The Tortured Logic of the Torture Fans
By Larry Johnson on April 26, 2009 at 1:10 AM in Current Affairs, Intelligence, MSNBC, Media Bias, Media Handling of Story, Torture
(bumped up from Friday evening)
Although Keith Olbermann has become something of an insufferable boor, he is finally on to something that I would pay money to watch but under specific conditions. First, check out Keith’s challenge:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
But here’s where I differ with Olbermann’s challenge. Sean Hannity should not have a choice of when or where.
If Sean has a choice or voice it cannot be torture. If he gets to choose how long to last it is really nothing more than a form of sadomasochism. Once he speaks the safe word the madan stops whipping his ass with her black leather whip.
Let’s review the definition of torture from the international treaty:
the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. . .
It is more than the mere act of “inflicting” pain or suffering. People like me who received training in interrogation resistance program at a U.S. Government military or intelligence facility have experienced some of the methods of torture firsthand. We have been waterboarded, forced into stress positions, crammed into claustrophobic inducing cabinets and deprived of sleep. However, just because you have gone thru a SERE (i.e., Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) program does not therefore qualify you as an expert to decide that waterboarding is not torture.
Why? Because the people who participate in these programs do so willingly and their release from captivity is not dependent on divulging specific information the interrogators/torturers want. You have a choice. You can even choose to drop out. The training is for a fixed period. Why? Because the physicians who oversee the training know that sustained exposure can inflict physical and psychological damage that can render a soldier or spy unable to do their job.
None of the suspected terrorists snatched up by U.S. authorities and subsequently strapped down and waterboarded had a choice. They were under the full and complete control of their captors. When you are under the physical control of someone else who can do what they want when they want to you then you have the sufficient and necessary condition for what transforms an exercise involving sleep deprivation from a training event into torture.
And let’s put to bed once and for all the lie that the only way to protect America from the threat of terrorism is to rely on torture. Did you read the extraordinary op-ed by former FBI Agent Ali Soufan? Agent Soufan actually did interrogate several of the radical Islamists. We must hear him and pay attention to what he knows from experience. This appeared in the Thursday edition of the New York Times:
FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.
One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process. . . .
One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him. . . .
The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.
Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).
My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)
As we move forward, it’s important to not allow the torture issue to harm the reputation, and thus the effectiveness, of the C.I.A. The agency is essential to our national security. We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.
I suppose the crazies like Cheney, Limbaugh and Hannity will continue to delude themselves into believing that torture is okay and that it is the only solution. Far be it from them to actually have any first hand experience or trust the words of people who have actually been on the frontlines.
But isn’t that typical of Cheney? The coward avoiding serving in Vietnam. He preferred that others go in his stead. But as an arm chair warrior he is one ferocious motherfucker.
I would really like to see folks like Cheney or Hannity picked up against their will and taken to an undisclosed location. Once there they would be waterboarded, sleep-deprived, smacked around, shoved into cramped spaces and forced to cohabitate with an insect of my choice. But they won’t get to choose when to call it a halt. I will decide that. It will all be my decision.
At that point do you think they might reconsider their views on what constitutes torture?
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Well, maybe Olbermann can volunteer to be trapped in an office building when Arab terrorists fly their planes into it. I’d pay money for THAT.
Paula,
How stupid are you? Olbermann is not running around claiming that people trapped in the World Trade Center were on vacation or had it easy.
Hannity insists this stuff is not torture. Big damn difference.
Try logic for once in your life. If you are mentally incapable of such an effort then my apologies.
LMAO Larry, how did I know that was coming?
Of course, Larry doesn’t like anyone disagreeing w him or criticizing him. Nuff said…
Then he would probably fit well into the current administration; or at least as an advisor to the Usurper.
They only use the issue of human rights in self-serving ways. All those who think that leftists like Obama truly care about freedom, democracy, and human rights are naive.
The same Obama who specifically asked SCOTUS to subject vulnerable defendants to untoward police interrogations.
I might ask what “they’d” do with a giggling terrorist taunting them with “you’ll see what happens to Americans soon”, but I’m sure the answer would look something like this:
“I’d rather keep my principles than to risk them for the unproven possibility of gleaning information”
Yah sure, when that’s you or your kid, you’ll become a different beastie. Or maybe they really do want to win the Darwin awards?
It’s very similar to what we see with Obama, he’s a total apologetic pussy to the world and a fascist to Americans. It seems Olberman’s fantasy is to be kind to terrorists and let Americans die on principle, SINCE HE AND OTHERS LIKE HIM OBVIOUSLY HAVE NO BETTER SUGGESTIONS TO GET CRITICAL INFORMATION. And if so, what pray tell does that entail? Lots of pretty-pleases?
Serious anger-management issues. See the last quote from Larry:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/126883.html
Guys who tell stories like Larry’s shouldn’t go around accusing other people of being mentally incapable of using logic.
Never thought i’d see Larry acting like an obamamite. Attacking and threatening anyone that disagrees with him.
I detest Olberman ever since he went after Hillary - he’s a sexist pig. I have no respect for him. Of course olberman is hitching his wagon to Hannity’s suggestion.
He would just love to be setting there on his ass watching hannity being tortured.
Of course waterboarding is not pleasant.
But, I’ll tell you this, if Obama suddenly changed his mind and said waterboarding was not torture, the pig Keitho would be right in there agreeing with him and saying he had to change his way of thinking and agree with obama on this. And you know it Larry - he’s a sychophant!
Nothing….I mean nothing….Olberman can do after he viciously crucified Hillary, will cause me to watch his show or have any respect for him.
Im surprised at you and ashamed for you at the way your attacking your loyal followers.
Wodiej, do you have an argument to make, or are you just going to clutter up space whining like a little twit?
Tom Cat - Larry is speaking the truth. And he is MAN enough to take the heat that comes with it.
What I truly fail to understand is WHY people like you go to a blog belonging to someone else and feel it is okay to stoop to the level of name calling or to throw out ridiculous arguments like Paula did. Both of you need to get beyond terror of the “Boogieman” syndrome and learn that their are REAL people who have been egregiously harmed by the mistaken idea that torture is a “good Thing”.
I suggest both of you go visit a VA hospital, or even a local group of POW vetrans and LISTEN hard to how what they experienced has not only affected their own lives, but the lives of their families and children. Yeah our people were tortured during WWI, Korea and Vietnam.
I had an uncle who was in the first wave of infantry to land in Europe during WWII, who with the fest of his company that were captured, were forced to work stark naked in Polish salt mines until the International Red Cross found them. Hitler did not want the negative publicity and finally agreed to allow them into really shitty POW camps.
I also had an aunt by marriage who spent almost 3 years in Auswitch for leaving the back of a barn door unlocked so Jews escaping to Russia could have a warm dry place to spend the night. No our family is not Jewish.
I am willing to bet neither of you know a damn thing about life in the Mid East and beyond for the average person. The prime example is Osama Bin Laden’s former driver - who now has a 2 digit IQ and all the guy was doing was trying to earn a living and support his wife and children. Bet you did not even know how scorned and vilified men from that area are treated by neighbors and families if he CANNOT support their family. Over there it is expected that women DO NOT work and remain primarily mothers and in charge of the household, even if it is a simple mud hut.
Having lived with the results of what torture does to people my whole life, I, as an American was horrified when I learned back in 2003 that our government was resorting to this barbarism. It was Susan Hu, who gently and patiently helped me accept that awful reality with going insane.
So I will not ever allow people like you, with distorted imaginations, and no facts or logic offered, to insult people like Susan Hu or Larry Johnson.
Whether you like it or not - Susan and Larry are heros - just as John MCCain is when he states over and over “We are better than that”. Or do you both want this planet to revert back to the way life was under Attila the Hun or Kubla Khan?
You made a really stupid comment so you got the appropriate response.
so it’s not ok to interrogate terrorists to prevent attacks on the US to save your sorry asses, but it’s ok to be verbally abusive to someone? Yep, that’s Obot thinking.
Quit watching 24. It’s not real.
Did you read the Ali Soufan op-ed? He debunks what you said.
You can read, can you?
What the fuck are you talking about? My frustration with morons like you is high. No one is against interrogating terrorists or preventing attacks. Fuck you for lying about what I’ve written.
My point is quite simple–we can keep americans safe and catch terrorists without this bullshit macho torture nonsense. Now get serious about comments or I’ll ban your ass. I will not tolerate this kind of stupidity.
I think we’re all inspired by your measured and serene ability to accept criticism as displayed in your post Larry. I think we should all emulate the tone and constructive standard set forth in your sensitive response in all of our future posts. But then, of course, our “asses” would all be banned by the duplicitous tyrant running this blog.
Larry, do you really think it furthers the discussion to verbally insult others who don’t happen to agree w your opinion and who support your blog? Logic would say NO.
I didn’t lie aboout anything and I don’t watch 24. Why don’t you just ban half your posters who agree w me?
Regular interrogations were not working. We had to prevent further attacks.
What useful info did we get by using this torture? Show me those memos.
“Regular interrogations were not working. We had to prevent further attacks.”
Tom saw Cheney on the TV saying so, and it most be true.
The problem with these assholes is they crap in their pants everytime Bush/Cheney say “Boo!!”
Read the damn OpEd by someone who ACTUALLY interrogated the terrorists and was successful at it, and is telling you torture started AFTER they got actionable intelligence from them, because the CIA contractors wanted to get medieval on the terrorists’ asses.
You want Jack Bauer keeping you safe. Sorry, he’s not real.
You think Larry’s response was “verbal abuse?” Are you serious, mr. macho man? You can’t handle a mild smack-down, but you’re all for torture?!
LMAO, what a pathetic baby.
They are for torture…as long as it is not them being tortured.
mountainaiies, tell you what larry is perfectly capable of taking care of himself on here and does so. we don’t need you sliding in here with your verbal insults under the cover of self righeousness. so can the bull!
I’ll tell you what, Stodgie, I’m not here to defend Larry. I’m here to offend Wodiej as much as he offended me, when he claims in his contemptible whining twit-like way that by rejecting torture, people are “defending terrorists.” Got it? And, frankly, no one needs YOUR stupid comments to defend Wodiej. He’s a torturebot; he should be able to defend himself.
Oh. Only he thinks a mild smackdown is “verbal abuse!” So, I guess Wodiej “esquire” wouldn’t be much of a torturer, now would he?! Oh, no, people like “esquire” always want someone else to do their dirty work, like a little coward.
Fuck off Stodgie. Got it?
mountainaires, stop showing your tush. it isn’t that pretty. back at ya!
Hey, Paula,
I sympathize. I got on Larry’s bad side once, too. It led to some exchanges of personal emails that weren’t very fun. The good news is that he is very open minded and won’t hold it against you forever.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Olbermann tortured (yep, I’m probably gonna get it now, too-lol). Isn’t what those freaks have done to us torture? Saddling us with Odrama?
I will never be the same after this past year of being emotionally traumatized! And there is no end in sight to the continued pain and suffering!
I will tell you how painful it is for me
As I watch a neighbor driving his hot American car off into the sunset on a beautiful spring night here in Seattle and realizing
That way of life is coming to an end!
Seattle, I’m also from the area…do you notice what a phony Michael Medved is? He’s such an Obama apologist, a totally fake conservative. He does nothing but paint rosy pictures and when callers set him straight he MOCKS them…like when he said Obama had no intention of threatening 2nd amendment rights until 2 callers told him about his stopping the recycling of spent munitions for new ammo and taxing/labeling all new ammo, etc.
