Getting Real About Torture
by Mark TapsonSince our country’s having a heated conversation about torture, and especially since that conversation seems certain to devolve into a parade of politicized, self-flagellating show trials that will broadcast our divided weakness to the world, it’s time to get some perspective on what torture is and isn’t, and who does it and who doesn’t.
Let me state for the record that I firmly believe America should not torture. But I’m at ease about that, because America does not torture. Do we use harsh interrogation techniques? Of course we do, and why not? This is war – why should we treat captive enemy combatants to a rejuvenating stay at the Four Seasons? Some of these maniacs plotted the devastation of 9/11, all cheered it, and if given the chance, all would gleefully saw your head off and then post a video of it on the Internet as inspiration for others of their fanatical ilk. Many of them might have information that could prevent further mayhem here and abroad – information they’re not going to volunteer simply because we’re congenial hosts.
But liberals presumably would prefer that we sit down with the captives (after bowing to them, of course), and engage in mutually respectful “dialogue” – the left’s favorite and only way of confronting evil – which will yield no life-saving information, but which will enable them to air their grievances. After we promise to make things right, we can let them return to the battlefield and take up arms against us again. This makes for a pathetic, brainless wartime strategy, but hey, national self-preservation and victory against violent jihad are far less important to liberals than providing our guests with civil rights that the Islamists themselves want to deprive us of.
Many liberals and conservatives say we should handle enemy combatants (I keep forgetting we’re not allowed to call them that anymore) with kid gloves because to do otherwise incites the enemy to take punitive measures against their prisoners of ours. This is perhaps the lamest argument against harsh interrogation. First of all, the Islamists need absolutely no incentive from us to mutilate and murder infidels, Jews, and Muslims who don’t fall in line. Second, they do not operate according to such rules of fair play, so we are not rewarded for our good will. Third, jihadist captives are trained to lie anyway about the brutality of their “mistreatment” at our hands, so what we do is irrelevant. And those who insist that America is obligated to hold herself to a higher standard than our enemy are willfully ignoring the fact that we already hold ourselves to the highest possible standard – and unlike our enemy, we punish any interrogators and guards who cross the line.
The problem is that the left thinks everything crosses the line, that causing enemy combatants any degree of discomfort constitutes sadism. Because the left in America has commandeered the topic of torture, such basic interrogation techniques as sleep deprivation and waterboarding have been held up as reprehensible and horrific examples of it. Is waterboarding extraordinarily uncomfortable, even panic-inducing? You bet your ass it is, and that’s the point. Is it torture? Not surprisingly, former community organizer Barack Obama has announced that it is, and as with all his opinions about confronting radical Islam, he is wrong.
Do you want to know what torture really is? Have you ever seen a beheading video, or footage of a stoning? Because that’s torture, and nothing America does is even remotely in the same category. Below are four marginally more palatable examples that you won’t hear about in the current liberal-driven debate because they were committed by jihadists, and liberals and their media collaborators don’t want to cloud the whole torture issue by allowing the ghastly facts about our enemy to be introduced. I tried to refrain from explicit detail:
1) The drug-stoked jihadists who devastated Mumbai last Thanksgiving weekend and left nearly 200 infidels dead in their wake took time out from their rampage to sexually torture a rabbi and his pregnant wife (who, as it was later revealed, were their primary targets) before executing them. The doctors who examined the corpses were so horrified they didn’t want to discuss it.
2) This week the leader of a jihadist gang went on trial in Paris. The gang had kidnapped a Parisian Jew in 2006 and tortured him over a period of 24 days – 24 days – during which over 80% of his body was “butchered,” according to police. He was dumped near a train station, bound and unable to speak, and died on the way to the hospital. The gang leader proudly shouted “Allahu Akhbar!” in the courtroom and taunted the victim’s family.
3) In June of that same year, two young American Privates, Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca, were captured and tortured to death by Iraqi insurgents. Their bodies were later dumped and booby-trapped (because of course it’s not enough for the Islamist cowards to butcher helpless captives – they also have to wire the corpses with explosives to cause even more mayhem). The mainstream media reported only that the two had been killed in a “barbaric” way; I won’t even begin to relate here the truth of how horrifically they were mutilated, but if you want a gut-wrenching appreciation not only for what torture really means, but also for the depths of our enemy’s sadism, you can read the details here.
4) A former torturer for the Taliban describes here how inventive he used to be in terms of enforcing the most fundamentalist strain of Islam on the planet. His methods against insufficiently pious Muslims included crucifixion and rubbing salt in the wounds of victims who were so badly beaten and bloodied that it was impossible to tell whether they were wearing clothes.
(If these contemporary examples aren’t enough to convince blustery, high-minded liberals that true torture is unimaginably worse than our own interrogation techniques, then they could enlighten themselves with such eye-opening historical examples as: Armando Valladares’ memoir of 22 years in Castro’s prisons, Against All Hope; Haing Ngor’s Survival in the Killing Fields of Cambodia under the monstrous Khmer Rouge; and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s epic of Communist brutality, The Gulag Archipelago.)
None of the victims in the above list was suspected of war crimes and “harshly interrogated” for information that might prevent another 9/11; on the contrary, all were targeted, cruelly brutalized, and killed by evil men for no other reason than that they were Jews or Americans or supposed “apostates.”
Let’s get real. As much as it pleases the New York Times and leftists here to brand America as “Torture Nation,” we must recognize that there is a vast gulf between the ways we and the enemy treat prisoners. It is the Islamists who torture, not us. Roughing up suspects who have been trained to resist our medically-supervised interrogation techniques, and who are among the most hateful bastards on the planet, in order to extract information that may prevent more terrorist horrors, is not the same as torture. Anyone who says that we’re the bad guys, brutalizing helpless innocents who just happened to be caught in the net of Bush’s chimerical war on terror, is completely divorced from reality.
Speaking of divorced from reality, the Obama administration is determined to pretend that we’re not at war with radical Islam; it recklessly intends to release Guantanamo suspects on our own soil; it is suicidally exposing America’s intelligence secrets to the world; and it is vindictively seeking to retroactively punish the previous administration for its anti-terrorism efforts. The enemy, meanwhile, is laughing at all our moral and legalistic hand-wringing, and at our paralyzing internecine debate about interrogation. They consider it contemptible weakness – which indeed it is. It’s no wonder that insanely apocalyptic Iranian President Ahmadinejad recently declared to America, “We say to you that you yourselves know that you are today in a position of weakness. Your hands are empty, and you can no longer promote your affairs from a position of strength.”
For once, Ahmadinejad is right. Instead of bending over backwards to treat these scourges of civilization better than we treat our own prison population, we need to grow a pair and start presenting an uncompromising and unapologetic strength. The first step is to seize back control of the discussion about torture in this country from those who have no grasp of the reality of torture, who blindly serve the propaganda purposes of our enemy, and who froth at the mouth all day long about the satanic Bush cabal but never have a critical word to say about real evil. It’s time America shows the world that we recognize we already have the moral high ground, that we derive strength and national unity from that certainty, and that from now on the spotlight on torture will be trained on those who are truly guilty of it.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Tips & Feedback
158 Comments
[...] Original post by Big Hollywood [...]
Very interesting! I agree with the writer, even though I am a Canadian resident, I share the same opinion.
In a nutshell, liberals have no moral center since morality is founded on some conception of an absolute. That is, more simply phrased, "this" is right and "that" is wrong. The belief that everyone can choose his or her own morality divorced from any external constraint is moral nihilism.
All the recent grandstanding about this so-called "torture" is simply a liberal administration's best effort to show themselves as morally superior to Evil George Bush, who, whatever else you may want to say about him, at least had an authentic morality at the core of his being.
On the other hand, a man who could block legislation granting medical care to newborn infants who survived abortions has no moral conscience at all.
There just isn't really much to add to that is there? Somehow the moral high ground, as defined by the liberals, is a world in which the unborn can be killed on a whim, but you better make sure to keep your hands off the terrorists.
The biggest problem I have with the Left today is the virtually total control they have over the media– and they'd make it total control if they could. They're controlling the debates because the information that could make the argument for the other side is so effectively suppressed. I would imagine that the average American has very little information on the list atrocities mentioned in this post. And I don't think it's that they turn a blind eye– it's that the media covers their eyes before they get a chance to decide for themselves what they want or need to know. We need to replace the "justice is blind" statue with a new one declaring the "public is blinded by the media." Instead of a set of scales in one hand she can be resting her hand on a TV.
Abso-friggin-lutely.
But the left doesn't think everything crosses the line. They're much more nuanced. They didn't think interrogation under Clinton was torture.
Waterboarding was torture because it could be blamed on Bush.
THIS!
I know someone who proposed the theory that Americans have become so repelled by pain or discomfort, it becomes easy to believe even something like waterboarding is the same as tearing out fingernails or shoving hot pokers into bodily orifices. Previous generations couldn't have cared less about whether we were nice to those Nazi POWs. The enemy knows we've become a nation of wusses, especially among our effete elites.
The point of war is to Destroy or force capitulation upon your enemy. PERIOD!
The left has defined the term "torture" down to the point it is anything causing discomfort. . Ask anyone who has managed to complete Navy SEAL training – Army Ranger training (for a shorter duration) – about sleep deprivation.
I think Navy SEALS even undergo water boarding to show them what to expect if caught.
