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Confirmed: "torture" saved L.A. from 9/11 style attack (pg. 15)
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Scottaculous
quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
another false meme, but it's understandable b/c no one is familiar with the procedure. and yes, things get very, very specific when resorting to waterboarding. everything is monitored by third party professionals including psychologists and medical personel.

first, KSM wasn't waterboarded 180 odd times in a month. the 183 times means 183 pours of water or instances during session when water is applied to the bird.

you see things get very strict here and you can't just go pouring water on birds willy-nilly. every pour is counted and the amount of water that can be used each session is limited. in fact, you're limited to how long each "pour" can last which to count as a pour must be longer than 10 seconds but be no longer than 40 seconds for each pour. you are only allowed 6 pours per session in which no session can last longer than 2 hours. in total, water can be poured on the bird for no longer than a combined 12 minutes throughout a 24hr. period.

in addition to that, birds were limited to only 5 sessions for every 30 days.


so each pour must be longer than 10 seconds, no more than 40? i have no seen any video where the guy lasted more than 5 seconds. i doubt any of us will last up to 10 seconds. where are you getting this regulation of waterboarding from anyway?
Shakka
It's in the Bradbury document he referenced, pg. 15.
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Lol, I spit out my beer!


I love when people comment on books they haven't read.
The17sss
quote:
Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Instant nominee for Top 5 PDD posts of all-time.

pwned.


Looks like all of you got owned by Q5... you and your idealistic visions of utopia. I thank Q for beating me to the punch on those retorts.

As for MisterOpus, you are the biggest ing on all of TA, and if you think you are intellectually and morally superior to me because you can research arguments and post links quicker than me, then by all means... enjoy your time at the top. I will never respond to any of your posts from this point on... not because I "can't", but because as I said before, you're so ing crass, and every response out of you is filled with ad homens and elitist condesencion. I can only imagine what kind of person you are in your everyday life to the people around you. So kindly off and die.
----------------------------------------------------------

Lebez... do you really think Obama isn't doing this for political reasons? He is supposed to be the great unifier and a "post partisan" president. But everything that comes out of his mouth is blame directed at the Bush administration, conservatives, republicans, etc. He doesn't even know who his real enemies are.

Thanks to him, Al Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them.... if they had not already been outlawed. So next time a terrorist is captured, all the CIA can do is ask nicely if he would care to reveal the sensitive information he may be holding. And again, what is the point/motive, other than to embarass the Bush administration, for him to release the additional abuse photos from something that we've already been through, knowing the backlash that's to come? THIS is the big picture the Obamabots don't seem to care about; none of you seem to be worried about real intelligence officers' concerns because if Obama is making the call, it's gotta be the right call.

Look at ex CIA chief Porter Goss' statement from yesterday.... he's saying what needs to be heard:

quote:
Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now.


He goes on to explain the amnesia (or lies if we're being honest here) that Pelosi and all of the other's, including other prominent Dems, are spewing... regarding waterboarding and the other techniques that were used; he explains how they ing KNEW exactly what they helped make legal.

quote:
A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.


-- We understood what the CIA was doing.


-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.


-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.


-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed-out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat -- or God forbid, another successful attack -- captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.

Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation.

We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.

The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.

Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.

The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...opinion/columns
Lebezniatnikov
quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
hold on a second chief. i know your not going to apply Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld ex post facto, are ya?

....yeah, i thought so.


Well the argument here is, after all, whether torture should continue to be utilized in the future, no?
Lebezniatnikov
quote:
Originally posted by The17sss
Looks like all of you got owned by Q5... you and your idealistic visions of utopia. I thank Q for beating me to the punch on those retorts.


:wtf:

quote:
As for MisterOpus, you are the biggest ing on all of TA, and if you think you are intellectually and morally superior to me because you can research arguments and post links quicker than me, then by all means... enjoy your time at the top. I will never respond to any of your posts from this point on... not because I "can't", but because as I said before, you're so ing crass, and every response out of you is filled with ad homens and elitist condesencion. I can only imagine what kind of person you are in your everyday life to the people around you. So kindly off and die.


So this is a grand way of saying you can't respond to what he's written, no? Or is it a way of saying "you use ad hominems just like me, but I'm going to stand on a principle I deem cowardice in others"?

quote:
Lebez... do you really think Obama isn't doing this for political reasons? He is supposed to be the great unifier and a "post partisan" president. But everything that comes out of his mouth is blame directed at the Bush administration, conservatives, republicans, etc. He doesn't even know who his real enemies are.