I don’t get it, was he threatened or paid off?
You know what? I just might personally choose being waterboarded 183 times in a month than suffer through 4 years, plus a very long, nasty Primary of an Obama…but that’s just me. if it would make Obama go away, I’d be willing to try the waterboarding. At least it’s only a month instead of at least 5 1/2 horrific years!
Both my parents and many of my family were in concentration camps during WWII and the subsequent revolution in what is now Indonesia. Both my parents were brutalized, my father severely tortured. Many of my family died because of this brutality. Torture doesn’t work. You say anything to stop being hurt. While this past election has me reeling and rethinking my whole political landscape and believes, what happened is not even close to being tortured. To quote Ghandi: “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” And Benjamin Franklin (this one oft quoted here) “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Torture should NEVER be condoned.
Thank you.
wow, you’re defending the terrorists and you call us stupid??
I don’t see it that way. Torture can’t be defined in a manual, because it is more of a state than any of the methods to get to that state. I don’t think we should condone torture. Let me further say this though… if we ever find ourselves with a high value prisoner that likely has critical information about an impending terrorist attack… we should make for certain… damn certain that we can never be accused of using torture to extract information. We should never make that mistake again.
well you can twist it anyway you like but the fact remains, you all are defending people who want to kill every single one of you. If the knife was at your throat, you’d feel differently, I guarantee it.
We should not condone torture. We should never be accused of using torture. Meaning, it should be a last resort for extreme circumstances and should be so rare that you could ask anybody and they would never have seen anything remotely resembling it.
Don’t should on me when it comes to terrorists, I really don’t give a shit about their welfare. They’re meanass depraved monsters and only former humanoids. They gave up their rights when they sought to take away ours.
Look at all the ones returned to their sadistic lifestyle from Gitmo.
They’re not fighting for a cause of liberty, independence, freedom…no, they just wanted to kill us because we don’t believe the way they do.
On another thread there is a link to videos showing taliban thugs slicing, with some effort, the heads off other human beings. What earthly punishment would be adequate for the type of monsters that are casually capable of such a horror? Someone that has performed such an act has essentially divorced themselves from any treatment that we might describe as humane. As a matter of definition, I’m not sure that anything done to them could be called torture. Justice would seem to demand treatment similar to that which they dispensed, and they should expect the possibility of equal retribution when they perform such unspeakable acts. The possibilty of torture or extreme punishment acts as a deterrent to the creatures that wish us violence and death. Our enemies don’t understand or care about our lofty moral principles beyond their own evil intent on exploiting those principles as a weakness that they laugh at. Actually, Islamic radicals have far less respect and fear of us when we display a gentle treatment of our prisoners. This whole debate over torture is playing right into their hands. We might just as well be saying to them, “Thank you sir, may we have another!”
torture to extract information and torture for punishment are two different things; although i don’t necessarily think that a civilized society should do it in either case, it would be far more justified in the latter case than the former.
the short answer is this: i don’t give a flying f*ck what “they” are doing; if we do it too, then we’re not really any better than them are we, so why don’t we just let them go ahead and win already?
Right on ….
And as for me, watching Oslobbermann is the real torture so I had to stop after about a minute and a half. He’s no better than those who thought that “rendition” was a good plan.
one has to look behind the door and see that the obama administration is simply trying to manipulate us by creating a distraction about the bad bush administration. when i hear conason last night try to claim it was up to the justice department and not really obama’s call, i had to laugh regarding the possible prosecution of the bush admin attorneys. this is political. it would be good to rectify the wrongs, but the ones yelling the loudest ie pelosi etc were part of it. don’t forget that.
I’m sorry, but to excuse sub human behavior on our part by holding up sub human behavior on the part of terrorists doesn’t cut it with me. I thought we were better than that. I thought that we somehow believed we were. Aren’t we the shining nation on a hill or the people we were waiting for? I don’t give a good rat’s ass about the sloganing that is trotted out every four years. Lost in this BS is the fact that good work by the Clinton Administration and memorialized in a memo given to Condescending Rice was a pretty good tip off that something sinister was about to happen. Preventing tragedy is what we should be focused on not tortured logic after it has occurred. Sorry to say but all of the waterboarding in the world would not return one life lost on September 11, 2001 or for that matter the life of one US servicewoman or man. Let’s focus our efforts on outthinking and outplanning, shall we? Then we don’t need any lawyers opining on whether or not “rendition” is hokey dokey or not?
Just one former Democrap’s opinion.
well your opinion of torture and soomeone else’s may be completely different! Someone posted about their parents being tortured. I am not talking about methods used on innocent people-I am talking about evil people who want to destroy our country!!
I see. So you don’t condone torture against innocent people. Bully for you. Are you making the assumption that each and every individual tortured by the US is guilty just because they’re incarcerated in an American facility? Because the facts prove otherwise. But I guess that according to you we should go ahead and torture them just to be on the safe side. And your views on “evil people who want to destroy our country” sounds oddly familiar…let’s see..Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, Cambodia, Uganda, Burma, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan..the list goes on and on.
You’d “guarantee it?” What would you know about it, Mr. “esquire,” with your adolescent whining about “verbal abuse.”
LMAO.
Here’s the godawful truth about people like you who just love torture and think it’s keeping you safe. You’re a fearful child always looking for someone else to do the dirty work.
You want someone else, some imagined fantasy of tough male in your authoritarian little mind, to do the dirty work–to be the brute who tortures the “bad guy” to save you. But you wouldn’t be man enough to do the torture yourself, and I “guarantee it.” You’d fold like a cheap tent in a breeze the minute you had to torture those “terrorists” — guaranteed.
You’re a poseur, and your childish machismo and moronic arguments about people “defending terrorists” because they know more about what torture REALLY means than your pea brain can possibly conceive, and because they know, they object to it on moral and legal principle, is just too pathetic for words.
In your fantasy world, they are “defending terrorists.” Well, that is insulting to soldiers who objected to inflicting terror because they knew it was against the law, and against the constitutional oath they swore to uphold and defend. So, you’re insulting and offending me now.
People like you, Wodiej are all about fantasy; you fantasize about being a man. You have to fantasize because you know, deep down inside, that you don’t measure up to your own fantasies.
“Defending terrorists?”
I know if you said something like that to my face, I’d shut you up with one quick jab with 2 fingers–a quick resolution to stupid and insulting arguments from twits..
And, then you’d whine for someone else to come and torture me–because you aren’t man enough.
STFU, Wodiej. You’re pathetic.
Wodiej, you are “stupid” and you’ve just proven it. Moreover, you’re seriously bordering on offending me now, so please do yourself a favor, stop humiliating yourself and just STFU, “Wodiej.”
That most offensive, spurious, and frankly, STUPID, insulting and childish thing in the world to say to someone who has served their country for decades, often putting their life at risk, losing close friends, and being part of something that twits like you would NEVER understand–when you cannot even take someone calling you “stupid” without whining and reacting like a spoiled brat!
For God’s sake, do you not even realize that you have conclusively made Larry’s case for him? Please just STFU, or make an ARGUMENT–like a man.
mountainaies, your self righteouness is rather stupid. can your insults!
Oh, well, my self-righteous indignation is nothing compared to our “esquire” who thinks nothing of torture, but is insulted and offended by “verbal abuse.”
Stodgie, I’m really humbled and silenced in the face of your harsh rebuke. I guess I’ll just have to sit down and shut up, ah…since you say so!
Er….not so much.
verbal abuse? naw, just a response to yours. you can make your points and should. i am commenting on your over zealous insults. a well time and written put down for an overdone post is fine, but you are in my view far past that point. you lose your audience after awhile with being over zealous.
mountainaires
Thank you for your dedicated service!
It is OK for many sitting in their safe house to shout or offer stupid advise…..
Many will NEVER understand from torture to the family living in tent city who lived by ALL the rules…. should be grateful a church may throw them some scraps for their children. {that one gets me from zero to 100 in 3 seconds}
When they have sat in the same line and have experienced the suffering or loss then I say again they can judge from experience!
Well done mountainaires .
The 3 that were “tortured” were mass murders and intended to continue the spree.
We are not stupid, we are fed up with BULLSHIT!
I don’t care if they skin them alive and remove their limbs one at a time prior to setting them on fire - then they would beg to be “waterboarded”! That I would pay big bucks to see first hand.
I’m a swimmer - waterboarding is a joke!
Maybe they can give them some ear and nose plugs!
Just saying ……………..
CAROL HAKA
Another stupid and moronic comment…Carol.
Just sayin’……
Thanks.
You must be blind and toothless considering all the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a tooth nonsense you are so enraptured with. You views are just as extreme as any Islamist’s views but far more insidious because as an American, you should know better.
BFB: Thank you for being sane. I’m afraid that a few regulars who comment on this subject seem to admire the tactics used by goons in countries like Saudi Arabia.
Olbermann is a PIG. He has NOTHING useful to say and should be demoted to reporting on Women’s sports in Iran…Oh, gee, there aren’t any…
Even Bill Clinton said torture was necessary in special cercumstances and I do listen to Hannity and I have not heard him say water boarding is not torture. But, lets compare water boarding to beheading shall we?
does anyone think if we stop waterboarding them, they will stop beheading us?
Yeah, we better one-up those immoral cruds! If we just release some footage (on youtube, say) of some of our good boys beheading some of “them” reeaally slowly and painfully, that would show ‘em! You want some of that?! Don’t mess with the U-S-A!
Or wait…. I guess we don’t want to be as bad as “them”, so as long as we don’t perform beheadings, we should be okay. How about chopping off some pinky digits? No one uses them anyway, it’d just hurt a lot, I bet. At least then we’d still have the moral high ground.
Larry, I agree with you. Hell, forget principles passed down from our forefathers, you’ll never win an argument with conservatives who would even disregard the REALITY of SENIOR OFFICERS in the U.S. MILITARY today when it contradicts Bush ideological platitudes. Much like Obama, they have no idea how unhinged they sound.
Alberto Mora, who served as General Counsel of the Navy under Donald Rumsfeld, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that “U.S. flag-rank officers maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq–as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat–are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.”
The lovers of torture think it is so necessary that they would sellout Americas laws, morals, Constitution, judicial system, and reputation for questionable information based on their their own fear and feelings of vengence. If nothing else, we owe it to our troops to protect them from terrorist attacks by not conducting torture.
Every time one of the torture cheerleaders speaks, I want to say:
WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICAN TROOPS?
How anyone can say that “torture keeps Americans safe” is beyond me. The arrogance and naivete in general is breathtaking.
I assume what they really mean is “kept the homeland safe” from attack. Whether the number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy exceeds the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001 is irrelevant because they are “over there” “volunteering” to “die so we don’t have to.” I guess they deserved to die unnecessarily in some of your opinions. Or maybe the hardest of the hardliners really have forgotten that American soliders first and foremost are Americans, wherever they go.
Even in World War II, before we even had the Geneva Conventions, General Eisenhower was absolutely adament on following common international protocols for the appropriate custody and care of POWs so as not to give the Nazis an excuse to abuse our prisoners.
How could we expect an enemy to refrain from torturing any U.S. soldier or civilian who might be captured in revenge for their tortured brethren, when we have given the green light?
Well said, both comments.
