Bush's book

[elder999]

Torture does work, that's why it is used by every monster out there.

No, As covered here repeatedly, it doesn't

They were getting nothing out of Khalid. In fact, when they were waterboarding them he held up his hand and showed that he was counting on his fingers how long they could hold him under at a whack. He opened up the entire Al queda network after he was waterboarded. This is the real equation,

But is it the real story?

If you look at this interview, with Deuce Martiinez, the analyst who interrogated KSM, it wasn't torture that got information out of him....
.....it was tea and dates.

Oh, and KSM was waterboarded 183 time in one month, and we still don't know what "plots" his "intel" helped avert. Given the cellular, nonlateral configuration of al Qaeda, it simply seems unlikely that there was much, beyond finances.....

I thought we were done with this particular argument a year ago.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Mr. Hubbard, do you prosecute a police officer who shoots and kills a man about to murder someone?

Happens all the time.

Do you charge the firefighters fighting forest fires in federally protected forests with arson when they set fires to trees to stop the forest fire?

Not the same thing.

When a surgeon cuts open a patient with a sharp knife to save his life, do you charge him with armed assault?

Again, not the same thing.

What would you authorize to have stopped the murder of 3000 American and foriegn innocent men, women and children?

I would have had the so-called intelligence experts doing their job, not missing tons of leading information and warnings from other intel groups, combined with a more secure border and better alien tracking and control.

Would you run water down the nose of a monster, who would torture, maim, rape you and your family and then claim he was going to heaven, to stop the murder of the people of Mumbai?

No.

It is coming up to reality check time. The terrorists haven't given up, the current administration doesn't take them seriously, and we can't keep getting lucky.

So we should become terrorists ourselves then, is that your point? Sorry, we're a nation of laws and must be bound by them and operate within them.

As I said, fighting wrong with wrong is rarely right. You can not save something by destroying what it stands for. You can not save the United States by disregarding the laws and principles on which it was founded. You can not stop crime by becoming a criminal.

But maybe you're right. Maybe we should have hired Uday and Qusay to head our interrogation squads. I bet they know even better techniques, huh? I know I would love to live in a nation that accepted this as normal...we can maybe bring back the rack, the iron maiden and the Spanish horse as part of regular police equipment in their gang units hmm?

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

That really wasn't the point. The point is that our government recognizes waterboarding as torture, even to the extent that we have prosecuted other country's soldiers and even our own soldiers for doing it. Now an ex-president is saying he personally authorized the use of torture, which is a war crime. It lends credence to our enemy's claim and to those that want Bush brought up on charges. It doesn't seem admitting to such a thing would be in Bush's best interest.

Also, if you want to get into the issues of breaking a code of conduct, both Bush and the CIA were representatives of our government. Our government is a signer of the Geneva convention treaty. Water boarding is expressly listed as torture in that treaty and they KNOWLINGLY violated that treay. So with that perspective, whether they are in the military is moot.

You're the one that brought it up, not me.

 

[elder999]

.we can maybe bring back the rack, the iron maiden and the Spanish horse as part of regular police equipment in their gang units hmm?

[yt]Vze0utkYypI[/yt]

Great film! With my all time favorite actor! By all means, watch the entire clip, but the part you want starts at 5:23....:lfao:

 

[Cryozombie]

combined with a more secure border and better alien tracking and control.

That's Racist Bob.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Lets face it;We don't want to have to resort to torture to find Terrorists and Uncover terrorist plots, but we don't want to stop/track the flow of immigrants coming over the border illegally. We might impede with their search for a better life.

You can't carry a weapon to defend yourself, but we won't require police to do it either. Better hope you live, so you can report it later.

the list goes on. Blah. I'm sick of it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

That's Racist Bob.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Lets face it;We don't want to have to resort to torture to find Terrorists and Uncover terrorist plots, but we don't want to stop/track the flow of immigrants coming over the border illegally. We might impede with their search for a better life.

You can't carry a weapon to defend yourself, but we won't require police to do it either. Better hope you live, so you can report it later.

the list goes on. Blah. I'm sick of it.

terrorist, illegal and alien aren't a race.

 

[WC_lun]

You're the one that brought it up, not me.

Yes, you are right, I did bring it up. I brought it up as a point that our government knows water boarding is wrong. You inferred that since the CIA and Bush were not in the military it was okay.

I don't know the answer to this, but since the president is in fact the cammander-in-chief, is he held to the same regulations as military? My gut says no, but I don't know that as fact.