I think we should get a little more creative about our choice of torture. How 'but putting a set of Marshall Amps in a cell and play Harry Reid's greatest speeches. I would not only tell you the location of the base, but I would give you birthdates, likes and dislikes and all other pecadillos of my confederates to stop the drabble.
While we're worrying about whether the followers of the religion of peace will now love us because we're showing pictures of enhanced interrogation techniques for them to savor, I hope we're all prepared for the next attack. The big excuse for ending these techniques is that doing it causes the jihadis to hate us. I think they may already have disliked us just a little bit. The videos Obama is releasing won't make them hate us. But the release will provide what the primitives like best–an excuse to go on a killing rampage. If a cartoon of Mohammed can cause serious rioting, imagine what a picture of a true believer with a caterpillar on him will do. Then we'll get to see some real torture tapes–along with some hangings, beheadings and big explosions.
http://www.rewardforobamasbirthcertificate.com/ 25 Million reward for THE ONES BC! http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.vi... WHAT THE GOV OF HAWAII SAID! Those listed as entitled to obtain a copy of an original birth certificate include the person born, or "registrant" according to the legal description from the governor's office, the spouse or parent of the registrant, a descendant of the registrant, a person having a common ancestor with the registrant, a legal guardian of the registrant, or a person or agency acting on behalf of the registrant.{END} Now…are you a DESCENDANT?? http://www.wargs.com/political/obama ANCESTY OF BHO! PRINT THIS! (I am not a Descendant) Nor am I a COMMON ANCESTOR! But maybe someone is!
We are now in the midst of a ‘60s haze without the drugs. We are dealing with medieval Islamofascist -barbarians that wouldn’t recognize reasoned debate if it were sitting in their laps. There is no morale equivalence between the USA and Islamo-countries, (without exception) we are simply right and they are simply wrong. The ticking time bomb scenario is the best question, when speaking of ta-da “torture.” If someone had your family kidnapped what would you do to save their lives, you have one hour, tick-tock-tick-tock. You have the scum bag in your charge, what would you do?
The ONE needs to be impeached for derelection of duty and failing to protect the US and her Citizens. Soros and the Left are running the dog and pony show! Plez…do research his ancenstry. http://www.wargs.com/political/obama Then go here http://www.rewardforobamasbirthcertificate.com/ I am not a descendant nor do I have a commmon ancestor! The truth needs to be told once and for all.
and, prior to that point, one must understand that the battle has begun.
Shout it from the rooftops, brother! Great post, blasting with the ring of truth and reason. And of course, for those reasons and no other, the Left will dispute it and revile you. Good on you — Let's take it to the enemy…within and without.
God Bless America.
Now where are the Hollywood special-effects people when we need them? We need to shoot a "pubic service announcement" about this.
Clarification of Terms
Interrogation:
United States
Caption: Sleep Deprivation
Tired looking guy walking around cell
Extremists
Caption: Branding
Ordinary person (not soldier) restrained, close view, glowing red steel approaches, then sizzle and some smoke with appropriate jerking and shrieking in agony
United States
Caption: Waterboarding
Extremists
Caption: Mutilation
Bare back, arms outward and bound at wrists with body hanging, bleeding cuts, massive bruising, whipping starts, punch to the kidneys, ends with large pole being swung, shot ends right when it hits lower back.
We hope you found this helpful
Long version:
First set: Holding the captured
US: show meal on table, TV, standard Gitmo cell
Extremists: Dark dirt-floored room, filthy person in rags drinking from a muddy hole, thrown hard hunk of bread bounces off head
Last set: Treatment of convicted
US: standard jail cell, door sliding shut
Extremists: Woman, show head and shoulders, beaten, sobbing, hair is grabbed, head pulled back, knife brought to throat, end shot
There are outlets where it can be shown, if anyone refuses to accept it as paid advertising there'll be ten times the exposure as it makes the news rounds, which it will as some will insist on "criticizing the inaccuracies," then come the rebuttals, "Nah, it happens, here are the pictures." The stills would work for a print ad.
Hey Hawk, there you go with that logic thing again. You must remember we’ll be better people once we admit our sins. A kind of liberal confessional with dangerous consequences for us all. This is a risk that they are willing to take, after all they know what’s best, bunch of wussies.
Sqt
You are so correct about the control that they have. Currently there is a show about the Greenpeace (GP) attempts to stop Japanese whalers (JW). I have not watched it I won’t allow them to propagandize me
Whatever we think of whaling it is limited by International Law. As I understand it the whalers usually are on research missions. Essentially counting the whale populations because they cannot whale until it reaches a certain level.
This website shows GP employing methods such as ramming, trawling under ships engines with chains to disable them, throwing acid aboard the ship, etc.
http://www.icrwhale.org/gpandsea.htm
(cont)
I got interested in this when I saw a headline on the AP a few years back that stated JWvessel attacks GP. In the body of the document by paragraph three we find the facts. GP was trawling a line under the ship and the JW captain rammed them to keep his ship from being disabled in the open seas.
This is the ANTI Headline. Make the headline the opposite of what happened so that others doing research won’t pick the story up.
That's exactly the thing that a lot of people in the West need to get, the Islamists already hate us, they don't care how well (or poorly) we treat prisoners, or how much we "respect their culture" or how many concessions we give to them. They just flat out hate us, and I hate to break it to the liberals, but they don't care how much a liberal loves and respects them, the Islamists want you dead too. To them liberals are just useful idiots, and what very useful ones they are at that, fighting tooth and nail against anything that could "provoke" a people that are already well and truly provoked to begin with, and then saying that it's "our fault" that they hate us all.
So while releasing videos may make Obama feel "closure" or whatever, it's only going to furnish another excuse (not causation) for what they do best, which is flat out barbarism. The left doesn't get that though, they point to US misdeeds as cause for Islamist barbarity, when it's not that at all, it's just a convenient thing for the barbarians to tell us because they know enough people in the West are stupid enough to buy it and start naval gazing at best, or do something stupid like release all the details on interrogation techniques at worst, which really does make America less safe no matter how much liberal spin is on that ball.
Alex’s treatment in A Clockwork Orange, but instead of Beethoven, Harry Reid and other of your Democrat favs 24/7, now that's torture.
Excellent article that sums up the debate rather well. It never fails to amaze me that to the left waterboarding is the root of all evil (been there, done that) but they and the media are extremely reluctant to point out what happens to anyone that happens to fall into Islamist hands, be they civilian or military. It never turns out well, and nothing any Western security service or military does comes even close to their tenderest of "mercies."
You say that like liberals think that is a bad thing LawhawkSF.
I think they REVEL in this being done. Look how they acted when Rush called the McBain gut a phony soldier. This guy who was washed out of boot camp makes videos stating he was murdering innocent muslims by hiding out in their mosques at the direction of the US army as an Army Ranger. Rush points out this guy to be a phony and ………………….
The Senate literally makes a Federal Case of Rush's comment.
The Left use the atrocities of the Terrorists to try to dismantle what they see as "Western" influence. I guess that they feel once they've enacted their Fascist control they can go back to concentration camps and secret police to control these people since after the left takes over nurdering islamic nazis will have served their use.
The LEFT cares about nothing bu POWER. That is why they obsess over it wen they are not in POWER.
Okay again with the disappearing post thing, this is starting to get pretty annoying.
Basically, I agree with you Lawhawk, if this one even shows up too.
What do you expect from the same Congress where people were allowed to stand up and say that US troops were acting like Nazis, and then tried to say "Oh no we didn't really mean that."
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
"He who stays on the defensive does not make war, he endures it." – Von der Goltz
The problem is, a lot of people think you can turn war into a tickle fight and give the enemy 72 time-outs where you ask him if he's ready to say "Uncle" yet.
Or just as badly, think that once you start fighting you should tie one hand behind your soldiers' backs to make sure everything is "fair." As I was taught a long time ago: If you wind up in a fair fight, you ("screwed") up.
I really think it is about undermining us enough to take over.
You know the movie Watchmen was pretty insightful into the liberal mindset. They will literally start a Nuclear Armeggeddon and blame it on someone else in order to allow them to gain complete power.
And in there delusional minds they think the world turns into a Hippy Commune where everybody loves each other until some conservative nutcase lets the Truth out.
Plato's Chosen Syndrome (PCS)
I'd figure out a way to chew through my own jugular if I were exposed to that…
I find clicking on the Avator of the individual always shows the comment. Clicking on the comment on the Avatar's stream will usually clear the hidden post phenomena and you'll see all of them when you get back.
It seems to be only replies that have the issue.
Yeah for me it's just the replies, since I'm not the most computer literate guy in the world, I've just been using the Andrew Price method for making them show up. Which works, but it's still rather vexing that it happens in the fist place.
It's like gigantic group therapy. A Twelve-Step Program for pinky patriots. "We don't torture." I'm not sure which step that is, but it's somewhere in there with "We don't defend ourselves under any circumstances," "We are powerless over evil, so we surrender to it," and "We thought we could simply play loud music or keep them awake for a long time, but all attempts at restraint were futile, and led to waterboarding and caterpillaring, and complete moral degradation." We could call it "Torturers Anonymous."
They're showing up eventually, but in no logical order and for no logical reason. It's a mess.
Ah but see if you did that the the liberals would be all up in arms saying you're "provoking" the peace loving followers of the Religion of Peace. Nevermind that it's a factual comparison of course.