Hannity wants to have it both ways. (And I used to be a fan of Olbermann, but no more.)
Tell me how it is logically consistent to declare/insist that we are a Christian nation (referring to Obama’s claim that we are not which Hannity vehemently disputes) and then condoning something utterly un-Christan (”Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”). What would Jesus do? I doubt very much that “turn the other cheek” Jesus would every find torture acceptable.
I don’t condone torture, never did. We are just setting up our own children for the unthinkable when they become prisoners of our enemy.
yep; it’s pretty sure that Jesus wouldn’t torture. mind you, i am not a christian, but i do think that jesus was right about a few things.
Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11
A US major reveals the inside story of military interrogation in Iraq.
By Patrick Cockburn, winner of the 2009 Orwell Prize for journalism
Sunday, 26 April 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/torture-it-probably-killed-more-americans-than-911-1674396.html
Read the full article, but particularly this excerpt:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/torture-it-probably-killed-more-americans-than-911-1674396.html
Olbermann needs to start wearing his cheerleader outfit for team GE. What an Ass!
Hannity should do it ONLY if KO makes the cheque out to the Palin defense fund.
those bastards had a choice to not bomb and kill 3000 people on 9/11 too. I don’t give a shit what anyone says or thinks, they didn’t get half of what they deserved. I call it self defense. If Cheney, Hannity or Limbaugh had done what those terrorists did, I would feel the same way.
Tom Cat…You’re stupid for thinking that. See above.
PS I agree with you 100%
You’re 100% correct.
The CIA and FBI fucked up big-time and we got 9/11.
Now, all those FBI and CIA “experts” are trying to tell us that they really didn’t fuck up; it’s all Bush and Cheney’s fault.
These “experts” would give terrorists Miranda rights, a comfortable chair and milk and cookies.
Are these the techniques to prevent another 9/11 - like these “experts” prevented the last one?
Is this what passes for argument from our “esquire?”
We’ve killed more than a million Iraqis and nearly a thousand Afghani civilians–by choice. Do you think we’ve gotten “half” of what we deserved yet, “esquire?” Or are you rooting for the terrorists to even up the score?
In your little fantasy world, no one gets their hands dirty, and you get to fantasize about torturing the “bad guys.”
Join the military and go fight ‘em yourself, “esquire.”
to Mountainaires: first a statement, then a question.
I am totally opposed to torture, as I am to, any and all, barbarous behavior. However, I think the actual act of committing torture, if one ever was confronted with a situation where such seemed like the last and only resort to save lives, might actually, at the time, become very subjective.
If my child, or a loved one, was the subject of the information I desperately needed, would I in desperation defy my psyche, and do anything and everthing to get that information? I truly do not know. My conjecture is that I would.
My question for you is:
In a previous comment you say, “WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICAN TROOPS?” to someone.
Then in the above you say, ” We’ve killed more than a million Iraqis and nearly a thousand Afghani civilians–by choice.”
The only “we” in Iraq and Afghan. has been our troops!
So are you saying our troops have killed more than a million Iraqis, etc. by choice? Where do you get those numbers? How is making such an uninformed statement “supporting our troops”?
I do not know the actual number of innocent Iraqis killed, any number at all is far too many, and a tragedy unto itself. However, I think you will find that, by far, the majority of innocents killed, have been killed by terrorists.
I do very much support our troops in word, deed, and monetarily, and find it offensive that you or anyone would throw out a statement, like the aforementioned off-handedly, and without facts.
I’m afraid getting lost in all of this is the key word “alleged”. How many innocent people were picked up in sweeps in Iraq or Afghanistan and ended up getting tortured (by us or by one of our shadier friendly countries)? We have no idea, but I don’t doubt it’s happened. Acceptable collateral damage in the fight to keep us safe? Just what AREN’T some of you willing to do to stay “safe”?
Yes, exactly. In my mind it’s more the helplessness, despair and loss of self determination that constitutes torture regardless of the method to actually get to that point. Torture can be water boarding, bamboo splinters or anything that invokes psychological pain. The threshold of all these differs from person to person. But the wall exists for us all. We all have our walls.
If Obama keeps up we will be one of the most insecure nations in the world.
Now that my friend could be defined as “torture!”
Thank you very much.
The only way for it to be a similar experience for Hannity is for a group to kidnap him, claim to be some radical Islamist group, throw him in a dark hole and then do the waterboarding/torture, etc.
IF a producer could arrange that without Hannity being wise to it, and IF the people/actors involved made it convincing enough, it MIGHT approach the real experience. Of course, that’s not going to happen, as it’s not feasible - just a theoretical.
Or, have a raffle… winner get Hannity for one hour strapped to a table to do with as they want with him. No cameras and no witnesses. Then it would be a fair test. I like Hannity… well sometimes I like him. But, I don’t think turning this debacle into a party event helps anything. We shouldn’t even be talking about it at all. But that is another separate issue.
Terrorist priorities:
1 Kill as many Americans as possible.
2 Join Allah
American Military Priorities:
Help them achieve step 2.
OKAY? What does this have to do with torture and the blog post?
And which part do you disagree with?
Who said I disagree? It’s an irrelevant post.
What does this have to do with the effectiveness of torture?
Nothing. Just stupid rhetoric from a pretend tough guy.
Serve in the military, like I did, then you can talk.
I served two tours in Vietnam mother fucker so I have every right to call you out. Where did you serve? Did you ever see your buddy`s guts hanging out. Did they tell your daughter at school that daddy was a baby killer. Just FUCK OFF.
Gulf War
Which outfit and where specifically? This can easily be checked out. Are you up for it?
I suspect the thought of torture makes Cheney, Hannity and Limbaugh’s “manhood” larger…
and that is about as far as those thoughts go..
OldCoastie … Getting a hard on, is not considered “personal growth”. Come back when you have something substantial to say.
And, our “esquire.”
Cowards always like to talk tough, but they always want other people to have to get their hands dirty for them.
so mountainaires, just what have you done that gives you the right to call anyone names? reading your posts is “torture” by the way.
Oh, poor stodgie, I’m sorry that reading my posts is “torture” for you.
Hey, I have a great idea: Why don’t you stop torturing yourself then!
mountainaires, i don’t torture myself. i just call over done put downs when i see them. you have a way with words. why is it you have to be so crude? you lose your audience that way. hmmmmm! smile!
POSSIBLY THE BEST ANSWER TO A STUPID QUESTION
Katie Couric, while interviewing a Marine sniper, asked:
“What do you feel……when you shoot a Terrorist?”
The Marine shrugged and replied, “A slight recoil.”
Yes, but that Marine might deal with his feelings in a more sincere way now. It would be better than becoming a Rambo at some later date. I would think the Marines would see it that way also and that answering such a question in that way would probably disqualify himself from that position. Yes, he has a job, and is likely very good at it. Doesn’t mean he needs to trivialize the human aspects of what he does for a living. I am not saying I know how he should deal with this, only that he is apparently not doing so himself based on that answer alone.
Katie Couric is the one that asked a stupid question. Maybe she should contemplate a new career.
She should, and no doubt she will when she gets old enough to become expendable. She may think she is in the news business, in fact she is an entertainer. But none of that changes the fact that the given answer may have felt good… but it is the wrong answer. Wrong because it trivializes the use of ultimate force and wrong because it can be used as p.r. against our armed forces by our enemies. Include the far left as our enemy. I am in full agreement with that.
I don`t give a rat`s ass about what our enemy thinks. If you want to stick your head in the sand and hope it will all go away….be my guest.
I don’t either. But we need to start caring very deeply about controlling our own P.R. The far left is schooling us right now on that. Having the high ground, we can run circles around them. We should be.
right on HARP.we know they are not going away.imho.the potus is embolding them every time he speaks.
So now I guess that means that those Seals who rescued Captain Philips really should have gone back to DC and have had them decide what they should do so we would have good PR out of the event?
No, only that those who employ the use of ultimate force might show only respect for that responsibility that they carry out and not be filmed trivializing human life. Trivializing life trivializes their responsibility. It is bad for the sniper, and it makes for bad P.R.
So that marine should have broken out crying about what his job is and told the world that he can’t sleep at night, he can’t eat, and he knows he will never get into heaven? Frankly I would not be in the least surprised if killing someone does in fact bother him or will at some point in the future and maybe, just maybe, his smart ass answer is just sort of a cover against reality. I don’t know, and frankly I really don’t care; I respect him for doing his job and laying his life on the line for us Americans. How in the hell have we as a nation survived this long with all the bad PR we have created? Will be interesting to see what kind of a nation we are once the Usurper is through apologizing for us and creating all the good PR for America around the world. Guess having Chavez and Ortega look upon us as good guys is really important to some of you!
That sounds a little dramatic. The Marine can speak for himself, but should have respect for himself, the institution and life. I am not criticizing what he does at all. None of that means I have any empathy for Chavez or Che or our own loony left.
Couric is an As* and the Marine knew it.
They mock “24″ because it’s fiction, but use “Rambo” as a real life potential…
Like the “effectiveness of torture”, this is a myth. It never happened. See:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/recoil.asp
Back to Larry’s post: it is immaterial whether or not torture is “effective”, just as it is immaterial whether or not genocide is “effective”. It’s a crime. It’s been a crime ever since the Reagan Administration signed the Convention on Torture…and it ought to be prosecuted as such, Dick Cheney’s disingenuous and self-serving comments notwithstanding. We either have a government of laws or we do not.
Starting with Bush and continuing with Obama, a government of laws is what we don’t have. This has seeped down all the way down to having drivers who consider traffic laws to be nothing more than suggestions.
Precisely my point - and isn’t it high time we did something about that?
Obama doesn’t want prosecutions for the same reason Cheney doesn’t: they both want to wield power without accountability.
Throughout human history, those in power have committed unspeakable acts: genocide, torture. imprisonment of political opponents without trial - and they’ve almost always cited security and necessity as justifications.
The genius of the American political system is the limitation of government power and the absolute accountability of those who wield it. We transformed that principle into international law with the trials at Nuremberg.
If we don’t stop this now, how far will it go?
If we kidnap an Iraqi cabdriver and torture him to death (without getting any information, mind you) on the basis of an anonymous tip that he might have connections to Iraqi insurgents:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/24/AR2005052401428.html
and if the government claims the right to hold an American citizen indefinitely without trial and subject him to “harsh interrogation” for 3 1/2 years without filing any formal charges against him (as it did in the case of Jose’ Padilla), then how long before we start rounding up Missouri farmers with “Don’t Tread On Me” bumperstickers and torturing them because they might be “right-wing militia terrorists”:
http://www.topix.com/forum/guns/T36NVO93HO0G4CLIA
After all, you wouldn’t want another Oklahoma City, now would you?
If you give one administration license to do this, then you give them all license to this.
Never happened.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/recoil.asp
If you believe every “forward this to everyone you know” email that you get, I hope you’re not a voter.
Good answer. Stupid question from Couric. But, it’s typical of people who have no experience with the military, so I don’t hold it against her. I’m just glad the Marine gave the answer he did. It was perfect.
What is wrong with the picture that Obama is painting for the terrorists?
Its looking like our enemies are being treated better than our fellow Americans.
First Obama stops some of the trials. Now he wants to prosecute those who were trying to save more American lifes.
What next…Hey I know lets just move all the terriorists into our cities and give the all the equip they need to blow up what ever they want to.
