information from waterboarded suspects is guaranteed to be correct, always.

its not like the information we often get from all that stuff that isn't torture but is isn't sometimes unreliable

Quote :

"CIA officials initially believed Zubaida was an al-Qaida ringleader and that information he divulged after being water-boarded would prove crucial to preventing terrorist attacks. Both assumptions were wrong. Zubaida wasn't even an official member of al-Qaida. While he did possess some very useful information about al-Qaida's membership, most of it was obtained before he was water-boarded. The leads he provided later were almost all dead ends that wasted agents' valuable time and resources. The paper says that Zubaida might now prove to be a thorny legal issue for the White House. If he's brought to trial in the U.S. after being water-boarded, he could very well be set free and establish a dangerous precedent for other Guantanamo detainees. The administration is examining the possibility of transferring his custody to another country instead."

http://www.slate.com/id/2214929/

So to answer this:

Quote :

"Would Nader have thwarted the attacks on LA or the terrorists trying to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge? "

He probably would have had about equal odds considering that we got useful information with or without torturing people.

[Edited on April 23, 2009 at 2:27 PM. Reason : .]

4/23/2009 2:25:16 PM

I will have to say though, I don't agree with releasing the interrogation memos and starting a witch hunt. I don't think that is what Mr. Obama intended, but it looks like it might go that way.

4/24/2009 8:37:46 AM

Quote :

"I will have to say though, I don't agree with releasing the interrogation memos and starting a witch hunt"

Yeah, what a witch hunt! People actively breaking U.S. and international law for the sake of torturing people.

Oh my! Those poor, poor people who actively subverted our laws for a morally bleak cause!

4/24/2009 9:38:26 AM

yeah cause waterboarding is torture

4/24/2009 11:23:01 AM

From the CIA:

Quote :

"In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth… During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths… The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout… You have… informed us that it is likely that this procedure would not last more than twenty minutes in any one application." [20]"

Seems like torture to me.

4/24/2009 11:30:21 AM

Quote :

"yeah cause waterboarding is torture"

We sure thought it was torture when those dirty Japs were doing it to our GIs.

Whoops!

4/24/2009 11:33:29 AM

4/24/2009 11:46:40 AM

Quote :

"yeah cause waterboarding is torture "

if it is not torture, it is neither physically nor psychologically painful.

so would you like to have a 20 min session to prove to us it is not torture, let alone 6 sessions a day?

4/24/2009 11:47:48 AM

Water boarding is about a 0.1 on a torture scale of 0 to 10 . Should we be doing it? No, but people have blown it way out of proportion. You want torture? Break a law in any non-western country and get sent to prison, then compare the two. We are held to this crazy standard, and we are criticized by countries that do far worse as a general practice. yeah... Should be be criticizing ourselves for doing it? Hell yeah. But everyone else can gtfo.

Quote :

"if it is not torture, it is neither physically nor psychologically painful."

By that definition, almost any sort of punishment or interrogation technique is considered torture...

4/24/2009 12:12:34 PM

Quote :

"According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess."

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866

c'mon...that's not torture?

4/24/2009 12:27:56 PM

sure of course it is not torture it is Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

Why do republicans insist on beating around the bush with their nice euphemisms. If this is really necessary for the security our nation than so be it but don't try to lie and bullshit people.

4/24/2009 12:42:08 PM

Quote :

"Water boarding is about a 0.1 on a torture scale of 0 to 10 ."

Who the FUCK are YOU to decide where it lies on the scale? Intensity of pain is not something that is objective.

I have a high tolerance for blunt force pain, but when it comes to drowning, I have a mortal fear of it. So for me, waterboarding would be at a 3 or 4 on the scale, whereas being whipped might only be at a 1. Everybody is different. Some can tolerate heat, some can not. Some cold, some not.

So the pussies lasted only 14 seconds, but they are so TUFF they subjected others to minutes of it, several times per session, and then sessions repeated several times a day.

4/24/2009 12:47:18 PM

Oh, and if it is not torture, why would beg to confess after just 2 minutes of said treatment?

And since Muslim terrorists are 5-10 times better at tolerating water torture spa treatment than the CIA TUFF guys, why don't they hire them to teach them how to become so good at tolerating the non-torture? It is a win-win situation.

4/24/2009 1:03:10 PM

I didn't know John Yoo was a TKE.

