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dobbie6060
Joined: Aug 24, 2007
Posts: 551
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 Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:26 pm Post subject: D*mn the FBI,Army, Marines & Air Force |
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| http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/138067/fbi_weren't_the_only_ones_objecting_to_torture_..._so_did_the_army,_marines_&_air_force/
FBI Weren't the Only Ones Objecting to Torture ...
So Did the Army, Marines & Air Force
Donald Rumsfeld defied the recommendations of the Army, the Navy, and the Marines when he approved torture.
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xavierx
Joined: Nov 06, 2004
Posts: 5427
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 7:41 am Post subject: |
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I read those objections, and I see two things:
1) The services wanted to ensure that their people were protected (top cover)
2) One service was concerned that information attained wouldn't be usable in court.
For the first, the Bush administration did it's job, and it asked for legal opinions and got them. It asked Congress for permission and got it. The services were still right to be concerned, because Obama and the same Democrats who gave permission in 2002 have decided that they disagree now, so those actions were illegal. For the first time, the new administration has decided to void retroactively the top cover provided by the previous administration.
For the second, this reflects a difference in intent. The Bush administration was trying to prevent another 9/11. And we now know for a fact that these methods did exactly that. They weren't trying to take terrorist leaders to court, they were trying to save lives. |
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kenmabmcc
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
Posts: 8181
Location: Dunedin, New Zealand.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 8:24 am Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| xavierx wrote: |
| The Bush administration was trying to prevent another 9/11. And we now know for a fact that these methods did exactly that. |
What exactly was prevented and when...?
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Sgt Schultz
Joined: Dec 07, 2002
Posts: 7378
Location: St. Louis area
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 8:52 am Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| xavierx wrote: |
I read those objections, and I see two things:
1) The services wanted to ensure that their people were protected (top cover)
2) One service was concerned that information attained wouldn't be usable in court.
For the first, the Bush administration did it's job, and it asked for legal opinions and got them. It asked Congress for permission and got it. The services were still right to be concerned, because Obama and the same Democrats who gave permission in 2002 have decided that they disagree now, so those actions were illegal. For the first time, the new administration has decided to void retroactively the top cover provided by the previous administration.
For the second, this reflects a difference in intent. The Bush administration was trying to prevent another 9/11. And we now know for a fact that these methods did exactly that. They weren't trying to take terrorist leaders to court, they were trying to save lives. |
CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks
Torture is wrong...period. It was illegal and the way the legal counsel had to twist things to try to justify it shows that they knew it was illegal too. The military knew it was and said so. It has put our military personnel in jeopardy and we'll have no legal or moral authority if anyone ever does it to our people if captured. |
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CowpokeBob
Joined: Feb 07, 2006
Posts: 1501
Location: South Carolina, USA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 2:17 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| Sgt Schultz wrote: |
| xavierx wrote: |
I read those objections, and I see two things:
1) The services wanted to ensure that their people were protected (top cover)
2) One service was concerned that information attained wouldn't be usable in court.
For the first, the Bush administration did it's job, and it asked for legal opinions and got them. It asked Congress for permission and got it. The services were still right to be concerned, because Obama and the same Democrats who gave permission in 2002 have decided that they disagree now, so those actions were illegal. For the first time, the new administration has decided to void retroactively the top cover provided by the previous administration.
For the second, this reflects a difference in intent. The Bush administration was trying to prevent another 9/11. And we now know for a fact that these methods did exactly that. They weren't trying to take terrorist leaders to court, they were trying to save lives. |
CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks
Torture is wrong...period. It was illegal and the way the legal counsel had to twist things to try to justify it shows that they knew it was illegal too. The military knew it was and said so. It has put our military personnel in jeopardy and we'll have no legal or moral authority if anyone ever does it to our people if captured. |
Well I'm actually surprised to hear this rubbish repeated by you, but not much. You've been leaning more and more to the left anyway. I do however resent anyone that wishes to use a topic like this for political gain.
First off, how about define what you are calling torture. Water boarding? Sleep and sensory deprivation? Amplification of common fears? None of these become torture simply because the Obama administration deems it to be so. Same with the other methods employed that I've heard described. If you wish to call it torture than so be it but be aware that you are dong so from Obama's and your reality, not mine and many others. Should you care to know what real torure is maybe you should consult with some of the Korean and Veitnam War POWs who experienced it .