And remember guys if you go after them its your A$$ not theirs..
OT, but Larry,
Will you weigh in on LOST, Law of the Sea Treaty?
http://www.redpills.org/?p=4039
Is this the same thing as UNCLOS 4?
Let’s make it interesting. One of the most important/valuable things to Hannity is mighty soapbox on TV/radio. How about water boarding Hannity until he signs his resignation from Fox TV & radio? Like Larry says, no time limit. Make it real - use Egyptian or Syrian secret police. Maybe some of our hard line citizens would reconsider how evil torture can be.
Better yet…….Maybe we can film it and show it all over the World like they do when they slit an American`s throat.
Remember Danny Pearl.
Members of Al Quaeda taken prisoner should not be covered by the Geneva Convention. They are terrorists. They plot and live to generate terror, scaring people out of their wits waiting for the next suicide bomber, hijacker, etc. They live and train and seek funding to destroy and create as much terror as possible. Instead of waterboarding, they should be given the opportunity to share their intel or else — be locked in a burning room at the top of a New York City skyscraper and then be given the option to stay in the room and burn to death or die of the smoke if they’re lucky … or try to break a window and jump to their deaths to escape the fire. If they don’t cooperate, they should experience the torture they inflicted on thousands at WTC on 9-11. Waterboarding is much, much too kind. They are not soldiers in the army of a specific country. They are terrorists. They are not soldiers. They have no honor. They should never be respected. The Geneva Convention should not apply to them. They are terrorists.
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
the short answer is this: i don’t give a flying f*ck what “they” are doing; if we do it too, then we’re not really any better than them are we, so why don’t we just let them go ahead and win already?
maybe we should become a medieval theocracy and treat women like dirt too, since that’s what they do.
I concur. Who will be next one put to the rack?
That says it all.
It’s not “respecting terrorists,” it’s RESPECTING AMERICANS. This has nothing whatsoever to do with giving terrorists “respect.” It’s a matter of respecting who WE ARE, not who THEY ARE.
Every intelligence expert will tell you that torture doesn’t work; interrogations are more successful using other methods. The canard of the “imminent” terrorist attack is ludicrous.
Cheney and Bush had intelligence briefings for months telling them that an attack was planned during that time period. They didn’t know exactly “when” but they knew it was coming. Did they DO anything about it? Did they mobilize the intelligence community to coordinate and communicate so we could better assimilate intelligence?
No. They did nothing.
Torture is illegal. So, the canard about it giving us valuable intel is irrelevant as well as a lie.
When the President of the United States orders military and intelligence subordinates to break the law, it’s a crime.
Yes, I agree totally. Terrorists deserve whatever our government does to them.
I guess this is where I part from Larry’s blog. I can’t support someone who doesn’t believe in putting the safety of innocent Americans first.
Just my opinion, don’t kill me for it. This is America after all, I have the right to my opinion… at least for a little bit longer.
I think we all believe in putting the safety of Americans first - we have differnt ideas of how to put that into action.
As someone mentioned above, torture puts American soldiers at risk. They’re Americans, too.
And how do you determine who actually is a terrorist and who isn’t? It has been shown over and over again that a large percentage of those held at Guantanamo and abu Ghraib were and are ordinary non-terrorist citizens who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others were kidnaped and turned in for the bounties we offered.
blue star, your post is meant to be a joke, right?
Now Obama wants to release 2000 pictures for all the world to see.
It’s not about the lawyers anymore.
Every person in the world will look at those pictures and say…
Everyone in the US Military uses torture..
Thanks again Obama….You fink!!!
By the time Obama is finished everyone will be paying restitution to the terrorists for having the audacity to protect ourselves.
Obama’s actions to date show me that Obama intends to destroy this culture and replace it with another.
Hey, U.S. yes, Obama is a tool. I used to wonder if he was a secret Muslim and so on… etc. I admit it I did wonder. Now I know he is simply inept. He is the veritable perfection of ineptness if that is even possible. Moreover, he is but a tool. A living puppet from which any and all elements of the far left who have paid to play may insert their hand up his backside and make him appear to talk. Our greatest danger is not from Obama himself… but that we have no idea at any time who has their hand up his backside. Who is at the other end of his blackberry?
Who is at the other end of his blackberry?
Great observation!
Obama’s reach has grown exponentially because of that Barackberry
A mobster’s greatest tool!
It brings to mind for me Watergate… specifically the tapes from it. Are we going to have no records for posterity of what happened on that Barackberry? Are there no tracks? If so, is this what we want? Do we really want no accountability for the most important job in this country?
When it comes to Obama rational, commonsense and reality fly right out the window. The day will come when we look back and tell ourselves we should have paid more attention……….I remember when we were admired……the strongest……..richest nation on earth oh well we have Barack and Michelle and she has a new comic book series. YEA!
OMG! that is such a brilliant point!
Has anyone asked this of him?
Will we ever know?
not if he has his way.
I cannot listen to Olbermann and think he is a reputable journalist, anything that comes out of his mouth is subject to suspicion. He has no moral authority to talk about anyone trivializing an issue, when he with his vulgar, spitting histrionics undermined, trivialized and made a mockery of the cornerstone process of a democracy: elections.
I accept and understand the argument against the interrogation techniques, but to better understand ‘why’ the techniques were used the argument needs to be framed in the context of post 9/11. What would the current adm. have done post 9/11? What would the Clinton adm. have done? The attackers were among you, how many more were out there, where were they, who were they…..living in Europe at that time, everyone was in shock, even the knee jerk anti-Am. It was described as a colossal attack, unimaginable, surreal. And one thing was pointed out and underlined, with millions of dollars in budget, the CIA had missed a big one.
If an investigation goes forward, the more info. that is declassified a better understanding can be achieved or a more forceful condemnation can be made.
Larry: Thanks for defending our way of life.
Waterboarding is torture. It was found to be a war crime after WWII. We (the U.S.)stooped to the moral equivalent of the savages and gave up what we stand for, a country of laws.
We have used “preemptive attacks” to sovereign nations (Afghanistan and Iraq) and we can not now condemn other nations for doing the same thing in the future.
Nor can we yell when one of our own is captured and given the waterboard treatment by another country.
It was wrong, and it is wrong. How do we regain our moral high ground?
By not just going after the Repbulicans….This is a witch hunt by the Democrats to totally destroy the previous administration and the Republicans. This is going to be worst than the the McCarthy trails is Obama doesnt stop this now.
We are at war and this is not the time to be defacing the CIA or any other of our Security Offices.
911 happened before we ever water boarded so I think your little ahead of yourself. Let point this out for you Attack USA-we attack back-we water board-no more attacks………….
I agree with Larry and Johnny B (except that I don’t think Afghanistan was preemptive - it was reactive). I was very impressed by the intelligence officials I have heard speak on the subject - torture doesn’t work because you will say anything, no matter how made up it is, to make the torture stop. It’s completely unreliable and unprofessional. We just look like sadistic clowns by doing this.
Being older, and witnessing much of the cruelty in this world, perhaps we should stop rationalizing or berating torture.
Larry, with all of your experience, have you ever had to adapt to a situation–become the enemy of your enemy? Perhaps it’s not all as black and white in these memos, or what the CIA has done or not.
I’ve seen old footage of what the Japanese, Germans, and Vietnam military did to our soldiers. Many more footage from other encounters where our soldiers have been. The Japanese burning our soldiers alive in bunkers was the turning point for me. There is so much ugliness in our world.
America has this high-standard which is–we are above these type of actions. And, so far, until the Bush administration, got the USA a good reputation. Now we’re faced with another enemy. They just don’t like us and we’re a bad influence on the world. Geez, how did that happen? After all, we’er such good moral putzes and send help all over the world–how could we be labled “bad.”
Does there come a time when being the good guy does NOT apply? Is watching people jumping 80 stories out of a building so they won’t burn alive qualify me to stop being a “good guy(gal)?”
Every one of us must ask ourselves; “what measures would you take to save your family, your children, mother and father? What would you do to find the truth of how they were going to be attacked and killed? Sure, torturing someone could get you 30 false stories–but at least I would know of 30 places I don’t want my loved ones to be.
You and I don’t have the imagination of a terrorist and what he/she can conjure up to attack. And, there lies our weakness.
That’s why there is rule of law. That’s why there is the Geneva Convention. Because who wouldn’t inflict cruelty on someone who inflicted it on someone we love? But that’s why we have a civilized society. Or had.
oH please, GROW UP
These foreign policy hawks need to get their talking points straight. Torture works, but the CIA doesn’t torture. On the other hand, if they did, it would work and it would save lives. And lives were saved, but torture wasn’t used. Makes sense to me.
And you wonder why so many have such trouble reaching the logical conclusions of these arguments that waterboarding suddenly become essential to this nation’s very survival with the ascendance of G.W. Bush ? How did we ever get to the point that we’re even debating this ?
Defending oneself is quite different from torture and is a weak analogy. What you are, in essence, saying is we’re weak because we don’t become Neanderthals like them. To the contrary, we demonstrate cowardice and weakness when we stoop to their level. You are what you do.
http://www.military.com/NewsCo…..70,00.html
I’m still wrestling with the logic…
The problem is that these are always hypotheticals.
So your relatives can avoid 20 false leads and perhaps inadvertently land in the very place interrogation methods that had nothing to do with torture would have been more likely to reveal? Huuuuuh?
To make the hypothetical case extrapolated to a ridiculous point justifying torture, you would have to assume not only its success but its exclusive success. And there is no evidence that ANY of the actual cases of torture in any way prevented actual, imminent harm.
Hannity is another Republican chicken hawk. Another idiot who can talk tough while he is making his tens of millions, but would never dream of spending a day in his life in the military. Another guy who can’t see the forest from the trees.
It is immaterial if torture works or not. It is wrong. Who cares if we supposively protect ourselves if we become nothing more than the enemy that we fear!
Spoken like a true Kos Kid. Your spelling gave you away.
I’ve gotta say, I like Sean Hannity. If for no other reason, he was the guy who hammered away about Rev. Wright when the rest of the msm were peeing their pants at the thought of talking about it. Hannity was like a dog with a rag. He wouldn’t let it go until others were forced to cover the story.
Now as for that comment about him not serving in the military. I think there are alot of people about his age who have not. Like Barack Obama for one.
Still is. Every time some Obot calls in to defend Obama, he runs off the list of how he’s destroying America - bowing to a Saudi King, appeasing the Chavezs, accepting a anti-American book, his global “America is arrogant tour” and so on.
He will not let it go thank goodness. More and more people continue to see that Obama hates America is out to destroy it.
Portia Elizabeth Crockett: Regarding Hannity, I’m reminded of the saying that even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.
Oh Cherry!
“supposively”? Why not ’supposibly’?
Its supposedly, ding dong.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Btw, Cherry, Hannity is NOT a republican. He says again and again he is a libertarian. Yes, he is too right-wing to suit me and he still infuriates me making snide remarks about Hillary. Just last week he called 0’s health care policy, “Hillary Clinton’s health care policy.” After knocking his block off, I wanted to inform him that after the election, Ted Kennedy got up out of his sickbed to go to the senate floor to make sure Hillary had nothing to do with health care. That’s his baby and he wanted to show he was in complete control. This was before she was named SoS. Plus the fact, as SoS, she will have nothing to do with health care except as it relates to the international community.
