http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/1 … ng-Brennan

phreddy wrote:

Dmtdust wrote:

Giving Ammunition:

http://www.c-span.org/video/?323106-7/s … rrogations

Having grown up with someone who survived torture in the Japanese Prison Camps... I find the defense of these methods idiotic.  If anything it shows the moral compass going south. 

I do thank Cheney, Bush, The CIA, Phweddy for finally waking me up from the belief/dream of the Honorable West.

So, Democrats and other liberals think it's just fine to send a hellfire missile into the home of a suspected terrorist to kill him and his whole family, but it's not OK to pour a little water into the same guy's nose to get intel on plots to kill Americans.  What kind of fucked up logic is that?  Aren't you, Feinstein, Obama and most congressional Democrats the same people who don't even believe in the death penalty? Hypocritical political horseshit!!

For us to condemn ourselves for the petty treatment we call torture makes us the laughing stock of the terrorist world.  No wonder they have no respect for us.  This stuff isn't even covered in their beginner's manual of interrogation.

Oh, give it up.  War is about bombs, a great many members of you beloved GOP own bomb making factories.

Torture is the worst form of human behavior.

sigmoid freud wrote:

Baywolfe wrote:

phreddy wrote:

So, Democrats and other liberals think it's just fine to send a hellfire missile into the home of a suspected terrorist to kill him and his whole family, but it's not OK to pour a little water into the same guy's nose to get intel on plots to kill Americans.  What kind of fucked up logic is that?  Aren't you, Feinstein, Obama and most congressional Democrats the same people who don't even believe in the death penalty? Hypocritical political horseshit!!

For us to condemn ourselves for the petty treatment we call torture makes us the laughing stock of the terrorist world.  No wonder they have no respect for us.  This stuff isn't even covered in their beginner's manual of interrogation.

Oh, give it up.  War is about bombs, a great many members of you beloved GOP own bomb making factories.

Torture is the worst form of human behavior.

I do believe Dubya and friends began the "hellfire missile into a home" idea...in any case, Obama's no liberal(Wall St. Bailout), nor are most Demos at the national level.

So much of our national failure  starts with the complete bullshit Iraq invasion.  Blame "liberals" for that, pwadd.

What he said.

I blame it all on "24" which has given everyone the belief that torture always works. The sad truth is that it almost never does. Torturing someone to extract a secret that saves some platoon or official from ambush or assassination is a myth, a plot device. Even the official interrogation manuals and instructors will tell you that intel gathered under duress like that is of less value than nearly any other intel source.

Just once in a movie I would like to see them torture someone into confessing something, only to have the intel draw them into a trap or send them on a wild goose chase until the real disaster happens.

This morning I heard a very interesting interview with a retired Colonel who is a Medal of Honor recipient and six year resident of the Hanoi Hilton.  He knows a lot about torture.   He said it is true, as McCain and others have said, that most of the intel you get from torture is bogus.  However, he said you also eventually get nuggets of truth and that is what you are after.  He also said waterboarding and sleep deprivation are not torture, and he would know. 

I notice none of you liberals have addressed the hypocrisy of championing the killing terrorists and their innocent families while going apoplectic about waterboarding.

Last edited by phreddy (2014-12-11 12:48:16)

The long game might also explain why death camp survivors are still chasing Nazis 70 years after the fact.

Worth the read, though the ones who need to probably won't.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/1 … tail=email

The four statements do not constitute logic, Phreddy.  They constitute three statements.

The first two statements involve prosecution of war. 

The third statement involves how persons totally within the custody and control of the United States were treated while in captivity.

War itself is politically motivated.

phreddy wrote:

We happen to be the only ones who leave the interrogated with their bodies intact, for the most part.

Words to be proud of and stand tall behind. USA! USA! USA!

Phredd, your political opinions are well-known and usually I keep my 2c out of your insane ramblings, except when you get particularly idiotic, like now.
Let's leave things like basic morality and basic human decency right out of the equation, since they don't seem to interest you and your torture-happy chums in the least:

Torture doesn't work.
If torture worked, this country would have been practicing it for the last 200+ years and there would be a Torture Department in the Pentagon and a Torturer General position on the president's cabinet. 
Torture doesn't fucking work, okay?  Ask any experienced military interrogator what the value of torture can be in getting viable intelligence.  All, without exception, will tell you it is less than worthless.
Quit forming your opinions around what you saw Jack Bauer do on "24" and just do some fucking research before you do any more bleating about how torture makes us safe.
Okay?

