9/11 dude learns to breathe under water

[Twisted Intestine]

Shepherd Smith drops F-bomb during Freedom Watch: We do not F%$&ing torture!!!

This video sums up everything that has been and will be said in this thread.

 

[bigolsmitty]

Special Agent Ali Soufan, FBI:

For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned. [...]

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence. [...]

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=1&ref=global

 

[BurningPirateShipSex]

But, Smitty! He wasn't like us. He was a bad man!

And I mean, it's not like it was real torture. Screw international law and the medical experts, I say if there isn't a mark, it doesn't count.

Besides, it yeilded good information. The Bush Adminstration said so; sure, we can't know what that is, but can't you just trust them? It's not like they'd be trying to avoid war crimes charges or anything.

In short, why do you hate Freedom, Smitty?

- Vyce, Jingus, et al.

 

[bigolsmitty]

To be fair to Jingus (which I don't usually advocate), that's not really what he said.

 

[bigolsmitty]

Harsh interrogations weren't secret for long where the CIA set up shop in the Third World after 9/11, with a new, aggressive attitude toward suspects it captured.

Word seeped out via cooperative intelligence services, the local police -- secret and otherwise--as well as the guards, and detainees themselves, about what was going behind the high walled, heavily guarded compounds in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Thailand and elsewhere.

Then the ignominious cell phone pictures from Abu Ghraib surfaced, putting faces on the rumors. The trickle of whistpers became a torrent.

It hurt CIA recruitment, [former CIA case officer Arthur] Keller said.

"Historically speaking, the CIA has greatly benefited from volunteers (known as walk-ins) who approach the CIA and volunteer to spy for it, often for reasons of conscience, money, or, as is so often the case with human beings, a mixture of motives," Keller wrote last year in a piece about interrogations that he said no one would publish.

"Never got an explanation why," he said via e-mail. "You'd think at least one of the major venues would try and cover something simply because the other majors weren't looking at it. Nope. And now there is a feeding frenzy on the topic."

"As a former CIA case officer, I believe the biggest drawback behind the use of harsh interrogation tactics is that it blackens the international reputation of the USA in general, and the CIA in particular, making potential walk-ins less willing to spy for the U.S," he wrote.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/04/repetitive-interrogations-reve.html

 

[KOAB]

This is just a diversion.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124045610029046349.html

Oh my

 

[Gary]

Hannity offers to be Waterboarded for charity

 

[Nightwing]

If he actually went through with it, I'd have a lot more respect for him. Which isn't much, really, but still.

 

[snuffbox]

Why didn't any of these tough guys like Hannity or Beck ever join the military or CIA? You had to have led a sheltered life to think waterboarding is akin to a carnival dunk-tank.

 

[Nightwing]

snuffy, the greatest service to one's country is to work on a nice, air-conditioned sound stage, and tell people how America should be run. Their talents would be wasted defeating terrorists abroad when there are so many at home.

 

[snuffbox]

You need A/C for all those Oxys.

 

[NoCalMike]

Some of the timeline of when the waterboarding took place is well before the start of the Iraq war which would lead one to believe that there were orders being given and pressure put on the interrogators to get the suspects to give information linking 9/11 with Saddam/Iraq. Considering how gung ho Bush seemed to be about going to war with Iraq, this seems pretty plausable.

Also, interesting is that these tapes were destroyed, leading one to believe there wasn't much success in yielding information.

Also, isn't Dick Cheney breaking the law by eluding to and claiming certain classified tapes exist? It isn't against the law to fabricate or outright lie about such tapes existing, but from my understanding of the law it is pretty much against the law to make statements like, "Oh well Obama should release the tapes that show how much these harsh techniques worked" because it is basically an in-direct way of giving away classified information.

 

[Big Green]

If he actually went through with it, I'd have a lot more respect for him. Which isn't much, really, but still.

I wonder what the line would be for people wanting to waterboard Sean Hannity.

Anyway, if we were going to prosecute people or all of this, who would you go after? I went to a discussion group and a couple of guys were saying that we should go all the way up to Bush and even down to the guys who carried it out. The guy used Nuremberg as an example, saying that everyone is legally obligated to refuse to carry out crimes that conflict with the order of the law.

I personally don't think we should go after anyone. The Obama Administration needs to focus on fixing this and keeping it from happening again as opposed to going out and arresting people. Plus, it'd be a media circus and our country really doesn't need to relive the Bush years.

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

Regarding prosecution, it's a matter of finding out who specifically lobbied the Justice Department to tell the offending parties that what they were doing was actually legal. I doubt Bush would be popped in this situation, but Cheney's a possibility. I'd rather one huge fish gets caught than a bunch of smaller trials going on forever.