I have to say, though, I appreciate the fact Hannity is keeping 0 continuously on the hot seat. Somebody needs to do that in light of the soft balls he still gets. Hannity obviously dislikes 0 intensely. That makes two of us!
Hannity tarnishes the LIBERTARIAN principles, if he says he’s a libertarian. Because true libertarians don’t support this war in Iraq, and certainly don’t support torturing people.
I listen to Hannity on occasion, and sometimes I even agree with him, on rare moments. But, he’s no Libertarian.
Absolutely! People are starting to learn more about Libertarians, and Hannity is jumping on the bandwagon. If he’s a Libertarian, I’m the tooth fairy.
three of us.lol.
So Hannity wants to control the fear and pain aspects? What about it is torture, then? I agree that he is entirely missing the point.
Also, I’m a little surprised that people who don’t agree with torture are pegged by Hannity et al as un-American or not caring about their families. Pointing to 9-11 as a reason to excuse torture is a purely emotional ploy. The point is, torture is illegal–what part of that doesn’t he get?
In America, we are supposed to have the Law and Justice. If you want to go around subverting the Law, move to the UAE–apparently it’s OK with them.
We don’t do that here.
Obviously we do! Go ask Nancy and Jay.
And, then get back with me ………….
CAROL HAKA
Yeah, that’s part of the problem. I believe America can still be great, but it’s a big mess at present.
America is great. If you “think” it “can still be great” you need self examination.
And while it is your opinion that it is not “still great”, we will let you stay anyway.
CAROL HAKA
“Be” as in ‘remain’, OK? Whatever, Carol. You are fighting the wrong person.
My apologies!
CAROL HAKA
But the interrogations techniques were used as a consequence of 9/11. Maybe I’m too academic, but you never frame an argument in a valuative vacuum. Politics isn’t like an economic exercise where you have a variable and all else is ceteris paribus.
Torture is not about politics or what we feel would work–it’s about law.
The law doesn’t exist in a vacuum either. It is subject to interpretation. Watching court cases on Court TV taught me that.
Yes you are right about that. Too bad we have Congress people who are politicians who manipulate the situation for their advantage instead of real legislators who interpret and follow the law.
BULL…WE HAVE OBAMA LAW NOW.
Hannity spewed “rule of law” ad infinitum during Clinton’s impeachment and Bill’s lying under oath. But Hannity evidently doesn’t care so much about “rule of law” anymore. How very flexible he’s become. We’re either a nation of laws or we’re not. However, given this election cycle, I would say not so much and neither Party has the moral highground at this point. So much for rule of law. However, torture is still wrong.
Yes. But don’t stop the fight. (psst–go Libertarian!
)
If preventing harm to Americans is our goal and, obtaining accurate information from our enemies is the means to accomplish this goal then, we should pick the method with a well-documented history of success. Having considered the ‘testimony’ of several experts, I conclude, torture does not represent a successful means to elicit accurate information.
Therefore, notwithstanding that (the thought of) inflicting torture obviously provides some people with a feeling of relief from some real or perceived wrong, this does not support the use of torture as a means to obtain information.
Good point, jbjd.
If people want to prevent another 9/11, since that always seems to be their sop talking point for justifying torture, then logically [there's the rub, for they are not logical people], they would prefer the method of interrogation which provides the most safety.
Defending torture–which is illegal–to keep themselves “safe” ignores what torture does to those who torture as well as those who are victims of torture. So, those who defend it, fantasize about being brutal but they forget that someone has to actually DO THE TORTURE they are applauding.
Well, doubtless, they don’t “forget it,” they just conveniently ignore it, for the sake of their spew.
And, that someone [whom they ignore for the sake of their spew] is inevitably a mid-level [say NCO-level] soldier. Rank has its privileges, as they say, and there are few high-ranking military or intelligence officials who do the torture themselves.
Why do Carol, wodiej “esquire” and Paula Revere hate our troops?
Ya know, I keep reading your snarky comments about how Carol, wodiej and Paula Revere “hate our troops” and I have to say you could not possibly be further from the truth. I’m not sure why you seem to have such a chip on your shoulder and I don’t set myself up as anyone’s defender, but I come here almost every day, so I think I know where these people stand.
If you or anyone else wants to disagree with another poster,that’s understandable. Lyndon Johnson once said if two people agree on everything, you can be sure only one of them is doing all the thinking. But to take it to the level of ad hominem insults is no way to debate successfully. It only makes you appear less in command of facts.
Waterboarding does not provide reliable intelligence. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to 9-11 but he also confessed to murdering Daniel Pearl, which he did not do. So we’re already cherry picking confessions we like vs confessions we don’t like (or at least don’t think we get anyone to believe). Does anyone not have a problem with that?
Besides which: it’s against the freaking law and for good reason.
Idon’t have problems with waterboarding. It was the extreme positions that they often left these people in regardless of who they were for hours. Some people even died from it. Waterboarding is at least monitored and if Mohammad did do what he bragged about to Danny Pearl they were too nice to him. But to tkake a person who got picked up off the street because someone wanted money, and then to tie them in a position of excutiating pain for hours or sometimes days is sick. Nor do i find the continual nudity and the sexual humilation or the pyramids exceptable these were things done to all prisoners regarless of who they were and how they had got there. My biggest problem with my fellow Americans is how quickly we define victum status to an individual reegardless of who the person is or what they have done and yet some people can never be victums infact they deserved it. I work in Mental health, and i’ve seen people strangle nurses and staff members and not go to jail simply because they had a psych diagnosis. Just recently a patient with a violent history literally stump my boss a female because he was angry and someone esle, not because he was psychotic but because of a street mentality but he’s not going to jail for it. And she can’t press charges. So i can’t feel compassion for someone who hurts someone and gets away with it because Americans can’t get their hierchy of victum hood straight. I”m an understaanding person but don’t ask me to feel the pain for a person who decapitates someone and chuckles about it. Infact i’d like to lock him and Keithy in a room with the patient that stomped my boss and scream out that they called him a nasty name. What would take place would be what you could call cruel and unusual and richly deserved.
Amjad Hussain Farooqi was indicted for killing Pearl; he was killed in Pakistan by security forces. Farooqi was also believed to be involved in an assassination attempt on then pres of Pakistan Musharraf. That was my point: KSM did not kill Pearl, yet under torture he confessed to it. If torture causes people to make false confessions, how are we to know them from true confessions?
I have not suggested that anyone feel sympathy for terrorists: I have suggested that people obey the freaking law. We have laws against torture for the protection of our soldiers and civilians alike.
I am not defending terrorists: I am defending the Geneva Convention and the Convention against Torture, and for that matter all the other UN Agreements on Human Rights and my own personal belief that torture is evil. I have nothing against lawful interrogation or putting terrorists on trial and punishing them accordingly. I am pro-death penalty for some crimes, including a couple which do not in fact carry the death penalty.
Did you not read the part where I said I don’t like extreme positions? Water boarding can not be proven a definitive case of torture, but extreme positions can. Why do i say this, because Roman crusifiction minus was just that. The lucky victum was forced to constantly push himself up to breath or be sufficated under their own weight and when they wanted to kill them, they would simply break their legs.
Did you not read the part where I said I don’t like extreme positions? Water boarding can not be proven a definitive case of torture, but extreme positions can. Why do i say this, because Roman crusifiction minus the nails was just that. The lucky victum was forced to constantly push himself up to breath or be sufficated under their own weight and when they wanted to kill them, they would simply break their legs.
Yes it can, and has been. The US prosecuted and in some cases executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding US POWs in WW II.
You might also read Christopher Hitchens’s piece in Vanity Fair last August. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808 Hitchens had opined that waterboarding wasn’t torture, and volunteered to undergo it. It took him twelve seconds to change his mind. Apparently he has a touch of PTSD from the experience.
I do agree that we as a country don’t need to engage in torture to keep us safe. We do deserve to be kept safe by our Government. For one thing, let’s shore up our borders and enforce immigration laws. As for Obama going after a previous administration, I do not think that would be good. There was a time I would have liked to see it, but not anymore. Why? Our leaders will start to fear repercussions too much to act on the fly and in the event of another 9/11 (which I do feel is inevitable, especially with little boy black in the big chair) and we will continue to be more and more vulnerable to attacks. I also don’t believe that the CIA will get as many capable agents. Who would need the hassle of doing your job and then possibly having to be drug through the mud and smeared in the press and then thrown in jail for doing so???
An investigation would cost way more money than we should spend on it, particularly at this time in history. Obama can lead by example since he is so pure as the driven snow, but God help him after an attack when he comes off as a pansy ass and fist bumps other world leaders to try to get their help, fails, and won’t act alone in our best interests.
I still believe that Obama hates America and Americans and I see no evidence to the contrary.
Well, we’re not going to torture anymore. Maybe we can just love ‘em to death.
That’s pretty black and white, isn’t it?
Larry,
Chris Matthews brought up this point today. If on 9-11 we identified a hijacked plan and we knew it was headed in a direction to crash into a building. What do we do? Should the President order the plane to be shot down and kill that 100+ Americans? If so, on what moral authority can the President give that order? How does killing our fellow citizens uphold American values?
This debate over water boarding is all academic. Nobody is saying that the first thing we should do is just water board people. This was always meant to be the very last resort and in some cases it worked and you are very well aware of that. Let’s not play any games here. Our enemy has used far worse methods and there is not way we can win this war if we fight as if we are fighting a conventional army. This issue is not black and white. Let’s stop treating it as if it were.
Chris Mathews, you are quoting Mr. Tingle down my leg…just lost your credibility…
Tyrone-
Finally! A well reasoned point! I’m no fan of Tingle Leg and his analogy is inapposite but your point is well made in my view.
I’m no fan for “thrill up my leg” either; but like the saying goes, a broken clock is right at lest 2 times a day.
don’t mean it.s working tho….
it is my understanding that if it were headed for the WH they would shoot it down. Am I remembering this from 9/11, or some movie? :OS
Another 9/11 will never happen. …If the aircraft is grounded a commando team would be ordered to storm the plane and kill the hijackers. En route, passengers sure as hell aren’t letting terrorists take over another plane again. They’ll take it with torches and pitchforks or with whatever implements were available. And, oh, good luck ever trying to get into the cockpit.
It only worked then because everyone was unprepared and because such a threat was unthinkable until it happened.
We should never forget 9/11. But we should also never let it terrorize us into giving up the liberties millions of our soldiers have died to protect and defend.
That has happened to Cheney…apparently it became addictive, at least the undisclosed location part.
During the week I have heard
1) releasing the memos reveals “sources and methods”
2) Water-boarding is not torturing because it is not “permanent”. In support of this argument the jocks refer to “people in the know”. Never an attribution.
3) The proffered legal argument is sound.
Again, thanks. I cant understand the undercurrents on the Democratic side except since 2004, the all have been complicit. The neocons will have 24 on the brain.
I really wish the CIA would not be used as a tin can being kicked down Pennsylvainia ave.
The head of the FBI Mueller and several others threatened to tender their resignation over this.
Former FBI Agent Ali Soufan makes a dire point, in that the “wall” is back and that these methods where done by mercs.
What is a lawful order?
-3) The proffered legal argument is sound.-
IMO, this is where the debate also ought to focus - on the legal briefs, the opinions issued stating that the techniques were within the law on torture.
and then what? It is illegal.
