The Case for Waterboarding

[turambar85]

I guess that is the absolute question.

Will we win this war by sheer power of numbers and weopons?
or
Will we win this war through winning over with ideas?

That should decide our actions. But be wary of the 1st, as their style combat is extremely deadly, and if the ideas aren't changed, their numbers trump ours as well.

[RandomGuy]

I guess that is the absolute question.

Will we win this war by sheer power of numbers and weopons?
or
Will we win this war through winning over with ideas?

That should decide our actions. But be wary of the 1st, as their style combat is extremely deadly, and if the ideas aren't changed, their numbers trump ours as well.

Read the recently released bit on the National Intelligence Estimate. It says what I have been saying for a while, and it pretty much outlines that we are in a war of ideas.

Military force, although necessary, IS NOT SUFFICIENT.

This is a war against extremism, and the surest way to create more extremists is to fight them only with weapons.

Extremism can only be truly effectively fought with ideas.

http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments.pdf#search='nationa l%20intelligence%20estimate'

[turambar85]

Read the recently released bit on the National Intelligence Estimate. It says what I have been saying for a while, and it pretty much outlines that we are in a war of ideas.

Military force, although necessary, IS NOT SUFFICIENT.

This is a war against extremism, and the surest way to create more extremists is to fight them only with weapons.

Extremism can only be truly effectively fought with ideas.

http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments.pdf#search='nationa l%20intelligence%20estimate'

Precisely why the ignorance of this white house and many neo-conservatives may end up causing the downfall of the country that the supposedly love so much and protect from the treasonous bas s who would try to work with the enemy.

[boutons_]

When "none of the above" WHIG "ideas" (aka lies) worked, the WHIG pulled the idea of "spreading freedom and democracy in M/E" out of their asses. That idea has failed just as miserably.

The problem is that the Repugs, driven by Rove/DeLay/Mehlman, knew how to win control of the government, but had absolutely no interest in governing, never intended to govern or to lead or to advance the USA and world. They were exclusively interested in cutting taxes for and protecting the super-rich and corps,

They are shameless, cynical, incompentent bunch. Here's one respected conservative's take on the leadership vacuum unfilled by the Repug assholes, with a clever play on Rummy's "the army we have".

======================

The Leaders We Have

By George F. Will
Tuesday, October 3, 2006; A17

While leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the summer of 2003, David Kay received a phone call from "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, who wanted a particular place searched: "The vice president wants to know if you've looked at this area. We have indications -- and here are the geocoordinates -- that something's buried there." Kay and his experts located the area on the map. It was in the middle of Lebanon.



This story from Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" would be hilarious were it not about war. The vignette is dismaying because it seems symptomatic of a blinkering monomania that may have prevented obsessed persons from facing facts.

Some will regard "State of Denial" as Katrina between hard covers, a snapshot of dysfunctional government. But it is largely just a glimpse of government , disheartening as that fact may be to those who regard government as a glistening scalpel for administering social transformation.

Once, when President William Howard Taft was listening to an aide talk about "the machinery of government," Taft murmured, "The young man really thinks it's a machine." Actually, government is people, and not a random slice of the population. Those at government's pinnacle generally are strong-willed, ambitious, compe ive, opinionated and have agendas about which they care deeply. That is why they are there. And why almost any administration, carefully scrutinized, looks much like a teaspoon of pond water viewed under a microscope -- a teeming, disorderly maelstrom of sometimes rival life forms. That is especially true of an administration staffed with such canny Washington survivors as Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell. A government of rookies or shrinking violets would be more harmonious. So, how much of a virtue is harmony?

"State of Denial" will take a toll on government collegiality and the candor of its deliberations. It is based on astonishing indiscretions -- current and past officials making private memos and conversations public for motives that cannot be pure.

The book is hardly a revelation about supposed hidden chaos in Washington that produced the obvious chaos in Iraq. It does demonstrate that President Bush and others were shockingly slow to recognize Iraq's complexities and downward spiral. But we already knew that.

The book does not demonstrate that the president is in a state of denial. His almost exclusive and increasingly grating reliance on the rhetoric of unwavering resolve may be mistaken. It certainly has undermined his reputation as a realist. But he believes a president must be "the calcium in the backbone" of the nation, so the resolute face that he thinks he must show the nation does not preclude private anguish.

The book's central figure, however, is not Bush, whose lack of inquisitiveness is a defect, but Rumsfeld, whose abrasive inquisitiveness is supposedly a defect. The prologue begins with Rumsfeld's selection as defense secretary. The 45th and final chapter contains much about Bush but revolves around an interview with Rumsfeld.

The book actually includes one heartening story that should enhance Rumsfeld's reputation. On Veterans Day 2005, the president traveled to a Pennsylvania Army depot to deliver a speech announcing the new military policy for Iraq, the policy of "clear, hold and build." Woodward says Rumsfeld, having read the speech, called Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, a half-hour before Bush was to deliver it, and said, "Take that out." Card replied that the three words were the centerpiece of the speech, not to mention the war strategy. Rumsfeld replied, "Clear, we're doing. It's up to the Iraqis to hold. And the State Department's got to work with somebody on the build."