 

[Czech]

I am talking 100% idle fantasy of "boy I hope that guy burns in hell, and wish we could give him a beta test version while he's still alive".

I wonder if Jingus has some "idle fantasies" about torture for Hotbutter Spoontoaster's new Chinese girl gimmick.

[quote author='Jingus' date='Apr 22 2009, 02:56 AM' post='2882969']
[quote author='zhangmeijie' post='2880085' date='Apr 3 2009, 06:16 AM']Fuck me![/quote]
Oh, I would, honey, I would. The obstacles to that would be twofold: 1.getting either me to Ireland or you to Texas, and 2.getting you to want to fuck me. Shamefully, I predict that #2 would probably be more difficult than #1.
[/quote]

 

[snuffbox]

He could have a lot of fun with Ginger Snaps.

 

[Jingus]

Is that who that is, definitively? It's hard to tell. Too many fake female gimmicks sound too similar to legitimate mediocre female posters. Whoever it is in that avatar picture, she looks like she just got off a looooooooong shift at work. And now you're implying Ginger's a man too? There really are NO women on the internet, huh. Well, except for the various ones that people have met in person and know to be female for sure, but I guess they don't count.

...and wait a minute, Czech, since when do you concern yourself about anything even vaguely related to sex?

 

[Gary]

And now you're implying Ginger's a man too?

I've heard people mention it's Paul, but I doubt it.

 

[Czech]

Ginger Snaps was or is Vyce's girlfriend's roommate, I believe.

 

[snuffbox]

And it was just a coincidence that they posted exactly the same.

 

[bigolsmitty]

A combined 54 percent of at-least-weekly church-goers say torture is either often or sometimes justifiable; for those who attend monthly or a few times a year, that figure is 51 percent; for those who do not attend, it is 42 percent.

Evangelicals, according to the survey, are more prone to saying torture is justifiable than members of the nation's other two main Christian groups: so-called "mainline" Protestants and white, non-Hispanic Catholics. Unaffiliateds--a conglomerated group of atheists, agnostics, and those who say their religion is "nothing in particular--support torture the least: 40 percent say it's justifiable often or sometimes.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/pew_church-goers_like_torture_more.php

 

[Czech]

Evangelical Christianity is a perversion of Christian values in a lot of ways. No surprise.

 

[bigolsmitty]

I guess this isn't really all that surprising when you consider the box office take for The Smashin' of the Christ.

 

[bigolsmitty]

Not usually a big fan of Hitch, as we've discussed before, but this article provides some good historical context on the torture debate.

...I ask you to consider the case of the German agent codenamed "TATE," who was parachuted into England in September 1940, at a time when almost all of continental Europe was under Hitler's control and when neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had entered the war. Taken to Camp 020, TATE stubbornly maintained that he was a Danish refugee. An external interrogator unused to the rules of Ham Common was exasperated by this initial stubbornness and "followed TATE to his cell at the close of that first interrogation and, in flagrant violation of the Commandant's rigid rule that no physical violence should ever be used at Ham, struck the agent on the head. The incident led, on immediate representations by the Commandant, to the instant recall of [the offending officer] from the camp." One blow to the head at a time when undefended British cities were being blitzed every night, and the brute was out of there for good.

Nor is this all. TATE was then put to the inconvenience of intensive questioning, which included the distinct suggestion that he had been betrayed by a close Nazi friend. He ended up making a full confession, leading his captors to the place where he had concealed his transmitter, and then using it to send false intelligence back to Germany. The British wartime records conclude that "skilful direction of his activities and reports provided not only opportunity for deception of the enemy, but gained advance information leading to the detection of other agents and their neutralization."

...it is precisely because the situation was so urgent, so desperate, and so grave that no amateurish or stupid methods could be permitted to taint the source. Col. Stephens, who was entirely devoted to breaking his prisoners and destroying the Nazis, eventually persuaded many important detainees to work for him and began to receive interested inquiries "from the FBI and the North West Mounted Police, from the Director of Security in India to the Resistance Movements of de Gaulle, the Belgians and the Dutch."

http://www.slate.com/id/2217583/

 

[Gary]

Not usually a big fan of Hitch

Well it's not the best Will Smith movie.

 

[Twisted Intestine]

But it is the best Kevin James movie.

 

[Precious Roy]

Better than Paul Blart: Mall Cop?!?!

 

[Dr. Zaius]

You guys have gone from talking about torture to talking about torture. Nice job, fellows.

 

[Dr. Zaius]

Jesse Ventura talks about waterboarding with Larry King.

[flash=200,200]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9yfMdNC6cQ[/flash]

 

[Chazz]

I think it's fitting that Jesse considers W. the worst president in his lifetime, given that many people in Minnesota consider him to be their worst Gov. ever.