When the “ticking time bomb” meme is used as a legal arguement, what possible standing would it have when the USA is a signitor of the many a treaty on NOT doing this?
I see Jack being traded by the Chinese after years of torture.
-It is illegal.-
and then what?
Thank you again, Larry!
Let’s get to the basics. America recognized the Geneva convention for a very logical reason, believing it inhumane to inflict severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, on a person. The U.S. certainly would request a remedy if an American was subjected to any torture. Do we need to be reminded of John McCain and his position on torture? Should America officially back out of the convention and leave Americans vulnerable and subject to torture abroad, perhaps Americans such as you, your father, your son, your daughter? Is that really the solution to threats of terrorism, torture for all?
George W. Bush and Cheney authorized torture, and approved waterboarding as a means to coerce confessions and obtain information, and America would have objected if these techniques had been used on Americans.
While I don’t have much love for Obama, with his close connection to criminals, lying and cheating in the primary, I don’t think it accurate to blame Obama in this matter.
Before the election, our nation was made aware of the torture and waterboarding of the Bush/Cheney regime, and we learned of 92 recorded tapes of the torture with many tapes being destroyed in an effort to obstruct justice.
Before the election we learned of Abu Ghraib and other despicable acts of torture and rendition.
Why should Obama get the blame for the details of the torture we all knew occurred before he became president? The ACLU requested the information and was/is suing for access to the details of the known torture before Obama became president. If photographs get released as a result of lawsuit, then we must blame those who authorized the torture, Some of you want to blame Obama if more information gets released, but Cheney asked for all of it be released, in its entirety, so don’t blame Obama.
I don’t like Obama; I don’t like his insensitivity to wasting taxpayer dollars. I don’t like that Obama is such a bought politician who has backtracked on promises. I would prefer if he were not all about celebrity but instead serious, pulling all-nighters, to solve our nation’s problems. I don’t like how the Obamas seek media attention every minute of every day; I don’t think Michelle is a supermodel and fashion icon, and I don’t want to hear about dogs or other distractions. But I don’t believe Obama can be blamed for the release of details of the torture we all knew about before he was president.
I agree with Larry and Agent Soufan and am opposed to torture for the obvious and logical reasons both have clearly stated.
Dick Cheney is a coward, as is George W., macho asses who authorized torture, breaking our commitment to the Geneva convention. I would like to see them, and Rumsfeld too, be picked up against their will and taken to an undisclosed location to be “waterboarded, sleep-deprived, smacked around, shoved into cramped spaces and forced to cohabitate with an insect” with someone choosing when to call it a halt, preferably by some agent from another country, so we can test how much Americans believe in the Geneva convention and rendition. None of us is safer now…
Torture has been around for hundreds of thousands of years because it WORKS, not just for sadistic pleasures of twisted minds. Say what you want, we have not been attacked sence 9/11 on American soil…
It’s been around for thousands of years because people who are being tortured will say whatever they think their torturers want to hear: whether it’s medieval peasants confessing to frolicking with the devil on Hallowe’en or Russian kulaks confessing to imperialist plots against Father Stalin. Torture exists because powerful people want their delusions and prejudices reinforced.
we went 8 years between world trade center attack #1 in 1993 and #2 in 2001 *without* torture. i doubt that torture is going to be what saves america from terrorists.
Oh, I see, because we torture, no one has attacked us. Post hoc ergo propter hoc comes to mind.
I beg to differ, I haven’t changed my soiled shorts since 9/11. Clearly, that is the real reason we haven’t been attacked since.
LMAO. Makes as as much sense as the bleating neocons using Bush’s policies as the reason.
If today was September 12, 2001, everyone would be demanding we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on USA, including waterboarding. Let’s stop kidding ourselves and get our heads out of our “assets”! We are and have always been a violent nation. Do we become savages? No, but we damn well don’t become complacent, or soft when it comes to terrorists.The hypocrisy is thick sometimes in this great country of ours. We can drop atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing innocent men, women and children, but the thought of waterboarding these insects makes people recoil, decrying these techniques and espousing moral platitudes.
Dear Larry,
we may differ regarding Obam, but I am pleased to say that I wholehearteddly support your analysis and beliefs regarding torture.
Mercifully enough, most americans do not know what it is living with someone who actually been tortured except a few WW2 vets , and some more Vietnam ex-Pows.
But most of today citizens only experience with torture is what they get through the media; whether Fox or else. Sean H. takes cheap shots, Olbermann plays God Almighty angry features. But that is not torture.
Torture brings a very weird glazed look, eyes get unfocused or rather focused on things the witness does not see, but the victim clearly sees/remembers. I dont know what Hell is, but that gaze, that change in the voice tone I know they have seen something very close to it.
One person torture was actually seeing other people being tortured…some were badly beaten; I mean badly, some should have died…to this very day , years after freedom finally came through, they were re-living it despite the love and care of their families. McCain still probably does, which is why I really dont get how he can tolerate to be sitted by Cheney…because the simple fact of saying torture works does nullify why so many good people died during WW2. If ends justify means, then all is lost including our souls.
As a survivor niece, as a second generation , I feel strongly that we cant allow trivial behaviour regarding torture.
I am ashamed to say when I watch what one hears and sees these days on the television programs, I start wondering if people which Iwould have love to know and kiss and hold yheir hands, people I can only salute by their graves did in fact in vain.
If torture is justified, then the Gestapo was…because there were honest people in Dresden, in Berlin, there were good people in the Wehrmacht etc…
There is no this law is good fr me, but you cannot do it, there is no exception, none at all. There is no Bad Jo. Goebbels, and good Rush Limbaugh.
Either both are right or both are wrong. Because that is what is the banality of Evil. Ends never justify means, never.
I think a point needs to be made very clear, just because someone does not agree with torture, does not make them an automatic supporter of O. Remove that piece from the discussion. Just because someone does support torture does not make them a supporter of Bush, remove that as well.
Remove the party affiliations.
This topic should have held this much importance with the public at large, in 2006 when the legislators were working on S. 3930. It may have in certain affiliations, but generally the outcry wasn’t as loud as it is now; from either camp.
Consider your own views on torture, prior to the attacks on 9/11. What brought you to have an opinion prior to 9/11 on torture? Was it based on experience(job related, family related), political beliefs, religious beliefs.
Did the view you had change, or remain the same?
What did you base that view on? (your beliefs, or events taking place).
BE honest with yourself-If you changed your view, why did you? If you didn’t change your view, why did you hold to it?
Were these your beliefs? Were they party affiliated beliefs?
IMHO, this particular belief of mine does not need to have any political party involvement in it; it is based on my understanding of the act of torture, as I have understood torture, based on the laws of my country.
IMHO, I will never be personally involved in making any decisions on torture.
IMHO, I will never have the breadth of knowledge, nor ever want to be in such a position to know such things. Not to be ignorant of fact, purely basing this on a physical reaction to images of torture, or readings.
For discussion imagine you must carry out the act of torture:
Would I kill someone who attacked my country or my family? Yes, in a heartbeat.
Would I want information from someone who had plans to attack my country ( or my family), yes in a heartbeat.
Would I attempt to solicit the information, yes.
Would I use cruel and inhumane treatment to do so. No, (by my own application of what cruel and unhumane is, as I have said before, water boarding is one of many on my personal list).
Why? I would rather get information that leads to a real result, that is tangible, factual, not interpretive. Where results are clear by what action created which result.
The personal reason; Torture, for me is an anathema.
That is why the person is being held and interrogated isn’t it? Otherwise it sure smells like revenge to me.
Just some thoughts to toss around.
Thinking about the issue after reading the articles by LJ and all the comments, I think I am still in the position I was after the last post.
We shouldn’t do it, we are a nation of laws, and we should be better than *them*.
That said, I have no problem waterboarding KSM, the mastermind of 9/11.
I do have major issues with picking people up, not knowing if they are guilty of anything, and waterboarding them, to see if they do know anything. (innocent people)
I think we were looking at a different time, right after 9/11, and people were scared and mad. Yes, we have laws, but the lawyers said that waterboarding was legal.
This is getting way too political, and it seems like it is the angry Left going for blood on the Right.
Decisions were made, and they did their best, given the situation. I choose to believe that. (soldiers, our fathers and sons and daughters, have also done terrible things in the time of war - war is ugly and horrific - “Little Boy”…)
I just can’t form a posse and grab a pitchfork and march on Bush/Cheney/CIA, for doing what they thought was right, post 9/11. I remember how I felt on 9/12.
The divide reminds me of those who support death penalty and those who don’t, or those who support life vs. pro-choice. People are divided on what constitutes right and wrong. If we can’t solve issues like death penalty or abortion, I don’t think we will ever agree on something like waterboarding, either.
That’s why I find Olbermann’s challenge bullsh*t. (as well as Olbermann)
I don’t think anyone doubts waterboarding is scary, makes you feel like you are drowing, and is awful and horrible. but the difference is whether people believe it constitutes torture or not and is right or wrong - just like people differ on death penalty or abortion.
I have huge issues with renditioning people, and locking them up, without knowing whether they are guilty or not. That could be considered torture in my opinion….
But, as I said above, knowing someone is guilty, like KSM of 9/11, and waterboarding him to try and find Osama, or whatever, it just doesn’t bother me. The guy is scum, and I would give him the death penalty.
But, I don’t think the USA should torture.
Newt was on Greta, and I think this is a good interview:
http://tinyurl.com/da9nn5
http://tinyurl.com/cdskse
He says we should not use waterboarding.
Sorry this turned into a ramble.
American Girl, You are very honest just as your post on this topic last time; you really hit the nail on the head; as to this being a political issue similar to death penalty, abortion. I was trying to make that point in my previous post. I don’t think you rambled at all, you are showing your thought process, which exemplifies how complicated this issue really is.
and my post below is after listening to KO and LD… haha notice the visceral reaction they cause, by just listening to them.
So, I am now watching the video and Lawrence ODonnell is not making a good point. He is saying that torture does work - on weak people like Hannity - but not the hard, cold blooded killers like the people they were waterboarding, who are trained to resist, and to kill and die for their beliefs.
Ummm ok. So who gives a f*ck about them? I don’t.
If not even *torturing them through waterboarding* bothers them, and gets them to give up their plots to murder Americans, then what DOES work?
If you can’t get details out of them by waterboarding them, you certainly aren’t going to get answers out of them by asking politely.
They are trained killers, resistent to waterboarding, and not weak like Hannity….? Then why the friggin outrage?
In my opinion, Lawrence just made the STUPIDEST argument ever, against waterboarding.
My issues with it were using it against people who were *suspected* of having info.
If not even *torturing them through waterboarding* bothers them, and gets them to give up their plots to murder Americans, then what DOES work?
If you can’t get details out of them by waterboarding them, you certainly aren’t going to get answers out of them by asking politely.
Uh, like what Larry and Susan have been furiously documenting the last four days as part of their exemplary campaign against illegal, orchestrated oppression and barbarism ?
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/12/hbc-90004036
Actually, waterboarding is universally considered as a form of torture, except by those who advocate its use but want to appear to be taking a higher than the terrorists road.
Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
Even assuming waterboarding didn’t hurt, potentially causing irreversible lung or brain damage (which it does), it still involves both fear and pain to coerce information and fits the profile pretty well.
You know when you’re swimming and a load of water rushes straight through the nostrils? That’s what the interrogation feels like. And I’ll take the word of men such as McCain who was beaten viciously and often and had other means of torture applied to him over someone that has experienced neither.