The military says it is so? The military puts our special forces and other groups through the same exact tactics used on those terrorist as part of thier routine training. Am I to assume that the military knowingly and pruposefully practices "torture" aganst its own members but opposes its use against the enemy?
Our military has been put into jeopardy? This one is by far the most foolish and false of the staements you have regurgitated from the Liberal Left. The only person putting our military and our country in jeapoerdy is the Obama Adminstration and Obama's need to turn the United States into the next Vanezeula. To think that any action by us is going to have any impact at all on the way our troops are treated by other countries or enemy combatants is niave in the extreme. I doubt those folks you are referring to will care whether we have any legal or moral authority to protest thier use of real "torture" on our troops.
Okay, I'm done with my rant so now you can carry on with your propaganda campaign on behalf of The Stupid One. |
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Sgt Schultz
Joined: Dec 07, 2002
Posts: 7378
Location: St. Louis area
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:25 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| CowpokeBob wrote: |
| Well I'm actually surprised to hear this rubbish repeated by you, but not much. You've been leaning more and more to the left anyway. I do however resent anyone that wishes to use a topic like this for political gain. |
First of all Bob it isn't rubbish just because you say so. I've been very consistent on my adamant opposition to torture on this board for years. Ask the others that have been here. Second of all I'm not the one using this topic for political gain, you are using it in your opposition to the Obama's policies. Possibly you are the one leaning farther and farther to the right. My position on this is not and has not been based upon politics. It has been based upon the core values I was taught growing up and by my career in the Air Force.
| Quote: |
First off, how about define what you are calling torture. Water boarding? Sleep and sensory deprivation? Amplification of common fears? None of these become torture simply because the Obama administration deems it to be so. Same with the other methods employed that I've heard described. If you wish to call it torture than so be it but be aware that you are dong so from Obama's and your reality, not mine and many others. Should you care to know what real torure is maybe you should consult with some of the Korean and Veitnam War POWs who experienced it .
The military says it is so? The military puts our special forces and other groups through the same exact tactics used on those terrorist as part of thier routine training. Am I to assume that the military knowingly and pruposefully practices "torture" aganst its own members but opposes its use against the enemy?
Our military has been put into jeopardy? This one is by far the most foolish and false of the staements you have regurgitated from the Liberal Left. The only person putting our military and our country in jeapoerdy is the Obama Adminstration and Obama's need to turn the United States into the next Vanezeula. To think that any action by us is going to have any impact at all on the way our troops are treated by other countries or enemy combatants is niave in the extreme. I doubt those folks you are referring to will care whether we have any legal or moral authority to protest thier use of real "torture" on our troops. |
Torture is defined by the US legal system in many ways. Torture is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 2340. The definition of torture used is:
1. "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
2. "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or ap(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.
The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which originated in the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1984, and signed by the President Ronald Reagan on April 18, 1988. Ratification by the Senate took place on October 27, 1990.
After WWII was over the US, along with our Allies prosecuted the Japanese for water boarding and other torture tactics on prisoners.
Wateboarding used to be a crime.
The Department of Justice prosecuted and a Texas sheriff for waterboarding prisoners.
Reagan's DOJ Prosecuted Texas Sheriff For Waterboarding Prisoners
As for SERE training here is a great interview with Colonel Steven Kleinman, Senior Intelligence Officer, U.S. Air Force 1985-2008.
Interview: November 2, 2007 Edited Transcript
What our troops go through in SERE training is quite controlled compared to what they would could expect from their captors.
You're very close. Not reproduced because we're not going to do exactly what was done to these people but it's adapted for a training situation where things that are beyond the pale of what one can reasonably do in a training situation, simulations or adaptations were made. Thus the idea of stress positions, although the Soviets use that as well. But rather than putting somebody in a situation that could cause them real physical harm, you can put somebody on their knees with their hands behind their head for an extended period of time and while that sounds very benign, on a concrete floor for an extended period of time in a very austere setting when you don't know it's going to end, it can be very, very painful.