Doing what, exactly? Since you attribute everything bad in the world to Obama, I'm not sure what you're specifically talking about here.

quote:
Thanks to him, Al Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them.... if they had not already been outlawed. So next time a terrorist is captured, all the CIA can do is ask nicely if he would care to reveal the sensitive information he may be holding.


Erm... ok. I'll just refer you to what Shakka posted about the huge spectrum of things that can be done between torture and asking nicely.

quote:
And again, what is the point/motive, other than to embarass the Bush administration, for him to release the additional abuse photos from something that we've already been through, knowing the backlash that's to come?


Are you serious? The Administration complies with the Freedom of Information Act (something they are obligated to do by law), and you're pissed off about it? God, there really is no pleasing you, is there? If you have beef with those photos being released, take it up with the plaintiffs requesting the information or the attorneys advising the federal government that the information does not meet one of the nine specific exemptions. You would hold the Obama Administration in contempt if they DIDN'T release the info, so who the hell are you trying to kid?

quote:
THIS is the big picture the Obamabots


I stopped reading after your ad hominem, and I don't think I can respond to anything you ever write anymore.
MisterOpus1
quote:
Originally posted by The17sss
Looks like all of you got owned by Q5... you and your idealistic visions of utopia. I thank Q for beating me to the punch on those retorts.


Gawd, I am back in junior high. Just because I don't respond right away, champ, doesn't indicate I have nothing to say. Real life responsibilities like meeting with our realtor over foundation issues, and a big frackin' tornado warning with funnel clouds passing over our house kinda distracted me from the major issues here on TA.

quote:
As for MisterOpus, you are the biggest ing on all of TA,


Takes one to know one, chief. Last I recall, YOU were the first to throw out the first ad hominem and called me this:

quote:
Nothing worse than a grumpy, condescending ... that's the truth. And you wonder why I don't usualy want to give you my time to answer your ing questions.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...6&pagenumber=11


I have a bit of a personal rule that I've kept for many years here, long before you ever came around. I try to stay away from personal attacks unless I am attacked first. Just like I try to stay away from directly posting from blog sites and commentary from progressive/liberal sites, unless I see someone post something from a conservative site first. When these situations happen, however, all bets are off, IMO.

quote:
and if you think you are intellectually and morally superior to me because you can research arguments and post links quicker than me, then by all means... enjoy your time at the top.


Thanks, I will. Kinda gets a little lonely up here, though. It would sure be better if you could join me by supporting your arguments and answering direct questions posed to you every once in a while.


quote:
I will never respond to any of your posts from this point on...


Well now I'm really getting hurt.....

quote:
not because I "can't",


No, it is because you can't. At least that's what it appears to be the case.

quote:
but because as I said before, you're so ing crass, and every response out of you is filled with ad homens and elitist condesencion.


I am ing crass, but that's how I've always been. You think I'd change just for someone like you? I mean that kitty in your picture is cute, and I'm sure you make a mean plate of spaghetti, and you probably do show the courtesy of brushing your teeth before jumping into bed, and I do hope you give me a damp towel when we're finished and all......

but darnit, old habits of mine die hard!!!!


quote:
I can only imagine what kind of person you are in your everyday life to the people around you. So kindly off and die.
----------------------------------------------------------


Bummer. There goes another potential BFF. Why do I keep chasing them off?


quote:
Lebez... do you really think Obama isn't doing this for political reasons? He is supposed to be the great unifier and a "post partisan" president. But everything that comes out of his mouth is blame directed at the Bush administration, conservatives, republicans, etc. He doesn't even know who his real enemies are.


The Canadians? When in doubt......

quote:
Thanks to him, Al Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them....


Oh god, umm, you really bought into this? You really think al Qaeda didn't already know what we're doing to them, chief? Christ almighty, EVERYINGBODY KNEW WHAT WE WERE DOING TO DETAINEES FOR YEARS! You think our enemy lives in a vacuum? I know I've heard Hannity and Rush say this over and over - are you really that dense to believe them on this?

But here's a question for you to wrap your head around - if these torture methods were sooooo effective as we're told over and over by Limbaugh, how can al Qaeda train themselves to withstand them? And what's more, these methods are banned by Obama now, right? Why would it matter now then what al Qaeda trains for if we are no longer using these methods?

Christ, have you ever really thought about the things you say and followed them to their logical end?


quote:
So next time a terrorist is captured, all the CIA can do is ask nicely if he would care to reveal the sensitive information he may be holding.