Wow, the perversions of logic in the comments reveal that some people here just don’t get it at all. You are not “safer” because we torture. So why do it, unless you’re a sociopath who loves to inflict pain, and has contempt for the law? There is no moral or legal defense for it.
Torture is illegal. A serious felony. Anyone who applauds the President of the United States ordering subordinates to break the law is a seriously deluded that this will bring “safety” to their lives. Once precedent, no one is safe. Laws are not intended to apply to a select group of people in this country; if we don’t force the executive branch to obey the law then law has no meaning.
This soldier is a victim of torture, too. Because torture victimizes everyone it comes into contact with. If you’re applauding torture on “mean-ass” terrorists, you’re also applauding the victimization and the brutalization of those who are ordered to inflict torture–that includes American soldiers who will come home and live among you in your communities.
U.S. Soldier Who Killed Herself–After Refusing to Take Part in Torture
With each new revelation on U.S. torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo, I am reminded of the chilling story of Alyssa Peterson.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003965876
Torture: Obama Equivocates; Conyers Investigates
Wednesday, 22 April 2009 15:00
Obama now says that a principle of his government is that government officials can commit any crime with impunity, so long as they can get a memo from the Justice Department saying it’s “legal.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/1034
For me, Glenn Greenwald has the most pertinent argument of all: Torture is illegal. Those who argue for it, based on some fantasy about “security” are basically arguing that one man–The President–is above the law, and has the right to dictate that his subordinates break the law. Is that the kind of country we are? Is that the kind of ideals Americans support? Not this American. Do we, or do we not, believe in the Constitution in this country; if we do, we must not, and we cannot support torture. Moreover, we must not, and we cannot support the right of one person in the Oval Office to order his subordinates to break the law on his orders to do so.
April, 2009
Democratic Complicity and what “Politicizing Justice” Really Means:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/24/democrats/index.html
Mountainaires: You brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for your post, not because we agree, but because you have it all together, so well said.
I read about that soldier on the first run at this topic. It is the stuff of which madness is made. I can’t and won’t let this part of our founding laws be cast aside. We are lost if this happens. We are nation of laws; we remove that understood need to uphold the law, no matter how difficult it is we throw our morals in the trash, and become the enemy we seek to fight.
Thanks, Katmoon. Obviously, this issue is a huge one for me. I’m very passionate about it, and the hypocrisy coming from some people here makes me want to vomit. My thoughts and support are always with those who are serving our country, because I am from that community, and have spent my entire life in the military community. To me, their sacrifices are poisoned by cowards who think only of their own safety. It’s maddening to me. I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies–foreign and domestic. I still believe in that oath.
Oh, the cowards applaud torture, as long as they don’t have to think about the actual act, or who has to do the dirty work, or what it means for our Constitution when the President can just unilaterally order our military soldiers or intelligence to break the law, particularly when other interrogation methods are more productive!
It’s a macho fantasy in their heads that debasing and brutalizing ourselves and twisting ourselves into our enemy while debasing our Constitution makes us safer.
On 9/11, I saw people jump out of windows to escape the hell. I’m still traumatized by the images. But I prefer to retain my humanity, not give it away to the people who did it.
someone wrote above terrorists are not covered under the Geneva Convention. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to defend our country and values when your head is cut off, our soldiers are murdered and then drug through the street or you’re being burned to death in a high tower or jumping out to your death.
You quote certain people and situations to defend your argument but there are just as many to defend the argument against your position. Your torture is my self defense.
Does someone have an effective alternative to the interrogation methods used? Because I haven’t seen any.
And once we’re through torturing enemy combatants, what’s next? Torturing fellow citizens? Where does one draw the line?
You want safety from terrorists-then seal the borders. That is what should have been done in the first place.
Dismantling of the Constitution is an easy way out–too easy. Living in a free society of necessity contains certain elements of danger, which cannot be mitigated, even through the use of barbaric acts such s torture. I despise terrorists but will not become one to satisfy some nebulous feeling, i.e., “safety”.
You’re a contemptible coward. Go join up and fight the terrorists, “esquire.” Live your fantasy, macho man; don’t just dream about someone else protecting you, do it yourself!
Yes. You Can.
LMAO…
Do you realize that you lose all credibility when you make personal attacks like that? If you want people to take you seriously, you might want to rethink your anger issues.
Intelligence and interrogation experts all agree that torture is not effective as an interrogation method and that other methods are more productive. So, perhaps you are just ignoring the points they repeatedly try to make, “esquire” because you prefer to cling to childish fantasies of being kept “safe” by real men–and women–who will do the dirty work for you, despite being brutalized by the process themselves, despite being ordered to break the law, violate their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and despite the fact that torture doesn’t work, and undermines our country around the world, making us equal to the former Soviet Union, Pol Pot, the Nazis and the North Koreans?
Maybe this will help to clear it up for you.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/133047.html
But, if not, perhaps you’d like to tell us WHO is doing the torturing to keep you safe?
LJ wrote: And let’s put to bed once and for all the lie that the only way to protect America from the threat of terrorism is to rely on torture.
Well said.
Doesn’t it suck when certain people are providing accurate news and then they take a position and advocate for that position that is just ridiculous.
And then we have folks that have become just ridiculous in everything they do and say and claim is reporting, then take a stand on issue of importantce that they are reporting correctlly on?
I was getting ready to leave, and still thinking about this, and it occured to me…
Keith Olbermann and Larry Odonnell hate Sean Hannity more than KSM. Think about that…
Mr. Keith We don’t Torture Olbermann is willing to pay to see Hannity *tortured*, something he deems too horrible to inflict on the monster who masterminded 9/11. And he blames Hannity of turning this into a stunt, but offers up to pay, to soldier families, to witness the so called stunt. Isn’t that an even bigger stunt?
Leaving now…i just had to write that down.
Perfect analysis.
CAROL HAKA
yep
thanks,i agree
Larry:
Thank you for your continuing comments on this barbaric practice. I am with you four-square on this issue. After reading each and every comment on this thread, I have a few comments I would like to make.
The first is that John McCain, the very essence of an American hero, said it very eloquently, that this is about us. Aside from every other excuse one might make for the sadistic treatment of his fellow human beings, this sort of barbarism goes against the very fabric of our society. It isn’t about Republicans or Democrats; it isn’t about Bush or Obama; it isn’t about efficacy or non-effficacy of torture; it isn’t about the choice between saving lives and losing them; it is about us becoming the very “subhumans” (to paraphrase some commenters here) that we say we despise; it is about the ridiculous notion that two wrongs will somehow miraculously converge in a single right.
I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America when I joined the service over 30 years ago. As far as I am concerned, I am still under oath. No bastard terrorist, no cowardly right-wing kook like Dick(less)Cheney, no pandering provocateur like Obama, and no bot of any persuasion will ever convince me that the sacrifice this document and our way of life, by extension, is justified in order to protect the rights enshrined in that most wondrous of documents. It is a position which borders on the ludicrous–we must sacrifice the Constitution in order to protect it. The Constitution isn’t just a piece of paper; it isn’t a flawed document-it is our law.
When we violate our Constitution and become like our enemies, we make the great sacrifices of too many Americans pointless and grant victory to the barbarians at our very gates because we have become them. Argue THAT point, torturebots.
Don’t use the deaths of thousands at the hands of terrorists to justify the systematic dismantling of our basic laws. I don’t believe they gave you permission to so do.
I don’t know what the hell happened to land of the free and home of the brave but torture is a coward’s way out of a difficult position.
First it would be nice is you had a citation for that great quote.
On the other hand I dont think McCain would only be going for those not in office. That is the big problem with what Obama is doing. Obama is throwing anyone that Obama doesnt care about under the bus. For most of the people out of office are the ones Obama ran against.
He said it at one of his town-hall meetings in the run-up to the election. I’ll try to ge the link.
I dislike Obama intensely but this issue is far greater than him or his bots or any party affiliation, for that matter. This is about what it means to be the shining beacon on the hill. This is about what America is supposed to be and not what many want it transform it into.
I cannot stress enough the fact that all the pros and cons of this issue ignore the most salient point–we don’t torture. It is beneath us and is an insult to Democracy and our Representative Republic.
ferd, as always you are an eloquent spokesman for your view. i concur with the torture issue. i understand some of the emotion for the other side, though as has been pointed out, it doesn’t work.
my concern lies with those we are supposesd to trust in govenemnt handling this the right way. in the far left and over zealous hands, it will be screwed up worse than if we waited till more stable leaders could handle it. this is a very tough issue and i don’t have the answers, just some very real questions.
I looked up what the internet had to say about McCain and Waterboarding. Well guys it looks like McCain voted against the ban on waterboarding. But it looks like McCain had other reasons for his vote. This is From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia’s article on John McCain. Unlike Ferd Berfle I did my research and will leave a site where you can find the informaion. ( In other words check out what others write. For some reason I cannot find your speech on line. Could you give a reference please.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain
“McCain voted in February 2008 against a bill containing a ban on waterboarding,[185] which provision was later narrowly passed and vetoed by Bush. However, the bill in question contained other provisions to which McCain objected, and his spokesman stated: “This wasn’t a vote on waterboarding. This was a vote on applying the standards of the [Army] field manual to CIA personnel.”[185]
PS If you look up John McCain “Waterboarding” you will find many sites that talk about this vote.
I was speaking about a phrase he used at a town-hall meeting, and not about a psrticular vote he made. I’m sorry you neglected to mention that.
Instead of Wikipedia, I’ll go with this: People who worked with the man.
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Wikipedia does state the some of the same comments about McCain’s vote. To me it was just strange that looking up Ferd Berfle’s comments attributed to McCain I could not find them. The problem with Ferd’s comments was that there was no place one could ck up on it. Yes it did sound like McCain.
Personally Im not for torture. I really dont think torture and what did happen to some POWs really reflects the best of America. I do believe that if not for these methods there would probably be quite a few more American people dead, probably thousands more.
Right now we are at war, Sometimes what happens in war isnt our best image or any nation’s for that matter. However to turn loose papers and memos like this when we are still at war that is idiotic. Turning loose these memos during a war that they directly affect is even more idiotic. I have a feeling not only our enemies but the world is wondering what the H3LL America is doing to its people.
I also do not feel that Obama is really doing this as a matter of “Right and Wrong!” I think this is just another way for Obama and his team to slam the Republicans. Especially when you consider that Obama only wants to prosecute those out of office that were involved. Doesn’t anyone else find it strange all the in office Democrats are now screaming “Not Me, Not Me, I didn’t condone or vote for it!” The loudest one right now is Peloski.. Not sure if they really want to throw her under the bus.
Sorry to say but there are far more urgent American matters. Please Mr President start working on fixing America instead of destroying it.
The only quote I attributed to him was the one about this is about us. The other bold-face were my own thoughts, which you appreantly mistook for quotes. Do you understand the difference between bold and italics, goober?
Christ, you are one anal-retentive bushbot, apparently, which is just as bad as being an obamabot.
Bravo, Ferd!
The twisted logic on this issue is stunning. And John McCain is correct. The question of torture isn’t about the terrorists; it’s about us, who and what we are.
Hi Mr. Johnson,
I’m a big fan of your blog.
I haven’t heard anyone properly address my question and I was wondering if you might be able to.
