9/11 dude learns to breathe under water

[Dr. Zaius]

Regardless of his job performance as governor, he's right about the usefullness of torture.

 

[Chazz]

That's a matter of opinion. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Gary]

Too bad said opinion has been refuted more than once, Chazz.

 

[Chazz]

Depends on who you ask, dude.

 

[Gary]

Depends on who you ask, dude.

Might I recommend this book to you Chazz.

Hint Chazz: This guy actually worked for the military. He knows more about the subject than you do.

 

[Chazz]

I'm sure he does. However, I've heard of people in the military who say the exact opposite. Like I said, it's a matter of opinion.

 

[Dr. Zaius]

I could site additional opinions, but the effectiveness of torture as an intelligence gathering method is pretty well documented to be virtually non-existent. Here is some non-hypothetical, fact-based evidence that it does not:

Darius Rejali, an associate professor of political science and the author of the book "Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in Modern Iran," said his studies show that torture is ineffective as a tool for gathering information. "My position is there is no empirical evidence to suggest that this works, at least in the way that people claim that it does in the war against terrorism," Mr. Rejali said.

Take the case of Mr. Murad, whom Mr. Dershowitz pointed to as proof that torture is a useful tool. Mr. Rejali said that it took more than a month to break Mr. Murad and extract information - a delay that would have made it impossible to head off an imminent threat.

Mr. Rejali said he has studied Algeria's violent struggle in the late 1950's for independence from France. He said he pored through the archives and found no evidence that the French were able to harvest a significant amount of valuable intelligence through their use of torture. He said he came to the same conclusion after studying the Nazis' use of torture throughout Europe.

"The Gestapo wasn't getting a whole hell of a lot when it tortured resistance people," he said.

Indeed, a study by Human Rights Watch found that torture of criminal suspects often produces inaccurate information. In 1999, Diederik Lohman, a senior researcher for the group, issued a report, "Confessions at Any Cost: Police Torture in Russia," which documented widespread use of torture among the Russian police.

The report quoted Boris Botvinnik, a university student in Moscow who confessed in 1996 to a murder and robbery after his vision was severely damaged from repeated bouts of near asphyxiation.

"I wanted to save what was left of me," Mr. Botvinnik said.

Mr. Lohman said, "That is the problem: If you torture me, I am going to tell you whatever you want to get you to stop.

In Iraq, a man named Saddam Saleh Aboud told The New York Times that after being hooded and handcuffed naked, doused with water, threatened with rape and forced to sit in his own urine over 18 days at Abu Ghraib prison, he was ready to confess to anything.

"They asked, 'Do you know the Islamic opposition?' '' Mr. Aboud recalled in an interview in Baghdad. "I said yes." At one point, Mr. Aboud said: "They asked me about Osama bin Laden. I said, 'I am Osama bin Laden. I am disguised.' "

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/weekinreview/16slac.html?ex=1400040000&en=d016acfc4bf57bbf&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

 

[snuffbox]

Take your whips and saddles to Vyce's house, chazz.

 

[Czech]

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.

Maybe Minnesota should stop electing bygone fringe-pop-culture figures to public office, unless Paul Westerberg plans to meet Joel Hodgson in a battle for mayor of St. Paul, because that could be fun.

 

[Big Green]

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.

Maybe Minnesota should stop electing bygone fringe-pop-culture figures to public office, unless Paul Westerberg plans to meet Joel Hodgson in a battle for mayor of St. Paul, because that could be fun.

I'd support Princeton, MN native Bob Backlund for Governor.

Someone should get on this.

 

[bigolsmitty]

So, I think Obama's explanation for not releasing the detainee abuse photos in pretty bass-ackwards.

 

[KOAB]

So, I think Obama's explanation for not releasing the detainee abuse photos in pretty bass-ackwards.

...hmm

 

[bigolsmitty]

That should've said "is pretty..."

 

[NoCalMike]

So, supposedly the guy who was Bush's "smoking gun" on linking Al Qaeda w/Iraq turned up suddenly dead yesterday.

The source is biased, but that doesn't make it any less true,

http://www.impeachbush.org/site/News2/1707518140?page=NewsArticle&id=5363&news_iv_ctrl=1281

 

[EHME]

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.

Did George W ever tag teamed with Rowdy Piper? No.

Jesse Ventura >>>> George W. Bush.

Cris Carter for Governer, FTW.

 

[BUTT]

Bush was friends with Ernie Ladd.

 

[bigolsmitty]

We appear to be nearing a happy ending in the case of Roxana Saberi, the American journalist detained by Iran and accused of being a spy. But ask yourself this hypothetical and distressing question.

If Saberi had confessed on Iranian television that she was a spy, and if the New York Times discovered that prior to this confession, she had been kept in solitary confinement in freezing temperatures, had been slammed against a wall twenty times in a row, and had then been shackled from the ceiling for days in such a way that the pain was excruciating, and had been blasted in her cell with extremely loud noises to keep her from sleeping for a week ...

... do you think the New York Times would report that she had been "tortured"? Or would they adhere to their current practice and say she had been subject to "harsh interrogation"?

If the leaders of Iran publicly stated that they had succeeded in proving that she was indeed a spy and her confession showed it, would Dick Cheney believe them? And would Bill O'Reilly proudly argue that the Saberi case proves that "harsh interrogation" "works"?