4/24/2009 2:35:46 PM

Quote :

"two two-hour sessions a day, with six applications of the waterboard each = 12 applications in a day. Though to get up to the permitted 12 minutes of waterboarding in a day (with each use of the waterboard limited to 40 seconds), you'd need 18 applications in a day. Assuming you use the larger 18 applications in one 24-hour period, and do 18 applications on five days within a month, you've waterboarded 90 times--still just half of what they did to KSM."

i love when people word things and you just go "BADASS"

4/24/2009 2:39:38 PM

Quote :

"Water boarding is about a 0.1 on a torture scale of 0 to 10 ."

Quote :

"yeah cause waterboarding is torture "

How in the hell are you arguing that waterboarding isn't torture? Waterboarding is absolutely torture, and if you can't see that, I invite you to meet me in my backyard by my garden hose for an enlightening experience.

4/25/2009 12:20:15 PM

This thread is even funnier if you remember internet political chat circa 2000-2001.
Republicans were saying the exact same thing

Honestly, this all meet and greet shit right now. I actually am really glad that Obama is getting out there and meeting with world leaders, but I will be more impressed when things actually start getting done. Climate change is a big priority and it really cant be addressed at a national level. Ditto on nuclear proliferation.

These are big priorities for Obama too and that makes me glad. But I think I will feel better about the international situation when something is done about them.

4/25/2009 12:40:32 PM

A big priority? I rate lots of thing above climate change.

However, assuming what you say is true, then I see a pattern: everyone respects America after we get a new President, which I guess makes sense. Whenever America does something evil, the President takes the blame and America remains innocent. As such, every 4 to 8 years we throw away the old blamed president and get a new clean one. Rinse and repeat. I suspect this is why people actually like Democracy. It doesn't work better than other forms of government, but it does change-over faster.

4/25/2009 2:06:46 PM

Quote :

"The military agency that helped to devise harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer and warned that it would produce "unreliable information." "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403171_pf.html

4/25/2009 3:04:04 PM

Quote :

"This thread is even funnier if you remember internet political chat circa 2000-2001. Republicans were saying the exact same thing "

nope, don't remember. examples?

or are you referring to the Republican's being embarrassed over the Clinton/Lewinsky thing, where they were deathly scared the rest of the world was horrified by that situation, whereas in fact they were mystified at the American overreaction to it.

4/25/2009 3:50:57 PM

I did not have sex with that enhanced interrogation technique!*





















*Except that I actually did.

4/25/2009 5:16:22 PM

oh snap!

4/25/2009 5:26:03 PM

it took you 3 months to come up with that?

4/25/2009 5:29:49 PM

agentlion,

Well there was the Lewinsky thing. But on-line, Republicans were convinced that Clinton reduced our stature in the world because he made us look weak militarily.

They think he essentially gave away state secrets to China.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/940025/posts

They also thought he should have done more to save the Canal, and by not doing so he was essentially playing into the Chinese's hands (they were really worried about the Chinese).
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=14863

And if you believe it, they actually used to complain that Clinton stretched our military so thin that we couldn't adequately protect ourselves. Involving ourselves in regional conflicts like in Kosovo was sure to undermine our security.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/894350/posts

And note that the most serious Republicans weren't saying this. Mostly just the fringe (particularly the online fringe). I'm sure you wont see the connection. "But the Republicans really *are* evil and Obama really *will* save the world!!!" But maybe one day you will.

4/26/2009 12:05:30 AM

hooksaw is back!

4/26/2009 3:07:53 AM

he takes a hiatus and the best he comes back with is "democrats, doo doo pee pee, they are dumb".

4/26/2009 10:11:15 AM

pretty funny hooksaw. Welcome back.

Actually pink I think he was merging two dems lying through thier teeth into one big lie. Kudos

4/26/2009 11:03:44 AM

Politicians. They often say one thing then do another and sometimes they lie!

4/26/2009 11:23:18 AM

I think the best part of all this is that Republicans have finally come out of the closet and embraced their previously veiled fascist side. Torture is a tool of fascism, plain and simple. Giving up your morals and ethics for a feint of security is not only dumb, it's a slippery slope. It means that we have nothing to show other countries how that are better than them.

It's really, really sad that so many Republicans (although not all, at least from TWW) have chosen to go down this route, and it will hurt them come elections time.