Actually, it's been revealed ad nauseum that befriending the detainees (or at least pretending to befriend them), has revealed more information than any other method. As an example, Zubaydah gave us Jose Padilla BEFORE we started torturing him, and after that point it's apparently highly debatable how credible his info. was while we tortured him:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...ml?hpid=topnews

He also gave up KSM BEFORE torture as well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/o...r=1&ref=opinion

Or how about this guy who just talked to an Iraqi insurgent, and wa able to obtain info. that brought down al-Zarqawi:

quote:
I refused to participate in such (brutal) practices, and a month later, I extended that prohibition to the team of interrogators I was assigned to lead. I taught the members of my unit a new methodology -- one based on building rapport with suspects, showing cultural understanding and using good old-fashioned brainpower to tease out information. I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they're listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of "ruses and trickery"). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...8112802242.html


So yeah, actually other methods outside of electrocution, waterboarding, dogs, sleep deprivation, humiliation, etc. etc. tended to work quite well. I'm wondering if there will ever come a day for you to acknowledge that, chief.


quote:
And again, what is the point/motive, other than to embarass the Bush administration, for him to release the additional abuse photos from something that we've already been through, knowing the backlash that's to come?


Because he has to comply with the law? See Lebez's response. It really isn't that difficult to understand.

quote:
THIS is the big picture the Obamabots don't seem to care about; none of you seem to be worried about real intelligence officers' concerns because if Obama is making the call, it's gotta be the right call.

Look at ex CIA chief Porter Goss' statement from yesterday.... he's saying what needs to be heard:



He goes on to explain the amnesia (or lies if we're being honest here) that Pelosi and all of the other's, including other prominent Dems, are spewing... regarding waterboarding and the other techniques that were used; he explains how they ing KNEW exactly what they helped make legal.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...opinion/columns


There is a bit of an interesting dynamic going on here between Goss/CIA and the Democratic leadership with Pelosi, Harman, and others. What Goss is doing is he's putting the pressure on Obama and Pelosi not to go forward with these trials, lest Pelosi wants to go down with him. The problem with this, however, is that this is no longer in Obama's hands, but in Eric Holder at the DoJ. He has the sole power to go forward, and if we believe in the autonomy of the DoJ (or at least a little more independence compared to how Bush and Gonzales demonstrated with utter embarrassment), Holder must go forward as the law and evidence compels him to do so.

And as I've said before, if that brings down Pelosi, Harman, and any other Democrat who were complicit in this outrageous behavior of torturing individuals against our laws, then ing so be it. We are a nation of laws, and we must hold those accountable for breaking them. And I don't give a if they are Democrat or Republican.

You call me crass, and I am. There are some subjects that make me an especially big , and this is one of them. I am utterly ing embarrassed by what my country's leaders did to others in that last Administration. I could not believe we went to such dishonorable, unAmerican levels as we did, to some respects that we were really no better than those we were fighting against - we became lawless in our own right. Our government did despicable things, and they were against our laws as well as international laws that we were obligated to uphold. We didn't just torture people, we KILLED THEM in the process:

http://www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights...rs20051024.html

You understand this? We tortured not just the rotten bastards who wanted to hurt us, we did it across the board to many, including those who were innocent and some we just plain killed. Some were even let go. Some were sent off to other countries so those nations could torture them instead of us. There is no excuse for this behavior, none. If we do not uphold our laws and lead by example, how the do we expect any other country on this planet to do the same? How can we point our hypocritical finger at anyone when we ignore the very same international laws that are legally binding in our own Constitution?

This is my point of view. And this is why I'm an when it comes to this subject. If you could ever just step away from your AM radio and try to comprehend my feelings on this just a little bit, and know that despite my left-leaning views I want justice to anyone who did this to people, you may just begin to understand why I'm a little passionate about this.
Lebezniatnikov
quote:
Originally posted by MisterOpus1


And as I've said before, if that brings down Pelosi, Harman, and any other Democrat who were complicit in this outrageous behavior of torturing individuals against our laws, then ing so be it. We are a nation of laws, and we must hold those accountable for breaking them. And I don't give a if they are Democrat or Republican.

