None of us are in a position to weigh the value of torture against matters of national security. It's simple to kick back in an easy chair and declare that torture is immoral and unnecessary. It's just another sign of the softening American character that bin Laden laughs about. In the meantime, we have troops in Iraq playing nice and getting shot up for it.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
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1999 Toyota Tacoma

Boil 'em in pig fat.

That way they will appreciate the waterboarding.....

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Palangi

2004 C240 Wagon 203.261 Baby Benz
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TRUMP .......... WHITEHOUSE
HILLARY .........JAILHOUSE
BERNIE .......... NUTHOUSE
0BAMA .......... OUTHOUSE

How true, I had an interesting conversation last Saturday with a solider who just got out. He spent two tours in Iraq, I forget exactly where I couldn't really pronounce the name let alone spell it. Anyway he said the )(&)*(&*( insurgents would place IED's on one stretch of highway all the time, it got to the point where they would go off several times a week, one actualy took the track off a tank! He said they would approach the road from this valley because they had good cover at night, then they would plant them and go back up the valley. So this one section always had IED's. One night they were on another mission but from where they were could observe the valley and road, and sure enough about a dozen of them were coming down carrying crap. They radioded back to base and wanted to get permission to as he said "waste the mother ****ers." But they couldn't rules of engagement, I guess can't fire on "civilians". But sure enough the next day as a convoy went by, BANG.

How the **** can we win a war like that. In WW2 they would have just opened up on them. As the old saying went, "when in doubt win the war!"

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who in their right minds today believes that torture never exists in war? of course it does. the value of intelligence and saving your guy's ass outweighs anything. ive never served, i've never killed, etc, but damn sure if i saw some a-hole terrorist planting a bomb, id do whatever it takes to make him give up the other guys waiting to spring the ambush. if there's any moral equivalency or relativism, lets remember who cuts off heads when they finish their interrogations and who doesnt.

on a related note, all this torture talk and restoring "our reputation in the world" (a favorite liberal mantra that means jack sh#t) is just politics, plain and simple. the left wingers have been trying their damn best to sully the reputation of our guys over there with meaningless stories of naked iraqi terrorist pyramid triangle and alleged koran abuses at gitmo. all this jack idiot talk about "why are we torturing?" and "what is torture and what methods are we using" is only relevant to academics, ninny taoists, lawyers, and berkeley types who have nothing better to do than to find ways to hate our government...err...hate anyone who isnt a democrat.

and on another note, this is the thing i dont get when liberals talk about "restoring our credibility" with the world: since when has anyone except for britain had our backs? the rest of the world doesnt give a s##t about us. they delight when we hurt, but cry for our help when they need us---anyone remember that big earthquake in iran a few years back? i was on a biz trip in taiwan last year when i was browsing the hotel's free servers which included the staff's own folders. in it was a powerpoint presentation file w/ the title "The Great USA". in the presentation was pictures of the katrina disaster, pictures of dead american troops, etc (another can of worms). you bet i chewed the office staff out and never returned to that crappy hotel again.

Is it that hard for a country, through its leaders and people, to abide by the moral standards they so cherish? It apparently is.

"Col. Jessup, you don't have to answer that last question."

What cures a bully from being a bully?

You whip his ass like he never whipped anyone else's.

If OBL, and his ilk, thinks that strapping bombs on women and children, then setting them off on "Zionists Pigs" is his calling in life, then so be it...

But, I for one, don't want to go to their country and have myself, or loved ones, blown to bits because so,r arsehole thinks that because I'm not kissing his version of his prophet's, or God's arse, I'm scheduled to die according to HIS f**ked-up timetable.

And if there are ways to find out how this puke thinks, plans and acts, I say "More power to you, and yours!"

If it involves peeling back the toenails of "combatants" or waterboarding, or slit-trenching them up to their necks and pouring honey and ants on them...go for it...and if the information is incorrect or misleading, bring on the fire-ants and more honey...I don't give a damn...

What I want to see is this...an Attorney General that knows the Constitution and begins to prosecute every smart-ass Senator and Congressman that thinks the Constitution is toilet paper and that the Oath of Office, where they said that they would protect the Constitution "...against ALL ENEMIES, BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC..." is carried out and enforced to the letter...