( that "somebody" to own and fix Iraq is the same guilty party that broke it. Who else did Rummy think it would be? )
At last, a division of labor that uses the U.S. military only for properly military purposes and assigns responsibilities in a way that will force Iraq's government to grow up. In the name of counterinsurgency, there has been too much of what today's military argot calls "full-spectrum operations" -- operations that go beyond killing insurgents to building schools, connecting sewers and other civil projects that keep the training wheels on the Iraqi government's bicycle and keep the United States chasing the chimera of "nation-building."

"Where's the leader?" Bush, according to Woodward, has exclaimed in dismay about the Iraqi government's dithering. "Where's George Washington? Where's Thomas Jefferson? Where's John Adams, for crying out loud?" For a president to ask that question about Iraq, that tribal stew, is enough to cause one to ask it about the United States.

[email protected]

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

===============

dubya, a vast majority of Americans, after 5 years of exposure to you and your vapid stupidity, is asking the same question. It's transparently clear that you are a President in name only.

dubya has "lead" the world into a horrible mess and he's not enough of leader, or even enough of a man, to even have an idea how to get us out of it.

[johnsmith]

Well, at least he's enough of a man to express his opinions in public rather then from the basement of his mothers house while sitting in front of his PC on an anoynomous chat board you waste of a ing human being.

[RandomGuy]

Looks like the protorture camp has also fled the field here.

Kinda hard to defend the practice.

[ToughActinTinactin]

Just an FYI if not already posted:

Number of years of hard labor a Japanese soldier was sentenced to for waterboarding a U.S. civillian in 1947: 15 years

[RandomGuy]

Just an FYI if not already posted:

Number of years of hard labor a Japanese soldier was sentenced to for waterboarding a U.S. civillian in 1947: 15 years

Very good point.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

No, I'm sitting on my ass saying that I am determined that no one suffer the same fate.

Hmmmm... I wonder how the Iraqi people see the 150,000 "collateral casualties" they suffered in the war? Do you think maybe they look upon the devastation of their population by an invader in much the same way you see the deaths in the Twin Towers (except that 50 times more people died in Iraq)? Your moral relativity is quite astounding.

This is the point where ideology becomes truly sickening.

Yonivore, I am curious. What is your background? How did you become this rabid?

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

As for waterboarding, if you want to endorse torture as a policy of American forces, then admit to it and get over it already. Seriously, you can't have the moral highground and torture people/detain people without trial at the same time.

The irony is that only America sees itself on the moral highground - the rest of the world sees America as a massive hypocrite with very little moral standing. Your govt advocates legal process yet won't try the terrorists. Your govt advocates fair treatment of prisoners, yet claims that waterboarding is not torture, and regularly sends prisoners to proxy regimes to be tortured.

Your govt should admit its perfidy already, admit that you don't practice what you preach, and give up this pretence of morality. Admit that in many ways America is like it's enemy, justify it by saying that extraordinary times require extraordinary behaviours, and get on with business.

But please, stop pretending you are somehow the nice guys.

[smeagol]

As for waterboarding, if you want to endorse torture as a policy of American forces, then admit to it and get over it already. Seriously, you can't have the moral highground and torture people/detain people without trial at the same time.

The irony is that only America sees itself on the moral highground - the rest of the world sees America as a massive hypocrite with very little moral standing. Your govt advocates legal process yet won't try the terrorists. Your govt advocates fair treatment of prisoners, yet claims that waterboarding is not torture, and regularly sends prisoners to proxy regimes to be tortured.

Your govt should admit its perfidy already, admit that you don't practice what you preach, and give up this pretence of morality. Admit that in many ways America is like it's enemy, justify it by saying that extraordinary times require extraordinary behaviours, and get on with business.

But please, stop pretending you are somehow the nice guys.

Again, I agree with your post. The same thing happenes with America in other areas such as economic policies.

One thing I will say in favor of the US that it is way better option than the other option we had up until 1989.

[SA210]

October 26th, 2006 4:37 pm
Cheney endorses simulated drowning

Calls use of water boarding a ‘no-brainer’ to get intelligence on terrorists
By Demetri Sevastopulo / Financial Times

WASHINGTON - Cheney, US vice-president, has endorsed the use of "water boarding" for terror suspects and confirmed that the controversial interrogation technique was used on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the senior al-Qaeda operative now being held at Guantánamo Bay.

Cheney was responding to a conservative radio interviewer who asked whether water boarding, which involves simulated drowning, was a "no-brainer" if the information it yielded would save American lives. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney replied.

The comments by the vice-president, who has been one of the leading advocates of reducing limitations on what interrogation techniques can be used in the war on terror, are the first public confirmation that water boarding has been used on suspects held in US custody.

"For a while there, I was criticized as being the 'vice-president for torture'," Cheney added. "We don't torture ... We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth.

"But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture and we need to be able to do that."

Cheney said recent legislation passed by Congress allowed the White House to continue its aggressive interrogation program. (I love the wording they use what a joke. Like how they turned the wiretapping into "Terrorist Surveillence Program")

But his remarks appear to stand at odds with the views of three key Republican senators who helped draft the recently passed Military Commission Act, and who argue that water boarding is not permitted according to that law.