You call me crass, and I am. There are some subjects that make me an especially big , and this is one of them. I am utterly ing embarrassed by what my country's leaders did to others in that last Administration. I could not believe we went to such dishonorable, unAmerican levels as we did, to some respects that we were really no better than those we were fighting against - we became lawless in our own right. Our government did despicable things, and they were against our laws as well as international laws that we were obligated to uphold. We didn't just torture people, we KILLED THEM in the process:

http://www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights...rs20051024.html

You understand this? We tortured not just the rotten bastards who wanted to hurt us, we did it across the board to many, including those who were innocent and some we just plain killed. Some were even let go. Some were sent off to other countries so those nations could torture them instead of us. There is no excuse for this behavior, none. If we do not uphold our laws and lead by example, how the do we expect any other country on this planet to do the same? How can we point our hypocritical finger at anyone when we ignore the very same international laws that are legally binding in our own Constitution?

This is my point of view. And this is why I'm an when it comes to this subject. If you could ever just step away from your AM radio and try to comprehend my feelings on this just a little bit, and know that despite my left-leaning views I want justice to anyone who did this to people, you may just begin to understand why I'm a little passionate about this.


Spot on.

I would only add that beyond being hypocritical and abrogating our own morals, we actually put our soldiers in even greater danger abroad by creating flashpoint issues that terrorist organizations can use to recruit new anti-American terrorists.
MisterOpus1
quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
youre barking up the wrong tree. (or the right tree if we had full discosure but b/c of Obama politization of National Security, we don't. trademark HopeyChangey.:rolleyes: )

the media on both sides have missed some of the context here about some of what exactly KSM provided including the "second wave" plot. understadably, because not everything has been disclosed. you just have to read for yourself and draw your own conclusions until we get full disclosure

you have to go >HERE< to at least try to make sense of context. start at the top of p.10. but you cant' get far b/c the entire next page is redacted. i would guess it further builds upon the successes gained from KSM and Zubaydah, but i can only speculate.


I agree that it's difficult to get much out of that redacted report, but what's also evident is the fact that one event clearly happened before the other:



The LA attack was foiled in 2002. KSM wasn't captured until 2003. How is it that torturing KSM in 2003 foiled an attack in 2002? If there is information that KSM gave that proved valuable during torture, it clearly does not appear to add up to the claim being made because the timeline simply doesn't work. IOW, the claim is completely dubious.

If you're arguing that he gave credible info. that we are not able to see yet because of the redaction, fine. I'd contend otherwise, considering we have FBI Director Mueller stating quite clearly if "enhanced interrogation" foiled any plots:

quote:
I don’t believe that has been the case

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/...currentPage=all


But again that's a separate issue as to the validity of the claim being made, which simply doesn't add up to the timeline of events.



quote:
just lay off 17sss for now.


I do believe he's old enough to stand up for himself.
MisterOpus1
quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
we just don't equate our Constitution as easily you people seem to like doing at the drop of a hat.


Drop of the hat? Quoting Article 6 of the Constitution:

quote:
[A]ll Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.

http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A6.html


is a "drop of the hat?"

Umm, okay.



quote:
another false meme, but it's understandable b/c no one is familiar with the procedure. and yes, things get very, very specific when resorting to waterboarding. everything is monitored by third party professionals including psychologists and medical personel.


Yeah, that must have been why FBI was threatening to arrest a CIA interrogator:

quote:
Justice officials refused to comment on what the new A.G. will do, but White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that if he does open an investigation, the White House would support him. The videotapes, made in 2002, showed the questioning of two high-level Qaeda detainees, including logistics chief Abu Zubaydah, whose interrogation at a secret cell in Thailand sparked an internal battle within the U.S. intelligence community after FBI agents angrily protested the aggressive methods that were used. In addition to waterboarding, Zubaydah was subjected to sleep deprivation and bombarded with blaring rock music by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. One agent was so offended he threatened to arrest the CIA interrogators, according to two former government officials directly familiar with the dispute.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...ml?hpid=topnews


Because things were so well carefully controlled by outside parties.

And despite that, claims of waterboarding effectiveness were made by those doing and believing so strongly in it - claims that are seemingly turned on their head when we discovered how often it was applied:

quote:
According to Kiriakou's account, which he said is based on detailed descriptions by fellow team members, Abu Zubaida broke after just 35 seconds of waterboarding, which involved stretching cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water on his face to create the sensation of drowning.

But other former and current officials disagreed that Abu Zubaida's cooperation came quickly under harsh interrogation or that it was the result of a single waterboarding session. Instead, these officials said, harsh tactics used on him at a secret detention facility in Thailand went on for weeks or, depending on the account, even months.


So no, I don't believe it was very effective at all, based on this account and the others that I've posted previously. Nor does the FBI:

quote:
But FBI officials, including agents who questioned him after his capture or reviewed documents seized from his home, have concluded that even though he knew some al-Qaeda players, he provided interrogators with increasingly dubious information as the CIA's harsh treatment intensified in late 2002.