This past Christmas in DC, the buses and the Metro had some atheist organization buying ad space – their posters said simply "be good for goodness sake", with a picture of a skinny dreadlocked dude in a Santa outfit. My request is – define "good", or better yet, define "goodness". Everyone's definition will be different. The church – any church – will give you a baseline to determine "good" or "goodness". I think that''s why the left is trying to force their own sliding definition of goodness upon us as a society and as a country. No matter what conservatives espouse, they'll disagree or ridicule. In doing so, they're trying to negate the basic concepts of morality that the church – any church – can have on our society. As I remember, it's freedom of religion – not freedom from religion. To me that means that the leftists can't and shouldn't expunge any mention of religion from our government, but to use it as a guide to do the right (correct) thing. Instead, they base the right (correct) thing on whatever is the current trend or how they're feeling at that moment. And they change that when they feel like it. I'm not against change, which is necessary for us to improve, but I'm against changing our baseline, which isn't defined by man (which as men, we can change) but as defined by God or whatever you want to call a deity, which man can't change. That's what's in the documents that define our country and that's what we should live by today.
I was being unusually kind. You just said what I was actually thinking. I'm afraid they're even succeeding in wussifying me.
Obama has spent much of his term of office so far apologizing for all things American. He really despises this country, and will do anything to turn it into his crazed idea of what he thinks America ought to be. If that includes getting a few hundred or thousand Americans murdered by releasing pictures of unpleasant interrogation techniques, so what? It's all for our own good, you know. We'll all be better proles for it. As his favorite pastor said, "God damn America, it's in the Bible."
Umm, yeah, despite the ranting, you should know that whether you believe in evolution or creationism we all have a common ancestor, there was a first man (or woman) everyone descended from. Now while it would be interesting to press a court case arguing how evolution clearly states this (which would piss off liberals), technically you're only allowed to say you have no common ancestor if the two of you are different species. And even then by straight evolution you can drop down the tree a bit and claim the first primate or even some bacterium as common.
Torturers Anonymous, that’s funny. They could review the twelve steps on the nightly news for further indoctrination. This would lead to the obvious Weeping Hour with Katie Couric and the Tella Tubbies, where we all sit in the floor and have a good cry for the sins of America.
I get the same impression too, someone mentioned it on another thread yesterday or the day before, and it was right on, about how Obama is reminiscent of the villain from "Moonraker." Sure he may lay waste to huge tracts of the country and its systems, but it's all for "the greater good" so that makes it just peachy.
You know that when a French President can look at an American President and say,"Grow a pair why don't you…" under his breath, that something is terribly wrong with the world.
As for the Torturers Anonymous, yeah that is funny. I was thinking along the same lines but came up with Totally Wussified Americans Against Torture and Stuff as a good name for the group. Yeah I know, I'm a bad, bad man.
It's all in the framing of the shots, we don't show the heads (and turbans) of the torturers nor "identifying markings" like Muslim script or decorations. If they complain about the "skin tone" of any shown arms and hands, we will proudly reveal we used Hispanic, Native American, and Asian actors, and wonder Why they have a problem with the hiring of minorities.
Let 'em choke on it.
That is deviously cunning, I like it.
Waterboarding is not torture the way we do it. End of story. Pelosi sits in the meetings has all of her questions answered, approves the process and then 6 years later says she is against the process she helped formulate. Obama sits in on the highest level of secure briefings releases documents that prove that waterboarding is not torture if you bother to read them and then says he has Empathy for the folks that helped kill over 3,000 Americans. This is called TREASON.
That’s perfect! You are bad, ha!
I've done that a couple of times, and it worked in a limited way. The problem is that you and I and the other regulars here now have about six or seven "quick fixes" to find something that ought to appear easily without using tricks. It's going to kill this site for new people who might like the site but don't know they have to have a list of tricks handy just to find a simple post. As much as we all like debating with each other, it's new blood that makes a site interesting and enhances the discussion, and we're never going to get that with this "black magic" posting and retrieving.
The field portion of Ranger School is an adventure in sleep deprivation. It's all about keeping your wits about you and being able to produce OP Orders – 5 paragraph operation orders- and run patrols while you want to fall dead asleep. SEAL's do undergo waterboarding. The do it at SERE school also.
If thousands of lives are at stake why are we only torturing tiny numbers of these people? Surely, it is far more moral to increase the amount of these harsh interrogations to uncover yet more life-saving evidence.
Frankly, let's just create the CTA (Central Torturing Agency) to make this process a valid part of any investigation into DOMESTIC terrorism, as well, and harshly interrogate pro-lifers who bomb abortion agencies, white supremacists who knock down large buildings and other vile scum of the earth.
The pace of torture as it currently stood under Bush seemed to under-serve the primary reason it was used in the first place so let us do it right.
Mao Tse-Tung would be proud of us.
I would rather die the worst death imaginable. I'd rather see my entire family wiped-out to the youngest infant. Then waterboard the AL QAEDA KILLERS and Violate the Constitution of these United States! Right. Sure you would. You oh so High Moraled High Minded Coloring-book Utopian Liberal Clowns.You'd be the First ones ,The First ones screaming for God and the Armed Forces if anything happened . God and the Armed Forces two entities that in your heart's you don't believe in and have no use for, they get in the way of you perverted world view. But Hey! don't worry about it.You can always put Obama and his Crew and Policy's where your heart's aught to be. Terrific article Mark. You should sent in to the Buffoons in Washington , They should have it Tattooed on their foreheads better yet on their butts so they can read it to each other.
Well remember back in the late 80s the Army played Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achey-Breakey Heart" for 48 hours straight to flush out Noriega!
Well that was an interesting response.
The thing is that you don't need to go to enhanced interrogation procedures for 99.9% of the people you capture, for a variety of reasons. The two most important reasons are that most of the people you capture will talk without having to go to enhanced methods, yelling and threats aren't considered "enhanced" (yet, give the left time) and they work on most people. Of the remainder that won't talk under "normal" interrogation procedures, most of them either aren't high ranking enough to bother doing it to get structural or deep background information, or don't have immediate actionable intelligence to give even if they're involved in an action cell to begin with.
To go to enhanced methods on everyone is a waste of time, effort and manpower. It'd be like sweat boxing the Steelers' towel boy to try to get information on the newest plays in the playbook; not only doesn't he know, but it's a waste of time to even bother trying to extract information you know he doesn't know. Therefore pointless, unless of course you're Greg Gutfeld.
Apparently, Obama and the lefties missed that memo. They think the point of war is not to fight one in the first place. Negotiate. Offer. Compromise. Understand. Surrender.
They also need to get that negotiation is a means, not an end.
We are glad you have a cause, and there are people out there who are working on determining if Obama is an American citizen or not. Many of us wonder why he won't produce his birth certificate. BUT your posts are somewhat incoherent, they add nothing to the discussion we are having here, and they have the ring of Truthers on the other side of the fence. If you feel the need to bring the issue up, please feel free to do so, but don't start inundating this site with repetitive, canned posts, and please don't post them at all unless they have something to do with the issues we're discussing. We like free for all discussions here, but we at least attempt to stay on topic, and not post the same thing over and over and over. If you can't stick to those basic ground rules, please go back to posting on other sites. Thank you.
They need to change their logo from "Change You Can Believe In" to "Not in the face!"
Thanks Brenda, we're all in this together…
Thanks Gary! I agree – let's take it to the enemy.
Thanks, Golani! Yes, the way the media frame the torture debate here, you'd never know that anyone else around the world was guilty of it but Bush's America.
Thanks ALLAMERICAN! I like your tattoo idea…
On the week ends, (since most talk radio programs turn into “info-mercials” for vitamins during that time), I play back the free pod casts from Mark Levin from the past week.
I just finished his April 29th show, where he played the “100 Daze presser” from Duh “Won.” (I didn’t watch or listen to it originally, I had more important things to do..namely blow up zombies on XBox Live.)
It was painful and gave me a dizzying case of vertigo. Like hanging ten, over a thousand foot cliff with both of my hands tided behind my back
Like a deer caught in the headlights, there was NO place to run, and NO place to hide. I was compelled to listen to the thing for an HOUR! *Shiver*
Now, THAT’S torture people, let me tell you.
I want that hour of my life back.
Not Over.
In Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three" (with James Cagney) I think the East Germans use "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" during an interrogation.
Thanks Brenda! We're all in this together…
Very true! I don't beleive the left has any concern about torture, beyond using the word as a propaganda tool to discredit Republicans.
Since the Clinton presidency, the Left and it's subsidiary, the Media, has been engaged in a relentless propaganda campaign. Sexually Harrassing women is wrong, until Bill Clinton does it. George Bush created "massive deficits" but now, 4 times larger ones are fine because they are Obama's. Protesting is great, but not if it's against socialist spending sprees. Terrorism is being against abortion. Free Speech is an absolute right, unless you say Marriage requires two genders (and your not a democrat). If Timothy McVeigh had had his eyes poked out with hot brands, no one on the left would have thought twice about it. They would torture Dick Cheney tomorrow if they could.
And since they all style themselves great historians and political experts, they should re-read one of their favorites–Clausewitz. According to him, "war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means." Do they understand that means that if conventional diplomacy fails, as it often does, then war is the form of diplomacy that must replace it? I think it's more likely they think we should keep talking while our cities burn.