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/a-simple-question-ii.html

 

[wnyxmcneal]

Bush was friends with Ernie Ladd.

The Bush family is also friends with Ric Flair

 

[EHME]

Bush was friends with Ernie Ladd.

I'm sure Ventura was too.

Ventura also got to bash Hogan almost every week, could Bush? Noooooo.

 

[KOAB]

But Bush went all NWO beats down the entire WCW locker room on Iraq!

 

[snuffbox]

And stuck around 6 years too long.

 

[Gary]

The NWO wore out their welcome too, just not as long.

 

[KOAB]

Obama is Booker T and and China buys us 18 months from now?

 

[Dr. Zaius]

Obama is Booker T and and China buys us 18 months from now?

I think someone on the old board used to have a signature with a picture of Booker T. Washington saying "Can you dig it, sucka?"

 

[Gary]

Obama is Booker T and and China buys us 18 months from now?

I think someone on the old board used to have a signature with a picture of Booker T. Washington saying "Can you dig it, sucka?"

MJ Styles actually had an amusing story of sorts, if I recall

[quote name='MJ Styles' date='Feb 9 2005, 05:22 PM' post='1777321']
Totally off topic, but Robot, your sig made me laugh at a funny memory, my senior year in high school, my friend and I (both wrestling fans) were in a Computer Apps class, and we had to create a Powerpoint presentation on an historical figure, so he chose Booker T Washington, and I gave him the bright idea that he should start it like Booker T's titantron with the words CAN YOU DIG IT SUCKA? all flying in big yellow print like they do on the titantron, and then have Booker T (the wrestler) appear doing the spinerooni and narrate the thing on BTW's life, saying "sucka" after every sentence. The teacher just looked at it and went "Can you dig it sucka?" (like what the hell?) and got pissed meanwhile we're laughing our asses off. Almost as funny as the time we had to make a Jeapordy type game and I decided to make "Good 'ole JR's Rasslin Trivia" all wrestling questions that depending on a right or wrong answer, a ridiculous picture of JR would pop up and say one of his saying in a word bubble (like "He's whipping him like a government mule, bah god!"). Luckily the teacher was a little bit of a wrestling fan and let us get away with this stuff (he always asked us when Goldberg was coming back). I wish I still had those projects saved, but they were deleted at the end of the semester. sad.gif

Ok, carry on your partisan bickering.
[/quote]

 

[Dr. Zaius]

One more argument that torture doesn't produce reliable information.

Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday.

The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it, Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and then-Vice President Cheney's office kept close tabs on the questioning.

"Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda," Wilkerson wrote in The Washington Note, an online political journal.

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said his accusation is based on information from current and former officials. He said he has been "relentlessly digging" since 2004, when Powell asked him to look into the scandal surrounding the treatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

"I couldn't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate," he told CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/14/iraq.torture/index.html

 

[NoCalMike]

Well now Yahoo is reporting basically what I posted in the other link,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090515/pl_mcclatchy/3234269

"The (al Qaida-Iraq) links go back," he said. "We know for example from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo that al Qaida sent individuals to Baghdad to be trained in C.W. and B.W. technology, chemical and biological weapons technology. These are all matters that are there for anybody who wants to look at it."

No evidence of such training or of any operational links between Iraq and al Qaida has ever been found, according to several official inquiries.

It's not apparent which Guantanamo detainees Cheney was referring to in the interview.

One al Qaida detainee, Ibn al Sheikh al Libi , claimed that terrorist operatives were sent to Iraq for chemical and biological weapons training, but he was in CIA custody, not at Guantanamo .

Moreover, he recanted his assertions, some of them allegedly made under torture while he was being interrogated in Egypt .

"No postwar information has been found that indicates CBW training occurred, and the detainee who provided the key prewar reporting about this training recanted his claims after the war," a September 2006 Senate Intelligence Committee report said.

Although the Defense Intelligence Agency questioned it at the time, former President George W. Bush cited al Libi's claim in an October 2002 address, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell used in his February 2003 speech to the United Nations .

A Libyan newspaper last week reported that al Libi committed suicide in a Libyan jail

It should also be of note that right before the "suicide" American attorneys were trying to get a hold of Al Libi. Another suspicious suicide.

Also, these are a miniscule representation photos that Obama decided to block.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/the-photos-america-doesnt-want-seen/2006/02/14/1139890737099.html
(click "more photos")

They were actually leaked years ago to a Sydney news paper. Funny how most other countries have already seen the atrocities. Now it seems more about whether Americans are actually willing to see it and accept what was going on FOR THEMSELVES. Self reflection is a big part of this, and if Obama continues to help keep this covered up, then come the next generation, we are going to have a hell of a lot of people denying torture ever took place.

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

Nancy Pelosi v. The CIA

That bitch is sunk. She totally let this go on and is trying to backpedal now that she finds out the country actually doesn't like torture! Lotta representatives/senators doing this lately.

 

[Twisted Intestine]

Anyone who sees those pictures and doesn't think that everyone involved from that redneck holding down the guy with a big smile on his face to Bush shouldn't be locked away is crazy. I've lost a ton of respect for Obama if he's covering this up.

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

Look, it won't matter to hostile groups who was president when this happened. The point will be "America did this." It's good to not let the enemy get a lot of stuff he can use against you. Things won't be forgiven because they're released under a title of "hey, sorry guys."