As for Vietnam and Korean war vets here is one vet who was tortured who says that water boarding is torture.
Youtube video
One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period. I can ensure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear. And most importantly, it serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us.
Here is an editorial from Malcom Nance.
Waterboarding is Torture… Period
Malcolm W. Nance is a counter-terrorism and terrorism intelligence consultant for the U.S. government’s Special Operations, Homeland Security and Intelligence agencies. A 20-year veteran of the US intelligence community's Combating Terrorism program and a six year veteran of the Global War on Terrorism he has extensive field and combat experience as an field intelligence collections operator, an Arabic speaking interrogator and a master Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) instructor. From Beirut in 1983 he has deployed on numerous anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism intelligence operations in Balkans, Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and other small wars in direct support to the principle agencies of the Special Operations and Intelligence Community. In 1997 at the US Navy SERE School’s Advanced Terrorism, Abduction and Hostage Survival program (ATAHS) in Coronado, California, he created and led the terrorism training team tasked to simulate the Al Qaeda organization and its tactics, techniques and procedures. In January 2001, he formed Special Readiness Services International to support the SOF in analysis of Al Qaeda and global Jihadi strategy and tactics. On the morning of 9/11 he eye witnessed the attack on the Pentagon and performed rescue/recovery at the crash site. For more than six years he has conducted operations in support of international, federal and state homeland security agencies as well as in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
| Quote: |
| Okay, I'm done with my rant so now you can carry on with your propaganda campaign on behalf of The Stupid One. |
I can keep going on with sources to back up my position/opinion but I doubt it will change your mind. Again, I've been very clear on this board for years about my opposition to torture and that I believe it is wrong. Ask the others since you weren't here for a while and probably missed it.
One last thing; If a captured American GI was being subjected to water boarding and the other "enhanced interrogation techniques" I would still be calling it torture. What are you going to call it? I ask because you are you are putting your full and unwavering trust in the same federal government that you distrust and oppose in almost every other instance or action right now. |
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dobbie6060
Joined: Aug 24, 2007
Posts: 551
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 3:30 pm Post subject: Detainee Report Final_April 22 2009.pdf [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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-read it&get a History101 lesson
Senate Armed Services Committee has released a declassified report on the treatment of detainees in US custody.
(Download the full report [PDF])
263 pgs 15MB
The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of
"a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States
government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to
create the appearance oftheir legality, and authorized their use against detainees.
Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand
of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.
This report is a product ofthe
Committee's inquiry into how those unfortunate results came about.
http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Detainee%20Report%20Fina...pril%20 |
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Gezzer
Joined: Oct 19, 2008
Posts: 666
Location: Buckinghamshire England
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 5:22 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| Quote: |
Mr Obama said he had had no choice but to release the Bush administration's legal justification for interrogation techniques, which he considers to be torture - and has banned.
Mr Obama on Thursday said he would not prosecute under anti-torture laws CIA personnel who relied in good faith on Bush administration legal opinions issued after the 11 September attacks. |
once again Mr Obama makes the right decision and does the right thing …
link to article …
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8007891.stm |
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CowpokeBob
Joined: Feb 07, 2006
Posts: 1501
Location: South Carolina, USA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 5:30 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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I think I will try to reply to you point for point and I will try to keep my anger out of it. As you may be able to tell my displeasure for Obama's economic strategy has been hugely eclipsed by my distaste for the man's foreign policy and has been lending my criticism a harder edge than usual. Not that my criticism of that man has ever been soft.