 

[Archangel M]

Right/Wrong aside, the "torture doesn't work they will just tell you anything" thing is an intentional denial of how this stuff works in order to support a stance against it's use. Unlike in the movies, you don't depend on this stuff in a "tell me something I dont know" manner. Information obtained is compared against other data gathered from other sources for confirmation. If 5 water-boarded prisoners are saying things that can be confirmed against each other and independent sources thats pretty "good" intelligence. If something one guy spills can be cross checked against known intell thats something to follow up on.

Stick to the right/wrong argument. Don't get bogged down on the effective/noneffective debate until you know how a particular case was handled.

 

[elder999]

Stick to the right/wrong argument. Don't get bogged down on the effective/noneffective debate until you know how a particular case was handled.

I'll just say it's wrong. More to the point, though, KSM is often offered as an example of how "it works," in spite of what his interrogator says to the contrary-evidence of how a "particular case was handled."

 

[billc]

What highlighted this topic for me is an interview I heard with Marc A. Thiessen, the author of Courting Disaster: How the C.I.A. kept us safe and how Obama is inviting the next attack. He discussed khalid mohummed and was interesting enough that I am finally reading his book. He goes throught the purpose of the geneva convention and how terrorists are not supposed to be covered by it. I will tell you, water boarding terrorists to save lives is not wrong. Letting innocent people die, because a false sense of equivalence, is wrong. No permanent harm is done, no bones are broken, no flesh is torn, noone is maimed or killed. They get up and they are done. I'll trade that for 3000 innocent people any day of the week.

On another note, I appreciate everyone discussing this issue. The other site I post on fightingarts.com, will not allow politics and as soon as you disagree with people on the site the name calling and swearing starts. This site is great.

 

[Blade96]

On another note, I appreciate everyone discussing this issue. The other site I post on fightingarts.com, will not allow politics and as soon as you disagree with people on the site the name calling and swearing starts. This site is great.

:angel: I agree.

btw I don't believe refusing to allow water boarding means you are going to let innocent people die.

 

[CanuckMA]

Because Thiessen is an impartial observer, right?

I'll take the word of the CIA operative who actually got intel from KSM on the effectiveness of torture over a political hack with an agenda.

 

[WC_lun]

I've seen interviews with many of the men responsible for the military's anti-interogation program, which includes the use of torture. they got thier information mostly from US servicemen from Vietnam. Thier analysis is torture is not reliable. In my eyes and that of the government, they are experts on the matter.

I've also read the CIA operative who interviewed Khalid Mohummed. He said that the actionable intelligence recieved from him was done BEFORE he waterboarded. He also stated that the men waterboarding him were not trained at interrogation. Again, I'll defer to him as an expert.

If you think you just get up and are done after being waterboarded over 180 times, you have no understanding of the stresses that puts on the human body. Again, I don't really care about the terrorist, but lets not make water boarding out to be some passive intterogation technique. Our government and many around the world have already classified it as torture. Let me restate that so the point is made; our own governement has classified water boarding as torture. The false equivelescy here is pretending it is anything else.

 

[billc]

The government is doing a lot of things these days that I don't agree with, classifying water boarding as torture would be one of them. Putting terrorists from the battlefield through civillian courts would be another one. How did that first trial, where much of the case was thrown out because the witness was interogated, go for you? Of course we have been gaurenteed that that terrorist will never go free, even if the case against him ist thrown out, how does that help the credibility of our legal system?

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

Yes, you are right, I did bring it up. I brought it up as a point that our government knows water boarding is wrong. You inferred that since the CIA and Bush were not in the military it was okay.

No, I didn't. I specifically said that there were no military Code of Conduct issues as neither entity were actually in the military. I said nothing as to the rightness or wrongness of their actions.

I don't know the answer to this, but since the president is in fact the cammander-in-chief, is he held to the same regulations as military? My gut says no, but I don't know that as fact.

I doubt it as well. We specifically say that our military is run by a civilian elected government. In our government, the President is in charge of the Executive Branch of the government, and therefore has direct control of the military, ie., he's the Commander-in-Chief. But that doesn't make him an officer in the military. Every officer in the military is appointed by Congress. The Congress does not appoint the President.

I've also never seen a sitting President prosecuted under the USCMJ.

 

[elder999]

The government is doing a lot of things these days that I don't agree with, classifying water boarding as torture would be one of them.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has called waterboarding, and other methods of "harsh, enhanced interrogation" torture:

What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration”




Mal Nance, former Master Chief Instructor at SERE states uncategorically that waterboarding is torture.:

In fact, waterboarding is just the type of torture then Lt. Commander John McCain had to endure at the hands of the North Vietnamese. As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people

The carnival-like he-said, she-said of the legality of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques has become a form of doublespeak worthy of Catch-22. Having been subjected to them all, I know these techniques, if in fact they are actually being used, are not dangerous when applied in training for short periods. However, when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Couple that with waterboarding and the entire medley not only “shock the conscience” as the statute forbids -it would terrify you. 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.

