American King George II wants MORE private info ...

[Don Roley]

And what evidence did we have ---- zip, zero, nada, nothing.

Now, let's think about what our closest allies are likely to do the next time.

You forget, we did not capture this guy off the street. He was entering America and we had the word of Canada that they thought that he was a terrorist. So worrying about what our closest allies think is a bit beside the point since it is us who should be wondering about them.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Yes I do, albeit not one in print. I still have many friends that I stay in touch with, some who do interrogations.

Jeff

 

[Don Roley]

Here is a story that details more about what JeffJ was talking about and the problems involved.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4979466.stm

So, send them back to China to be killed? Let guys who trained with Al Quaeda into the US?

 

[mrhnau]

Here is a story that details more about what JeffJ was talking about and the problems involved.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4979466.stm

So, send them back to China to be killed? Let guys who trained with Al Quaeda into the US?

What!? People were RELEASED from Gitmo? I thought it was the lowest level of hell, with no escape!

 

[michaeledward]

You forget, we did not capture this guy off the street. He was entering America and we had the word of Canada that they thought that he was a terrorist. So worrying about what our closest allies think is a bit beside the point since it is us who should be wondering about them.

I thought you said you read the article ...

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002.

That description to me sounds like his was picked up off the street. I can't imagine how you are defining that phrase.

Canada asked that he be put on a 'watchlist'. Canadian intelligence was "under pressure to find terrorists".

So, by your think, being on a watchlist is synonymous with being a terrorist.

Canadian Justice O'Connor found this....

O'Connor concluded "categorically there is no evidence" that Arar did anything wrong or was a security threat.

 

[Don Roley]

That description to me sounds like his was picked up off the street.

No, he was picked up in an airport as he was about to get onto another plane. A guy on a terrorist watch list supplied by Canada was about to get onto a plane. What would you do, let him on?

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Here is a story that details more about what JeffJ was talking about and the problems involved.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4979466.stm

So, send them back to China to be killed? Let guys who trained with Al Quaeda into the US?

Interesting that didn't get into the big american media news.

Thanks for finding that Don.

Jeff

 

[qizmoduis]

This thread is a perfect example of the complete and utter lack of any kind of sensible moral and ethical perspective of modern American conservatives. We, as Americans, should stand against torture BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO! Not because we're afraid of how our soldiers will be treated by the enemy (usually badly, regardless). Not because we signed onto the Geneva convention (and we did). Not because it's ineffective (and it is).

The very fact that we even have to debate this as a civilised nation is absolutely astonishing and sickening. This thread, and many of the responses in it make me ill.

For the record, the following is just one example of what Bush and his worshippers believe is not torture (from http://aclupa.blogspot.com/):

Is this what it means to be an American?

An hour or two later they came back, checked the tautness of his chains and pushed him over on his stomach. Transfixed in his bonds, Omar toppled like a figurine. Again they left. Many hours had passed since Omar had been taken from his cell. He urinated on himself and on the floor. The MPs returned, mocked him for a while and then poured pine-oil solvent all over his body. Without altering his chains, they began dragging him by his feet through the mixture of urine and pine oil. Because his body had been so tightened, the new motion racked it. The MPs swung him around and around, the piss and solvent washing up into his face. The idea was to use him as a human mop. When the MPs felt they'd successfully pretended to soak up the liquid with his body, they uncuffed him and carried him back to his cell. He was not allowed a change of clothes for two days.
(snip)
While he was at Guantanamo, Omar was beaten in the head, nearly suffocated, threatened with having his clothes taken indefinitely and, as at Bagram, lunged at by attack dogs while wearing a bag over his head. "Your life is in my hands," an intelligence officer told him during an interrogation in the spring of 2003. During the questioning, Omar gave an answer the interrogator did not like. He spat in Omar's face, tore out some of his hair and threatened to send him to Israel, Egypt, Jordan or Syria - places where they tortured people without constraints: very slowly, analytically removing body parts. The Egyptians, the interrogator told Omar, would hand him to Asfyri raqm tisa - Soldier Number Nine. Soldier Number Nine, the interrogator explained, was a guard who specialized in raping prisoners.

Omar's chair was removed. Because his hands and ankles were shackled, he fell to the floor. His interrogator told him to get up. Standing up was hard, because he could not use his hands. When he did, his interrogator told him to sit down again. When he sat, the interrogator told him to stand again. He refused. The interrogator called two guards into the room, who grabbed Omar by the neck and arms, lifted him into the air and dropped him onto the floor. The interrogator told them to do it again - and again and again and again. Then he said he was locking Omar's case file in a safe: Omar would spend the rest of his life in a cell at Guantanamo Bay.
("The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr," Rolling Stone, August 24, 2006)​

If you support this kind of stuff, there is something wrong with you. This is just one of the myriad reasons why the current crop of conservatives need to be removed from power. They are eating the soul of our country like a cancer from the inside.

 

[Don Roley]

This thread is a perfect example of the complete and utter lack of any kind of sensible moral and ethical perspective of modern American conservatives. We, as Americans, should stand against torture BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO!

In case you failed to notice, many of us are opposed to things that we would not do to our own soldiers. But guys like JeffJ actually volunteered to have some of this stuff tried on them. We are not for ripping the testicles off of people.

 

[michaeledward]

You forget, we did not capture this guy off the street. He was entering America and we had the word of Canada that they thought that he was a terrorist. So worrying about what our closest allies think is a bit beside the point since it is us who should be wondering about them.

For the record, he was travelling through the country.

That may be a bit of a semantic arguement. But often required when traveling from Switzerland to British Columbia.

Edit

No, he was picked up in an airport as he was about to get onto another plane. A guy on a terrorist watch list supplied by Canada was about to get onto a plane. What would you do, let him on?