| Sgt Schultz wrote: |
| CowpokeBob wrote: |
| Well I'm actually surprised to hear this rubbish repeated by you, but not much. You've been leaning more and more to the left anyway. I do however resent anyone that wishes to use a topic like this for political gain. |
First of all Bob it isn't rubbish just because you say so. I've been very consistent on my adamant opposition to torture on this board for years. Ask the others that have been here. Second of all I'm not the one using this topic for political gain, you are using it in your opposition to the Obama's policies. Possibly you are the one leaning farther and farther to the right. My position on this is not and has not been based upon politics. It has been based upon the core values I was taught growing up and by my career in the Air Force. |
If I wish to define the current debate concerning the tactics used by the CIA and others following the attacks of 9/11 (ie: waterboarding), a debat being pushed by the politcal left for political gain as rubbish I have that right the same as you do to insist that waterboarding is torture and you are not leaning to the left. I am not a politicain or have any intentions of becoming one so how am I using this for political gain? It would seem to me that my support of these tactics would actually be a negative influence politcally given the current political climate. I grant you that I am using it to bolster my opposition to Obama and his policies. Specifically the ones that I feel are weakening our military and endangering our country and I will continue to do so. I would no more expect you to acknowledge your viewpoint has shifted to the left any more than I would acknowledge mine has shifted to the right. I have been here nearly as long as you although it took me a couple of years to register and even longer to actually post to threads. During that time I used to think of you as one of the more pragmatic voices on this forum but lately your posts have taken a decided slant to the left in my opinion. I don't need to consult with others in order to form opinions about how I feel and as you so eloquently pointed out already just because others say it ain't so don't make it so.
| CowpokeBob wrote: |
First off, how about define what you are calling torture. Water boarding? Sleep and sensory deprivation? Amplification of common fears? None of these become torture simply because the Obama administration deems it to be so. Same with the other methods employed that I've heard described. If you wish to call it torture than so be it but be aware that you are dong so from Obama's and your reality, not mine and many others. Should you care to know what real torure is maybe you should consult with some of the Korean and Veitnam War POWs who experienced it .
The military says it is so? The military puts our special forces and other groups through the same exact tactics used on those terrorist as part of thier routine training. Am I to assume that the military knowingly and pruposefully practices "torture" aganst its own members but opposes its use against the enemy?
Our military has been put into jeopardy? This one is by far the most foolish and false of the staements you have regurgitated from the Liberal Left. The only person putting our military and our country in jeapoerdy is the Obama Adminstration and Obama's need to turn the United States into the next Vanezeula. To think that any action by us is going to have any impact at all on the way our troops are treated by other countries or enemy combatants is niave in the extreme. I doubt those folks you are referring to will care whether we have any legal or moral authority to protest thier use of real "torture" on our troops. |
| Sgt Schultz wrote: |
Torture is defined by the US legal system in many ways. Torture is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 2340. The definition of torture used is:
1. "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
2. "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from - (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or ap(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.
The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which originated in the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1984, and signed by the President Ronald Reagan on April 18, 1988. Ratification by the Senate took place on October 27, 1990.
After WWII was over the US, along with our Allies prosecuted the Japanese for water boarding and other torture tactics on prisoners.
Wateboarding used to be a crime.
The Department of Justice prosecuted and a Texas sheriff for waterboarding prisoners.
Reagan's DOJ Prosecuted Texas Sheriff For Waterboarding Prisoners
As for SERE training here is a great interview with Colonel Steven Kleinman, Senior Intelligence Officer, U.S. Air Force 1985-2008.
Interview: November 2, 2007 Edited Transcript
What our troops go through in SERE training is quite controlled compared to what they would could expect from their captors.
You're very close. Not reproduced because we're not going to do exactly what was done to these people but it's adapted for a training situation where things that are beyond the pale of what one can reasonably do in a training situation, simulations or adaptations were made. Thus the idea of stress positions, although the Soviets use that as well. But rather than putting somebody in a situation that could cause them real physical harm, you can put somebody on their knees with their hands behind their head for an extended period of time and while that sounds very benign, on a concrete floor for an extended period of time in a very austere setting when you don't know it's going to end, it can be very, very painful.
As for Vietnam and Korean war vets here is one vet who was tortured who says that water boarding is torture.
Youtube video
One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period. I can ensure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear. And most importantly, it serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us.
Here is an editorial from Malcom Nance.