Even the guy who ponied up the BS memo to allow this shite to happens thinks it went too far...
I would like to see him in the Hague...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/john … ts/#disqus

phreddy wrote:

Georgi, if torture didn't work, it would not exist.  Do you really believe those who have been perfecting the craft for thousands of years have been wasting their time and fooling themselves?  All this talk about torture being ineffective is pure liberal pablum.  Wishing it weren't so and pretending we would never authorize it is pure hooey.

Spoken like a true fascist. "Torture works, stop complaining about it.  No, we can't provide you with any concrete proof that it works, just shut up."

So Genocide must work too, because it continues to exist.  As does Racism.

I'd rather be branded a Liberal than a Nazi.  Or even worse, a dupe of the Nazis.

phreddy wrote:

Georgi, if torture didn't work, it would not exist.  Do you really believe those who have been perfecting the craft for thousands of years have been wasting their time and fooling themselves?  All this talk about torture being ineffective is pure liberal pablum.  Wishing it weren't so and pretending we would never authorize it is pure hooey.

Among many stupid posts over the years, this is a prize winner.  Congratulations, Phreddy!

So I'm a Nazi and a sociopath for speaking the truth?  What a bunch of Pollyannas.  Let's do a simple little thought exercise.  And please don't lie to yourself.

1.  Kidnappers (or terrorists if you like) are holding your child and are threatening to kill him.  But, you have captured one of the kidnappers.  Would you A.  Give him a cup of tea and ask for the location of your child?  B.  Threaten to turn him into the police right after you contact his lawyer for him?  C.  Start skinning him until he tells you where he has your child?

2.  Well, it's not your child, but it's your neighbor's child.  You know the kid and you have the same choices.

3.  It's not a child you know.  In fact, it's just some kid on the 80th floor of the World Trade Center visiting his mom.  Or, it's hundreds of other people who could die in the same way if you don't get the information about the plot.

Exactly how far removed from you does the child need to be before you start to believe that the child's life is less important than the "rights" of the terrorist you hold?  I would skin the mothefucker to locate your child.  I might go so far as to pour water into his nose.

phreddy wrote:

So I'm a Nazi and a sociopath.......?

No, but you're sounding an awful lot like one.

phreddy wrote:

Let's do a simple little thought exercise.  And please don't lie to yourself.

Fair enough, lets and don't you either. The FBI has jurisdiction over kidnapping. What do you think will happen to you once the Feds find out you've been skinning their suspect and witness? Even if he lives he'll be in no condition to help the professionals rescue the child, and I very much doubt you'll get much sympathy from anyone. Any confession you do manage to carve out of him will be inadmissible and there's a good chance he'll walk. You, on the other hand, will be locked up in a federal Supermax with his colleagues. If you're lucky you can look forward to a lifetime of licking jelly out of their ass cracks.

Even Faux Neuz... Exposes the lies:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc … re/383690/

phreddy wrote:

Tall Paul wrote:

The FBI has jurisdiction over kidnapping. What do you think will happen to you once the Feds find out you've been skinning their suspect and witness?

Maybe the problem is that you don't have children, or perhaps you just don't get it.  Every parent in my circle of friends would risk life in prison or worse to save the life of their child.  Apparently you feel differently.

Which is why we don't have parents serve on juries, where their child's abductor is on trial, in this country.  What we would personally do, should NEVER be projected on what we expect Law Enforcement to do.  BTW, two sons, two daughters-in-law, six grandchildren.

So, if you want to track these guys down, and torture them, have at it.

Oh, wait, someone has to look at the monster within.  Dodge Away!

phreddy wrote:

Tall Paul wrote:

What do you think would happen when the FBI gets their hands on you?

I answered that question definitively.  I would not give a damn about the consequences.  As for war criminals.  They are primarily those who stepped over the line and then lost the war.  Those who committed similar acts for the victors are known as heroes.  Surely, you know this.  I am not suggesting that I or anyone else would be a hero for torturing a terrorist to get information, I am only saying that I would do anything to save my kid and be willing to suffer the consequences.