First - the Canadians were wrong. I would have a process that was not based on a single source, which may be prone to error.

Second - the correct course of action is to kidnap him, rip out his fingernails, burn his eyeballs, and disembowel him. Right?

End Edit

 

[heretic888]

Just for the record, the bill that was authored by Senator John McCain and passed by Congress by a more than 95% margin simply says one thing.

All this bill states is that military and intelligence officials adhere to the standards of prisoner treatment outlined in the United States army field manuals. Yes, that's right. A bill actually had to be passed in Congress stating that soldiers actually follow their own military's rulebook.

Shortly after this bill passed, Vice President Richard Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made a failed attempt to revise the army field manual of the United States so that it would allow for some of the tactics mentioned on this thread.

That, in my opinion, speaks volumes about the moral integrity of the current power structure in Washington.

Laterz.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Last night on O'Reilly, an ABC investigative journalist reported on his investigation of coercive interrogation. O'Reilly asked him if it worked. The guy hemmed and hawed. He said he found it morally reprehensible, as did some of the CIA interragtors. Who said some aspects of it should be banned.

"But does it work."

More hemming. Lots of techniques. Mixed success. More hawing. The information is not always true.

Specifically, waterboarding. Feigned drowning. To appreciate its impact, the CIA interrogators have been waterboarded themselves.

"But does it work?"

The reporter said, that with regard to the 14 high level detainees who had been held in secret prisons around the world, it had worked. 100% of the time. All started spewing information. If the information turned out to be bad, more waterboarding.

"How long does it take?"

For most, within 45 seconds of it occurring, they were talking. Some crying. The toughest was Mohammed Sheikh Khalid. Who lasted 2 1/2 minutes.

These people gave up the plan to blow up that tower in Los Angeles.

How many have died from this technique? "None".

Thousands of lives saved at the cost of feigned drowning.

Seems like an acceptable trade-off in the face of a barbaric, ruthless, hatefilled opponent whose interrogation techniques on the last two of our soldiers they captured was to torture, mutilate (any girlies need to have that explained?) and then behead.

 

[tradrockrat]

uh oh... more common sense. better cut it out.

 

[Fu_Bag]

OK. I have a question. How effective do you think torture/feigned death scenario would be against someone who sees themself as a martyr? Do they still get to be a martyr if they don't die killing as many people as possible? Why are these tough cases talking if their ultimate goal is to die for their cause and then move on to the glories of their idea of their afterlife?

The latest tactic seems to be to kidnap people who frequent certain areas of a target, rig their vehicle with explosives, then let them go, follow them, and once they're close enough to the target, detonate them. In such a case, even if the kidnap victims were captured, they wouldn't be the ones you're looking for lots of crucial information from. I don't think the torture issue is a black and white issue. I do, however, think the issue of Articles III and IV of the Geneva Convention is pretty black and white.

One way to look at the Gitmo situation is that they could've ended up much worse than they are now. If they get a trial, they're still alive instead of having been shot on the spot. Would you have rather seen them lumped into a general casualty report or imprisoned in Gitmo? I'm not saying that it's a great situation but, honestly, it can't be worse than having their heads slowly sawed off and posted as internet video, can it?

Would people truly feel better if these people were released and then moved into the house next door? Are the ones imprisoned fine, upstanding members of society? Are they really our best friends? If they were moved next door to me, I would be worried that me running around with panties on my head would freak them out. I'd hate to have to give that up!!!

Damn Administration......I shouldn't have to worry that what they're doing could remove my right to run around with panties on my head!!!
I honestly don't know why so many people seem to have a problem with it.......

 

[KOROHO]

"Warner believes the administration proposal would lower the standard for the treatment of prisoners, potentially putting U.S. troops at risk should other countries retaliate."

They are already taking prisoners and cutting thier heads off, how much lower can that standard of treatment go?

When the clinton administration scaled back military inteligence and banned agencies from sharing information, they set the stage for 9/11. They knew about bin laden and even had him cornered once and backed off. The Sudanese had him for us and wanted to turn him over, bur clinton was playing golf and could not be bothered so they let him go.

Now, we have military and inteligence experts telling us how to avoid another 9/11 and the democrats want to stay on thier failed course.

The democrats say that listening to the phone calls of terrorists vilates thier rights. Yet, clinton was allowed to wiretap millions of homes and that was not a violation of anyone's rights. I just can't undertsand that one at all.

Those same left wingers claiming President Bush is taking our rights away by going after terrorists think nothing about turning our sovreignty over to the U.N. which beleives we have no rights at all and is run by our enemies. Again, it's just craziness.

 

[heretic888]

They are already taking prisoners and cutting thier heads off, how much lower can that standard of treatment go?

Las time I checked, there is a difference between "terrorists" and "countries".

The democrats say that listening to the phone calls of terrorists vilates thier rights. Yet, clinton was allowed to wiretap millions of homes and that was not a violation of anyone's rights. I just can't undertsand that one at all.

Well, that seems to owe to your ignorance of the subject.

The issue is not that intelligence agencies are wiretapping American citizens. This has been done for decades. The issue is that intelligence agencies, under presidential orders, are wiretapping American citizens without judicial warrants.

Under current U.S. law, that is illegal. And, if the president of the United States really did make such orders, criminal charges can be pressed against him.

Those same left wingers claiming President Bush is taking our rights away by going after terrorists think nothing about turning our sovreignty over to the U.N. which beleives we have no rights at all and is run by our enemies.

Please explain to me how the United Nations believes we have "no rights" and is "run by our enemies".

Again, it's just craziness.

A very apt description of your worldview, agreed.

Laterz.