To quote Erios:

Quote :

"3) Should we accept terrorist-fighting tactics like torture, suspension of habeus corpus, secret policing and spying? The simple answer is no. Torture, in the absence of a "clear and present danger" to the country, is morally inexcusable. Torture is something we denounce our enemies for doing. A right to due process is written in our Bill of Rights for a reason. Suspending it makes us no better than the terrorists we're fighting. Spying on their people, authoritarian government policies, secret police forces... these are the tools of FACISTS. These are the tools of the very "Islamofacists," a popular term among conservatives, that we are currently fighting. "

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=496851&page=1#10805095

GG righties, keep up the good work.

It's puzzling too that the right would choose to give the government power to spy on people, hold them indefinitely, and admit publicly that we torture, but they shouldn't regulate food safety.


[Edited on April 26, 2009 at 12:10 PM. Reason : make America proud]

4/26/2009 12:07:55 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjCzfGm0njM

4/26/2009 12:53:05 PM

damn, gg Shepard Smith.
When was that - recently during the current debate, or back when we were actually doing the torture?

4/26/2009 2:11:18 PM

Quote :

"Torture, in the absence of a "clear and present danger" to the country, is morally inexcusable. Torture is something we denounce our enemies for doing. A right to due process is written in our Bill of Rights for a reason."

the Bill of Rights protects American citizens, not foreigners who wish us harm. the people who are attacking us aren't even protected under the Geneva Convention, so you can't use that to argue against torture either. Unless I'm misinformed, we haven't been torturing military POWs from other countries. The terrorist cells we've been rounding up haven't been recognized by any country they operate in.

4/26/2009 2:26:56 PM

that doesn't make it right

4/26/2009 2:47:22 PM

yeah, the same rules should be applied to all humans. anything else is hypocritical, what to talk of morally depraved.

4/26/2009 2:49:59 PM

Quote :

"the Bill of Rights protects American citizens, not foreigners who wish us harm. the people who are attacking us aren't even protected under the Geneva Convention, so you can't use that to argue against torture either"

none of this is true

4/26/2009 3:15:13 PM

Quote :

"he Bill of Rights protects American citizens, not foreigners who wish us harm. the people who are attacking us aren't even protected under the Geneva Convention, so you can't use that to argue against torture either. Unless I'm misinformed, we haven't been torturing military POWs from other countries. The terrorist cells we've been rounding up haven't been recognized by any country they operate in."

If only Lord Cornwallis and King George III had such courage as well as the balls to apprehend, incarcerate, and interrogate such terrorists/traitors patriots as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Sam Adams then we could all be serving the Queen right now!

Don't be a fool while these terrorists need to be dealt with the process of arbitrary slapping on the "terrorist" label shipping them to a black hole such as gitmo sets a dangerous precedent. Next thing you know your neighbor is getting dragged out of his house with a black bag over his face in the middle of the night after pissing off the wrong political leader or after being labeled a "domestic terrorist" due to being a cocaine distributor.

The definition of a "terrorist" is kind of ubiquitous and relative. While the dude caught with a bomb in shoe boarding an airplane definitely qualifies as a terrorist; what about some local subsistence farmer (with little communications to the outside world) in backwoods Afghanistan who Osama asks to be the cook in his terrorist cave compound.

The US itself the so called "star of freedom" "defender of democracy" and "leader of the war against terrorism" has gotten its hands dirty several times supporting groups who technically could be defined as terrorists.

[Edited on April 26, 2009 at 4:20 PM. Reason : l]

4/26/2009 4:14:12 PM

^^every bit of it is true.

Quote :

"If only Lord Cornwallis and King George III had such courage as well as the balls to apprehend, incarcerate, and interrogate such terrorists/traitors patriots as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Sam Adams then we could all be serving the Queen right now! "

If those men had been stupid enough to attack London, then you might have a valid point. Unfortunately, your story has no bearing on this situation at all.

4/26/2009 4:37:00 PM

the 14th amendment covers your first point, the courts have supported it

4/26/2009 4:39:10 PM

yeah, the bill of rights didn't even cover women and black men at the time it was written.

4/26/2009 4:41:31 PM

i don't know what point you are trying to make, and think you may have just negated your origninal point, but i assumed you meant the constitution when you said bill of rights

however the bill of rights makes no distinction as you are claiming, the 5th and 6th amendment protect non-citizens as well

4/26/2009 5:08:38 PM

Quote :

"If those men had been stupid enough to attack London, then you might have a valid point. Unfortunately, your story has no bearing on this situation at all."