Waterboarding is Torture… Period
Malcolm W. Nance is a counter-terrorism and terrorism intelligence consultant for the U.S. government’s Special Operations, Homeland Security and Intelligence agencies. A 20-year veteran of the US intelligence community's Combating Terrorism program and a six year veteran of the Global War on Terrorism he has extensive field and combat experience as an field intelligence collections operator, an Arabic speaking interrogator and a master Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) instructor. From Beirut in 1983 he has deployed on numerous anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism intelligence operations in Balkans, Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and other small wars in direct support to the principle agencies of the Special Operations and Intelligence Community. In 1997 at the US Navy SERE School’s Advanced Terrorism, Abduction and Hostage Survival program (ATAHS) in Coronado, California, he created and led the terrorism training team tasked to simulate the Al Qaeda organization and its tactics, techniques and procedures. In January 2001, he formed Special Readiness Services International to support the SOF in analysis of Al Qaeda and global Jihadi strategy and tactics. On the morning of 9/11 he eye witnessed the attack on the Pentagon and performed rescue/recovery at the crash site. For more than six years he has conducted operations in support of international, federal and state homeland security agencies as well as in both Iraq and Afghanistan. |
The very first sentence says it all. "Torture is defined by the US legal system in many ways." In other words there is no clear definition of what particular tactics constitute torture. Some practices are universally recognized as torture but waterboarding is not one of them. I spent about an hour on the net looking up definitions of torture so I already had read these and quite a few others. The key phrase in each one seems to be the term "severe" Virtually any interrogation technique can be considered torture under the broad definition given if it is taken to extreme.
All of this actually takes away from the real issue which is that at the time it was being used (after the 9/11 attacks) consultations were made, Congress consutled and rules drawn up that allowed the use of waterboarding. Now we have the Obama adminstration trying to retroactively rewrite the rules so they can prosecute the individuals who carried out the (at the time) lawful operations in order to gain politcally from it. As for Mr. Nance. I've heard his opinions before too. Key word here being "opinion" While he has an impressive array of experience and accomplishments his opinion is not germane to the discussion of whether the use of waterboarding was torture or whether it was legal. I find it intersting that he defines waterboarding as "torture, period" but then goes ont ot discuss how it is used on our troops as a training tool. If it is torture period, as he describes, than it is torture and the use of it on our trrops for any reason should be disallowed. That's my opinion.
| Quote: |
| Okay, I'm done with my rant so now you can carry on with your propaganda campaign on behalf of The Stupid One. |
| Sgt Schultz wrote: |
I can keep going on with sources to back up my position/opinion but I doubt it will change your mind. Again, I've been very clear on this board for years about my opposition to torture and that I believe it is wrong. Ask the others since you weren't here for a while and probably missed it.
One last thing; If a captured American GI was being subjected to water boarding and the other "enhanced interrogation techniques" I would still be calling it torture. What are you going to call it? I ask because you are you are putting your full and unwavering trust in the same federal government that you distrust and oppose in almost every other instance or action right now. |
I am sure you could keep going with sources and I can assure you I could present sources to refute yours but that isn't going to get either of us anywhere. You are right that we are going to disagree on this issue. Anger aside I wanted to make clear that the view you and others were presenting was not the only one out there. Having done that I have nothing more to say on the subject.
I'm not sure where you are trying to go with that last part. If a GI were subjected to the actions you described I woul dnot like it one but but I certainly would not call it torture in and of itself. If the degree and severity of it were to reach a high enough threshold however I might. What woul dI call it? I would call it the right of the country we were combating to use whatever means it determines acceptable for its purposes. I assume we are talking about armed conlflict here. You know, where both sides try to kill the folks on the other side. It's an ugly business and ugly things happen. For centuries peole have been trying to civilize one of the most uncivilized forms of behavior known to man. I think I will save this argument for another day.
I have no idea what that last sentence was all about so I have no response to it. |
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xavierx
Joined: Nov 06, 2004
Posts: 5427
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 6:02 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| Sgt Schultz wrote: |
| xavierx wrote: |
I read those objections, and I see two things:
1) The services wanted to ensure that their people were protected (top cover)
2) One service was concerned that information attained wouldn't be usable in court.
For the first, the Bush administration did it's job, and it asked for legal opinions and got them. It asked Congress for permission and got it. The services were still right to be concerned, because Obama and the same Democrats who gave permission in 2002 have decided that they disagree now, so those actions were illegal. For the first time, the new administration has decided to void retroactively the top cover provided by the previous administration.