AC: In the very real case of Khalid Sheik Muhammad the reports are that they waterboarded him 183 times, if that’s so we suck. Chairman Mao would not be proud! Are you saying that you would stand nobly by while thousands of your countrymen were vaporized, because “pretty please” didn’t work. How would you deal with the ticking time bomb scenario?
It's so funny you bring up that GP program. I was just thinking about that. I tried to watch it once out of curiosity but found it unwatchable after just a few minutes. What's interesting to me is that the Liberals who think the ends-justifies-the-means tactics used in this program don't see that using waterboarding is very similar as far as using what's necessary to get the job done– but with far higher stakes. Let's see……ramming a Japanese whaling vessel and endangering the lives of those whose means of earning a living you disagree with vs. pouring water on the face of a terrorist who would behead you without a second thought and kill and torture your family. Hmmm. Seems like a no-brainer to me. But people like Gr-awful-O would probably say I'm an unlettered, redneck, racist, who just doesn't like a black man in office.
It's so funny you bring up that GP program. I was just thinking about that. I tried to watch it once out of curiosity but found it unwatchable after just a few minutes. What's interesting to me is that the Liberals who think the ends-justifies-the-means tactics used in this program don't see that using waterboarding is very similar as far as using what's necessary to get the job done– but with far higher stakes. Let's see……ramming a Japanese whaling vessel and endangering the lives of those whose means of earning a living you disagree with vs. pouring water on the face of a terrorist who would behead you without a second thought and kill and torture your family. Hmmm. Seems like a no-brainer to me. But people like Gr-awful-O would probably say I'm an unlettered, redneck, racist, who just doesn't like a black man in office.
Dear God Daddy, there’s no telling the damage you could have done to yourself brother. You can know give reports from the dark side.
Golani-
If I understand you correctly, all high-ranking officials who will not talk are excellent candidates for the degrading and inhuman experience of waterboarding?
The next question is: IF a high-ranking official does, in fact, convey information why NOT waterboard anyway since we could theoretically assume he is lying?
Now, if he can spread misinformation in a mental state where he has NOT been under 'enhanced interrogation' what makes you believe he will tell the truth when he IS?
In which case, my original point still stands.
ALL high-value targets should be waterboarded. Information takes months, if not years, to verify so nothing should stop interrogators from collecting information through the entire spectrum of interrogation- from normal to 'enhanced'. This is why its called torture when we refer to communist nations employing this same tactic.
You presented only a view that states that a high-value 'talker' is safe from torture. But since no information from a talker can truly be verified in real time you MUST make subjective determinations about the accuracy of the data.
The process of 'enhanced interrogation' is a total waste of money, effort and manpower since no information can be trusted.
Reagan understood this far more than most of the visceral responders in this thread. An airman of this country goes down on the bad side of the line and some m-therf-cker uses 'enhanced interrogation methods' on him I want heads to roll.
If this country considers it immoral for other countries to waterboard our captive men and women it is only avoiding the state of hypocrisy and ineffectiveness to rule out this kind of behavior for itself.
My understanding is that a program called SERE(Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) was developed to toughen high-value American military assetts (such as Seals/ Green Berets). When the CIA was called in after the WTC attacks, they needed to develop an interrogation progarm. The used the SERE manual. Waterboarding was one of the SERE techniques.
The question "are the SERE techniques torture?" Is not really an unfair question, in my opinion. Many people might think they are, but that leaves out an important fact. The real question is "Do the SERE techniques constitute torture under the US statutes developed to align US law with the UN Convention on Torture?" (which the US signed on to). That question is less clear. The definition if "prolonged mental or physical injury intentionally administered".
Where has this guy been hiding.He says that beheading is torture.A gruesome way to die no doubt,but not torture.He says that stoning someone to death is torture.Once again,an unpleasant way to meet your maker,but not much different than getting blown up by a remote controlled missile or a roadside bomb.He should try being water boarded like Sean Hannity offered to do.Of course if he did he would chicken out like Hannity did when offered $1000.00 for every second he lasted before begging to stop.People need to ask themselves the question,if some godless commie had them or their children & water boarding them would that be torture?:
You call this torture, but it's how Charles Schumer masturbates.
It’s just a city Hawk. These are sacrifices that’ll have to be made to achieve Nirvana, don’t you know.
This entire debate irritates me to no end. Anyone with a brain, a pulse, and a high school reading comprehesion level can read the Conventions and understand that terrorists fall under the partisan and spy category. I was incountry long enough to know that the evil we face does not understand the word please. I remember being told years ago that my first responsibility was to the troops under my command. I did and would do whatever I felt was necessary to protect them. There is a certain LTC that I know well wonders if we are under the same gaze as the attorneys are. I don't regret any of the interrogations that I was involved with. And it frankly wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing fewer captured terrorists. It's not worth the paperwork.
Yeah, but my problem is that on the list of seventy-six jihadi reasons for destroying a city, my little patch of heaven has all of them, plus a few they haven't thought of yet (very creative town, this one). As long as there is a San Francisco, New York will be safe from a second attack. I know, I'm just being selfish.
StanH,
The Ticking Time Bomb scenario is myth-like. Solid espionage efforts will uncover more about TTB's than torture ever will which is why we invented the CIA in the first place.
If a high-value target knows that you DO NOT trust the information he is providing you during interrogation WHY in god's name would he all of sudden start spewing the truth? Because he is in pain? Bulldookey, Khalid was waterboarded over one-hundred times- by the second or third event the man knows it will not end- so why talk? There is no reward.
I am afraid these interrogators have IQ's of beasts. Something is disturbingly amiss here and a buttload of ranting howls from revenge-seekers only reinforces my view that ideology is at play here NOT information-collection.
I am as interested in seeing terrorism suffer miserably at the hands of honest justice but don't tell me that waterboarding some f-cker 100 times will save my countrymen. Nonsense, this insults my intelligence.
As I mentioned in the other post- we are to engage the enemy as we wish to be engaged. Anything else is US morphing into the evil we seek to depose.
How’s it going for you Soldier? You make the trip back home to Vegas yet and get away from those cranky nurses?
I’m not much of a praying kind of guy, but I’ve been trying to send some “good vibes” your way for the last few weeks.
Stay in touch my brother.
Not Over.
You have got to hand it to the Liberals. They know how to Hijack a word!
They have managed to take a word that stood for cruel and barbaric behavoir and turn it into a worthless word. If I used there definition of torture, my older brother would be on trial for war crimes for some of the things he did to me when we where kids! Waterboarding is sissy stuff compared to the torture (That's what it was if I use the Liberal definition) I endured.
The Democrats have taken all of the meaning out of the word. Everything is torture in there eyes. The word "Should" conjure up images of Danny Pearl" in your head. Now all it does is make you think of some idiot having water poured on his face from a sprinkling can!
Except of coarse the Church Commission put an end to intelligence gathering when another high minded liberal Jimmy Carter wanted to expose American guilt, and bring us to our knees.
Start cutting fingers off. Tickle him until he says uncle, hell who knows really. But they damn well better do something lives are at stake. If it were my family, kids, grandchildren we’d get Medieval
I would imagine the interrogators are following orders. Revenge for what?
Not to insult your intelligence, but how would you do it? How would you get information? AgileCyborg is boss shortly after 9/11 what would you do?
What are your thoughts about the Dresden Bombing’s in WWII or dropping the bomb on Japan. My Father in Law was in the flotilla outside Japan, he jumped for joy. But, did we become the evil that we were deposing or was this righteous to end the murder that was WWII. Or perhaps you must meet with ferocity the evil that you face.
Excellently done Mark – kutts to you – and seriously – I was thinking of this topic today – and could not have expressed “MY Beliefs” better.
Thanks for having the b@%$ to tell it like it is!!
But this topic – begs to ask two questions for the Liberal World.
It’s September 6, 2001.
You’ve just captured Mohamed Atta. You’ve picked up all the details of major civilian loss of life….inside the United States.
And through your wiretap (legal of course) – Atta tell Osama – “the – “trial run” – was executed to perfection – the show is a go.”
But you do not know – when – where – how or who else.
Would you waterboard him?
Oh yeah – your entire family is flying in on the 11th. And – your Dad is going to sign over the entire $100 million family fortune to you…on the 12th…
You’ve just run out of feather hats….and the water company is turning off the source tomorrow.
And the bonus question – are you going to use the flush method – the bucket method – or – the slow dribble?
Much appreciated, rto, thanks!
Leave'em on the battlefield, no more extended vacations at Club Gitmo.
I, for one, would not have been troubled in the least if these men had been waterboarded. Not to mention the fact that the incidents you refer to happened over 10 years ago. I follow news events very closely. We don't seem to have a widespread rash of white supremist/abortion clinic bombings happening in this counry but maybe I missed those news stories. I do, however, read about Islamist terror incidents worldwide and, of course, there was that particular bombing on Sept. 11, 2001. As far as productive interrogation methods go, what is your idea of "doing it right"?
Rendering a word meaningless is nothing new to libs. They've managed to change the word "racism," which once meant an unwarranted hatred of other races to its new meaning: disagreeing with anything Al Sharpton or Barack Obama says. Same with "bipartisan," which once meant supported by two parties; now it means Republicans shut up and agree with Democrats. They can't even define the word "is," for heaven's sake!
Yeah, SF does have it’s pants down, ha. Make yourself a safe room Hawk so you can continue to send reports from the dark side. Remember your fearless Mayor will be there to protect you?