 

[billc]

From the book courting disaster:

"...One of the FBI agents initially involved in Zubaydah's questioning,Ari Soufan, has claimed he got the information on Padilla from Zubaydah, and did so without the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. His claims have made him a hero onthe left, and critics cite his supposed success as proof that enhanced interrogation is unnecessary. But recently released documents suggest his claims are false..." "...the Department released a revised version of its March 2009 Inspector General's report on the FBI's involvement in detainee interrogations. In that report, the other FBI agent involved in Zubaydah's interrogation(referred to by the alias "Agent Gibson") said it was the CIA-not Soufan-that got the information on Padilla."

"...Gibson stated that during the CIA interrogations Zubaydah 'gave up' Jose Padilla and identified several targets for future al-qaeda attacks, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Libery." "The information was not obtained by Soufan; it was obtained by the CIA. And it was not obtained "before harsh techniques were introduced"; it was obtained only after the CIA began to apply enhanced interrogation techniques-including forced nudity, cold temperatures, and sleep deprivation." "...According to the Justice Department Inspector General, Soufan's claims are simply false. (Soufan turned down repeated requests for an interview to explain the discrepancy.)

 

[elder999]

From the book courting disaster:

"...One of the FBI agents initially involved in Zubaydah's questioning,Ari Soufan, has claimed he got the information on Padilla from Zubaydah, and did so without the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. His claims have made him a hero onthe left, and critics cite his supposed success as proof that enhanced interrogation is unnecessary. But recently released documents suggest his claims are false..." "...the Department released a revised version of its March 2009 Inspector General's report on the FBI's involvement in detainee interrogations. In that report, the other FBI agent involved in Zubaydah's interrogation(referred to by the alias "Agent Gibson") said it was the CIA-not Soufan-that got the information on Padilla."

"...Gibson stated that during the CIA interrogations Zubaydah 'gave up' Jose Padilla and identified several targets for future al-qaeda attacks, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Libery." "The information was not obtained by Soufan; it was obtained by the CIA. And it was not obtained "before harsh techniques were introduced"; it was obtained only after the CIA began to apply enhanced interrogation techniques-including forced nudity, cold temperatures, and sleep deprivation." "...According to the Justice Department Inspector General, Soufan's claims are simply false. (Soufan turned down repeated requests for an interview to explain the discrepancy.)

So we're to take what a White House speech writer has written about the "anonymous Agent Gibson,"(Steve Gaudin) over what other acknowledged interrogators have said?

 

[billc]

There are a lot of interviews with numerous people involved in the inerrogation of detainees and the oversight of these interogations in this book. I would counter you by saying that trusting left wing journalists with axes to grind against President Bush, the CIA, the war in Iraq and afghanistan, Guantanamo bay, and using enhanced interrogation techniques is far from a useful way to glean insight into the war against the terrorists.

From Courting Disaster:
Former National Security Adviser Steve Hadley
Former CIA director Mike Hayden
Former director of National Intelligence Admiral Mike McConnell
CIA inspector general John Helgerson
Gardner Peckham Former National security advisor to Newt Gingrich
June 3, 2005 CIA report "Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the war against Al-Qa'ida
July 14, 2004 report "Khalid Shaykh Muhammadreeminent Source on Al-qu'ida"
CIA's psychological assesment of Abu Zubaydah

These are some of the people and documents discussed in this book. The author also speaks to the men who interrogated these detainees as well.

 

[billc]

From Courting Disaster: On Christopher Hitchens undergoing water boarding,
"In undergoing this experiment, Hitchens intended to prove that water boarding is torture. Instead, he proved it is not. There is a legal definition of torture,which we will explore in a moment. But there is also a common sense definition: If you are willing to try it to see what it feels like, it is not torture. If Hitchens tormentors had offered to attach electrodes to his body, and then turned on the switch, would he have tried it to see what it feels like? I seriously doubt it. What if they had offered to remove his fingernails with a pair of pliers? Or drill his teeth without anesthetic? Or place him on a rack and pull his limbs until they popped out of their sockets?..." "The reason he would decline, of course, is that each of these techniques would have caused "severe physical or mental pain or suffering"-the standard for torture in U.S. law. Water boarding, as conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency, does not cause such "severe" pain or suffering-which is why Hitchens was able to endure it. More than endure it, he was so unhappy with how he performed in the first time around, he asked for a second try...Most torture victims do not ask for more."