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What's the US position/policy on US military and its murderous mercenaries being waterboarded?
It's OK for others to do unto us as we do unto them, right?
Or maybe they actually asked somebody who does interrogations for a living, like say the guy who wrote the book in the OP to tell them how effective or ineffective it is.
Waterboarding is, in fact, torture. I noticed you didn't volunteer to be subjected to it.
Do you have any quotes from professional interrogators saying that torture is effective?
What's the US position/policy on US military and its murderous mercenaries being waterboarded?
It's OK for others to do unto us as we do unto them, right?
Last edited by boutons_deux; 09-15-2011 at 02:18 PM.
You have the full series of 24 on DVD, don't you?
I bet you would, tough guy.
No one better mess with you.
More fail.
The guy who wrote the book in the OP had a pretty clear example of just how wrong that is.
Without using any torture, he was getting a good deal of information over the course of his interrogation.
Some guy showed up after waterboarding was given the green light, and the subject who was revealing all sorts of information suddenly clammed up after being waterboarded.
Valuable time was directly lost, with no information flow at all for well over a week.
You watch too many movies, and basing your perceptions of reality on some hollywood movie may be fine for you, but I kind of prefer reality.
That's all anecdotal and we can just agree to disagree. My opinion isn't based on Hollywood or a book written by someone with limited knowledge of the facts.
The current administration -- populated with people who did (or still do) believe as you do -- admitted through it's Central Intelligence Agency that, in fact, enhanced interrogation techniques resulted in actionable intelligence.
I was fine with the practice before that but, I would think it would at least give you and others, so situated, pause. But, if not, I'm okay with that too.
I only hope that should the need arise again, this President, or future presidents, will employ whatever methods are required to protect our interests.
And the CIA has never lied to protect itself after ing up.
Right.
If it's so ing great, why did Bush stop it?I was fine with the practice before that but, I would think it would at least give you and others, so situated, pause. But, if not, I'm okay with that too.
I only hope that should the need arise again, this President, or future presidents, will employ whatever methods are required to protect our interests.
Why don't police use it?
Why don't parents use it on their kids?
Yoni believing the CIA tells the truth!
but Yoni claiming non-CIA info is "anecdotola" hearsay
The CIA never tells the truth and shuts up/intimidates anybody who does.
The CIA/NSA/FBI are sovereign en ies, their own universes, out of reach of government oversight.
I don't doubt it results in actionable intelligence, and no one is arguing that.
What I do doubt is that it is somehow more effective than other methods.
As for it being anecdotal, then provide a counter.
Give me a quote from ANY interrogator or intelligence professional with direct experience that says it works better than other methods.
I also doubt its morality, efficacy be damned.
This whole argument is simply yet another example to me of conservatives making the emotionally appealing argument and ignoring logic and ethics.
Sure it is emotionally appealing to torture psychopaths, but at what cost?
The problem I have is people like you don't even know the nature of the war we are fighting and how it actually harms our cause.
The problem with the "BFD" is that when you actually do *real* evil things, then the falsehoods about how evil we are seem just that much more plausible to the people who really matter, i.e. those who are sitting on the fence and uninvolved.
Whether or not we torture people has a huge effect even to those who hate us.
One of the more interesting episodes in the book is the sheer shock of the guy being interviewed/interrogated that he was not initially tortured.
He expected it at every turn, and when it didn't appear, he just wasn't quite prepared for it, and that was exploited with some good success by the interrogator.
Imagine the shock of being told X all your life and then finding out that it was false, and that people telling you X were cynically manipulating you.
There are more than one AQ turncoats who have done exactly that, and they make *very* effective advocates.
I think the only way one can argue for this is to be completely blind to the underlying nature of the conflict..
Ex-CIA agent says 'waterboarding' worked
His personal conversion to believing it is torture, albeit effective, notwithstanding; there's your quote.
However, I don't think it's a cut and dried as you'd like to believe. Remedies to all sorts of challenges are situational. What may work better in one cir stance with a particular individual may not work as effectively as another technique in other cir stances with another individual.
That we only used this technique on four individuals when there were thousands interrogated between the beginning of hostilities and the time these enhanced techniques were abandoned, tells me there was considerable thought given to the situation and individual upon which they would be used.
Was that the right decision in every case? Apparently not. But, I'm comfortable with that. Especially knowing this was not a dangerous life-threatening technique and that our own soldiers had been subjected to it.
We can continue to disagree but, I doubt I'll be persuaded otherwise.
We simply disagree on this being a "real 'evil' thing."
God uses it.
good enough for me, tbh.
have you ever been waterboarded?
Depends on what you mean by waterboarded. There are many different activities that have been, over the years, variously defined as waterboarding. So, it's possible.
To what specific definition of waterboarding do you refer? Please detail the technique from start to finish.
Insert anal sex joke here.
Why not just ask if the US justice system "always works" while you're at it?
I can understand this argument. That doesn't mean it's right to legalize it though. Keep it illegal, and if the situation was so dire, then trust the jury to overturn/nullify the case due to the extreme cir stances presented.
And if they killed your sister, you'd probably kill them right?
So that means that we should write it into law that if someone kills a family member of yours, you should be legally allowed to kill them.
Makes sense to me.
Probably the one that induces a fear/sense of imminent death.
Not only because I have a great deal of affection for President Bush but also, because the writer makes a salient point I mentioned earlier.
Dubya and Me
I recommend the entire essay, of course. It's a great read.In the remaining years of his presidency, I visited Bush several more times, always in the Oval Office. He was candid, but nothing like that first night. His only remark about Barack Obama was, as I recall it, “No matter who wins, when he hears what I hear every morning, it will change him.”
Now, you're getting off into a whole other can of worms. None of this belongs in the U.S. Criminal Courts.
Also, the enhanced interrogation techniques used weren't legalized; they weren't illegal to begin with. The Justice Department was asked by the White House to study the issue and determine if the techniques -- as narrowly defined to the Justice Department by the White House -- were illegal. The Justice Department responded they were not.
No court with any jurisdiction in the matter has ever found otherwise.
People who run red lights produce fear and a sense of imminent death in those who narrowly escape a collision with them. Should the errant driver be brought up on torture charges?
You're being intentionally obtuse about the subject. There are a whole lot of elements to determining whether or not a action cons utes torture.
This Bush administration, with the advice of counsel, asserts their enhanced interrogation techniques did not cons ute torture.
That assertion has only been challenged in the court of public opinion; nowhere else.
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