Torture

But wasn't this about EXECUTIONS??

It doesn't matter if they were executed for torturing Americans by water boarding or if they were sentenced to 20 years hard labor. The fact is they were convicted of torturing Americans in much the same way we are now (or were under Bush, and would be still if you had your way) torturing others.
 
Lots of posts, none that deal with the central issue of enemy combatants vs. legitimate lawful soldiers. Just as some have experienced with me, fight like a gentlemen and so will I; fight like an asshole and I will educate you on the definition.
 
No. Youre article on waterboarding was interesting but not relevant. What you fail to see is there is a difference between something is offensive to some and criminal by the definition of the law.

All your purpose is to try and make them the same, which is faulty. You can be offended by US personnel waterboarding, but then claim its torture and charge criminality is a different matter.

Are you going to get to the point where if the food tastes bad, that too will be torture? Restraining the hands using hand cuffs? Will this too become torture? Holding prisoners in a confined space? Will that become torture?

Dont you think its important to have a little perspective?

SR
Not relevant? What the fuck are you blathering about. It has been a violation of the law of war since at least 1898. WE HAVE PROSECUTED the act since then. The military has taught that it was a crime, the Japanese were prosecuted in part for doing the same act you misrepresented as never been prosecuted.
 
FBI: Key Sept. 11 Leads Obtained Without Torture

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103475220

All Things Considered, April 24, 2009 · One of the critical questions in the debate over the CIA's use of harsh interrogation tactics is this: Did they work?

The case of Abu Zubaydah is often held up as the quintessential example of why enhanced interrogation techniques are a necessary evil. Former CIA director Michael Hayden said as much on Fox News last Sunday: "The critical information we got from Abu Zubaydah came after we began the EITs [enhanced interrogation techniques]."

Anchor Chris Wallace pressed him, "Not before?"

Hayden was emphatic. "No."

In a recent editorial, Hayden was even more specific. He claimed that the enhanced interrogation techniques led to the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

That said, one of Zubaydah's FBI interrogators, Ali Soufan, remembers it differently. Soufan wrote in The New York Times that Zubaydah talked without being coerced.

Two high-ranking former FBI sources remember it that way, too. They say that intelligence breakthroughs came before Zubaydah was subjected to harsh techniques, not after. Another person close to the interrogation, Rohan Gunaratna, has similar recollections. He is an al-Qaida expert who has worked with U.S. government agencies on terrorism issues.

"Gen. Hayden is dead wrong" about harsh techniques getting information from Zubaydah, he says. "I have tremendous respect for Gen. Hayden, but he is wrong in this case."

Tending To The Prisoner

Gunaratna and FBI agents familiar with the Zubaydah case say he was shot and near death when he was captured. FBI agents, including Soufan, tended to Zubaydah during his convalescence. The idea was partly to bond with him.

When he was well enough, the agents began showing Zubaydah pictures of suspected members of al-Qaida. When he saw a photograph of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Zubaydah apparently asked, "How do you know about Muktar?"

"We know all about Muktar," the agent said, without missing a beat. He flipped through several other photos and then went back to the picture of Mohammed.

Zubaydah looked up and added, "How did you know he was the mastermind of 9/11?"

Gunaratna says that was a critical revelation — and there were others. "In fact, most of the information that was exceptionally useful to the fight against al-Qaida came from Abu Zubaydah," he says, "and it came before the U.S. government decided to use enhanced techniques."

The Padilla Lead

There is a second important claim: That harsh interrogation tactics also led to the arrest of American Jose Padilla. Gunaratna was the government's expert in the Padilla case. He said they got the key lead on Padilla from Zubaydah without using torture.

Zubaydah apparently told the FBI about a Puerto Rican kid — in Jordan — who had instructions from Khalid Sheik Mohammed to get a clean passport and head back to the U.S.

The FBI asked the U.S. Embassy in Jordan to look for a young man of Hispanic descent who had tried to get a new passport. Padilla's name popped up. The FBI got his picture, showed it to Zubaydah and said, "Is this the guy?" Zubaydah nodded.

The authorities picked up Padilla when he got to Chicago.

Matthew Alexander was a military interrogator in Iraq. He thinks that the FBI's techniques work and says the results of the CIA techniques speak for themselves.

"The fact that [the CIA] waterboarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times and he never lead them to Osama bin Laden is a glaring failure," he said.

The dispute over whether harsh interrogations led to the capture of Mohammed and Padilla won't settle the debate over whether torture actually works. And certainly the FBI has a stake in claiming it succeeded where the CIA failed. But according to FBI accounts, critical information was obtained before harsh techniques were ever used.
 
Lots of posts, none that deal with the central issue of enemy combatants vs. legitimate lawful soldiers. Just as some have experienced with me, fight like a gentlemen and so will I; fight like an asshole and I will educate you on the definition.


Interesting. You know, you should have emailed this to Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury back in 2002. It would have saved them lots of time and effort. Here they created this spurious legal justification for torture using arguments that do not pass the laugh test and all they really had to do was just say "enemy combatants."

Nice work, jackass.
 
Interesting. You know, you should have emailed this to Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury back in 2002. It would have saved them lots of time and effort. Here they created this spurious legal justification for torture using arguments that do not pass the laugh test and all they really had to do was just say "enemy combatants."

Nice work, jackass.
The premise of your argument is that the enhanced techniques involved are torture, which they are not.
 
the truth has a liberal bias and the last 8 years have proven that.

All the "left" leaning news these guys hate was RIGHT about the corruption that was taking place over the Bush years.

It just kills me how the Right leaning people continue to cast stones at the part of the media that got the story correct and cling to their Fox news which turned out to be massively wrong abotu defending at every turn the people who did this to our coutnry.
 