For the second, this reflects a difference in intent. The Bush administration was trying to prevent another 9/11. And we now know for a fact that these methods did exactly that. They weren't trying to take terrorist leaders to court, they were trying to save lives. |
CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks
Torture is wrong...period. It was illegal and the way the legal counsel had to twist things to try to justify it shows that they knew it was illegal too. The military knew it was and said so. It has put our military personnel in jeopardy and we'll have no legal or moral authority if anyone ever does it to our people if captured. |
Also for Ken:
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46949
| Quote: |
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.
Before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”
According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the “Second Wave”-- planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”
... |
Or this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/did_enhanced_interrogation_sav.html
| Quote: |
Thiessen specifically refers to a May, 2005 memo regarding two top al Qaeda operatives, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah:
"the CIA believes 'the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.' . . . In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques... Before the CIA used enhanced techniques ... KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon you will find out.' " |
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Gezzer
Joined: Oct 19, 2008
Posts: 666
Location: Buckinghamshire England
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 6:30 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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or this …
| Quote: |
The Bush and Cheney ideology was that Iraq needed to be invaded because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda that put America under an intolerable risk. When the facts could not be found to defend that idée fixe, they skewed the intelligence. When there was no intelligence to skew, they tortured people to get it.
Or, to put it more simply: on March 27, 2007, when Zubaydah went before his combatant status review tribunal at Guantanamo, the judge asked him:
“So I understand that, during this treatment, you said things to make them stop and then those statements were actually untrue. Is that correct?”
Zubaydah replied: “Yes.” This is partly how the entire war was justified: on a tortured lie. And this much we now know for sure. |
link to article |
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CowpokeBob
Joined: Feb 07, 2006
Posts: 1501
Location: South Carolina, USA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 7:24 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| Gezzer wrote: |
or this …
| Quote: |
The Bush and Cheney ideology was that Iraq needed to be invaded because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda that put America under an intolerable risk. When the facts could not be found to defend that idée fixe, they skewed the intelligence. When there was no intelligence to skew, they tortured people to get it.
Or, to put it more simply: on March 27, 2007, when Zubaydah went before his combatant status review tribunal at Guantanamo, the judge asked him:
“So I understand that, during this treatment, you said things to make them stop and then those statements were actually untrue. Is that correct?”
Zubaydah replied: “Yes.” This is partly how the entire war was justified: on a tortured lie. And this much we now know for sure. |
link to article |
LOL, Why am I not surprised to find you, Dobbie,and Ken all here posting your usual junk from your usual sources? I guess y'all know I don't take any of the stuff you three post seriously. Just thought I'd mention it now so you know why I don't reply to y'all later on.
I prefer shoving "E" Alto saxophone reeds under the fingernails myself.
"I vill make you sing like dee canary!"
On a more serious note for you Gezzer, Dobbie, and Ken. Before I send this I'd just like the three of you to know that regardless of how many biased opinion pieces or bloated liberal rubbish you find to post based on all the information that has come out so far I fully support the tactics ussed by Bush after 9/11 and I would support the use of such tatics again today if the same set of circunstances existed. And with the present path that Obama has chosen those circumstances may exist again very soon. I firmly believe those tactics saved many American lives. What I find sad and unfortunate is that the basic incompetence of Obama coupled with his penchant for carrying out politcal vendettas a la Chicago politics style will likely cost us many more American lives in the not too distant future. Feel free to print this out, cut it and save it so you can refer back to it when that day comes. Then y'all can explain to thier loved ones and family why we shouldn't use such tactics and why those folks should be proud to have died upholding the "moral" fabric of this country. I am sure thier moral sacrifice will make a huge impression on the terrorists after all. |
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kenmabmcc
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
Posts: 8181
Location: Dunedin, New Zealand.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:02 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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CIA Ludicrously Claims Torture Prevented Debunked L.A. Terror Plot
| Quote: |
Little wonder then that KSM confessed to everything under the sun, and only stopped short of admitting to being the real Santa Claus, assassinating JFK and creating AIDS. He even “confessed” to plotting to attack a bank that wasn’t even founded until after his arrest.
The idea that waterboarding KSM six times a day for a month, as well as torturing his children, would lead to anything other than false confessions is absurd on the face of it.