Bro, watching you and our couselors (AP, Lawhawk I'm looking at ya'll) kept the old spirits up. I'm back home and facing months of rehab and a new set of legs (Thanks Wounded Warrior Project). Thanks for keeping me in your "vibes".
No Prisoners……..Works for me. Keep Punching Brother.
You got that right. A bullet is always easier than a JAG off(icer).
StanH,
I understand how easy it is for you to instantly align me with the American guilt machine. It appears you've entered the same foxhole most others do when they debate me.
Keep in mind that constructive debate on this topic is not going to be generated from centuries of regurgitated war tactics and ideologies that have essentially proven not one single thing nor have they done much to further the human condition.
If the US dropped an atom bomb on Japanese who were primarily instrumental in the war atrocities that occurred under their watch and leadership I would fully support the endeavor. But, this did not happen and there is no way in hell I support dropping the atom bomb on kids, moms, grandmothers and grandfathers- civilians who were essentially powerless in the big picture.
Sorry, mass casualties of a civilian nature are totally unjustified under ALL circumstances.
With your mindset you regress to the level of the average Taliban.
"Getting medieval" accomplishes a temporary release of stress while at the same time creates egregious human rights issues since there is no way to prove conclusively that you are engaging in activity that is moral or 'right'.
You don't really KNOW if your kids' lives are at stake. Someone in a high-level from who the hell knows where may SAY this to create an enraged response from those who are required to perform in battle but in the end I want to see COOLER HEADS PREVAIL where we can protect human life rather than run roughshod over it in the pursuit of some mystical justice.
AND all war creates are nebulous forms of mystical justice. Very little is really ever accomplished as evidenced by six years in the middle-east fighting loser Muslims.
It is far too easy to justify animal-like behavior which is EXACTLY why the Geneva Convention exists. Too contain horror to some extent.
We DON'T want our people beheaded so we DON'T behead!
We DON'T want our people waterboarded so we DON'T waterboard!
Not only is this behavior immoral it is entirely worthless in terms of gathering information for the reasons I outline above and the which you did not bother reading.
You can take my word for it- I am avidly critical of the Muslim sickness. It is a plague on the planet. But, torture (or waterboarding and other similar forms of enhanced interrogation) should NOT be used by this country as we should be superior to this kind of behavior.
Everything I write, every fight I fight, every libtard I p!ss off with the truth, is dedicated to you, our wounded warriors, and my little boys future.
It’s my only goal now. (I too am too physically broken to be back in those mud trenches.) It’s now the time for ALL conservatives to get off their asses and do the “right” thing.
Hat’s off to you and yours.
I’ve got your back.
Not Over.
How about we leave them in a tidal pond off the Chappaqquiddick in the back of Ted kennedy's 1967 Oldsmobile. Would that be considered Torture to the Liberal mind set?
The flush method – isn't that also called a "swirlie"?
The next time an American agent posing as a Chinese citizen in a war zone is captured on the battlefield and is waterboarded, and reveals his organization's plans to murder a few thousand Chinese civilians, I'll remember that Mao Tse-Tung would be proud of us. So of course your segue into creating a Central Torturing Agency made perfect sense. I see the wisdom of it all. A few nutcase domestic abortion opponents and one domestic white supremacist cuckoo are exactly the same as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The situation with Khalid Sheik Muhammad is almost identical to Timothy McVeigh. How could we have missed that?
Likewise, the information obtained from KSH was myth-like, just as the Los Angeles Library tower is building-like. It's all a figment of our right-wing paranoid ideology. And we have a long record of using brutal torture on every single jihadi we capture, in a war zone, near a war zone, in a peace zone, in outer space, wherever we find them. I understand now that we use torture routinely, and only wish to expand that to every area of interrogation regardless of the time, place, circumstances and information to be obtained. We're not seeking information, we just want to listen to the screams of people who don't look like us. We are beasts of low IQ who enjoy watching our fellow human beings suffering. And I am so glad to find out that KSM figured out early that the enhanced interrogation wouldn't end, so he provided no information whatsoever. I had missed that in the news. Since we only use these techniques for the purpose of revenge, sadistic pleasure and just plain fun,while gaining no useful information at all, I now understand that we must stop. Mea culpa, mean culpa, mea maxima culpa.
When 9/11 happened I was working with an Israeli company. Having dinner with one of our Israeli Engineers (also a soldier), I asked incredulously, why do they hate us so much? He replied, "Most Westerners, whether they consider themselves Christian or not, hold the basic belief system that people just want to be treated fairly. And if I treat you with kindness and respect, you will treat me the same". "You are missing the point and will go to your grave worrying about what you did to piss these people off! Do you want to know what you did to piss them off? NOTHING! They don't hate you because of what you did. They hate you for what you are. Infidel!" Libs don't want to get it because there is no good solution. We westerners like to think there is a happy ending to everything. There is no win-win solution here. There is only win-lose, live-die or submit. I refuse to submit As stupid as libs think Bush is, he got it. Obama either does not get it, or is so eager to please his leftist base he is willing to put us all to risk by tying the hands of our intelligence agencies.
AMERICAN BY CHANCE, INFIDEL BY CHOICE!
Sorry AgileCyborg don’t want to be in a foxhole and sorry if I’ve pigeonholed your debate.
Constructive debate is fine, however when one is dealing with an evil committed enemy reasoned debate is useless. These people are absolute primitive savages, religious zealots, unfortunately the only thing they understand is fierce barbarity.
To be against brute force is fine, however like my father-in-law who was in combat from Midway through Okinawa as far as he was concerned and the thousands of men that were going to be asked to invade Japan, the atomic bomb was a godsend. The Japanese weren’t interested in conversation.
Sometimes casualties are a must, we’ll just have to agree to disagree in regards to Germany and Japan.
It really doesn’t matter what our mindset is the Taliban hates us and there’s nothing that you or I can do about it.
Do you have children? I do, and going Medieval would be appropriate, be damned Human Rights.
cont: Except of coarse the end of slavery, fascism, etc. Perhaps grid bombing from Jordan to Pakistan.
The Geneva Conventions do not extend to non uniformed enemy combatants on the battle field, and in fact allows for summary execution. Maybe that would be better.
I don’t know what your talking about with the beheadings?
Our people are already waterboarded, SEALS, Navy Pilots, Army Rangers.
That’s not what I’ve been told by men who have been in combat.
We agree America is superior in every way, we suck at torture though, sorry MAO.
The Left is hell bent on making "torture" as useless a term as "racist". They have tossed "racist" around so easily and with so little real meaning that it has no significance today other than to be a leftist catchword. And now they are racing down the same road with "torture".
One of the hallmarks of the Left is that they are great at telling everyone else what to do while exempting themselves from their dictates. I doubt that Obama or any of his followers would hesitate one moment to use real torture if a family member were in danger. Somewhat like the liberal elites having armed bodyguards while deploring the right of the little people to bear arms.
AgileCyborg – let me cut the funnies from my earlier post –and just ask for you to answer – yes or no – m
It’s September 6, 2001.
You’ve just captured Mohamed Atta. You’ve picked up all the details of major civilian loss of life….inside the United States.
And through your wiretap – Atta tell Osama – “the – “trial run” – was executed to perfection – the show is a go.”
But you do not know – when – where – how or who else.
Would you waterboard him?
“…The process of 'enhanced interrogation' is a total waste of money, effort and manpower since no information can be trusted….”
Los Angeles was saved from the second 9/11 attack – because of waterboarding – was it not?
We DON'T want our people beheaded so we DON'T behead!
And yet it still happens. Civilized behavior works with civilized people. The methods used by Gandhi work against those with a conscience. Gandhi would've gotten a quick bullet to the head if he went against the Nazis. You do not negotiate with a pack of hungry wild wolves. We say we want to be enlightened, to ascribe to far higher behavior than mere animals. But one way or another, sooner or later, a rabid dog will always come to the same end. We need to be smart enough to realize the nature of the enemy that attacks us, admit to our duty to protect civilized people from harm first, and be ready to act quickly and decisively in whatever manner is required to end a threat soonest.
Yeah what Hawk said!
Well said!
Touche' Do as I say not as I do. Diane Fienstein keeps a snub knose .38 in her purse, she needs it don't you know.
rto,
No waterboarding.
There isn't a doubt in my mind that the information received from this vile wretch would NOT be conclusive, accurate or reliable either before OR after torture. Your ticking time bomb would STILL tick.
The torture would yield nothing since the terrorist KNOWS he is a prisoner until he dies- THERE IS NO REWARD so HE, in fact, is spiritually-BLESSED by confusing the enemy!
Can you not get this through your head, man?
It doesn't stop there- WHY stoop to the level of an rank oppressor? which is NOT what this country is about. Torture is incredibly inefficient and only serves the vigilante nature inside the interrogators which makes it dead wrong and the country supporting it is on shaky moral ground in regards to universal human rights.
I can't see Jesus doing this.
kadaka,
Um, yes. All evil violence still exists. Wars and torture have done nothing to alleviate the horrors we see daily across the planet.
BUT, until a nation (like this one) differentiates itself from the horror and sets a standard to follow in battle how will civilization evolve? It won't.