In legal papers prepared for a military hearing, Abu Zubaida himself has asserted that he told his interrogators whatever they wanted to hear to make the treatment stop.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...ml?hpid=topnews


If anything, methods applied prior to torture were MORE effective with obtained reliable intellegence, as that article describes as well as the others I posted in my last reply to 17.

Furthermore, those doctors and psychiatrists were not there to oversee how carefully controlled the torture was. They were there to make sure the ing detainees didn't die. With the legal obfuscation and watering down of what torture meant thanks to Yoo and others, those doctors were there to make sure they were kept alive and/or make sure they're organs weren't failing. Strange then how at least 20-40 of them died anyway:

http://www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights...rs20051024.html

And please, don't try to hide behind using medical personnel from the CIA. As a health care worker myself, it absolutely sickens me what they did, and it's a shame to my field. They should and likely will, at the very least, get their licenses pulled, and be fully prosecuted with the rest of those who authored these crimes. As the International Committee of the Red Cross depicts:

quote:
"medical professionals' role was primarily to support the interrogators, not to protect the prisoners, and that the professionals had 'condoned and participated in ill treatment.'"

http://www.nybooks.com/icrc-report.pdf


And they conclude that:

quote:
“their participation was a ‘gross breach of medical ethics,’

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/world/07detain.html?ref=todayspaper


To which I couldn't agree more. Get these f$ckers out of the field of health care, please.



quote:
first, KSM wasn't waterboarded 180 odd times in a month. the 183 times means 183 pours of water or instances during session when water is applied to the bird.


That's 183 times too many. 1 time = 1 instance of waterboarding = 1 instance of torture. But just out of curiousity, could you source these specifics somewhere for me?

quote:
you see things get very strict here and you can't just go pouring water on birds willy-nilly. every pour is counted and the amount of water that can be used each session is limited. in fact, you're limited to how long each "pour" can last which to count as a pour must be longer than 10 seconds but be no longer than 40 seconds for each pour. you are only allowed 6 pours per session in which no session can last longer than 2 hours. in total, water can be poured on the bird for no longer than a combined 12 minutes throughout a 24hr. period.

in addition to that, birds were limited to only 5 sessions for every 30 days.


Gosh, it really sounds so much less like torture when you put it that way..........

MisterOpus1
quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
hold on a second chief. i know your not going to apply Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld ex post facto, are ya?

....yeah, i thought so.


Umm, huh? The hell does that supposed to mean? Are you implying that since the Hamdan decision wasn't made until 2006, that it's not retroactively binding to those who authored and authorized the torture in the first place?

I want to make sure I understand your argument here before I reply further. You have a propensity of being enigmatic and confusing at times, so I'd like you to be specific at what exactly you're arguing.
MisterOpus1
quote:
Originally posted by Q5echo
i'm sure it could - but thats not to say it doesn't produce reliable information...and thats also to say that any form of interogation can "produce unreliable information"...which is to ultimately say nothing at all, really in your rejection of certain interrogation tactics.

to add to that, part of S.E.R.E. training is teaching soldiers and airmen how to give false information to thier captors. professionals assume that goes for any type of captive resistance training, foriegn or domestic from Hamas, Hezbollah, S.A.S., Revolutionary Guard, Spetsnaz, Al Queera, Kampfshwimmer, even Canadian Special Forces.


I don't think you can misconstrue what the authors of SERE are saying in those newly released documents I posted from the WaPost. Warning the pentagon that it will produce "unreliable information" should have been a major red flag not to use it in the first place.

I get the fact that unreliable info. could be given with any method, however there were red flags all over the place about the use of torture in the first place, so much so that the Bush Administration had to come up with dubious legal definitions by Bybee and Yoo (both to which are likely going to get disbarred) before even utilizing it. One would think that utilizing such methods by stretching the definition out to such ridiculous lengths would be troublesome, to say the least.

And besides, I will go back to the original argument I posted because this entire discussion is sidetracking that which cannot be dodged:

1. We do not torture. If we do, we are violating international law and our own Constitution.

2. The timeline of the capture of KSM in 2003 does not add up to him giving reliable information to stopping an attack on a library building in 2002, unless he's got a ing time machine.

quote:
intelligence information does not exist in a vacuum. you cross reference and corroberate everything you have and you go from there. it's simple investigation 101...but with caterpillars


I understand, but none of that negates my 2 points above.
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