What is the rationale for water-boarding someone 180 times? As a civilian (who has never been waterboarded obviously), my instinct is that if he won’t speak after attempt #12, then he won’t speak, he’s willing to die, or he knows nothing. Is there a particular reason do to it so many times a day?
My other reaction — as a physician — is how in the world could that technique be applied so often without the man getting pneumonia or damaging his organs?
Thank You.
I don’t know what the euphemistic term would be for such barbarism but in my book, the term is sadism.
I am against torture. But you need to get the fact straight too. That 180 is 180 pours of water. It’s stated in the legal memo that no more than 6 pours in one waterboarding session.
In relation to why Senator McCain voted the wat he did on S. 3930.
Some information:
waterboarding.org explains how waterboarding works and provides excerpts from statements by people who’ve actually undergone it. It’s difficult to read.
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• Small Wars Journal, counter-terrorism consultant Malcolm Nance wrote an excellent piece about his personal experience of waterboarding as “a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego.” He says: “Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period.”( http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/) He adds: “Waterboarding is not a simulation.[...] It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.”
• Judge and professor Evan Wallach concurs, in his Washington Post article “Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html)He looks at the historical record, and explains that “U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture.”
• An ABC News report describes how Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general of the US, voluntarily underwent waterboarding himself in 2004. See also the related Washington Post editorial.( http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3814076)
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I remember Nance very well, will re-read these articles, and keep them. Thanks Katmoon.
Thanks for the links, Katmoon.
I read the Nance piece, and was struck by this:
“Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American.”
If people cannot stand to watch these procedures performed, how can we defend using them? It also underscores the sense that this isn’t about “them.” It’s about us, who and what we are as a people.
In Nance’s article, he quotes John Yoo, Prof. of Law, UC-B:
“Congress doesn’t have the power to tie the President’s hands in regard to torture as an interrogation technique….It is the core of the Commander-in-Chief function. They can’t prevent the President from ordering torture.”
Administration I have a lost post.
We know that torture and terror were widely used by religions and a whole host of ancient and medieval governments. Not to mention the basic man on the street. There is hardly a “civilization” operating today that does not have a deep dark side in its history. So why have so many western peoples given up these tactics? I think it is because in the struggle for a better life we know the black side does not work.
Our real problem is not using or not using torture. It is about how do we convince those who continue to indulge in such tactics that there are better ways and a better life without using such approaches. I do not think that torturing them gets the point across. Yet, we have to deal also with the reality that they believe such tactics work and they are committed to using them to try and destroy us. It is a profound test of human civilization in the 21st century. I do think that condemning and sticking to not using torture ourselves is something we have to do. We have to believe and make it work that we can defend ourselves without doing these acts. Personally, I can not understand how we have arrived at this point without drugs that get at what we want. And I am still naive enough to believe that initiatives like the Peace Corps and USAID were tools that had an enormous potential that we failed to develop because we could not give up our ancient additions to deadly force, weapons and other terms of endearment that have cost us much and earned us little.
Its funny, both sides take extreme positions and try to validate them. We got so-called ‘experts’ from both sides of the issue trying to prove what ‘torture’ means and whether it works or not. And each side looks at it through their own biased prism.
I am somewhere in the middle on this issue. I won’t classify it as torture or not torture. The techniques being used do work, but we shouldn’t be indulging in it at all. Thats my two cents.
I’m sure I’ll get abuses from both extreme positions. lol
Wow. You’d think the nation was going to heaven or hell depending on the “final decision” of the “I Wanna Be Right About Torture” show as much time as we’re spending on it, continually “bumped up” by our host.
The fundamental problem with all of this hoopla on either “side” of the issue is that generalities do not usually work well in situations where the specifics dictate what might or might not be “reasonable” under the circumstance [the time-honored definition of the "reasonable" man (or woman) concept].
First Larry trots out the “Torture doesn’t work” theory (okay, let’s assume for now we’re only talking about water-boarding — I saw a very unpleasant episode of The Tudors where something was done in the name of the King with a red-hot shaft of iron — let’s restrict the discussion to the “torture” flavor of the moment, waterboarding).
Unfortunately, there are credible people just as credible as his “witnesses” for the notion that waterboarding, for instance, can and has worked. Larry cites people “who were there” for the opposite proposition, which doesn’t mean much, considering that those confirming it’s effectiveness, were also “there” at the time. Which CIA operatives are right, those on Larry’s list or the other’s list? Which more honorable or truthful? No way to tell.
So, with that tact closed off, he goes for the “Even if it works, it’s immoral and we can’t do it because we’re Americans.” Okay. That’s hard to counter if that’s what Larry believes. He’s entitled.
As are those who disagree. Ah, there’s the rub.
But, the real rub comes when applied to specific cases. Yes, harsh treatment can lead captives to give up false information to make it stop. Right there, for sure. We can all agree that harsh treatment (fine, torture, if you want to define it) will not produce information that the subject does not have. Duh. Not too difficult on that one.
What about the situation when you know they do possess the information? Become their pal, use the good cop/bad cop regimen? Bring them a hankie and settle in for the long siege? Okay, a siege can work, I guess, if there’s no time element.
Let’s put it this way. And maybe Larry can answer this one, as a hypothetical.
Your daughter’s buried alive with one hour of air. You have in custody, sitting in front of you, the man who kidnapped and buried her. You know that he knows where she is.
To what lengths would you go to get that information?
And, if you only got it after detaching every fingernail and every toenail, after dislocating every joint within medical reason and after removing the first two fingers of his left hand (as a courtesy, since the kidnapper is right-handed), (A) would you regret it (after you saved your daughter, or (B) would you be wrong (whatever that is).
A comment above says, “I do not think torturing them gets the point across.” I’m not sure what point we’re trying to “get across” in the moment, when time is of the essence, when lives are at stake.
But, you know, this could go on forever, and apparently will since it seems to be Larry’s favorite chew-toy these days.
All I can say is, I get it, but I know what I would do if my daughter was in that hole. And, there is no doubt about it.
And, if you want to tell me, it “wouldn’t work” and the kidnapper “wouldn’t tell me” then all I can say is… bullshit.
Sophisty.
Are you saying it should be legal to take extreme measures just in case someone somewhere is going to at some time find themselves an extreme situation?
The speed limit should be 120 because sooner or later someone is going to have a heart attack or deliver a baby in their car and need to get to the hospital quickly?
The amount of detail you provided suggests you have given a great deal of thought to all that bone breaking and fingernail pulling. That is why it should be illegal and taboo.
One hour ? Are you begging for false information that will waste time, energy, money, and most likely your daughter’s life ? What if the captive is not a kidnapper, or not the one who knows the whereabouts of the victim, or he/she is too tough to yield to torture, or can hold out long enough for your daughter to die, or can deliberately give information that sends you on a wild goose chase so that she dies anyway, or is innocent but still gives you false information in order to stop the torture and so the wild goose chase continues….
Raising hypotheticals to a ridiculous degree is a very flimsy basis for national policy. But at least you have the courage of your convictions. Bush was such a shameless coward who didn’t even make an attempt to change the law.
I call bullshit on you Indiedog. Read this full article:
Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11
A US major reveals the inside story of military interrogation in Iraq.
By Patrick Cockburn, winner of the 2009 Orwell Prize for journalism
Sunday, 26 April 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/torture-it-probably-killed-more-americans-than-911-1674396.html
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Interesting question but bereft of useful information. Hair-splitting notwithstanding, torture is wrong. When you can figure out a legal way to cause the convergence of two wrongs into a right, get back with us. I don’t remember the philosopher off the top of my head but he made an interesting argument: If a normative statement can be formulated as its opposite and have in its essence the same meaning, then it is a moral tenet. The Golden and Silver Rules come immediately to mind.
“We do not have to believe that there exists a divine being dispensing eternal rules and perfect justice in order to defend the proposition that law and morality still matter, even in times as uncivilized as warfare.” - D. Kenshaw
People who support torture are wrong. Larry is right. Here’s a man who knows:
Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11
A US major reveals the inside story of military interrogation in Iraq.
By Patrick Cockburn, winner of the 2009 Orwell Prize for journalism
Sunday, 26 April 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/torture-it-probably-killed-more-americans-than-911-1674396.html
Read the full article, but particularly this excerpt:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/torture-it-probably-killed-more-americans-than-911-1674396.html
“The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa’ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology,” says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq.
Interesting how they like to forget that those prisoners were there because Al-Quida killed 3000 americans on 9/11.
I don’t believe this *excuse* for a minute. Al-Qaida has been bombing us for years. WTC in 93, USS Cole, embassys, WTC….
It’s like the rioters at the Seattle WTO saying they rioted and destroyed the Nike Store, etc. because they were mad about trade practices, but yet, they were wearing Nikes.
Huh ? I don’t think Al-Qaida WAS a major presence in Iraq until the war.
Thanks for this article. Torture is for obtaining false information. There was no reason to invade Iraq so they kept ordering torture to cover their own tracks and justify their war crimes. The appalling arguments (really childish what ifs) coming from the torture apologists are either extreme ignorance or a guilty conscience. They can’t comprehend history where is it obvious that torture was always ordered by sociopaths acting to obtain false confessions to justify the actions they already had done or wanted done. The Iraq war was instigated for false and criminal reasons. The press aided them to make money, the flunkies aided them by accusing dissenters of being “unpatriotic” to win an election. Politicians aided them to appear patriotic and get defense contracts for their pals. We can only get past this ruinous chapter in our history by letting it all hang out. It is going to leak out anyway.
IMO, the Bill McCain introduced in 2005 was the behind the scenes (in theory) end to torture.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10480690/
“WASHINGTON - President Bush reversed course on Thursday and accepted Sen. John McCain’s call for a law banning cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror.
Bush said the agreement will “make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad.”
“It’s a done deal,” said McCain, talking to reporters outside the White House. ”
However then the whitewashing process began to cover the Bush Administration an their enablers @$$es, particularly on water boarding.
Schumer and Feinstein nominated Mike “water boarding is not torture” Mukasey for AG to replace Gonazales. Basically a competent pro-torture AG to cover their collective (dem and repub) @$$es.
Obama and Hillary didn’t vote on the later bill the made water boarding a don’t ask don’t tell matter because it would was a lightening rod issue. It was supposed to make it all quietly go away. The outcome of the vote had already been settled behind closed doors. Some sort of deal must have been made.
Sorry, I’ a dsylexS
“Schumer and Feinstein nominated Mike “water boarding is not torture” Mukasey for AG to replace Gonazales. Basically a competent pro-torture AG to cover their collective (dem and repub) @$$es.
Obama and Hillary didn’t vote on the later bill that made water boarding a don’t ask don’t tell matter because it was a lightening rod issue. It was supposed to make it all quietly go away. The outcome of the vote had already been settled behind closed doors. Some sort of deal must have been made.”
thanks Larry.good article as always.and sparked alot of debate,which is a good thing.
I would watch a Wrestlemania of torture. Waterboard Hanity, use testicle trama on Olbermann and force Limbaugh to go through oxicotin withdrawal cold turkey. And finally, make Anderson Cooper “teabag” somebody while trying to talk. (Oh, I guess Cooper might not consider that torture).
[...] memos, a number of my fellow writers at No Quarter have taken this on, including none other than Larry Johnson, American Girl In Italy, and SusanUnPC, to name a few. No need for me to get into that with such [...]