This is why we engage the enemy effectively, humanely and efficiently. We DON'T carpet-bomb cities- which is far easier. We AVOID the innocent at all costs- which is not followed by our enemies. We DO use our intelligence to research alternatives that MAY offer a solution rather than blindly following in the footsteps of tired centuries of war and mayhem which have produced few results and seem to have only hardened many battle lines.
Without a moral standard for how we engage the enemy the world plunges backward into the bloody morass of animal-like ferocity and confusion.
++++Frankly, it amazes me to see how little conservatives seem to care about morality when the behavior of war is on the agenda. Yet, march a half-naked woman in front of them on their TV screen and they sh!t the sofa and call for standards.
This country was already moving into deadly territory when it approved of torture. There is little question in my mind that the future would have been quite bright for the growth and expansion of this type of activity if the average, viscerally-driven, and, yes, paranoid citizen were to have their way.
Reagan stopped it in its tracks in the 80's- it returned under Bush/Cheney. Interesting, since terrorism has been around for decades. It's nothing new and the story is exactly the same now as it was under Reagan.
The point of my mentioning pro-life whackos was to reinforce that pendulums swing two ways. Torture under a Republican administration allowed to grow unchecked into a Democratic administration could just as easily be used against right-wing nutjobs intent on destroying large structures since domestic terrorism is, in fact, an issue AND the authoritarian regimes in this country are alive and kicking and would embrace ANY new tool to 'crime fight'.
To practically state that all soldiers in the Armed Forces are of pure conscience and of only the highest moral standard illustrates a rank disconnect from reality and how the pressures and stresses of war affect the human conscience which is where morality is based.
Your post is cute but obliterates the existence of moral concern about torture into a useless slop. Is it any wonder Bush was kicked out of office and the Republicans appear to be down for the count. The hypocrisy here is staggering.
Hollywood’s liberals do believe in torture. Ever heard of a partial-birth abortion? They just believe in torturing innocents or not torturing jihad Muslims to protect innocents.
TXGirl,
Human beings are complex creatures. An interrogator that states he can break people into a truth-spewing entity is full of garbage.
Sensitive information-gathering is a subjective and grueling business that isn't going to be made any easier even IF torture was a national policy and it was par for the course in the war business here.
There is a point where we are more vigilante than justice-seeker and torture and prisoner abuse crosses that line. We become THEM. Vile and sickening.
I can see the average po-dunk buying into this concept but some of you people here actually have brains. Perhaps using them could be a useful enterprise.
Great article. I also had something to say on this subject over at my blog
http://gazzersgabfest.com/?p=745
Thanks Gazzer!
The best description I have for the Left is see what moral relativism has brought us to. When you are not allowed to judge right from wrong in absolute terms then your whole frame of reference is rotten from the core out.
When, exactly, did the country approve of torture? There is a huge debate going on right now as to what constitutes torture, and for the moment, your side is winning. I am of the view that most of the techniques which are being banned are not torture. This makes it a matter of opinion, but your tactic which I have seen in your other posts is to call anyone who disagrees with you mentally-deranged or a coward afraid to debate you, as you just did in your first paragraph responding to my post.
Your whole argument about Republican "torture" being turned against "right-wing nutjobs" by an oppressive domestic regime is ridiculous. That is why I brought it up satirically in the first place. If you can't see the difference between what happens on a battlefield overseas during an asymmetrical terrorist war, and domestic rules of law and Constitutional guarantees in peacetime, then you are far less intelligent than even I gave you credit for.
I never said anything about "all soldiers in the Armed Forces" anything. Don't use other people's arguments as if they were mine. And again, if someone disagrees with you, he or she must be suffering from "a rank disconnect from reality."
And I'm glad you found my post "cute." Of course, it had nothing to do whatsoever with a "moral concern about torture." I happen to have those same concerns, although since I disagree with you on what comprises torture versus what comprises horrific but necessary interrogation techniques, I must ipso facto be immoral.
The only "useless slop" here is your complete inability to differentiate exigent circumstances on a battlefield in a bloody, messy war from a pleasant game of chess. Since you have a monopoly on intelligence, debating skills, and morality, I will now go jump into that foxhole of fear you described rather than waste any more time and energy attempting to conduct a reasoned argument with someone who knows it all, sees it all, understands it all, and pronounces indisputable judgment upon it all. You're not just childish, you're boring.
“….I can't see Jesus doing this….”
And there is where you and I – will always see it differently.
Jesus is my light. And personally – I feel we’re all going to see him soon. I’m not pessimistic by nature…just realistic by events.
This world is – and has always been – the battlefield between good and evil. And call evil whatever you may. I call it “Hitleristic” behavior. And right now – by my count – evil is winning. And I’m sick of it.
If my wife – or my parents – or you – were flying on the plane that hit tower two – Atta would be one gulp away from drowning. And he would stay there until he talked….
I live – work – and I’m currently sitting in Arabia – and I’ve been over here for many years. No expert – but I’ve worked – ate – and laughed with these people – and I’ve talked openly and in private with them many times about everything. For some reason – I’m a likable guy…(ha!).
But the younger people in this country – are no different (contrary to many beliefs) of the young in our country. And I really like many I work with…deeply. They love to laugh….and I do too.
They also love America.
But trust me – fanatical Islam does not. That ideology is a different story – they hate us. And you cannot Love this hate – you cannot talk to this hate – and you cannot reason with this hate. You can only fight this type of hate – because they demand we do so.
I’m going to go when I’m called – don’t worry about it – and really look forward to it. In the mean time – I’m fighting evil anyway I can – anywhere I can. And you may note – that’s not the Jesus in me speaking.
There is a line – there is a time – and – there is a place.
America is not a barbaric nation state. We have oversight and we have checks and balance in place. We also use them.
But right now – I’ve got to go douse Atta…then hit the sack….it’s 3:00am here…..
IntenseDebate Notification <DIV>98ZJUSMC mentioned the SERE program, too. I can remember from my time in the Army 37 years ago, as a lowly private, we had an evening of “POW training”. </DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>As I recall – at Ft Ord in the Monterey Peninsula – (since closed down) we weredriven to a camp on a hillside, blindfolded, yelled at a lot and slapped – then at the end blindfolds taken off with a chance to “escape” – </DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>We were told that if we were caught (well, it was left to our imagination) </DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>I can remember on that moonless night running down that hill – a## over teakettle – </DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>Now was this “torture”? It certainly has no comparison to being in the “Hanoi Hilton” for 5 years – nor – what a Green Beret experienced in Vietnam – held in a little bamboo cage for years (and he escaped!) – </DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>To me, sawing off one's head and putting the video on the Internet is torture – putting someone in a shredding machine – as Sadaam did – is certainly torture – </DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>One could say that sticking someone in prison in a 9×5 cell is “torture” by this more lax definition – to me, anyway, there has to be some permanent physical damage. </DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>Bill</DIV> <DIV style=”FONT: 10pt arial”>
If thousands of lives are at stake why are we only torturing tiny numbers of these people? Surely, it is far more moral to increase the amount of these harsh interrogations to uncover yet more life-saving evidence.
Oh how cute, the "take my opponent's view to a ludicrous extreme and pretend it's the same" method of argument. Gosh, sounds like a logical fallacy used by someone eager to pretend he's all high and pious.
Actually, Mao would probably find us too restrained. What's next going to quote that Democrat Congresscritter who compared Gitmo to the Khmer Rouge's "reeducation" camps? Durbin, IIRC.
Be sure to speak it while you type and get that oh-so-shocked-and-horrified indignation right. You'll feel even more sanctimonious than before.
I have a feeling that he's less interested in honest debate and more interested in looking all morally superior compared to all the icky people who disagree with him commenting here.
I agree, but I would add he also needs to look intellectually superior as well. He spares no effort attempting to make that point. He isn't debating. He's trying to play a game of one-upmanship. Too bad. Unlike the trolls, he is actually articulate and not too far out in left field, but like the trolls, incapable of comprehending that his is not the only point of view in the civilized world.
So what would YOU do? It is easy to "armchair quarterback" when you know you will never have to make that kind of decision.
“Pride goeth before the fall!” You guys had better be careful he might not pass the Gray Poupon.
I've already admitted that I'm an immoral coward who is disconnected from reality. Pass the mustard, please.
I was referring to our snooty patooty. Mustard’s on the way.
Snooty patooty ! I love it. May I add that to my put-down catalog?
By all means it’s a great old expression, ha.
I don't know why I bother, as, looking at the comments, you are all entirely and completely insane — birthers, anti-choice extremists, and various styles of bigots clearly sad that bigotry is going out of style, and some folks who are in serious, serious denail — but it has to be said that the man who helped assemble the parade of lies and slanders that was "The Path to 9/11" is the one with not a single concept of what torture.
Every single act he listed as "real torture" resulted in death. While, of course, people can be tortured to death (sadly, the U.S. has recently been guilty of that as well, it appears, though perhaps actually killing the victim was not the intent) the acts he described were basically acts of mass murder. Torture is defined by the Oxford American Dictionary as:
"the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain."
Tapson has, like so many of the least intelligent members of the conservative movement, defined torture down to the point where it is means, basically, murder by torture, to try and get his beloved Bush Administration off the hook. Sorry, but torture is illegal and waterboarding at least is torture, as we have punished people for doing it to our soldiers.