However, by regurgitating the confirmed hoax that KSM “confessed” to a plot that never even existed because of the “success” of waterboarding, the CIA has once again highlighted the fact that not only was the torture program an insult and a disgrace to everything America is supposed to stand for, but that it was also a complete waste of time and only put Americans in more danger because false confessions were taken as gospel so that they could be used not to protect the country from terrorists, but to propagandize to the American people and enlist their support for the thoroughly deceptive and insidious “war on terror”. |
After being tortured 186 times it is no doubt that KSM confessed
to many plots that were "foiled" easily
because they were all imaginary.
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kenmabmcc
Joined: Nov 20, 2003
Posts: 8181
Location: Dunedin, New Zealand.
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:16 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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torture apologists
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These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got -- an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush's characterization of it as a "disrupted plot" was "ludicrous" -- that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn't captured until March 2003.
How could Sheikh Mohammed's water-boarded confession have prevented the Library Tower attack if the Bush administration "broke up" that attack during the previous year? It couldn't, of course. Conceivably the Bush administration, or at least parts of the Bush administration, didn't realize until Sheikh Mohammed confessed under torture that it had already broken up a plot to blow up the Library Tower about which it knew nothing. Stranger things have happened. But the plot was already a dead letter.
Remember, according to Bush, Cheney, and their most ardent supporters, the thwarted "plot" against the Library Tower is the single best piece of evidence that torture -- waterboarding, in specific -- saved American lives. |
Hmmm...
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xavierx
Joined: Nov 06, 2004
Posts: 5427
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:45 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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So what you're saying, Ken, is that the very same memo that the Democrats want to use to "prove" that Bush tortured people is lying when it later says that the LA plot was real and was foiled as a result of the interrogations of KSM?
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dobbie6060
Joined: Aug 24, 2007
Posts: 551
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:19 pm Post subject: Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11 [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11
A US major reveals the inside story of military interrogation in Iraq.
April 26, 2009 "The Independent" -- The use of torture by the US has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11, says the leader of a crack US interrogation team in Iraq.
"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...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/torture-it-probabl...illed-m |
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swordofdestiny
Joined: Sep 25, 2008
Posts: 164
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| Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:59 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| I would like to point out that the title of this topic is highly inappropriate. I don't advocate censoring, but that's what's keeping me from really wanting to take part in this discussion. |
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bern
Joined: Mar 12, 2007
Posts: 1434
Location: ann arbor
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| Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:19 am Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| Sgt Schultz wrote: |
| [... It has put our military personnel in jeopardy and we'll have no legal or moral authority if anyone ever does it to our people if captured. |
This is not to condone torture, but the above argument is specious. In every war we have fought that I am old enough to know about, our soldiers were "stressfully interrogated" whether we did torture or not. If the enemy (and militant islamists are our enemy) want to torture our people, they will, independently of what we do. |
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dobbie6060
Joined: Aug 24, 2007
Posts: 551
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| Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 3:22 pm Post subject: Bush Torture Program Cheat Sheet [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2009/04/bush-torture-program-reference-list.html
Bush Torture Program Reference List
23 Apr 2009
by AzBlueMeanie:
A big h/t to Mark Nickolas at politicalbase.com for compiling this handy reference list Bush Torture Program Cheat Sheet:
If you want to limit your review, I've marked (***) the three most important documents worth reading...
Final Report (585 pages) |
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CowpokeBob
Joined: Feb 07, 2006
Posts: 1501
Location: South Carolina, USA
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| Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 4:17 pm Post subject: [Login to view extended thread Info.] |
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| bern wrote: |
| Sgt Schultz wrote: |
| [... It has put our military personnel in jeopardy and we'll have no legal or moral authority if anyone ever does it to our people if captured. |
This is not to condone torture, but the above argument is specious. In every war we have fought that I am old enough to know about, our soldiers were "stressfully interrogated" whether we did torture or not. If the enemy (and militant islamists are our enemy) want to torture our people, they will, independently of what we do. |
I am so glad to see someone else around here has a little common sense. I can excuse the three stooges thier usual off the wall accusations but some of the other comments I've seen really surprised me. I don't condone the use of torture either but I do think it would be beneficial to first have a specific definition of what constitutes torture is before deciding on whether or not to have Witch trials in the US again The I'll know it when I see it definition doesn't work too well for me. |
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