And, if the press NEVER FINDS OUT about a misdeed, you won't find me crying "croc tears" over that...I'd start prosecuting them bastards for giving aid and comfort to the enemy by telling every detail of how some bastard was tricked into being captured or brought to his/her demise by some "previously unknown" sley-of-hand trick.

"LOOSE LIPS SINKS SHIPS!" And this country is floundering because of the liberal left and misguided moderates.

Nobody ever said that the freedoms we have and experience today came for free, but there will ALWAYS be a price to pay to keep what we have and maintain the will to keep those freedoms.

And if it takes NEARLY killing someone to do it (Remember, that person wanted to take it away from us first...), I'm all for it. If you're not around to defend your liberty, you never had it to begin with.

And, AFAIC, anyone that doesn't believe torture is a neccessary evil, is either brain-dead stupid or has no grasp on the current state of reality.

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M. G. Burg
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“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Yogi Berra ~

Wow.

It's certainly a worthwhile goal and one never to lose sight of, like global disarmament, etc. Maybe, one day.

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"Originally Posted by MTI
Is it that hard for a country, through its leaders and people, to abide by the moral standards they so cherish? It apparently is."

It is possible only in a world in which everybody follows the same rules all of the time. You know, like the Geneva Conventions. If you can convince Al Qaeda to quit blowing-up civilians in market places and flying aircraft into buildings and beheading prisoners of war I'll work with you on the waterboarding thingie.

B

I think when we start defining what is right by what actions our enemies are taking that we have lost the battle.

Waterboarding sounds a lot like torture to me, but I am a devout coward.

I think we should be following the standards that we are obligated to follow by our treaties.

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I have been through SERE, been waterboarded. was it fun? no. do I wake up at night needing counseling? no. I knew they were not going to kill me, although the feeling of involuntary panic from the procedure is indescribeable. The insurgents also know we are not going to kill them during interegation, so something that brings on an uncontrollable panic and willingness to cooperate to make that s**t stop is a useful tool. No one is immune to it's effects. It is not torture, but it will make you talk......

Today's Wall Street Journal


Tall Torture Tales
February 6, 2008

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri planned the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Abu Zubaydah was the mastermind of the foiled millennium terrorist attacks, which had Los Angeles airport as one of its targets. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed directed the September 11 attacks, and has claimed to have personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl.


All three men were captured by the CIA in 2002 and waterboarded in the course of their interrogations. They are also the only U.S. detainees to have been waterboarded. That fact, publicly confirmed yesterday by CIA Director Michael Hayden, shreds whatever is left to the so-called torture narrative, according to which the Bush Administration has engaged in widespread, needless and systematic torture of detainees.

Instead, we have sworn public testimony that the waterboarding was conducted against the three individuals best positioned to know about impending terrorist atrocities. The interrogations took place when a second major terrorist attack was widely seen as inevitable. And we know that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah helped lead to the capture of KSM, and to the foiling of an active terrorist plot against the United States.


The waterboarding was conducted by intelligence professionals who understood they were operating not only with the approval of the Justice Department but also the informed consent of key Congressional leaders, including Democrat Jay Rockefeller, then the ranking minority Member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

In his own testimony yesterday, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell refused to rule out the use of waterboarding in the future, though he said it would have to be approved by the President and Attorney General. To the extent that his comments provide a measure of uncertainty to terrorist detainees who might otherwise think they have nothing to fear from their captors, this helps make us safer.

I believe you should have the proper credentials or training to torture someone in order to extract information. On the other hand I believe that if you have been and are acting suspicious and have been already caught in a couple of lies, which would have some significance to the safety and well being of people and property, then you are asking for trouble. There may also be room for civil rights to claim that information, discovered under torture, is inadmissible in court and cannot be used to incriminate you. This would be like obtaining evidence without a warrant..

2 cents worth

Where in the hell do you draw the line? "torture" too me is any type of detainment, blindfolding or anything done against my will. With that said waterboarding is an effective, needed and necessary interogation tool that we need to extract information from unwilling axis that holds information that can save allied lives. I'm sure an anti-waterboarder would change their tune if they had a loved one kidnapped and waterboarding could be used to extract the information needed for a safe return.

This investigation is not about human rights, there is a segment of our government that wants some high profile cases in the news and to imprison a few CIA interrogators.

The "GC" argument is specious . . is the US concerned that al Qaeda is going to bring war crimes charges or treaty violations against it in the Hague? Please, that's a justification that demonstrates an inoperable moral compass.