And the commentors — defending torture while attacking the morality of liberals by lying about us and what we believe. You ought to be ashamed. Seriously. Disgusting
I've spent much of my life defending with words what you defended with your life. I am eternally grateful that I am able to do what little I can to help. You have honored me and mine far beyond anything I could ever do for you. You, and the brave men like you, are always in my thoughts and prayers. Get better as quickly as God permits.
I've spent much of my life defending with words what you defended with your life. I am eternally grateful that I am able to do what little I can to help. You have honored me and mine far beyond anything I could ever do for you. You, and the brave men like you, are always in my thoughts and prayers. Get better as quickly as God permits.
I exist, therefore I am hated. Obama doesn't realize his existence will get him no exemption. The jihadis hate us all equally because we exist, and in their world, we shouldn't. After 911 I never once wondered why they hated us. I already knew.
Waterboarding is degrading and inhuman? We have different opinions on what's degrading and inhuman then that's for sure. It's NOT fun to have done to you, but at the same time it's 1) effective and 2) causes no permanent damage. There are many other more intrusive methods that Western intelligence services don't use that our enemies do which really are degrading and inhuman, waterboarding being compared to things that happen there is not only not comparable, it's laughable. In the US if you're a candidate for enhanced interrogation you get waterboarded, if you're in Syria and are a candidate for enhanced interrogation your daughter gets an acid bath inch by inch in front of you until you talk, then your whole family save one gets shot so they can tell all the friends and neighbors to stay on the straight and narrow.
As for why not waterboard high ranking targets even if they don't talk, that's simple too, unless you have a good reason to suspect that they have actionable intelligence then there's no rush. Yes it does take time to verify information given through any interrogation process, but when you're just looking for structural information that isn't time sensitive it's not that much of a problem.
Here's one thing that people have to understand, anyone that says "torture doesn't work" has no experience in it for one thing, it does work, it works chillingly well. Yes I said chillingly because what the US and most other Western intelligence services do in no way amounts to actual torture. What we do causes discomfort, fear, sometimes downright panic, but it doesn't leave people broken and mangled pieces of flesh, that's what our enemies do. Even when they're not looking for one bit of information from someone they've taken in the first place, but doing it to prove a point.
Your last sentence is invalid as well, the US and most other Western countries submit their own military personnel to waterboarding and other techniques in counter-interrogation training. If we're willing to do it to our own people to prepare them for the lightest of techniques that an enemy will employ on them, then what is hypocritical is to suggest that we not use those same techniques on enemies captured especially when that is the most harsh method employed. It doesn't compute.
What people screaming about interrogation methods used here fail to understand is that intelligence operations are not nice, they're not clean, and at best they work in a very grey area. It's the one time where the ends does sometimes justify the means, so long as there are limitations on which ends you're allowed to use. With waterboarding, that's fairly low on the scale of human tragedies compared to what many other countries and groups that we're fighting will routinely go to as an end, even if they just do it for the sport of it.
Here a great example of how the media tries spins as if torture was a given.
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/04/25/liz-c...
IQs of beasts? Counter-intelligence officers are some of the most highly trained, and moreover highly vetted people in the intelligence community. You do NOT get to be an interrogator if you're a sadist, it's not only morally wrong but it's counterproductive from an intelligence gathering standpoint.
As for solid espionage efforts being able to defuse the "ticking time bomb" well in advance, that's a popular myth. The American intelligence services' human intelligence gathering capability was in tatters prior to 9/11, in large part due to Clinton's efforts to be more "morally correct" when it came to it. Intelligence officers were forbidden to have contact with anyone that was involved in illegal activities, what the administration forgot was those are the exact people that you need to develop as intelligence sources. Too much reliance was put on electronic means, which meant that the human component withered on the vine, with disastrous consequences.
As for KSM being waterboarded over 100 times, or 180 or whatever the number being kicked around now is, that's fallacious as well. There are records and checklists for any interrogation procedure, those are to both ensure accuracy of what happened, and as a brake against the "IQ of beasts" theory that some people will go too far. That means that every time water was applied to him that counted as one check mark in the waterboard column, in any given session you will have multiple applications of water done to you, that does not mean (as the liberal argument goes) that he was subjected to a hundred or more discrete sessions of waterboarding. The anti-waterboarding crowd is (willfully in my opinion) confusing the number of sessions with with the number of applications.
I strongly suggest you look up Torture in some Jidhadist dictionary and see what you find it maybe more to your liking. We are not insane. We are impassioned.We do not defend torture we are defending ourselves. We love our Country and want to keep it safe from the AL QAEDA KILLERS so we and our families can live our lives. So that even the great sensitives and pain feelers like you can live yours. I don't know if your an American or not, if you are I say to you WAKE-UP GROW-UP AND WISE -UP. If your from some other nation I say get rid of the Bush hatred take off the rose-colored glasses and cultivate a spine. You are not immune!
Counselor, thanks you sir. For me to know that good principled folks like you are out there, well that's payment enough. You and Mr. Price kept me amused and the nurses irritated. I couldn't ask for more than that.
For one thing, you're confusing your types of conservatives. Generally speaking around here, we're political conservatives (small government), fiscal conservatives (spend our tax money wisely), and somewhat social conservatives (strong morals, with variations in preferences). However, we support the 1st Amendment, along with the others, you can have half-naked women, we just tend to prefer it's done in a manner the little kiddies aren't likely to see. The type of "conservatism" you're talking about is likely found among Democrats and Republicans, even Communists and Islamic fundamentalists, the call for private morals by public standards to stop and even reverse the country's slide into an accepted decadence that'd appall the Founding Fathers.
Now, the message you still don't get. You adjust the tactics to fit your enemy. Civilized nations rarely go to war against each other. Let's say the US and Canada must be at war, like some minor territorial dispute and while they were negotiating someone shot first. It would be short and limited, neither side would go full-out, and the "misunderstanding" would quickly get settled. That's because both nations respect each other so much.
The Islamic terrorists do not respect us. They do not respect the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, nor the Geneva Protocol. They see our ideals as weaknesses, high-minded battlefield conduct as despicably inept. They are not civilized, by the standards we aspire to hold ourselves to. And we must respond accordingly.
If there is ONE thing we should have learned from Vietnam, it is we cannot win against an uncivilized foe unless we are less than ideally civilized. We act nice to civilians, the enemy hides among them. We promptly treat their wounded, and find them booby-trapped or as suicide bombers. Vietnam could have been won by razing the country flat. We could've helped the civilians afterwards, provided them farms and infrastructure and education, left them better off than when we arrived. But with our great ideals we tried to avoid disrupting their lives, their society, and both sides suffered for it.
The terrorists do not respect us, they hate us. They will never engage in honest negotiations and abide by any agreements, therefore there must be war. Any high-minded respect we show them is ridiculed, our ideals laughed at, they do as they please what we do not. We should not lose sight of our ideals, but to win against this enemy we must stop clinging to them and walk away, for a brief while, and only as far as needed.
They came to this fight with knives and guns. We cannot be expected to show up with only boxing gloves.
You dumb clucks buy into crap like An Inconvenient Truth and Michael Moore mockumentaries, but can't stand it when a well-documented work like The Path to 9/11 rips your little valium world apart. So you squelch it, because that's what leftist truth-deniers do. Did you have a point with " . . . is the one with not a single concept of what torture . . . (what????)" Or do you leftist nutcases live in such a drug-induced haze that you finish each others' sentences?
Your second paragraph makes absolutely no sense at all. And it's always helpful to throw in a dictionary definition which proves completely the opposite of what you are trying to prove in your slightly-retarded attempt at logic. The Oxford English Dictionary, Funk and Wagnall's New International Dictionary, and Webster's Unabridged, Abridged, and Abbreviated Dictionaries all define torture pretty much the same as yours. "Inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain." Aside from the fact that a dictionary which uses English as badly as that must have been written by a finite number of monkeys (or by you), what the f— does it have to do with enhanced interrogation? Torture used for the semi-literate purpose which you claim came from a dictionary is illegal, forbidden by all civilian and military rule books, and has nothing to do with the subject of interrogation! Dummy, when you put quotation marks around something, use the exact words of the source you are attempting to quote. If the Oxford American Dictionary actually uses those exact words, the editors need to take a remedial class in English grammar, including how to distinguish singular nouns and plural objects (someone . . . them).
Go back to your special ed class on liberal talking points, and come back some time after you "graduate" from fifth grade. It is not necessary to lie about liberal morals, since you have none which come from any source except the Communist Manifesto and Thoughts from Chairman Mao.
Response follows ALLAMERICAN's response.
Best article on this "torture"! Also read Ann Coulter's article referring to Monty Python "torture".
kadaka,
Your post is well-written and echos the thinking of the blog post above. I can appreciate your reflections here.
Listen, I can justify advanced aggression as well as you can. As a matter of fact I could easily see myself comfortably torturing or even outright murdering a Taliban that would flog a helpless woman.
I have it within me to agree to enhanced ends justifying the sordid means.
I am a slasher flick fan, if this tells you anything. My thinking is not based on a mealy-mouthed, spineless process of cognition that forces me to pacify over reality because I lack some level of fortitude or whatnot.
The action of war itself is something that I question everyday because it lends itself to simplicity which tends to lose track of details. And in this big world the details are critical to the American evolution.
When we promote the traits of our Republic upon the world the standards that this Republic embraces is what makes the message so profound and, in my view, appealing.
Torture (or enhanced interrogation) sullies the worldwide image of a particularly beautiful ideology- the American ideology.