So every single person we currently have locked away in some hidden CIA compound or in camp x-ray were directly involved in 9/11? If there were just causing problems in Iraq then they may still have a reason for being locked up but you pretty much invalidated your response above. nice try though

4/26/2009 5:46:25 PM

^^ I didn't negate myself. When it was written, the Bill of Rights only protected white men. Now it protects all american citizens through the 14th and 18th amendments. It still doesn't protect foreigners.

Also, the bill of rights is an amendment to the constitution, so the bill of rights would only apply to those people covered under the constitution. The constitution starts off by stating how it applies to American citizens, so the Bill of Right inherantly applies to American citizens.

^was 9/11 the only attack on Americans you can remember? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the second time the world trade center had been attacked, along with several attacks over the year on US embassies, military barracks, etc. 9/11 was the event that made America realize enough was enough and that we needed to round up these morons and stop the bullshit. We aren't torturing these individuals to find out who attacked the towers; we're try to prevent them from making their next move.

4/26/2009 6:28:42 PM

Boumediene v. Bush reaffirmed that the 5th and 6th amendment protections extend to detainees, you are going to have to dig a little more to try to support your misguided position

see also: Rasul v. Bush, Hamdan v. Rumsfield,

[Edited on April 26, 2009 at 6:49 PM. Reason : .]

4/26/2009 6:47:25 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26rich.html?_r=1

Quote :

"The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantánamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures” that might produce that intelligence. In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections."

4/26/2009 7:20:45 PM

Bush was a fucking dastardly war criminal who attacked a country under manufactured and patently false pretexts, leading to the destruction of the country and death of half a million civilians.

He is no better than Karadzic, Milosevic, or Mladic.

He should be prosecuted by the ICC, as were they.

He will meet his deserved fate in the next life, if not this one.


IBTButSaddamWasAHorribleButcher. Yeah well, do you see me defending or praising Saddam? As far as I am concerned, if there is a just God in this world, Saddam and Bush will be cellmates in Hell. So, shut up.


[Edited on April 26, 2009 at 7:33 PM. Reason : ]

4/26/2009 7:29:41 PM

Quote :

"was 9/11 the only attack on Americans you can remember? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the second time the world trade center had been attacked, along with several attacks over the year on US embassies, military barracks, etc. 9/11 was the event that made America realize enough was enough and that we needed to round up these morons and stop the bullshit. We aren't torturing these individuals to find out who attacked the towers; we're try to prevent them from making their next move."

Not many people i know or have heard deny or would criticize this position.

This still does not condone arbitrarily running around the desert picking up towel heads; slapping on the terrorist label using inconclusive evidence; and throwing away the key after putting them in jail. I read one article from huffington post where Afghanistan locals may have been turning in their neighbors who were then arrested for being involved with a terrorist orgainization simply for a reward or if they did not like them.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-worthington/guantanamo-trials-another_b_126379.html

Enough IS enough and retribution was in order after 9/11. However, proceeding with the recklessness and disregard to human rights; especially to those who may not have any connection to 9/11 or were actively fighting as an insurgent is not going to send the terrorist hiding into their caves. If anything it fans the flames and gives terrorist organizations like Hamas ammo to get more recruits. The terrorist did not just wake up one day and decide to pick on America. While some may just like chaos and disorder the masses caught/killed in the war on terror are not simply jealous of our freedoms.

[Edited on April 27, 2009 at 12:15 AM. Reason : h]

4/27/2009 12:13:08 AM

WWRD?
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/what-reagan-signed.html

4/27/2009 2:21:52 AM

^^^dude, its crazy rants like that that hurt your credibility.

4/27/2009 4:51:43 PM

exactly what part of that is "crazy"?

4/27/2009 4:53:50 PM

^ thanks.

^^ did you see the post by moron above mine? my rant was crazy, but bush and co. forcing the intelligence agencies to manufacture intelligence (which DIRECTLY led to the destruction of a country and people) is not crazy?

saddam was a butcher, but as long as you didn't say anything against him, you could lead a peaceful life. now? you step out and there is a very real chance you might get kidnapped or blown to pieces. people have stopped their kids from going to school because there are scared. the number of "honor killings" and other violence against women has increased exponentially. what to talk of the civilians who actually died due to the bombings raids, cluster bombs, urban warfare, etc.

anyway, all that talk of saddam is moot, because he is NOT the reason the US attacked irack. neither is giving people freedom and democracy.

and for that (for lying to the world and destroying a country), he and his co-perpetrators will burn in hell forever, as he should.

4/27/2009 5:01:28 PM