold blooded

monsters. Which, they certainly became.

I would seriously wonder, if this has caused some soldiers to come back to civilian life, and crack up,

going violent eventually....

Great relevant article.

@danamal said:

America always held it's head high that we were more evolved than that and we didnt need to resort to the level of the animals we were fighting ,and that made all the chuck norris vietnam vet/rambo lets bring the prisoners from vietnam movies of the reagan years movies so popular ,we were on the side of what was right and moral.

We are better than this.

Atleast we should be.

Serioulsly Dan that's a positive sentiment but I don't think it's realistic.

It's just that the outcry is only heard during republican administrations.

(Meaning I thik it's been the CIA MO all along.

I don't remember headlines with the Clinton era rendition program though I did hear complaints from human rights groups.

It just didn't make air then.

And let's be clear, we MUST draw the line at torture for sport.

WSS

:super rollseyes:

Despite the author's unrivaled ability to make Olbermann appear level headed, he does make a solid point about the direction these "training schools" should move in their instruction:

In fact, our soldiers need training from SERE based on an entirely different premise, as illustrated by the experience of Michael Durant, the helicopter pilot who spent several weeks in captivity when he was captured by Somali fighters during the 1993 "Black Hawk Down" raid. Durant survived by befriending his captors and forcing them to see him as a fellow human being. SERE conditions servicemen to expect nothing but the worst from their captors; Durant's life depended on his ability to understand his captors and find ways to manipulate them psychologically.

Maybe we could hang them by their balls?

Or We could use a blow torch and tweezers and one by one pull out their finger nails?

I must of missed that passage in reading the First Amendment.

@legacy-fan said:

Sorry Leg, Cal was being Commie.

@calfoxwc said:

Your freedom of speech stops at my verbal doorstep.

Your freedom of speech is not permitted to deny my freedom of speech.

Freedom requires responsibility.

You were irresponsible. Your freedom of speech is still there,

just start your own damn thread. and I won't sabotage it.

So, there you go. Now stfu. LOL

Wow even the "mighty" Cal can be fooled. Susan Boyle Maybe all the shit you been feeding us is wrong too. Good times.

Then, I saw this article from 2005: http://articles.latimes.com/p/2005/oct/08/nation/na-terror8

... The White House said Thursday that U.S. authorities disrupted the so-called “West Coast Airliner Plot” in mid-2002, stopping terrorists from attacking “targets on the West Coast of the United States using hijacked airplanes. The plotters included at least one major operational planner involved in planning the events of 9/11.”

The brief White House document offered no details about the timing of the airliner plot, or potential targets. White House officials on Friday confirmed that one of the targets referred to in the document was the Library Tower, which was renamed the US Bank Tower in 2003.

The description of the plot was based on claims made by Mohammed, who has said he was the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, during interrogations after his capture in Pakistan in March 2003. But those familiar with Mohammed’s comments and the alleged plot have suggested that, at most, it was a plan that was stopped in its initial stages and was not an operational plot that had been disrupted by authorities. ...

Good thing they waterboarded the plot that they had already foiled nine months before out of him.

Your freedom of speech stops at my verbal doorstep.

Your freedom of speech is not permitted to deny my freedom of speech.

Freedom requires responsibility.

You were irresponsible. Your freedom of speech is still there,

just start your own damn thread. and I won't sabotage it.

So, there you go. Now stfu. LOL

@calfoxwc said:

that is not "tons". Truth is, I hacked your invalid entries and changed the font to white.

It's still there, go look. (ROF,L).

Sweet man, it's OK to ignore the Constitution when it fits your agenda. Sounds familiar, Obama.