"[It's] a direct affront to the primary authors of the Military Commission Act in the Senate — John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner — all of whom have publicly stated that the legislation signed by the president last week makes water boarding a war crime," said Jennifer Daskal, advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "This is Cheney ignoring the consensus of his own Pentagon," she said, referring to comments by senior officials that harsh interrogation techniques do not produce reliable intelligence.

John Bellinger, the State Department legal adviser, last week declined to answer specific questions on water boarding, saying Congress would have to determine whether specific interrogation techniques were permissible under the Geneva conventions.

The Bush administration was forced to work with Congress to pass the Military Commissions Act after the Supreme Court ruled that al-Qaeda suspects were en led to some protections under the Geneva convention. "Any procedures going forward would have to comply with the standards of Common Article 3 [of the Geneva conventions], including the prohibition on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," Bellinger said. "Congress would have to agree that they are permitted under the law."

Asked in the radio interview whether he would agree that the debate over terrorist interrogations and water boarding was "a little silly", Cheney responded: "I do agree".

"I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high-value detainees like Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation," he said.

[boutons_]

"able to secure the nation"

another lie. the bordes and ports are not secure. you, head.

If an enemy waterboards our people, it's an imprisonable war crime.

If the Repugs waterboard an enemy, it's ok.

[SA210]

More lies.

October 27th, 2006 11:43 am
White House denies Cheney OK'd torture



By Terence Hunt / Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The White House said Friday that Vice President Cheney was not talking about a torture technique known as "water boarding" when he said dunking terrorism suspects in water during questioning was a "no-brainer." (no, of course not, he meant something else )

Human rights groups complained that Cheney's comments amounted to an endorsement of water boarding, in which the victim believes he is about to drown.

President Bush, asked about Cheney's comments, said, "This country doesn't torture. We're not going to torture." He spoke at an Oval Office meeting Friday with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Earlier, White House press secretary Tony Snow denied that Cheney had endorsed water boarding.

"You know as a matter of common sense that the vice president of the United States is not going to be talking about water boarding. Never would, never does, never will," Snow said. "You think Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on."

In an interview Tuesday with WDAY of Fargo, N.D., Cheney was asked if "a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives."

The vice president replied, "Well, it's a no-brainer for me but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."

Peppered with questions about the remarks, Snow said Cheney did not interpret the question as referring to water boarding and the vice president did not make any comments about water boarding. He said the question put to Cheney was loosely worded.

The administration has repeatedly refused to say which techniques they believe are permitted under the new law. Asked to define a dunk in water, Snow said, "It's a dunk in the water." ( this lie is just terrible)

Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement, "What's really a no-brainer is that no U.S. official, much less a vice president, should champion torture. Vice President Cheney's advocacy of water boarding sets a new human rights low at a time when human rights is already scraping the bottom of the Bush administration barrel."

Human Rights Watch said Cheney's remarks were "the Bush administration's first clear endorsement" of water boarding.

[gtownspur]

Waterboarding is good for all americans.

Even homeless people.

[SA210]

Waterboarding is good for all americans.

Even homeless people.

Darn gtown, a year later and you still have it out for me?

[gtownspur]

Darn gtown, a year later and you still have it out for me?

I'm sorry, you're mistaken. I like my women crab- free and non promiscous.

[SA210]

I'm sorry, you're mistaken. I like my women crab- free and non promiscous.

You used to get me upset, now it's just funny.

[gtownspur]

You used to get me upset, now it's just funny.

Well now that you admitted to me getting under your skin, didi that mean all those 's were really just you 'ing inside?


Awwww,

I'm sorry will you forgive me?

[SA210]

Well now that you admitted to me getting under your skin, didi that mean all those 's were really just you 'ing inside?


Awwww,

I'm sorry will you forgive me?

Actually, let me clarify.

I would get bothered by your nonsense directed at poor people.

After a short while, it was a well known fact by myself and many others on this board that you were just ridiculous and backed nothing up with facts and just spewed most of your responses with insults.

The 's were real and usually they followed those insults or lack of facts, which of course you continue today.

[gtownspur]

Actually, let me clarify.

I would get bothered by your nonsense directed at poor people.

After a short while, it was a well known fact by myself and many others on this board that you were just ridiculous and backed nothing up with facts and just spewed most of your responses with insults.

The 's were real and usually they followed those insults or lack of facts, which of course you continue today.

All those words just so that you could say that you were extremely butt-hurt.

[MultiTroll]

Do you have a problem with either one of these two being waterboarded for info?

1. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suspected ringleader of Paris attacks.

2. (CNN)An associate of Jihadi John was arrested in Istanbul on Friday while on his way to Europe to deliver orders on a planned terror attack, leading Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported Tuesday and a Turkish official confirmed to CNN.


Aine Lesley Davis was arrested after Turkish intelligence worked with British MI6 to monitor the movements of a messenger linked to Jihadi John inside the Syrian city of Raqqa and received information on Davis' plans, Hurriyet said.

[ChumpDumper]

Since it doesn't work, yes.