Let's take a look at the Pakistani school where yesterday seven terrorists murdered 132 children and 9 teachers.  Those seven depraved killers are the ones you, other liberals, and Dianne Feinstein believe need protection from our CIA.  If one of them would have been captured, how far would you be willing to go to make him reveal additional plots against children?  I don't understand how an intelligent man can honestly believe we are in a pillow fight with Islamic terrorists.  I can only speculate that this is happening so far away that reality has not yet infringed on your "principles", but one day perhaps it will, and if that happens you and others will be cursing the day we tied the hands of our intelligence agencies.

By that logic, we should have tried to capture and torture those kids at Columbine.  Who knows what else they were planning?  You seem to believe there can be no middle ground between committing an immoral act of torture, and "coddling terrorists."  It's not a black and white world unlike what that idiot George W Bush thought, when he launched the war on terror, insisting that other nations were either for or against America in her campaign, excluding the quite real possibility of neutrality.

I notice how your argument keeps morphing away from the actual context of the original post.  I think others see it as well.  Just Sayin'.

Phreddy, first of all let's get this out of the way: The preponderance of evidence says that that George Walker Bush went into the White House seeking only to be seen as "a strong leader in wartime". In his view that included strutting to and from helicopters like a rooster on a dung heap, buying a ranch immediately before becoming President where he had reporters film him "cuttin' brush" which "he likes to do because it helps him think" then selling the ranch immediately after leaving the White House, and bald-faced lying. But that's as may be, let's just gloss over the fact that the only other strong leaders in wartime who said anything remotely as stupid were the likes of Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein.

Phreddy wrote:

Let's take a look at the Pakistani school where yesterday seven terrorists murdered 132 children and 9 teachers.  Those seven depraved killers are the ones you, other liberals, and Dianne Feinstein believe need protection from our CIA.

You seem to be confused about the identity of America and Pakistan on the one hand, and the CIA and Pakistani Military Intelligence on the other. Let's gloss over that too, because the Pakis will sure as shit tear the nuts and fingernails right out of any of those Taliban they catch just to warm up. Which brings us to..... 

Phreddy wrote:

I would not give a damn about the consequences.

Then why the fuck are you complaining about those other guys facing the consequences? And why do you have to accuse the rest of us of transparent straw-man atrocities to do it? And why oh why do you insist that the greatest moral force the world has even seen descend to the level of the worst scum in history? You seem to be stuck in a debate where lack of torture is the same as supine surrender while the rest of us are discussing ways to gather information in a way that is both smart and moral. I'll trade long-term security for short-term revenge any day.

Dmtdust wrote:

"I'll trade long-term security for short-term revenge any day."

Yep.

Damn straight.

Anyway, Phred, we're none of us worried about the damage to your hypothetical kidnappers. Fuck 'em all, I hope they suffer. We're more worried about the damage to you from becoming a torturer, and if you don't think you'll be damaged then think again. We're worried the most about what will happen if forensic torture becomes the institutionalized norm. Vlad Tepes left a bejeweled golden cup at a well that no one stole but that doesn't mean his subjects were happy about the lack of petty crime in the neighborhood.

Tall Paul wrote:

I'll trade long-term security for short-term revenge any day.

The quote of an armchair quarterback who has absolutely no clue about what he would or would not trade if he were placed in the situations we are discussing.  I will take the word of those who have been there rather than the ignorant blather of pontifical pacifists.

Dmtdust wrote:

You mean draft dodging Cheney?  At least you were man enough to go in.

I have no quarrel with the men who tried to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War.  Had I not lost my student deferment because I had to work my way through college and could not sustain a full load, I would have stayed out myself.  I have no stomach for placing our military into wars in which we have no commitment to win.  Using them as cannon fodder to maintain the status quo when we could defeat an enemy is neither sustainable nor is morally defensible.  Regardless of what you think of Bush and Cheney, they were actually trying to win in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Obama has been in a slow retreat for six years, even while he was more than doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan.  Every life lost in that half-baked strategy rests on his shoulders. Over 70% of all casualties in Afghanistan have occurred during Obama's tenure as Commander-in-Chief.

Don't start with the "we should never have invaded either country".  Everyone bought into both of those wars, and I mean everyone.  Obama and other liberals even called Afghanistan "the good war".