We are not just f-cking over a couple of bad guys in a dark room with a board and water. We are monkeying around with our core belief system which rejects looking at human beings as mere animals, even if they are acting as such.
Just because someone hates and disrespects us does not translate into the American system turning into barbarians to requite its honor.
As our culture advances we will find new methods of dealing with asymmetric warriors. BUT, to initiate torture as part of this only sets us back fifty years and mitigates further thought into how to effectively deal with new threats.
I will never buy into this idea that a bullet, brawn and a bad attitude are the ONLY way to fix complex issues which includes the threat of terrorism. Egos suck, in other words.
There is a place for this kind of blind brashness (like in a firefight) but over time I believe we will see less of this and more of an application of new paradigms that move us from violent and unrestrained reaction into measured, thoughtful ways to redistribute events that initiate extremes.
There exists an over-riding mentality within the conservative group that is essentially war-like and immoral. It props itself up on the bible, tradition and family while it seeks to CRUSH particular types of resistance with absolutely no thought whatsoever as to how 'correct' this action is or how it will be viewed in the context of the larger picture.
This is illustrated perfectly by how many embrace the concept of 'the bomb' and the tacit approval of its almost casual use in the face of extreme evil. This style of thinking is shallow and caustic and this observation can be applied to torture since the effects of both actions do not resemble the nature of a moral and humane nation that seeks to improve the lot of its citizens and the world (which we do daily through hundreds of efforts approved under ALL administrations).
rto,
I don't buy it. The Fed is full of garbage. If it took torture to uncover a plot of this magnitude then the entire CIA should be scrapped as they suck worse than my damn ISP.
Americans should be ready and willing to track down and kill any of the jihadists released on our streets. I am already in fear of my life from them, and they need to die for our self-defense.
"former community organizer Barack Obama"
Hey Mark, been keeping up with the news lately? You're talking about the President of the United States of America. How about showing some due respect?
I'm glad. Glad to see people of your mentality so whiny, so pouty, so angry, so bitter. Go cling to your Ronnie Reagan comic books and your Charlton Heston action figures.
I'm glad, so glad, that the most liberal senator was elected to the White House! Your nightmares are all real. They came true. And there's no way to turn back the clock. You lost. All your fears are being realized.
Woo Hoo!
You got your bottoms whipped—and whipped good—last November by the new American majority! Get used to it: America is going to get blacker, browner, younger, more multi-cultural, multi-lingual and yes, liberal. And you can't do a single thing about it.
You shot your load with the abysmal failures of Reagan and Bush. Your power is all gone. Your time is past.
Like Social Security and Medicare, the changes being made by President Barack Hussein Obama are going to be permanent ones. They'll become part of everyday American life from now on.
I'm looking forward to watching the steam continue to shoot out of your ears. It only confirms what a good job our president is doing!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Oldsoldier and GooDaDDy, God bless you for your service and your sacrifice.
What a cute little troll you are!
Seriously, where's the pie?
Don't know how true this is; its pretty big hyperbole, I can't find a reference for it, nor does snopes or the other myth researchers show it, but here goes something I remember reading once:
After a WW 2 American unit liberated a concentration camp, a military doctor required help maintaining sanitation and light care for the former prisoners. Since all his staff were tied up with serious cases, he had to turn to captive Nazis for assistance.
He was interviewing prisoners for suitability. During one interview, supposedly one man spoke voicefereously about his refusal to care for "dirty Jews". Upon hearing this, the doctor supposedly stood, drew his issue .45 Colt, and shot the individual in question to death. Then, with the same calm he had formerly demonstrated, continued the interview; with greater cooperation, I read.
I am highly suspicious of this, and there were SO many violations of military law here I can't even begin to count; but if it is true…we have certainly slipped, haven't we?
anti –
Not every example I listed ended in death, so maybe you need to read the piece more closely. And instead of lecturing us on the definition of torture, you should look up the definition of "mass murder," since all of the examples I listed referred to only one or two victims each.
Also, it is the left that has "defined torture down" — to waterboarding.
And since you have no idea what my opinion of Bush is, your "beloved Bush" jab is just an impotent ad hominem attack.
Thanks for proving my point that the left is fixated on Bush-era waterboarding and refuses to acknowledge atrocities committed by our enemy.
JimCap, Thanks for revealing just what kind of people have embraced former community organizer Obama's new era of post-political change.
By the way, where can I get these Ronnie Reagan comic books and Charlton Heston action figures you mentioned?
Heh.
At the start of the American Revolution, the British troops fought nobly as was their tradition, formed firing lines, letting go volleys, at some point came the charge with bayonet and sword.
We hid behind rocks and trees and picked them off from a distance with superior hunting rifles. There were assorted ambushes as we used our knowledge of the terrain. Oh, don't forget George Washington's little trip across the Delaware.
To them, we were cowards without honor, uncivilized barbarians, to use polite language. They adapted, came down from their lofty notions of honorable battle. In the end they respected us. But before you think I'm drawing parallels with the terrorists, they respected us for reasons that don't apply to terrorists. We treated their prisoners well, they knew they could take us at our word, and we didn't go after their civilians. We showed them that we too have honor, we showed restraint, set a level we were willing to fight at and stayed with it.
This "conservative mentality" you speak of is not warlike and immoral, it is pragmatic. We stick with what works for us, only changing when it stops working or something vastly superior comes along. If this wasn't a fundamental quality of Americans, we would have gone metric ages ago. Your utopian ideas of warfare, while laudable, are impractical against this enemy. I do not advocate adopting their tactics, but I do realize the need to use effective strategies. We have set a level past which we will go no further, set at what is working, if needed we will change as noted above.
One thing you must note, we must act according to what is in OUR best interest. The UN is a hornet's nest of corruption, envy, and outright hatred of the US. If we allowed world opinion its free rein, the US would be poverty and rubble, no better than so many of the rest. We do consider how "correct" our actions are, in the context of what advances American ideals. In the "larger picture" we are the sunshine that illuminates the cesspools of the world, providing hope and a shining example of how to respect individuals while providing them opportunities to prosper and excel. If we have to lower our standards to fight an enemy then so be it, as long as ours remain higher. It is far better that be done than this nation be destroyed because we clung to advanced ideals that were too expensive to keep at the time. We are "…a moral and humane nation that seeks to improve the lot of its citizens and the world…," but we cannot accomplish that task if we are not here.
And there in NO "tacit approval" of nuclear weaponry. We talk and joke about them, you have to keep displaying a paddle to keep the kids in line, we only used them once to quickly end a war and that was enough, it was known the threat is real. But we have since been in several major conflicts where their use would be expedient, and have not used them. We keep them for the threat, but it would indeed be a grave situation before anyone would seriously advocate their use. That you would think we readily accept the unthinkable, only shows the shallowness of your understanding of conservative thought, and America.
Mark gave Obama all the respect he was due. Maybe too much.
So? Don't bother.
Another scrote sniffer…
Wake me up when we get some real trolls in here…
(SNORE)
tripper1, you can't be serious,and if you are, you and people like you are the reason our country is spiralling out of control. I find it hard to believe anyone would read your comment and not think it's a prank. Comparing waterboarding to beheading or roadside bombs as if it's worse, my goodness. Either the left loons have totally brain washed you or you simply had no brain to wash!!! I'd check into a mental hospital if I were you. Thank God I still have my sanity.
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT. They'd be trampling over their own wives and children in the hurry to get away. They don't mind killing their children before their birth, so what's the big deal trampling them to death in the rush to save themselves. A trampling death is probably less discomforting than waterboarding don't you know:).
If we're not injuring them, then I don' t see how it can be considered torture. Sounds more like we're annoying the heck out of them.
I did not say water boarding was worse, just that it is torture & the others are not.Did you really not pick that up?I imagine that your patriotism is a lot like that of the gang the US people just kicked out.The chicken hawks w bush,cheny,ect.ect.A chicken hawk hides & sends other peoples kids to be killed for their sick egos.
Me gods, here be troll!
And where did you do your service, Mr. Tinkles?
(Be very careful, this be a LOADED question…)
Tripper, I don't understand your reasoning. You seem to think that if you die from it, it's not torture. If you think dying from stoning is the same as dying from a roadside bomb, then you truly know nothing about stoning, which is arguably the most torturous way to die.
Also, I never said waterboarding was pleasant. The point of the article is that the left is fixated on a medically supervised interrogation technique – waterboarding – while refusing to acknowledge atrocities committed by our enemy. As I wrote above, anything we do is not even remotely in the same ballpark as real torture.
We don't waterboard for the fun of it; it's part of interrogation to possibly extract information that could save lives, while our enemy does indeed torture – usually to the death – for no other reasons than to instill terror and to hideously kill Jews, infidels, and apostates. Why is this distinction so impossible for the left to grasp?
They are a bunch of cry babies.These are the same people that won't admit losing the war in Vietnam.You are telling them like it is & they don't understand that.Keep the faith.
They are a bunch of cry babies.These are the same people that won't admit losing the war in Vietnam.You are telling them like it is & they don't understand that.Keep the faith.
The thing Jim Cap when I have to live with the choices you helped create I'll know I opposed them, you'll live one day in a personal hell realizing you supported the destruction of American and you were duped into doing it. I feel sorry for you yet am angry at the same time. Really investigate what Obama is doing, come back and see if you still agree.
You must be logged in to post a comment.