Well then I'll just have to concede you the point that objectivity is a liberal bias.
Ridiculous, objectivity has no bias. However, announcing that it is "known around the world as" an objective source of news doesn't make it objective, it just makes it something you said.

He posted a link with a story showing that the NPR ombudsman spoke of the bias exhibited by their programming. You restated something you said. Somehow I'm thinking that the left has a distinct disadvantage in this kind of representative "argument".

;)

That being said, there is a reason that the US "doesn't torture". It made people on the "bad guy" side more likely to surrender during war, knowing they would be treated well. That and information gathered from such is suspect at best.
 
The premise of your argument is that the enhanced techniques involved are torture, which they are not.


We have prosicuted our own soldiers for waterboarding.

We have prosicuted others soldiers for waterboarding.

We have prosicuted lae inforcement members for waterboarding.

There are documents that tell Bush and team that waterboarding is toruture.

Its an international war crime.


The only place I can think that you are getting your information from is that circular file that is your ass ....or.......maybe you have been reaching into Cheney's ass?
 
We have prosicuted our own soldiers for waterboarding.

We have prosicuted others soldiers for waterboarding.

We have prosicuted lae inforcement members for waterboarding.

There are documents that tell Bush and team that waterboarding is toruture.

Its an international war crime.


The only place I can think that you are getting your information from is that circular file that is your ass ....or.......maybe you have been reaching into Cheney's ass?

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I would have no problem leaving the Geneva Convention, but so long as we are signatories we should make an effort to follow it in respect to the treatment of formal prisoners of war.
 
It's amazing to me... all these pinhead retorts, and not once is it mentioned, alQaeda is not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. Their "country" and "officials" can't be held to account for violations of a treaty they didn't sign. This means, the World Court can never hear a case for War Crimes against Bin Laden, or any other alQaeda member. The US did sign the GC, and they have upheld the standards of the GC for any enemy who is a signatory. This can't be said for many of our enemies and even some of our allies. People with guns and bombs, who were attempting to kill and maim US soldiers, were captured on the battlefield. Since they were not wearing a uniform, a prerequisite for GC POW protocols, they were deemed "enemy combatants" and detained. Mostly at Gitmo.

Liberals have bestowed GC protections upon these members of alQaeda, just as they have bestowed Constitutional rights, they deserve neither. We are not bound or obligated to give Constitutional rights to enemies of this country, and we are not bound to uphold the standards of the GC for non-signatories of the GC, who are not following GC protocol, and are not accountable to any other governing authority.

It's kind of like, if I bought a lottery ticket, then lost the lottery, and some other schmuck won the jackpot, but then, I come along and insist that since I purchased a ticket, I am entitled to a share of the jackpot. It's just completely devoid of common sense. alQaeda is not a nation, doesn't have a flag, doesn't have a president or government, doesn't have an embassy or capitol, and has contradicted the spirit of the Geneva Convention in about every way possible, but pinheads still believe they deserve to be treated as if they signed the GC and we're obligated to uphold it. Amazing!

And here we have a well-made point about how our techniques, while uncomfortable and unpleasant, are a far cry from the atrocities of the past from our enemies, and pinheads falling all over themselves to post "we don't torture people!" It's like there is a mental disconnect, they just don't seem to understand the distinction which makes something "torture" and why our techniques simply don't meet that criteria.

Then, there is this kind of stupid thinking...
Really, and if some foreign power captures an American soldier and tortures him is that ok. I mean we do it so it should be ok for them to do it too, right?

The basic logic behind the pinhead notion that we shouldn't use harsh interrogation tactics, is that it will somehow protect Americans captured by our enemies. As if Abdul Mohamed is going to be the least bit concerned with this, as he sharpens his knife in preparation to behead a westerner. Yes, I am sure Zarqawi only took Nick Berg's head off, because we put panties on a Muslim's head....that makes sense! //sarcasm

Here is what is happening... We are using coercive interrogation techniques, none of which result in death or grave risk to life, in an attempt to extract intelligence information regarding terrorism, which specifically targets the US and our allies. We have only used this on a handful of the highest level alQaeda captives, and we have gained information which has indeed prevented terrorist attacks in the US and abroad.

This is what is happening with liberals, they have interchanged the word "terrorist" with "minority group" and gone into full radical '60s mode. To them, members of alQaeda are like members of the Black Panthers, and liberals can sympathize with their struggle and plight. Each time they see a person from the right, talk about "terrorist" they immediately come to the defense, because these "terrorists" are representative of all the oppressed minorities the left has always supported.

What is ironic, is these very people they are defending, are far more extreme 'right-wing-religious' than they have ever encountered. Imagine Pat Robertson with an AK-47! These cats are about 10x worse than that. These poor little Gitmo detainees you are fighting for, to give Constitutional rights to? They would saw the head off every homosexual in America, if they had the chance. You liberal, free-sex, free-love, fetus aborting, pro-choice, females out there... they would have your ass in a full length black hooded smock, and you would be walking two steps behind any male. THAT IS WHAT THEY BELIEVE! THAT IS WHY THEY ARE FIGHTING A JIHAD AGAINST US!

What is even MORE interesting, is watching the Obama administration grapple with the reality of the situation, after all the campaign rhetoric. Turns out, that "failed Bush policy" seemed to not be such a bad idea after all, to the Obama Justice Department. Many of those same "failed Bush policies" are now part of Obama Policy, and in some cases, enhanced and stepped up! It seems once Obama was briefed on what we were actually doing, and what was actually working, and how we were keeping America safe, he realized he couldn't change that. So now, we have his administration, doing a little tap dance for their loony left fringe base, who remain curiously silent about it here.
 
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